The Second through Fourth Days of Christmas

Posted on 28 December 2008 by christao408

Technology is not entirely a foreign thing for our family. On Christmas Day my grandfather fired up Skype and we had a video chat with my aunt and uncle and cousins in Seattle. They were nearly snowed in and turned the camera out the study window so we could see the several feet of snow covering their yard, sidewalks and streets. Was that really Seattle!? That would be much more likely here in the midwest.

Friday morning we had family portraits down at the photo studio. I think it takes a person with a very special personality to be a good family portrait photographer. Not only a good photographer but patient, funny, and a child psychologist.

After the photo shoot, Tawn and I took Emily off her parents’ hands for a special afternoon with her uncles. First off we headed to the Plaza, a nice shopping area down near the country club. This is the oldest shopping district in town and is still a very nice place to visit. Emily chose our dining venue for lunch: McDonalds. Sadly, after several years of avoiding McD’s, I wound up eating there.

In the afternoon, we went to the book store to spend a gift certificate Emily and her sister received for Christmas. At first, Emily tried to sell me the story that the gift certificate was only for her, but my sister clarified and so I insisted that Emily choose a book for her sister, too.

We stopped by the Gap and found a nice top for her on sale, something light enough that it can be worn into the summer. Finally, we waited for uncle Tawn at Starbucks while he went shopping at a few other shops. It took him a long time to return and after reading through all the new books together, Emily started to get a little impatient.

Saturday morning Tawn and I drove to Overland Park to meet one of the owners of the Gasper Family Farm. They have a small, diversified family farm that runs in a sustainable manner and offers only 100% grass-fed, pastured cows, pigs, and dairy. The more I’ve been reading about food safety and sustainability issues (Michael Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma) the more I want to better understand what is actually available as far as sustainable, locally-produced food.

A few months ago I signed up for the Gasper Family Farm’s e-newsletter and decided that when I was back in KC I would buy some of their produces. I emailed Susan, the “mom” of the farm, and placed an order for ten pounds of beef (combination of steaks, a roast and ground beef) and five pounds each of ground sage sausage and ground cayenne pepper sausage.

When I arrived at the designated pick-up point, one of her customer’s driveways on the corner of 80th Street and Hemlock, on a drizzly, freezing cold Saturday morning, Tawn thought it looked rather like a drug buy. Sure enough, she pulled the frozen goods out of a cooler in the back of her Chevy Suburban, cash changed hands, and I bought a dozen freshly-laid eggs, too.

Back at home, I decided to put some of my sustainably made food to the test, baking a lasagna for dinner. Mixing a pound of the beef with a pound of the cayenne pepper sausage, I had a nice bubbly lasagna ready a few hours later. It was lovely.

I still want to try the eggs, comparing the pastured eggs with the conventional ones my sister bought at the store. I noticed that with the two eggs I used in the lasagna, the yolks looked much more vibrant than with conventional eggs.

Speaking of sustainable eggs, I was tickled to see that the eggs came out a rainbow of colors from pale pink to greenish-brown to beige to brown. Emily and Ava thought this was pretty cool.

To accompany the lasagna, I did a roasted beet salad with a honey dijon vinaigrette.

Dinner was lovely.

In other news, here’s the video of our sledding last Wednesday. With all the crazy weather we’ve had here, the snow was entirely gone by the day after Christmas and then a little bit of it was back by this morning.

Enjoy!

Thailand Thanksgiving 2008

Posted on 30 November 2008 by christao408

Thanksgiving has come and gone and it was, by most measures, the most successful party we’ve hosted here in Thailand. The last minutes weren’t a frenzied rush to the table, clean-up wasn’t such a hassle, and the food was very good.

I started Friday about 6 pm and prepped until just after midnight, focusing mostly on the stuffing and getting dry ingredients measured out for Saturday’s baking. All about that in the previous entry.

Saturday I started about 8 am and worked through my list one item at a time. The morning was spent baking pecan pies and squash rolls. After making four dozen rolls I still had dough left over, so I played with it, making a braid, some mini rolls in a muffin tine, and a pretzel.

This time around, I tried brushing the rolls with a milk and egg wash. Ultimately, I think they are butter wish just some butter on top. Also, I think I overbaked them a little. They were not as light as the test batch I did earlier in the week. The pecan pies were gorgeous and not too sweet. I love the recipe.

Our guest list continued to fluctuate. Ultimately, of the original guest list, we lost four because of the airport closure, gained two because of some new friends that entered the group, and then lost three at the last minute because of various complications.

