I just answered this Featured Question; you can answer it too!
If you could take a year off from school/work, what would you do?
18
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Sitting at the Roadhouse
I’m sitting on the third floor of Roadhouse BBQ, an American-owned restaurant on Rama IV road, with members of Democrats Abroad. There’s about 100 people here including news reporters and photographers from some of the newspapers. A few minutes ago CNN (which is playing on all the screens) announced Obama’s win and a huge cheer went up. For Americans abroad, many of whom see this election in terms of how America is perceived abroad, this was the result we were anxious for.
As a person at the next table over put it, “Now we can take those Canadian flags off our backpacks.”
More photos and footage later today when I return home. Meanwhile, a mid-day bloody mary to celebrate this historic win.
P.S. Huge kudos to Senator McCain for a very graceful concession speech. Had he been more like that during his campaign, I think he would have won.
Now that Dixville Notch has voted
Now that Dixville Notch, New Hampshire has voted (and selected Senator Obama by a 15-6 vote), I feel safe sharing my prediction with you. This is the prediction I made on October 9th.
Sort of interesting that my map is mighty similar to the map from the Washington Post’s The Fix political column:
NPR’s Ken Rudin doesn’t seem quite as optimistic for Obama although still sees him winning:
We will see how it all turns out. Wednesday morning at 9 (Bangkok time) the Roadhouse BBQ will be open, a special breakfast on the menu and all TVs tuned to election coverage. I’ll be there.
Phrae’s Photos
As I mentioned in my previous entry, I lent my camera to young Phrae, the rambunctous niece of Brent’s maid, while we were there for a photo shoot on Sunday. Her nearly 1 gigabyte worth of photos produced on some interesting results. Click on a photo to see a larger version.
After she finally tired of photo shooting (more accurately, after her aunt insisted that she give the camera back to me), she decided that it was almost as much fun to play model as to take pictures:
Cute, huh?
Photo Shoot at Brent’s
A few weeks ago I wrote about the Health & Cuisine magazine photo shoot at our condo. The magazine is always looking for people to feature in their “Men’s Cooking” column, so Tawn has used his connections to promote people as potential profiles.
Brent is an expat American who manages Chanintr Group, the company that owns the rights to retail brands like Martha Stewart, Thomasville, and Barbara Barry in Thailand. With his sense of fashion and style, he was the perfect person to recommend for the column.
With Tawn serving doing pro bono PR work for Brent, he arranged the column and photo shoot, setting Sunday morning as the appointment.
We arrived a bit after 10:00 at Brent’s apartment (left), a high-rise on the east bank of the Chao Phraya River nestled at the end of a small soi between the Shangri-La Hotel on the south and the Oriental on the north.
As one would expect for the manager of a group of home furnishing stores, his apartment is beautifully decorated, tastefully appointed in a comfortable but not stuffy way. It was a relaxing place to spend a Sunday morning as the photo shoot and interview took place. Especially after the bottle of pink champagne was opened!
Here are some views taken from Brent’s apartment. From top left, clockwise: View towards Taksin Bridge with the Shangri-La on the left. View upriver with the Oriental on the right and the Millennium Hilton (with the “saucer” on top) across the river. View of the State Tower which has the rooftop bar and restaurant, Sirocco. View of Assumption Cathedral where we went to a wedding recently and, behind it, Assumption University.
While there, we were introduced to the maid’s niece, Phrae, who was staying with them during the November school holidays. She is quite the tom boy, with the aunt constantly complaining about her poor manners. She’s rambunctious, yes, but it seems fueled by spirit rather than spoil. Below, Tawn and Phrae play on the balcony.
I think my role was to keep Phrae occupied so we played with her pretend mobile phone for a while and then, when I took some pictures of the view, she wanted to take some, too:
Figuring that the only thing I had to lose (beside the camera, if she dropped it off the balcony) was some memory space and some batteries, I let her start taking pictures. In the next hour she snapped 400 photos, using up one battery and almost filling the memory card.
As she was taking pictures, I decided to let her shoot uninterrupted because I was reminded of the 2004 Academy Award winning documentary, Born into Brothels, directed by Ross Kauffman and Zana Briski. Briski, a documentary photographer, went to Kolkata to photograph the lives of prostitutes, While there, she befriended their children and taught some of them photography. The photos were featured in the films and there were many stunning images.
