Food on our Trip to Thailand and Cambodia

I have just been surfing the web to find recipes for my two new favorite dishes, thanks to Bee. In Chiang Mai, she introduced me to Khao Soi, which is the noodle dish for which Chiang Mai is known. It is a curry noodle dish, with cripy noodles served on top. We tried this in several places while there and my favorite sampling was in the restaurant knowns as Chai's. It was either here, or the other restaurant just two doors from there called Prego's. Prego's is a combination of Thai food and Italian food. Both of these restaurants were frequented by her comrades, since they were directly across for Tri Gong Residence where they stayed for 8 weeks.

Khao Soi has a really unique taste which is a combination of the curry, coconut milk and the crispy noodles. As I read on the Internet, some of it's origins are from Burma.

The second dish which was to die for was the Pumpkin and Coconut soup that we discovered at Khmer Kitchen in Siem Reap. As soon as I ordered this and had it for my first meal at Khmer Kitchen, I could not order anything else and we had to go back for more. It was not creamy pumpkin, but chunks of pumpkin. Both Bee and I fell in love with this soup and my goal is to perfect the recipe for her arrival home in May.

We really tried to eat the native food when we were there. Both lunches in Siem Reap, that were part of our tour, were native food. The guide in this case, accompanied us to the table. He then left to eat with the driver outside. Even in the hotel that we stayed in, the tourists ate in the restaurant and the guide ate outside. My inclination was to invite the guide to eat with us, but when I asked him about this, he indicated that this would never happen. There is a certain protocol and they get a discount on the meal by eating outside.

The only really BAD meal I had was breakfast on January 1st at the Bangkok airport. Lord knows what I ordered, but is was really greasy and nearly inedible. Other than this meal, all of the rest were pretty good. Oops, I forgot about the box meals that we got on Thai Airways and Bangkok Airways. The sandwiches in both cases, were a nondescript meat, which I avoided and a lime colored green jelly that did not look at all appetizing. As I said in my prior post, they tried to serve us a meal in a 45 minute flight. It was wasted on me.

The buffet at our hotel in Bangkok was interesting. It provided nearly every nationality something. It was a Swiss hotel, so there was European food. Then there was a variety of Asian food, and I think traditional American breakfast of eggs, sausages and french toast.

We did not follow all of the travel clinic's warnings and I don't think any of us got ill from the food.

So, I am in love with two new dishes and thanks to Bee and her organizing a Thai cooking class for the three of us, I now know how to make Pad Thai, Green Curry and Hot and Sour Shrimp soup.

Trying to understand but I am not quite there

Since the pirate episode two weeks ago I have been trying to understand the pirate mentality. American kids dress up as pirates, and the occupation is one to be coveted by them, I think. The good UU way is to walk in someone else's shoes and I am practicing. I still do not understand . . . BUT I do understand. It is all about money. If we continue to pay them off, they will continue to "work". Bribes happen all the time all over the world, including the good 'ole USA.

Yesterday someone hacked my email account and send spam to my entire email list. What a helpless feeling. Who does this? What do they get out of it? Where is the money transaction for this one? I am going to continue to ponder this one, and try to be in their mind and walk in their shoes, but if anyone has any insight for me, it would be welcome. Happy Day, hopefully with less SPAM than yesterday.

Making Biscotti by mistake

Ok, this blog is so typically me. Bee made some delicious pumpkin bread which we took up to Coniston last weekend. For breakfast on Sunday morning, I put a piece in the toaster (the new one that Crick and Meg gave us for Coniston) and left it, forgetting that I had put it there. Later that day I spotted it in the toaster and pulled it out and ate it. It was just like Biscotti. Maybe a little moister, but it was pretty close. This is how people invent things, by making mistakes. I have a few Biscotti recipes, but now I have another one.

New Recipe - Carmelized Onion Risotto Pie

We are in Vermont for the weekend and have friends coming to visit. I made an onion pie recently and in surfing the web I found another recipe for onion pie that I wanted to try. I just finished making it, all ready for the oven and Coniston smells really wonderful right now. Onions, cheese, wine. I really love trying new recipes and this is the prefect place to try new ones because it is so relaxing. It reminded me of when I first started cooking in my first house and inviting people over. I always made spaghetti and when Charles remarked on that I branched out the the next time he came to visit. I made spaghetti pit. I thought that was different enough from regular spaghetti. So now I am on onion pies.

At work on Friday we were standing around talking about cooking. We decided to share our favorite recipes to add a bit of inspiration to our meals. I do sometimes get stuck and cannot figure out what to make for dinner. It would be so easy to open my notebook of recipes but sometimes there is nothing there I want to make. However, this week I made 2 recipes from there that I have never made, a cheese soup from Peg and a lentil soup from Marilin.

So far today, I have left the house twice, to take Qammi out and to go see if there was lots of smoke coming out of the chimney. It is almost noon and the other things I have done today are:

• make 2 cups of coffee
• bath
• Knit my new project which I love
• reading
• stoking the fire
• sitting on the couch
• listen to Car Talk and Wait Wait Don't tell me

I am pretty spoiled I must admit to have this wonderful place to relax in. It brings out the best in me and is a wonderful recharging place.

I think the pie will be a success. It certainly smells and looks good. It might become another page in my recipe notebook for inspiration when I cannot think of something to make for dinner.