Trying to plan for an ever-changing number of guests is a pain. I ended up making a lot of extra food, which I realize is the case for Thanksgiving, but I’m not sure how much stuffing I really need.

Fearing that the 16-lbs turkey would not be sufficient (remember, it looked like we were going to be up to 20 guests at one point), I bought an additional turkey breast, dry brined it and roasted it Saturday morning.

Despite dry brining it only about 30 hours, it turned out very salty throughout. Not sure whether I used the wrong type of salt or more than I should have but, while not inedible, it left me drinking a lot of water.

For the sweet potatoes, I went with the toasted spice rub. They turned out well, again I had way too many prepared, but I think they were a little over-cooked and mushy.

Things that were very positive:

Setting up tables and chairs downstairs by the pool. The weather was perfect – about 80 degrees and a light breeze – and having a company provide all the dishes, etc. (and taking them away afterwards to be cleaned) made all the difference in the world. Having people outside the house kept the gathering from feeling crowded. Our house is really at its best with six guests, no more.

Having some friends come over early to help. Boon (in green, right) and Kobfa lent extra hands in the kitchen and as other guests arrived, Tawn wasn’t shy about getting their help with last minute arrangements.

Tawn’s aunt also came over to keep an eye on things and lend a hand. Since we were downstairs by the pool, we wanted to be able to keep the house open for people to get things and use the toilet. Having someone there ensured that possessions were safe and secure. Also, she helped washing dishes so we didn’t have as much of a mess to clean up at the end of the night.

Above, our poolside location. Below, table arrangement by Tawn.

Here’s the menu. Links go to the recipes.

Pear and Blue Cheese Salad

Traditional Roast Turkey with Gravy

Dry Brined Roasted Turkey Breast

Cornbread Chorizo Stuffing

Braintree Squash Rolls

Yams with Toasted Spice Rub

Italian-Style Cranberry Citrus Dressing

Southern-Style Creamed Peas

Fresh Green Beans with Bacon

Pecan Pie

Pumpkin Pie

Assorted Macarons

The pumpkin pie was made by Matt’s partner Si. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a picture of either his pies or the pecan pies I made. They were tasty, though, so if you want his recipe I can track it down.

We had time for a group photo before we tucked in. Standing from left to right: Chairat, Francois, Doug, Matt, Markus, Suchai. Seated from left to right: Chris, Tawn, Boon, Kitty, Si, Tam, Kobfa. David arrived a bit later.

While guests started serving themselves, Markus assisted me with the turkey carving, a task made all the more difficult by a wobbly table and the wrong type of knife. I guess I should cave in and purchase a carving knife.

Below, Kitty and Doug confer, Matt spreads butter on his roll, and Si, Kobfa and Boon converse.

Below, the happy hosts with Kitty and Doug.

We started dinner about 4:30, which meant that even after a very leisurely meal and visit, we were wrapped up by 9:00. Even after cleaning up and driving Tawn’s aunt home, we were in bed by 11:00. Now that’s quite a feat on a party night!

T-day Trial Runs

Posted on 28 November 2008 by christao408

T-Day. For those of you in the United States, Thanksgiving has come and gone, nothing left except your promise to exercise a bit more this weekend and, of course, lots of leftover turkey.

Here in Thailand, though, we’re doing a delayed Thanksgiving since everyone has to work on the weekdays. Tawn and I expect about 16 guests over for dinner this evening. This number has changed a lot because of the airport seizures. Brian, Ken and Vic are all stuck outside the country. On the other hand, we have picked up one or two guests as visiting friends of invitees are stranded and cannot get home.

Throughout the week, I’ve been doing preparation work for Saturday’s dinner and testing out some new recipes, to decide what should make the final cut.

There is a recipe for roasted sweet potatoes with toasted spice rub that sounded interesting. On Tuesday, I made a big batch of the rub and tried it on some regular potatoes.

The rub is mostly coriander and fennel seed, with lots of chili powder, crushed chili pepper flakes, and a dash of cinnamon. The flavor was very nice although I think some cumin would add to it.

I also tried a recipe from my childhood: Baintree Squash Rolls. These yeast dinner rolls have roasted squash puree which adds a wonderful color and an addictive flavor. They are easy to make, especially in this warm country where yeast doughs rise without difficulty.

There really aren’t that many dishes from my childhood memory. While my mother cooked all the time, I don’t have a firm memory of that many of the dishes. West African Peanut Butter Soup is one. These squash rolls are another. Over Christmas I’ll have to talk with my sister and see what dishes she remembers. Maybe my memory just needs a poke and it will kick back in.