What struck me was a curiosity of what pictures Phrae would take and how she saw the world around her. Of the 400 photos, at least half were completely unusable from the standpoint of being very out of focus or terribly overexposed (you can’t take a picture of something shiny from three inches away, use a flash and expect to see anything afterwards). But there were several dozen that I thought were very interesting. I’ll post them after I’ve finished this entry so you can take a look and see the world through her eyes. Here’s the link to that entry.
The Shoot
Let’s get to the real reason for us being there: the photo shoot. Brent, who spent fifteen years living in Tokyo, is a big advocate of a Japanese breakfast, which he eats every morning.
This healthy breakfast includes brown rice, an egg, some dried seaweed, pickles vegetables, and firm tofu. Looks lovely, right?
Most of the shooting took place in the kitchen, but some additional shots were taken on his south-facing balcony overlooking the front of the Shangri-La. The lighting was a bit of a challenge (at least for me – probably not as much of a challenge for the professional photographer), but they shot a series of a “conversation among friends” at which only Brent had any food in front of him. Strange, huh?
Amazingly enough, Brent makes his own pickles. He demonstrated for us, using a plastic pickle-maker (looks a bit like a salad spinner) that he bought at the Isetan department store. The best of all the pickles was the turnip (brown, lower right corner) which are salted, squeezed to remove all the liquid, then soaked in soy sauce. They pick up such a wonderful smoky, caramel flavor.
Below, Brent slices daikon radish to demonstrate the pickle making process. We also tried his homemade dill pickles (excellent) and pickled beets (the best I’ve eaten).
You just know that I’m thinking about making my own pickles, don’t you?
Thai Pile Driving
I carry my camera with me just about everywhere I go, because you never know what interesting, blog-worthy things you will see. Case in point: as Tawn and I were driving down Soi Phom Phong (Sukhumvit 39) we saw a group of laborers driving piles for the construction of a guard shack.
No large pieces of machinery for these construction workers. No pile driver banging away with an incessant “clang”, “clang”, “clang.” Instead, the scene was all smiles and song.
I pulled the car over and walked back to take some pictures and shoot some video. Here, in 90 seconds, is a taste of Thai pile driving.
Neat, huh?
Start of the Fourth Year
Today marks the start of the final year of my first term as an expatriate in Khrungthep. This is a good time for me to review the progress on the promises I made when I ran for this position.
Oh, sorry – have become so caught up in the impending election that I’m seeing everything through that lens!
Truly, though, yesterday was the third anniversary of my arrival in the Big Mango, so today is the start of year number four. Time flies when you’re eating sticky rice and mango, as they say.
Last night I had three back-to-back conference calls with colleagues in the United States, leaving me attached to Skype until 11:30. Oh, so tired! In the midst of the first call, there was a knock at my door.
Excusing myself from the call, I went to answer. Who could possibly be knocking on my door at 9:00 in the evening?
There was a trio of primary school trick-or-treaters! “Trick or treat!” they called out in distincty non-Thai accents.
I felt terrible, as I didn’t have anything to give them. Despite my fears of what trick they might play, I complimented their costumes and told them the candy bowl was empty. Had I thought quickly, I could have given them a box of chocolates from the refrigerator, but these are Tawn’s so that would not have been wise.
They seemed disappointed, but nodded and walked away. This morning there was no toilet paper or eggs on my door, so they must not have been too upset.
~ ~ ~
Let’s wrap up the week with some random pictures.
Above: There was a pair of cute Mini Coopers parked in the condo car park one morning. One black, the other white. So cute! These are expensive here, about US$60,000. Don’t think I’ll ever be able to afford one.
Below: Grecco-Roman mansion, anyone? Thais really like columns in their architecture; it seems to represent their aspirations for wealth and glory like the Roman villas of old. There is this one house near the Thong Lo BTS station that is just a little too over the top.
Below: Last weekend we went to Scott and Jum’s house. Jum is a former colleague of Tawn’s and there was a get-together of other colleagues. They have a cute baby boy who is more comfortable being passed from person to person than any baby I’ve ever seen.
Also, Scott and Jum have a Wii balance board. Tawn was very excited to try Wii Yoga. In the end, though, he decided his regular yoga mat was just fine.
Makes for a funny picture, though.
