Posts from — November 2008

It’s amazing what a difference climate makes.

I arrived in Chiang Mai around noon, off the overnight train from Bangkok. I was already elated, having actually made my train despite some serious difficulties, but stepping off the train into the crisp Northern air felt oh-so-good that I was grinning like a mad woman at all the vendors on the platform.

My ten-day jaunt to Chiang Mai happened back in mid-November. The trip kicked off the month-long countdown to my departure from Cambodia for California, and the cool dry weather was so similar to Orange County in autumn that it was impossible not to feel at home.

Upon my arrival, I took a winding route from the train station, across the entire town, through the bustling Wararot Market, where I picked up some coconut cream puffs — soft crepe-like dough wrapped around neon green coco-cream filling, past a million wats, past a used bookstore where I happily overpaid for two paperbacks, past about 300 7-11s, and eventually all the way up Huay Keuw road to the hostel. The hostel was nestled in a small residential neighborhood aptly named Natawan Village. The houses were medium-sized brown and white cottage-y affairs that looked faintly pastoral with their thatched roofs and jaunty windows. The hostel drew your typical mix of young travelers, many single women on long-term trips, a few large groups of Irish and Scottish lads who had met up on their way, a Canadian couple, your requisite Germans, and me the only American for awhile. It was extremely clean and friendly, but definitely had a college vibe — with photos plastered on the wall of nights out on the town and group trips to mountain lakes.

My first order of business was to hit up the local mall to pick up some toiletries and a scope out shoe stores to see about tevas for my trek near the end of the week. As I headed back into the village from my shopping expedition, the roti man had just set up his stall at the entrance to the neighborhood and he was making a first order for two teenage residents. I got to talking with them and they kindly ordered for me in Thai and then paid for my banana roti — fried with an egg, and slathered in condensed milk and chocolate, with sugar on top.

Mm.. banana roti in the evening light

This perfect welcome boded well for the rest of my trip. That night, I went to a traditional khantoke dinner-dance show. The food was amazing — and I was entertained not only by the dancers, but also by the very friendly couple behind me from New Jersey who only ate the fried chicken and white rice, so that they had to ask for refills five or six times during the show. The next day, I biked around town, checking out the major temples, taking photos and chatting with monks, and then spent 3.5 hours being scrubbed and rubbed and steamed until my skin glowed.

One of the hilltribe dances at the khantoke dinner.

Temple goodness

I spent one afternoon hopping from one trendy coffeeshop to the next on trendy Nimmanhaemin road. I swam 100 laps at a rooftop pool. I took a cooking class at an organic farm where I made friends with the instructor who shares my dream of someday opening her own food-related business.

Mont Blanc — delicious coffee, yummy cakes and sweet atmosphere

Ingredients for Pad See Ew

Chiang Mai was the land of couples — couples honeymooning, couples on year-long-round-the-world-jaunts, couples who just met, old couples, young couples, and me. Did it make me miss Jaime? Yes, like the Dickens. Did it curb my enjoyment of this beautiful town? Not a whit. (Well, maybe a whit, but not more than a smidge) This was especially apparent at the cooking course, where I was joined by a young clingy couple from Switzerland, a vibrant Danish pair, and a understate but sweet French duo from Brittany. Being without my other-half, I was paired by default with a huge, overbearing, somewhat racist Australian woman who couldn’t stop talking if her life depended on it. In the course of a couple hours, I heard all about the negative qualities of her Laotian in-laws, the amazing abilities of her 3 long-distance swimmer kids, and the time her washing machine broke down and she went out that very day to buy a new one!

Some of my favorite moments on the trip included the twinkling night sky at the gorgeous Loy Krathong festival.

Loy Krathong on the river

Then there was the view from our hut during the overnight trek in Chiang Dao, the luscious green bamboo archways vaulting over our path, the cute little upside down bat in the limestone caverns.

Mist falling over the hills in the morning

There was cheering for the impromptu soccer match — Lisu v. Lisu. And eating with bamboo chopsticks from bamboo boats carved from fresh green stalks by our guide Pol.