Our trial run dinner on Tuesday. This was just for me and Tawn and it tried out a cranberry sauce, the squash rolls, and the toasted spice rub on both regular potatoes and a pork steak.

The sauce, as you can see, was very watery. While making it, I kept thinking that there really was way too much liquid and I even ladled some out. It wasn’t until the following day, reviewing the recipe, that I realized it was watery because I had added only one package of cranberries instead of the three that was called for! The flavor was pretty good, although ratios were off because there weren’t enough cranberries.

My final midweek test was with pecan pies. Matt’s partner Si is baking fresh pumpkin pie for Saturday, which is just wonderful. I’m usually hesitant to let guests cook for my parties because most people just go to the store and buy something prepared. This, in my narrow definition of the word, isn’t “cooking”. But I have full faith that Matt and Si will show up with some wonderful desserts.

To provide some contrast and an alternative for anyone who doesn’t care for pumpkin (I didn’t as a child, but love it now), I started to think about pecan pie. I have two large bags of pecans from Costco that I trucked back from the US with me last visit. Need to use them up before the next visit so I can buy some more.

Pecan “tartlets” after being pried from the muffin tin.

Never having made a pecan pie before, I actually went out an purchased corn syrup, supporting the agricultural monoculture that is American farming. I thought that mini pecan tarts would be fun so I made three different sizes: small, medium and large, below. They tasted fine but the topping just bubbled over the small and medium tarts and made for a huge, sticky mess. It took a long time to get the pans scrubbed clean.

Test runs finished and my menu finalized, I started my preparations on Thursday. Cranberry sauce was first, a re-do that would this time more closely follow the instructions.

Villa Market now had fresh cranberries on its shelves, which had been missing over the past few weeks as I prepared my menu. Curious as to the difference between the two, I bought both fresh and frozen berries. The price (about US$7 for a 12 oz / 300 g container) was the same and I couldn’t tell any difference in taste, texture or quality.

The recipe starts with a simple syrup infused with vanilla, fresh squeezed orange juice is added along with the berries, salt and pepper. This is simmered until the berries start to pop then is taken off the heat. I don’t cook it for too long because I like my cranberry sauce to still have some recognizable berries in it. After taking it off the heat, I stirred in a little Dijon mustard. Sounds strange, right? The tangy flavor goes very well with the tart berries and the citrus-vanilla sweetness of the sauce.

Friday was final prep. After a day of working and completing some errands (our car battery died this week so we had to get a jump start from a taxi and go buy a new battery), Tawn and I stopped by the market for one final push.

The big item: homemade cornbread chorizo sausage stuffing. This is not a difficult process but it is time-consuming. First I have to make the cornbread, then I have to toast the cubed cornbread. I have to cook the sausage and de-fat it. Chop the veggies and cook them, then start combining everything.

The nice thing is that this can be prepared in advance, refrigerated, and then baked on Saturday noon. Trying a few bites after I was done, I have to say that this is probably the tastiest stuffing I’ve ever made. And I was able to find locally made chorizo!

After finishing the stuffing, I sifted the ingredients for the rolls and put them in ziploc bags, then made the pie dough and refrigerated it. Finally, before going to bed at 1:00 am, I took the turkey breast out of the bag where it had been dry brining, rinsed it off, patted it dry, and set it back in the refrigerator to finish drying out.

Because my oven isn’t as big as standard US ovens, I’m not cooking the whole turkey – that’s been ordered from Villa and for 1000 baht (about $30) they are baking it for me and making the gravy, too. But I am cooking a turkey breast myself, either so we have a little extra meat or because I feel guilty for not cooking the whole turkey. I’m not sure which it is.

So here it is, Saturday morning. Cool – about 74 degrees F – with a light breeze. Our pool-side dinner will be fantastic. I just have a lot of cooking to do.

As of this point, I need to finish the pies, make the rolls, roast the turkey breast, bake the stuffing, bake the sweet potatoes, make the salad dressing and go buy salad greens. There wasn’t enough room in the refrigerator for 16 people worth of salad greens.

This time tomorrow, I’ll tell you how it went.

My first attempt at making pasta

Posted on 27 October 2008 by christao408

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!

Health & Cuisine

Posted on 22 October 2008 by christao408

As a public relations professional, Tawn keeps up his contacts with editors and reporters at various publications. These contacts are invaluable to help his clients receive coverage and attract press attention when media events are held.

Not only do these contacts scratch Tawn’s back: he also has the opportunity to scratch theirs. Especially with the lifestyle media, there is always a desire to find new stories, new people to profile, new angles to cover.

