If you love Thai food, Thai chile paste should have a designated home in your pantry and become one of your best cooking friends. Continue Reading
If you love Thai food, Thai chile paste should have a designated home in your pantry and become one of your best cooking friends. Continue Reading
One of my favorite parts about having my sister-n-law, Oi, from Thailand in town for the last month was cooking with her. I’ve never seen Dom’s mom lift a pan or Chef’s knife, unless she was slathering it with soap and water at the sink. Continue Reading
When I taught in Thailand, almost every morning one of my fellow teachers would come in the door holding a white plastic bag that had steam rising out of it.
When Rocco was 4-months-old and just starting to eat solid foods, I wanted him to try Thai baby food that most Thai babies eat, jok, aka Thai rice porridge/rice congee that Thais love to eat for breakfast, but really any time. Jok is pureed rice with chicken broth, pork dumplings, a coddled egg, and sprinkled on top of the steaming white goodness are green onions, cilantro and ginger.
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Dom had never seen or heard of broccoli growing up. Broccoli is a foreign veggie and never made it to his little town of Sukhothai, Thailand.
When he was 12-years-old, his grandma bought broccoli for the first time from the market and made it for dinner. Continue Reading
Growing up in Thailand, grilling out with the family during the summer was not something Dom did as a kiddo or adult. In Thailand, if you want something grilled, you just walk out your door, and sniff out a street vendor nearby grilling something spicy, and mouth-watering, and buy it. Why grill it yourself when it’s so cheap and delicious to just buy it on the street?
When we were eating at Japanese buffet place in Houston the other day I said, “Koph khun ka!” (Thank you!) to the server after she gave us our drinks. I don’t think she really heard me, thankfully, but Dom’s mom, sister (who are visiting with us for three weeks from Thailand) and Dom all chuckled at me.
As I was cooking massaman curry yesterday afternoon, the smell of rich, creamy coconut milk, mixed with a slight cinnamon scent, cozy cardamom, tangy tamarind, and roasted peanuts wafted into my nose, sending me whirring down the Bangkok Skytrain to the National Stadium station where off a narrow soi, sits a tiny restaurant, Pisces, where my fondest massaman curry memories lie.
After waking up in my friend’s apartment who lived near Dom’s, I would put on my fresh work clothes, which I knew would become wet with sweat from the Bangkok heat long before I got to work, and walk down the hall to knock on Dom’s door.
I remember opening the door of my old roomies’ apartment and smelling the intoxicating scent of Sriracha sauce bubbling on the stove the moment I stepped in the room. Continue Reading