Our bamboo lunchware

Visiting the Sunday night market with all the amazing young artists and designers sitting on the sidewalk with their handpainted sneakers and trendy printed satchels and clever graphic tees.

Favorites from the Sunday Market

And motoing up the hill to see Wat Doi Suthep. The temple itself was overrun with tourists — next time I’d go at dawn — but the air on the ride up was crispy and fragrant so that you felt more alive afterwards than before.

For more photos, click here.

Back in October, I took a trip back to Singapore for the first time in about 9 years.

As a kid, I traveled to Singapore with my family six or seven times. I can remember general impressions — tossing around sweaty in my singlet trying to get to sleep; going to the zoo; swimming at the fancy club; my Kong Kong toasting me a slice of bread topped with cheese and sugar or running out to pick up oily chicken rice wrapped in a banana leaf; family members taking us out to fancy meals and giving me red packets; watching terrible Singaporean dramas; going to Sentosa; getting mosquito bites; munching on fried bananas; handing out gum to cousins I didn’t know I had… all, in all, a great experience.

I love being half-Singaporean. It’s always seemed way cooler than just being half-Chinese. Singapore’s exotic, the land of beautiful stewardesses and orchids and canings. Whenever I hear someone with the quirky slightly British, totally distinctive, Singaporean accent with its liberally sprinkled “lah-s” and “aiyah-s” I feel a warming in my soul. But my love for all things Singapore is sort of an uninformed infatuation, rather than a deep passion bred by understanding. So though I thought my heritage was spiffy, I never really felt Singaporean (my aiyahs are forced and I hate durian).

So that’s why I was a bit surprised when my recent trip made me feel like falling straight into the bosom of my motherland. Hanging out with my cousin Aidan and his friend Alex, walking around Singapore and eating at the hawker centers — I felt at home, like I belonged. I was a little embarrassed because I didn’t know the proper name for anything and I didn’t ever know the protocol. But still, I felt like I could fit in here, like other people were like me somehow.

I was sitting at the kitchen table playing dominos with my aunties and uncle and Aidan and Alex. I had one leg hanging down, and one foot up on the chair, leg bent up against my chest. I sit that way without noticing, but my auntie noticed and told me that that was the way my great grandmother sat. Then one of my mum’s childhood friends took me to her mum’s house for lunch. Her mum remembered my mum from when she was a teenager. She kept calling me beautiful and telling me that I was a “simple girl” just like my mom.

The city is full of hapas — half this and half that. In a way it’s annoying because being a half-breed is just par for the course here, but it’s also weirdly comforting. And then there was the food — the chili laden, deeply flavored multiethnic food. I figured out why I love to add so much spice to everything I eat. It makes complete sense when you come from a food tradition with such exuberant smells and tastes. So many things to eat and drink that I associate with childhood and comfort — pineapple tarts, ovaltine, chicken rice, satay, kuay boluh, char kway teow, paratha, chrysanthemum drink, milk tea, barley water, fishballs.

It’s strange to think how differently we experience things as we grow up. When I was young, going to Singapore was like going to another planet. Yes, these were my relatives, but I barely knew them. But going back this time, I felt like in some indirect, but powerful way, this country helped define me. Even down to some of its more repressive elements. Perhaps that’s why I never had a penchant for flouting authority (or maybe it was growing up in conservative Orange County?)

The casual dress, the obsessive academia, the love of food — they all spoke to me; so when my cousin Aidan suggested that I move out for a year to take another Masters degree or teach English or do random anthropological research related to food, it sounded like an amazing idea. I’ve since revised my initial enthusiasm — for someone who hasn’t grown up there, the heat of Singapore simply saps all my life force — but though it probably won’t happen next year, I’m not ruling out the possibility of coming back.