This summer, the editor of Elle Decoration suggested that the food editor of Health & Cuisine magazine give Tawn a call. Tawn has written for Elle and our condo was featured in an issue earlier this year. The editor of Health & Cuisine was looking for people to profile in his “Men’s Cooking” column.

Tawn not only provided some suggestions of names but also offered up his own, since in the PR business, some self-publicity helps build your personal brand and makes you more valuable to clients.

After two rounds of having our condo photographed, I was not too keen on yet another shoot and another layer of publicity. Tawn assured me, though, that the story would remain focused just on his professional profile and on a particular recipe he would prepare.

In the week heading up to the shoot, Tawn scrambled to perfect a recipe for salmon en papillote – salmon baked in a parchment paper pouch – as well as a recipe for an accompanying cous cous salad. We ate a lot of salmon and cous cous that week.

The photographer and his assistant showed up on a Thursday, which was a Buddhist holiday in Thailand. They worked quickly and within ninety minutes, the shoot was done.

After the shoot was over, the editorial assistant was chatting with Tawn about our kitchen remodel. Before I knew it, they were excitedly pouring through our drawers, looking at the different kitchen tools I have.

The assistant explained that they also have a “Cooking Tools” column and were running out of tools about which to write. Would I mind if they borrowed some of them for upcoming issues?

A couple of months later, I’m still without those tools. Tawn tells me they have been returned by the magazine editor and are sitting at his office. Maybe one day they will be returned to my kitchen drawers.

Two months after the shoot, our issue came out with a mango and dragon fruit tart on the cover.

The pictures turned out quite nice, I think. Much better than my picture of the photo shoot, below. The article basically reads as follows. Let me know if you want the recipes.

Urban Dweller’s Kitchen: Salmon Cooked in Paper
Urban living is marked by a busy schedule and a hectic routine, not leaving much time to focus on yourself and your well-being. But Khun Tawn is one of those people who doesn’t let the fast-paced life of an urban professional overwhelm him.
“I think cooking is a happiness that comes from sharing good things with others, hearing their delight when they try my food really adds spice to my life.”
The selected menu today is Salmon en Papillote with French cooking technique using a parchment paper pouch to trap the aroma and keep the fish moist. The side is cous cous salad with Mediterranean ingredients, something light and easy to modify with different ingredients of your choosing. Most importantly, these two dishes are simple. Just like Khun Tawn says, you can easily make them right after you wake up.
We can see that everyone has twenty-four hours a day of crazy urban living, but at the end of the day it is all about the choices we make: work crazy or care about your health.

Here’s my photo from the shoot:

What about those kitchen tools that went missing? Well, near the back of the same issue I found a familiar picture (left). Then the following month, I checked the issue and found yet another one (right). As near as I can tell, there is one left.

Do you know what they are?

Tawn’s Birthday

Posted on 23 September 2008 by christao408

Tawn’s birthday was last Wednesday, so we went out for dinner at Lenôtre Paris, a Parisian outfit that has several cafe locations here in Bangkok. Owned by the Accor Group (Sofitel Hotels, Ibis Hotels, Motel 6), the chain offers a nice taste of French cuisine and very nice baked goods.

Early afternoon, Tawn text messaged his father, inviting his parents to join us for dinner. Beforehand, I cautioned against him getting his hopes up. Not surprisingly, Tawn’s father responded that he didn’t feel comfortable joining us for dinner and declined the invitation.

We made it a fun evening on our own, though, visiting the small location on Soi Thong Lor, the next block over from us and just a short drive further down the street.

Thanks to the drizzly weather, there were few diners, a great deal of privacy and, subsequently, very attentive service. We sat on the second floor overlooking the wet pavement and reflected lights as the busy evening traffic crept up and down the street.

Shortly after ordering, an amuse bouche arrived, breaded morsels of cheese on pea shoots. A tasty way to warm up our taste buds for the meal to come.

As an entree we shared the “Paris-Bangkok” plate: a small portion of duck confit, a cream of asparagus soup, a salade nicoise, and a goose liver pate. This was the culinary highlight of the meal, nicely prepared and packed with flavor.

For my main course I had the lamb chops with mashed potatoes and snow peas. I requested the lamb medium-rare and I think is was a bit underdone. While flavorful, one piece was particularly tough to eat. The connective tissue had not been sufficiently cooked and so there was a lot of chewing. It wasn’t bad but I’d probably not spend the money on this dish again.

Tawn ordered a fettucini carbonara, which for some reason he mis-read as having salmon in it. Instead, it arrived with lots of pork belly (bacon) that hadn’t been cooked enough to render more of the fat. The result was a particularly oily version of a dish that is already heavy. Again, the flavor was fine but it settled into one’s stomach with a rather solid “clunk”.