Caught up in the PAD march
Despite Prime Minister Samak’s being removed from his post by the courts, despite former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra being convicted in absentia and sentenced to two years in prison for tax evasion, the anti-government People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) continues its protests.
It seems they will only be satisfied when the current government is disrupted and new elections are called – assuming they were sincere when PAD leaders recently dropped their demands for a parliament that was contained a majority of appointees, resulting in a government that would be (ironically, given their name) not democratic.
Another big PAD rally and march occurred today, heading down Phloenchit/Sukhumvit Road from Siam Square to Phrom Phong. (Come to think about it, this could be called the Mall to Mall March.) Originally, the march was to terminate at the British Embassy on Wittahyu Road but it looks like they kept on going, stopping only once heavy rains commenced.
As I left my Thai language class with Khruu Kitiya, the head of the protest was just arriving at the Asoke Skytrain station. Caught up in the excitement (and lack of policemen in their mob control gear) I decided to risk life and limb to bring you, my readers, the story.
Above, the head of the marchers, underneath the Asoke Skytrain station heading into the Asoke-Sukhumvit intersection. The crowd looked to be about 5,000 – 10,000 strong but the rains about thirty minutes later cut that to just a few thousand.
Above, looking from Asoke station eastwards towards Phrom Phong station (where Emporium mall is located). By the time the crowd had passed the intersection – a good fifteen minutes – the traffic backed up on Asoke reached a solid two kilometers to Phetchaburi Road and beyond.
Above, a close-up from the previous vantage point, showing the crowds already down several blocks,
After taking the train into town to pay my electricity bill, I stopped at Emporium on the way back for a bite to eat, where I caught up with a rain storm and about two thousand remaining PAD members, who sought shelter beneath the Phrom Phrong station, stopping traffic on both sides of the street, below.
Security guards at the BTS Skytrain and the Emporium mall watched nervously, hoping that crowds would not turn against them. All in all, the demonstration was very peaceful – other than causing massive gridlock in a city that already has terrible congestion.
Above: Here’s ninety seconds of footage I edited together so you could get a fuller sense of the scope of the protest.
Message from a Big Person
In the past few years, I’ve read a lot about how the proliferation of media – especially online – is balkanizing us. Instead of giving us access to more information and a broader range of perspectives, we are self-selecting sources of information and groups of people who mirror our already-held beliefs and values.
News of this disturbs me because I think one of the greatest strengths of globalization and the internet is their ability to break down barriers and make us more understanding of others’ concerns, feelings, values and perspectives. On an increasingly interconnected planet, we need to understand each other more, not less.
My experiences on Xanga have sometimes illustrated this balkanization: some people seem really unwilling to hear different perspectives and their responses are more defensive (or offensive, really!) than thoughtful, more attagonistic than trying to understand.
That’s why I want to acknowledge that in the entry I wrote two weeks ago about California’s proposition 8, in the midst of a lot of back and forth, there were several people who really rose above the fray and were able to disagree and debate ideas without resorting to insults and invectives.
Several people contacted me privately and had many encouraging words. Some of them agreed with my position that proposition 8 is wrong and should be defeated. Others disagreed with me but shared messages of respect and appreciation for the opportunity to have a dialogue on the issue. And others shared with me how their opinion had changed because of the opportunity to hear other perspectives. Here is one such message:
I have been thumbing through your site and am really blown away. My wife and I have never really given major thought to the whole gay marriage (sorry if that sounded so blunt). I do like to think that I am an open minded person, and my wife as well. She is a very religious person but day by day living here in California acceptance and new ideas are always around us, and in the same subject we asked ourselves tonight that if we were on y’alls end of the stick and someone told us that we could not get married even though we love each other, and ultimately it is an expression legally of how we feel about each other… I also have really been intrigued with a lot of your other writings and would like to add you as a friend. I wanted to send you this message to ask you if that would be alright, since I did come onto your site and threw a lot of bigotry out in the first couple of lines. I would like to apologize for not being open to the subject for debate from the get go, the proposition does not affect me or do me any harm, I know that you should be able to express yourself just as my wife and I do. Thank you for replying to my silly posts and I would love to hear more from you.