The Singapore skyline as seen from the Flyer

Here’s what I can remember of my food adventure in Singapore…

Saturday 25 – Popiah, carrot cake, oyster omelette, beef rendang, char kway tieow, that crunchy cup thing, that soupy dessert thing; Fried taro basket with steamed veggies, bitter melon soup, fried shrimp balls, chicken wings, bean curd clay pot, lime & sour plum juice

Sunday 26 – Kopi, tissue paratha, regular paratha, egg paratha; Auntie Bernie’s mum’s tomato pork soup, mutton in tomato sauce, fish curry with ladies fingers, chicken curry; Tonkatsu at Tonkichi for dinner

Monday 27 – Chicken rice; sambal stingray, soup mee with pork balls, satay, oyster pancake, chicken wings

Tuesday 28 – Kaya toast and eggs; pineapple tarts!; nasi lemak

Wednesday 29 – Goreng pisang & fresh soursop juice at Maxwell; Not so yummy duck noodles, then delicious hazelnut ice cream at the Island Creamery

Thursday 30 – Te haliah, beef mutabak, mee goreng, some yummy curry stuff; Scones with jam and clotted cream, peppermint tea, tea sandwiches and petit fours

Friday 31 – Kaya toast and toast with nutella; chili crab, scallops with fresh veggie, fish maw soup; tau huay & you char kuay at Rochor

Despite my best attempts, there were some things that I just couldn’t fit: Fishball soup, soto ayam, bak kuh teh, assam laksa, fish head curry

Another video on one our main programs:

Oh man, delicious.

Sambath, our district coordinator, heard that I was leaving and invited us all out for a delicious dinner: peanuts & pickled ginger (nice palate cleanser & that ginger gets your digestion going), beef with skin (beef, yum. skin, not so much) and grilled okra with eel (amazing if their teeth are a little scary).

The call the little sauce bowls “child bowls” and I had no fewer than 4 little children choices for my eel — salt, pepper and lime, two types of prahok based sauces, and a sauce based on fermented bean curd. YUM.

If only we could have gotten the karaoke going, the night would have been perfection.

Ever since people found out that I am heading back, my amazing coworkers have been inviting me to join them for special foods and festivities. So far, I’ve made fish amok, eaten grilled eel, had delicious grilled beef skewers with papaya salad, and on Saturday morning, Rith invited me to her house to learn two new traditional Cambodian dishes.

Rith’s husband is a police officer and she lives in a house behind the police station, basically in the field better known as the “old prison” just behind my house.I went over around 9am to find Rith and one of her housemates already busy washing veggies and roasting peanuts. As the morning wound on, 5 of Rith’s neighbors and their children came over to help chop, pound, slice, fry, marinate, and otherwise contribute to our delicious lunch.

Fresh-roasted peanuts for the ceviche

Cambodian Ceviche Salad (Plear Threi)

For Cevice and Sauce
1 kilo firm white fish*
1/2 cup prahok (fermented fish paste)
1.5 cup lime juice
3 stalks lemongrass
4” galangal root
1 kaffir lime
3 kaffir lime leaves
2 bulbs garlic
2 cups peanuts, crushed small
bird chilis
1 tbsp salt, or to taste
3 tbsp sugar, or to taste
2 tbsp cooking oil
fish sauce to taste
1/2 cup water
MSG**

Assortment of vegetables:
Cabbage and/or Lettuce
Thai parsley
Holy basil
Banana flower
Banana trunk
Cucumber
Bean sprouts

1) Wash and chop your vegetables. Cabbages or iceberg lettuce can be quartered. Other lettuce should be washed and the leaves separated. For the banana flower, use only the tender top half, not the stem. Cut the top half of the bud in half again, lengthwise, then slice thinly down the moon shape. Keep in a small bowl with lime juice and water to prevent browning. Cut the disk of the banana trunk in half across the diameter and slice similarly. Julienne the cucumber. Blanche bean sprouts to reduce the likelihood of disease. Put everything in the fridge or on ice to chill.

2) Process your raw ingredients: Remove the green leaves at the top of the 3 lemongrass stalks and chop the firm white bottom part. Process in a mortar and pestle or food processor until a uniform fluffy paste and set aside — you should have about 1.5 cups. Chop the galangal root, process as the lemongrass and set aside — about 1/2 cup, loosely packed. Remove the skin of the kaffir lime (some white rind is okay — it will not be bitter) and do the same as with the galangal and lemongrass. Repeat the process with the lime leaves and 2 bulbs of garlic. Chop your prahok until a wet, gray paste. Keep each ingredient separate for now.