Finally, our dessert arrived, a Grand Marnier souffle that was wonderfully light and eggy, with a raspberry sorbet “lolipop”. While I was taking pictures, the bottom of the candle melted in the heat of the souffle, resulting in a waxy blue streak through the side of the dessert. Oh, well… happy birthday!

Dining in Bangkok: Tonkatsu Raku Tei

Posted on 11 September 2008 by christao408

Last weekend Tawn and I took a little time to get out of the house, run some errands, and see some friends. This, despite the heavy load of work.

BK Magazine, a free English-language newspaper, published a list of what they consider to be the best five or six tonkatsu restaurants in town. Japanese make up the largest expatriate population in Thailand and we live in the heart of the Japanese section of town.

Not too surprisingly, there is some really good and affordable Japanese food to be had. In fact, every time I head back to the US, one of the things I specifically don’t want to eat (besides Thai food, natch) is Japanese food.

We decided to try one of the recommended restaurants: Tonkatsu Raku Tei, located in the basement level at the Citi Resort service apartments on Sukhumvit Soi 39.

When you walk in, it becomes very clear that Tonkatsu Raku Tei (Hey! They have the same initials as former Prime Minister Thaksin’s political party… conspiracy?) is the real deal because all the other diners are Japanese. That’s a good sign, right?

What I really wanted to try was the tried and true standard of all tonkatsu: rosukatsu, made from fillet of pork loin, with a thin layer of fat along the side, breaded in panko breadcrumbs, and lightly fried.

Served with two homemade tonkatsu sauces, an original flavor and a really good spicy one that tastes a bit like barbecue sauce but without the tomato, the tonkatsu was tender and not too oily. The pork itself was a bit bland, although moist, and served as a neutral carrier for the sauces’ flavors.

One lesson we learned – sadly, after the fact – was that the sesame seeds in the bowl on the left and meant to be ground up, using the wooden pestle on the far right of the picture that we mistook as a chopstick rest. Oh, silly us!

After lunch, we stopped by Scott and Jum’s house to see their new baby. They live in an interesting townhome development that is very Grecco-Roman in its design. Too bad I didn’t get a wider picture so you could fully appreciate the number of columns that adorned each building.

The baby, whose name I’m not sure how to spell correctly so I won’t try here, is very cute. He’s a mixture of Thai and American heritage so has blended features.

He’s so low-key. He didn’t really mind who was holding him, but apparently really hates being cooped up indoors and his fussing quiets when he is brought outside.

We drove Jum and baby over to a gathering of former United Airlines colleagues. Tawn flew with UA for a few years around the turn of the century. (That sounds old, doesn’t it?) Sadly, we just received news that as part of their further cutbacks, United will be closing their Bangkok flight attendant base for the second time since the 2001 attacks.

The colleague’s house at which the gathering was held is up near the old airport. It took a bit of driving to get to and we were confused and overshot it by a few kilometers. Along the way, we passed the remnants of the elevated rail line that was originally going to run from the center of the city up to the old airport and then on out to the Rangsit area.

The project, which was operated by a Hong Kong-based conglomerate called Hopewell Holdings, ran into problems in the late 90s and the contract was canceled by the Thai government. Due to the inability of the project to ever really gain traction, it became largely derided as the Hopeless Project. All that remains of the project are a significant number of columns running along the Don Meuang Tollway.

A sign of optimism, there were several housing estates built along the Hopewell right of way (which has a still-operating train line underneath it), including this slightly over-the-top property called Monte Carlo:

So the trip to see Tawn’s colleagues was a good use of time if for no other reason than it allowed me to get an up-close look at the Stonehenge of Thailand. Every so often, there is talk of reviving the project or using the surviving infrastructure to build the extension of the airport link (which is still another year or more away from opening) to connect both the old and new airport.

One final thing to leave you with, a very nice pizza I ate at Bacco restaurant, just at the other end of the soi from us.

I think the restaurant makes its own ricotta cheese. It was so good!

Sunday Brunch

Posted on 31 August 2008 by christao408

Earlier in this week I was in touch with Doug and we agreed that we should get together as it has been months since we last hung out. So I invited him over for brunch and extended the invitation to Ken and Roka, as this is the usual guest list for brunches with Doug.

Prep work began Saturday afternoon. There was a lot of prep work and one gets hungry, so I made an asparagus, bell pepper and onion quiche for Saturday dinner. Thanks to Brent for the idea of making the quiche in a springform pan. What a good idea and nice presentation!