It take a mighty big person to be open to new ideas, to challenge his or her own beliefs, and to evolve his or her world view. Speaking from my own perspective, I know exactly how hard being open-minded is. Many times I fail despite my attempts. So I have tremendous respect for people who are big enough and confident enough to recognize the opportunity to learn and grow from others.
To all of you who participated in that discussion, or who have otherwise promoted civilized, thoughtful debate in the virtual and real worlds, thank you for your contribution to dialogue and understanding. And thank you for being a big person.
My first attempt at making pasta
Each foodie, each weekend kitchen warrior who has dreams of being a chef, has recipe equivalents of the Himalaya mountains. Recipes that seems so intimidating and so difficult that we can only wonder if we will ever have the skill and the will necessary to tackle them.
Also, we can only wonder whether the people who share our kitchen will let us make as much of a mess as we might need to, in order to reach these culinary heights.
For me, pasta is one of those summits. Maybe not an Everest or K2, but certainly my Nanda Devi. I know what you’re thinking: how hard can a dish with only three ingredients be? Flour, a little salt, and eggs. Maybe a splash of water if the eggs were small.
But for years, I have wanted to try making my own pasta. Would it really be as good as they say homemade pasta is?
The opportunity finally came about when, after years of accumulating points through my business travels, my employer finally discontinued corporate membership in the American Express Rewards program. Unsure what to do with the points and not wanting to redeem them for gift cheques, which carry half the value of gift certificates, I opted for a Williams Sonoma gift card.
Thankfully, Bruce was coming for a visit and was going to be traveling well short of the three-bag check-in limit. So he kindly agreed to lug the extra fifteen pounds of pasta roller attachments I ordered for my trusty Kitchen Aid stand mixer.
Unfortunately, we did not have the opportunity to mess up the kitchen, er… make pasta, while Bruce was here. So I had to scale the culinary heights on my own.
For those of you without the patience to watch the YouTube version of this adventure, here’s the story:
Using the mixer, I whipped up the dough easily enough. You combine the ingredient in the bowl, stir them with the paddle attachment for thirty seconds until they come together. Then you knead them with the dough hook for about two minutes followed by another two minutes of hand kneading. Then the dough sits for about twenty minutes.
Things that surprised me:
- Unlike with pastry dough, flour is not your enemy. In fact, you want the dough to be a bit dry so that it doesn’t gum up the rollers or cutters.
- Pastry dough is very forgiving. The first patch I cut was too soft and the cut fettucine clumped back together when piled in little nests. No worries: I just pressed the noodles back together and started the rolling process again.
- It was a little less of a mess than I expected, but you need lots of room (and lots of wax paper) to stretch out the dough and the cut noodles. Maybe that’s what the dining table is for? Or the clothes drying racks?
The rolling was easy enough. You started at the widest setting and passed the dough through several times, folding it in thirds between each pass.
The net effect of this is to further knead the dough, making a smooth, pliable and very resilient dough. After about five passes, I turned the knob to the next smaller setting and sent the dough through two more times, this time without folding the dough between passes.
I continued the process until we reached the fifth setting (having started at the first setting). According to the recipe in the manual, fettucine should be at the fourth or fifth setting. In the end, I think it could have gone to the sixth setting without any problem.
Switching to the wide cutting attachment, the dough sliced easily enough. As mentioned before, the fresher dough stuck together after cutting. But the pieces I allowed to air dry for a bit before cutting stayed in lovely separate strands. Again, unlike pastry dough, a little drying is a good thing.
After creating some fresh pesto (large bunches of basil are about US$ 0.20 here!), I boiled the noodles. Fresh pasta cooks fast! In three minutes or so, I was draining the noodles and stirring in the pesto. Topping the pasta was a fillet of salmon, baked in parchment paper with a simple salt and pepper seasoning.
So the obvious question: was it worth it?
Well, the pasta was delicious and it had a texture that was much nicer than any dried pasta. I don’t know if I would spend the hour preparing fresh pasta for the everyday weeknight dinner. But since fresh pasta can store refrigerated in an airtight container for a few days, I could easily make a double or triple batch on the weekend and save it for the weeknights.
Also, I’ve very curious to try ravioli and lasagna with the fresh pasta, both of which I think will be amazing. Stay tuned for that.
As a dessert, I pulled together a farmer style peach pie. I confess, I used frozen pastry dough and peaches. But it was delicious!
christao408 