3) To make the sauce base, or “krooung”** add 2 tbsp of your reserved galangal, all the lime leaves and lime skin, half your garlic, and 1/4 cup of the lemongrass into your mortar and pestle. Mash together into a paste and set aside.

4) Slice fish thinly (about 2 mm thick). Chop slices into small pieces, no bigger than 2cm x 1cm. It may be easier if your fish is frozen first.

5) To the fish, add salt, sugar, and lime juice and stir well. Add the remaining galangal, lemongrass, garlic and stir. Add 1 cup peanuts and mix it up with your hands. Continue for about 5 minutes, until the fish looks completely opaque (cooked). Squeeze the fish out with your hands, and place in another bowl in the fridge. Reserve the juice.

6) Heat 2 tbsp oil in a medium pot over a high flame. When hot, add prahok and stir well. Fry for 3-4 minutes. The prahok will be very fragrant and should start to froth and bubble in the pot.

7) Turn the heat down to medium, add your “krooung” and stir. Fry for 5-7 minutes. The texture should be somewhat dry, so be careful of burning. Sprinkle in some fish sauce to taste (1-2 tsp should do).

Continue stirring and add in the reserved juice from the fish, reducing the heat to low. Add 1/2 cup water and 2 tbsp sugar. Mix until dissolved and then remove from the heat.

Serve sauce in individual small bowls. Individuals can add peanuts and chopped chilis to the sauce, as desired. Put fish and vegetables in the middle. Each person will take a lettuce or cabbage leaf, add veggies and some fish and dip in the sauce. The mixture can also be eaten over white rice.

The fish, all cooked in lime

* Cambodians use a small, whole fish called Threi Riel (money fish). They defin, descale, and degut the fish, smash it flat and then cut it in half with a cleaver. The fish was delicious, but I found the small bones poked at my gums.
** MSG is used liberally in Cambodian cooking, but I tend to leave it out in my recipes.
*** “Krooung” means “ingredients” and is used to describe any number of pastes used for bases in soups, curries, and for marinating meat. Krooung can be as simple as salt, sugar, garlic and MSG, but your typical ones include a combination of galangal, ginger, lemongrass, shallots, turmeric, garlic, and kaffir lime skin.

The tiny guys they used — I might try a boneless fish, sliced thinly

Tiny packages of goodness

Growing up in our house on Valley View street, we had this amazing tangerine tree in our backyard. I used to sit in the tree on autumn afternoons picking the still greenish fruit, peeling off the skin, and meticulously removing all the white stringy stuff so I was left with nothing but the tiny jeweled segments.

These tangerines were small-ish, mostly seedless and flat on both ends (no protruding top like some tangelos). The skin was particularly loose and easy to peel with a relatively dull orange, almost greenish color even when ripe. The fruit itself was heavenly — tart and sweet — each slice popped open in your mouth with very little of that nasty thick fibrous segment “wall” that many tangerines tend to have.

I haven’t found many tangerines like this since then, until last month they started popping up all around the markets in Kampong Cham. So far I’ve eaten 3 kilos myself and despite the fact that they’re oh-so-delicious just as is, I thought maybe I should to use the little gems for something exciting…

The finished product — nice and tart

Sour Citrus Sorbet (no ice cream machine necessary)

12 small tangerines (satsuma or robinsons are yummy)
6 Mexican/Asian limes (the small ones)
1 kaffir lime (bumpy skin, available in Asian food stores)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water

food processor or blender

1) Zest the kaffir lime. Make sure the zest is small — it will be going into your sorbet. Don’t worry about getting down to the white part because kaffir limes are generally not too bitter.
2) Juice the remaining tangerines and limes, don’t strain out the pulp. If you don’t have a juicer, separate the seeds with a coarse strainer. You should end up with about 2 cups of juice. Put your juice in the refrigerator to chill.
3) Add sugar, water, and kaffir lime zest to a small saucepan. Cook over medium heat until boiling, then reduce to a simmer for about 10 minutes, or until content has reduced by half, then turn off the heat
4) Add your syrup to the reserved juice and stir well. Pour into a shallow metal dish or ice cube tray and freeze for two hours or until the juice begins to freeze on the sides and top.
5) Take the mixture from the freezer and pulse it in your food processor or blender about ten times. The juice should be frothy and mostly opaque. Put it back in the pan and freeze another 5 hours, until pretty solid.
6) Take the mixture out and pulse it in the blender again. The sorbet should have a smooth, but soft texture and be able to hold its shape. Make into balls and freeze for another hour or so. Serve immediately with extra zest for garnish or put it in a container and cover the surface of the sorbet with plastic wrap to inhibit ice crystals. If your sorbet becomes icy after too long in the freezer, simply give it another whirl in the food processor before serving.