Begin by blind baking the crust for about ten minutes. Then pull out the peas, bake for another 2-3 minutes to dry the interior a little bit, then add the filling and return to the oven. The finished product was beautiful and tasty.

Below, me in the kitchen. Nice view.

Straying from the more traditional brunch menus, I looked to the Mediterranean for inspiration. Our menu:

Toasted pita bread with garam masala hummus and roasted eggplant and red pepper dip
Roasted wild mushroom soup thickened with buttermilk
Mediterranean lentil salad served over a bed of red oak leaf lettuce
Sliced chicken breast poached in white wine and shallots, served with a fresh tarragon-dijon mustard sauce
Quinoa salad with ginger-lime vinaigrette
Banana bread with lemon honey whipped cream cheese

For the eggplant and red pepper dip I started by roasting eggplant until soft. I cut off the skins and cubed the meat, combining with onions, shallots and bell peppers. Some balsamic vinegar added a rich sweetness and a jammy texture and I finished with parsley and toasted pine nuts.

Starting with a variety of local mushrooms (which, ironically, are less expensive than the standard white button mushrooms), I roasted them in olive oil and garlic then blended them with chicken stock. In a second pot I sauteed aromatics (shallots, onion, celery and carrot) with fresh thyme and marsala wine, then blended with chicken stock, straining out the solids. Finally, I combined the two pots, reducing the liquid by about 25% before finishing with a little buttermilk for a rich tanginess.

For effect and convenience, I served the soup in cappuccino cups so they could be sipped by our guests. If I had a soda bottle, I would have tried something like a white truffle foam to top the soup.

Quinoa, a grain indigenous to South America, is a tasty way to get a complete non-meat protein into your diet. Cooked similarly to cous cous, I combined it with chopped yellow bell peppers and green onion, then dressed it with a vinaigrette made with lime juice, olive oil, and freshly grated ginger. It made a nice accompaniment to the chicken breasts.

The chicken breasts were marinated and then poached in a combination of white wine, olive oil and lots of shallots. After poaching they were allowed to cool for a half hour in the poaching liquid, which encourages more moisture to be retained in the meat. The chicken was sliced on the bias and then served with an easy sauce made from lots of fresh tarragon and parsley blended with dijon mustard and mayonnaise.

The salad, which could have stood on its own without the greens (although it was perfectly nice with them), was made of lentils combined with small-dice carrots, celery and fennel, along with black olives and cherry tomatoes, seasoned with a lemon vinaigrette and then sprinkled with cheese. Normally, feta would be used but in this case the local ricotta has a feta-like texture.

For dessert I made oatmeal banana bread. I also made small loaves for each guest to take home. When I went to the local street market to buy the bananas with Tawn, the vendor laughed when I said I wanted the most overripe bananas in order to make a cake. “Oh!” she said to Tawn, “Are you going to bake it?”

“No,” Tawn replied, “he bakes it himself.”

“How did he learn that? He must have a Thai wife,” replied the vendor.

The secret to this bread is that is has oatmeal in it along with plenty of freshly-chopped walnuts. It is very tasty and went well with the whipped cream cheese, to which I added fresh lemon zest and Chiang Mai sunflower honey.

Tawn handled the table setting, for once not getting too worked up over how the entire house looks. It looked fine and everyone was comfortable. Making their debut were the little placecard holders Tawn picked up in Paris: tiny chairs.

A quick picture before eating. From left to right: me, Roka, Doug, Ken and Tawn.

Another Sunday at Chris and Tawn’s…

Artificially Induced Jet Lag

Posted on 24 August 2008 by christao408

If you had asked me on Wednesday or Thursday, I would have told you that I was finally over my jet lag. My sleeping hours were back to normal, I didn’t need an unusually long afternoon siesta, and my appetite had returned.

But then somewhere in the past thirty-six hours or so, I’ve managed to re-introduce jet lag into my life.

It started Friday night, when I had hour-long conference calls with the United States scheduled for 10:00 pm, 1:00 am and 3:00 am. I should say, I had the calls scheduled for me, as I wouldn’t have voluntarily scheduled such late calls on a Friday night.

The first one I stayed up for, trying to spend a low-key hour or two before the call so I was still alert. Then I went to sleep at 11:00 for about ninety minutes, waking up in time for the 1:00 call. Second call went well but by this point I was dragging. Finally, about 2:20 I chatted with my manager on MSN messenger and, upon hearing that I was planning on staying up for another call, insisted that it would be recorded and I could review it later.

So I finally went to sleep at about 2:40 Saturday morning.

