I know, I know, this isn’t a Thai recipe, but I know you all will be excited about this: on Tuesday my Thai-Foodie sous chef, aka my son Rocco, turned the big 1.
One of my friends asked me if I made him a Thai meal to celebrate. Nope. For breakfast I made him Whole Wheat Chocolate Banana Waffles, and he loved them, even though the candle in them weirded him out. “Why did you all light my waffles on fire?”
He definitely has an American tongue when it comes to breakfast, just like his American mama.
In Thailand, my hubby Dominic never grew up doing much to celebrate his birthday. Usually he said Thais just eat out together on their brithdays. My family always made birthdays a big deal, so we decided to make our own tradition as a Pengjad family to spend the whole birthday going on fun adventures.
After bday bfast and presents, we went to Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch in San Antonio. Rocco thought the animals were cool, but the best part was definitely getting to ride in the front of the car during the safari with Mee and Paw and throwing animal food out the window.
On the way home we dropped by Gruene, Texas where we felt like we were on the set of a movie about a quintessential Texas small town. We stopped by the General Store where Rocco danced to country music, and we bought him a tiny cowboy hat, and we peeked in Gruene Hall, the oldest dance hall in Texas. But our favorite part was getting coffee and birthday smoothies the Coffee Haus.
Did I mention I adore this lil guy?
I never knew having a child would make life so rich and full. And I love how he loves to watch me cook like I’m a show on the Food Network. He sits in his high chair nearby, chowing down on his Thai-Style Omelette or Pad See Ew, while he gazes at the steam swirling up from my wok, listening to my spatulas woosh around, smelling garlic and chili perfuming the air and tasting Thai all around him.
That’s the biggest news of the year so far.
But in other news, I recently surprised my hubby and made him Krapaw Gai for breakfast, and it reminded me how Meghan from Cake’n’Knife used my recipe to make Krapaw and interviewed me about my love affair with Thai cooking. Check out her sweet interview here!
And don’t forget to vote for us in the WorldFoods Fusion Recipe Challenge. Help us win and show them that our Thai Fusion Rainbow Noodles are the best!
While you check on all that, I’ll be snuggling with my Sous Chef while he dreams of thai food, balloons and waffles.
Yeah! Happy birthday lil Rocco! So cool he already has a sous chef title 🙂
Thanks Dawny! Yup, hopefully he will still want to be my sous chef even when he is all grown up 🙂