I plan to try different citrus combinations — pumelo is the next contender, with chili-salt topping! It might also be yummy to add a tbsp or two of Alize, Cointreau or Grand Marnier to smooth out the texture and add a kick, but I haven’t tried these myself. Just remember, adding alcohol means a slower freezing time, so if you try it, you may need to increase the suggested time in the freezer.

Kaffir lime for zesting!

Somart brought this over for a feast the other day and gave me her recipe. I reduced the sugar, but you could add more — it’s really up to your personal preference.

I like to eat this hot with coconut sticky rice or chilled over shaved ice. Yum!

It’s a little grey looking, but absolutely scrumptious

Banana & Tapioca Dessert (Jait K’tih)

1.5 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup water
8 mini dessert bananas sliced in half (Lakatan is delicious)
1/4 cup mini tapioca pearls
1/4 cup sugar, or to taste
pinch of salt
1/2 cup coconut cream*

Add coconut milk and water to a pot and heat until boiling. Add soaked tapioca pearls, bring back to a boil and then turn the heat down. Simmer approximately 10 minutes on low until the tapioca becomes soft.

Add sugar and a pinch of salt and stir until dissolved. Then add bananas. Bring the pot back to a simmer and cook 10 minutes more, or until bananas are soft and the mixture is a dull grey color.

Serve hot or cold with extra coconut cream drizzled on the top. This can also be eaten over sticky rice and/or with shaved ice for something different.

*If using a can of coconut milk, you can spoon off the top part of the milk which is usually the thicker, more opaque part and reserve this as the cream. If you’re using fresh coconut, the cream comes out the first time you squeeze the coconut with a little bit of boiling water and the milk will come out on the subsequent squeezes when you’ve added more water.

Cambodians with their hard-core family values are always shocked when they hear I’m here alone, and constantly asking whether I’m lonely (“op sop?”). At first, the answer was honestly no, there was too much to do and see and cook and think about, but after I came back from a brief jaunt with my family over in the USA, I got a little sad, and sometimes a lot sad — especially when I didn’t keep busy.

I think, though, that even worse than sadness or boredom, is the self-indulgence and egocentrism of living without the norming influence of other people (especially in a place where unannounced visitors are pretty improbable). That’s why I think there are certain stigmas associated with living alone that I think are entirely justified. The appearance of Raja the cat circa month 3 doesn’t necessarily make things any better — crazy cat lady is something that still scares any misanthropic tendencies straight out of most young women.

Hermits run around naked in the deep woods and eat snakes and tubers and maybe even psychedelic mushrooms they find lying around. I refrain from the drugs, but I’ve been known to lie around without a scrap on reading a new book (or, let’s be honest here — watching 4-5 episodes of Gilmore Girls in a row) and eating my refrigerator empty on a Sunday afternoon. No wonder Mr. Sambath noticed the 9 extra kilos. And the #1 problem with this type of behavior is that it’s addictive and the further you let yourself go into the antisocial, self-centered spiral, the more difficult it is to dig yourself out. When you become irritable when company’s coming because that means you have to put your clothes back on, that’s when you know it’s gone too far.

The physical seclusion aside, emotional and mental solitude are also tough. Even when I venture out with friends here, it’s very difficult to get critical input or opinions on what I’m thinking. I have recently been reflecting on my experience here and considering what I want to do next when I come back and all the ideas floating in my head seem exciting and possible, but also maybe trite and crazy (?) and what I really need is a sounding board.

Me and Raja, home alone.