Of course, I woke up by 8:00 because I’m just not made for sleeping in. Something about the muted glow of sunlight from the curtains just turns on my internal clock. Saturday was chock full of errands including a trip to the stone store to buy new marble tiles for the bathroom shower, which has to be redone. (More on that in the future.)

The jet lag would have worked itself out had it been a single night, but Tehlin – a university classmate – her husband Chris and their two children were scheduled to arrive from Hong Kong at midnight Saturday. Of course I wanted to be there to pick them up. Arriving in a strange city late at night is tough, especially when you have two young children with you.

Because of the category nine typhoon in Hong Kong, their flight was delayed. The first delay was to a 2:00 am arrival and the second was to 4:00. Tehlin messaged me each time to keep me informed. Between the messages, I slept in fits and spurts from 11:00 until 3:00.

Tawn was a good sport and accompanied me to the airport. The good news about 4:00 am arrivals is that there isn’t any line at immigration! Tehlin and Chris were out very shortly after landing, their two very sleepy children in tow. By the time we arrived at their hotel along the river, it was 5:00.

Since we were up and since we were in the heart of the old city, Tawn suggested we go to the flower market. This is the wholesale district for flowers, which are abundant and relatively inexpensive. The market stretches for about five blocks, trickles off down side streets and is interspersed with some fresh vegetable markets. (Never sure where they put the edible blossoms: flower market or vegetable market.)

We browsed several blocks before finding three large bunches of flowers including some orchids, some carnations, and something I’ve never seen before. Tawn doesn’t even know their name in Thai. We just call them “pretty”. The total cost was less than US$15 for all the flowers.

Some pictures. Below, Tawn waits for his first bunch of flowers to be wrapped. This is in the section of the market with stores that sell arrangements to hotels, embassies and the like.

Below, an elderly lady makes garlands, used at temples and spirit houses throughout the city to pay respects to whichever local deity, teacher, or other respected figure you choose to honor. One whole section of the market has stall after stall of these yellow flowers, which I think are marigolds. (Maybe? Tawn says they are an Indian flower but doesn’t know their English name. Dok dao duang in Thai, literally “shining star”.)

One of the ladies selling orchids just piles her flowers on tables, halfway burying a telephone line junction box. If your phone doesn’t work in this district, it may be due to moisture from the flowers. Bunches of these purple orchids are about US$1 each.

It was getting close to six and we decided to get something in our stomachs before returning home. You’d be amazed the number of small restaurants and street vendors who are selling food at this hour, but when you look at the number of people who work throughout the night here in the City of Angels, maybe you wouldn’t be so surprised after all.

Adjacent to Sam Yan Market, near Chulalongkorn University on Phayathai Road just around the corner from Rama IV Road, is a forty year-old institution that serves just one thing: jok.

Also known as congee, jok (pronounced “joke”) is rice that is boiled in stock until it is thick and creamy. Some farang compare it distastefully with oatmeal, but I like oatmeal so it is no surprise that I find jok to be something of a comfort food.

Jok Sam Yan, as the restaurant is known, is popular with taxi drivers, university students, police officers, and all the other types who keep odd hours.

The open air restaurant was full and we ordered two bowls of jok muu sai kai – jok with pork and egg. The secret to their jok is the pork, which is marinated in sweet soy sauce and mixed with ground toasted rice. It is so good that you can buy it in bulk by the kilogram to take home and use in your own soups, stir fries, and dishes of spaghetti and meatballs.

Garnished with some fresh spring onion, shreds of ginger and – if you want – fried Chinese croutons, the jok is filling, warm, soothing and very tasty. A great way to end the night or start the morning, depending on how you are living your life.

In my case, I was a bit unsure which I was doing.

In other news…

So I managed to get an entry featured on Xanga’s front page. After watching Kari, Zakiah, Steve and Sandelion’s front page fame, I was enjoying life in obscurity. It is really weird to be receiving “friend” requests from totally unknown people. I’ll visit their sites first just to see what they write about and a bit about who they are.

It is also funny because I notice that of the several thousand people who have read that one entry, very few took the time to look at any of the adjacent entries. When you read a featured entry, do you ever ready anything else the author writes? Maybe I’m just strange that way, but if the entry is any good at all, I read other entries on the author’s blog because I’m curious if that entry is representative of the type of things he or she normally writes.

Anyhow, welcome to those of you who are new readers and thanks to the longer term readers for recommending the entry in the first place.

There is a Chiang Mai based coffee chain called Wawee Coffee. It is a small chain, locally owned and it serves really tasty coffee, much better and a bit more reasonably priced than the big green mermaid. Their shops are also really beautiful.

They just opened their first Khrungthep branch near the Ari BTS station, literally a sixty-second walk from the station exit, in a beautifully restored 1950s-era house.

This is going to be my new place to bring my laptop and work. Isn’t it cute?

Progress was made on using up the rest of the chicken stock. With two extra zucchini hanging around from the risotto, I decided to make zucchini and potato soup for lunch.

First I cooked the sliced zucchini in a pan with onions, shallots and garlic. Spices included tumeric, curry powder, cardamom and cumin, lending a bit of an Indian flavor.

Then I boiled the diced potatoes in the chicken stock until tender. I added the zucchini and heated them through, then brought out the Kitchen Aid immersion blender and made quick work of the soup. Two minutes later, I had a smooth soup. I added about a half-cup of buttermilk to give it a tangy edge and a little bit of creamy richness and then corrected for the flavor.

Let me just tell you, I love my immersion blender. What a quick and easy way to make a healthful meal.

Okay, just received the word from Tehlin that they are up. It is about 11:30 am Sunday morning, so they were able to get five hours or so of sleep. I’ll go get them in a bit and we’ll see some palaces and temples.

Something Healthy to Eat

Posted on 21 August 2008 by christao408

Since returning from our respective trips abroad, Tawn and I have been taking a lot of our meals at home, making them ourselves. I’m not sure if this is just in response to being away for so long, or whether it is in response to a pair of books I’ve recently finished reading: Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food and Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally by Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon.

Both of these books talk about our relationship with food and both discuss the virtues of eating whole foods that are produced locally and in sustainable ways. Interestingly, neither book is preachy. Rather, they simply explore the issues and let readers draw their own conclusions.

This is something I’ll probably write more about in the future as it is something I’ve thought a lot about and continue to think a lot about, especially here in Thailand where concepts such as “organic”, “local” and “sustainable” are very different and often less well-developed. Also, the novelty of processed foods is high as this is a newer phenomenon in Thailand than in, say, the United States or Canada. That’s why I’m seeing more and more young Thais – secondary school students, for example – who are big, really big.

Anyhow, I’m not going to get into that now. Let me instead share with you the dinner we made Wednesday night. Hot on the heels of his two weeks in Italy, Tawn has been craving Italian food. (This seems to be the case with his parents, too. Speaking with Khun Nui – Tawn’s mother – last night, she told me that Khun Sudha has been preparing spaghetti nearly every night since they returned!)

To address this craving, I cracked open the risotto cookbook to see what sounded appetising. The zucchini and ricotta risotto sounded lovely, fresh and seasonal with hints of mint to brighten the dish.

The recipe is actually quite easy. You dice and fry zucchini in the skillet then set it aside with some mint and parsley to cool. Wanting to add a bit of meat to the dinner, I also marinated and pan-friend some chicken breasts.

Then you cook the risotto, a process that consumes a bit of time (30 minutes) and all of your attention (you have to keep stirring, stirring, stirring) but is not complicated:

Sweat some onions, garlic and shallots in olive oil and butter over medium heat until translucent. Add the risotto rice and stir for a few minutes until very lightly toasted and glistening with the oil.

Add a bit of dry white wine and stir until the liquid evaporates. Then start adding hot stock (I used homemade chicken stock, but vegetable stock works, too) one ladleful at a time, stirring continuously until the liquid is evaporated.

Once the liquid is evaporated, add another ladleful of stock and continue the process for the next twenty minutes or so, until the mixture is thick, creamy, and the rice is done al dente.

At that point you add the ricotta cheese, the zucchini mixture, and shave in some Parmesan. Stir for a few minutes until the cheese melts and, if necessary, add a little more stock to fix the texture. Season to taste then serve.

Sadly, the brand of ricotta at our local market is one I don’t like. The texture is too dry, like feta, and it never really melts. Instead, it just breaks into smaller and smaller pieces. As such, the risotto didn’t have as much creamy cheesiness as I was looking for.

Nonetheless, it was a tasty risotto.

I also had the time to pull together a bottomless apple pie, although I cheated and used prepared pastry dough. In a hot kitchen in a hot country, making pie dough from scratch is quite difficult. It simply gets too warm. Maybe if I get a marble pastry board that fits in the refrigerator I will have more luck.

Nonetheless, a pretty decent Wednesday night meal.

On other notes, thanks to all of you who commented on and recommended the previous post about lessons I wish I had known when I started working. Somehow the word got out and the blog received a spike in traffic. Lots of new people walking through this corner of the internet. Welcome to all of you!

christao408

The adventures of an expat American who moved to Bangkok for his husband.

Tag Archives: food