More Stuff on a Stick

One of my most favorite meals in Northern Thailand is one we can easily replicate at home. Grilled sausages, slices of fresh ginger, fresh hot chilis, raw cabbage and slices of cold cucumber. Of course, eating it here means jabbing it all with a bamboo stick from a little plastic bag, as it is one of the loveliest street foods.

Northern Thai sausages are a blend of pork, spices and sticky rice. They are a bit more chewy and less meaty than a New York sausage, but that recommends them.

And, the chilis range from hot to downright incendiary. If you get "mouse dropping" chilis, watch out. These are tiny and hotter than hot. I had them a week ago, and given my long absense from Thailand, chomped them down without hesitation. Coughing fit. Tears. Smiles. It was great.

If you come to the house this summer for a barbecue, expect sticks and sausages... but, I'll give you a plate. I promise. (No worries. I've never seen "mouse dropping" chilis in the U.S.).

At Last... Yum

Because I lived in Thailand for three years, friends assume I can cook Thai food. Wrong. My own cooking tends toward "American blendy." What shear delight it is to be back with the cuisine of my heart. (Yes, I know I complained about it endlessly when I was pregnant, but that was just my cells demanding home food.)

Pad Thai. The mac and cheese of Thailand. Fishy, salty, sweet (but not too sweet), crunchy and chewy. What more could you ask of a simple dish?

On my second long visit to Thailand, I spent a few short days living with the Thai nuns at a temple in Rayong. Everything in Thailand was a mystery to me then, and when I arrived in their little house, they were cooking, of course. Mer Shi, in her white cotton shirt and sarong, had her hands wrist deep in a metal bowl filled with brown liquid. After working it with her fingers, she pulled out veiny white matter and small kidney-red stones. I was horrified. Flora or fauna? I was sure it was snake guts.

On that visit, I never figured it out. Many visits later, I understood that she had been extracting the sweet, sticky, mahogany colored tamarind paste from the hulled pods which grow on this delicate tree. Tamarind paste is sweet-sour and the required ingredient for an authentic Pad Thai.

You will find American recipes which substitute ketchup. Feh... Luckily, I have a little tamarind paste in my frig in frozen New York. Yippee! When I get home, real Pad Thai is in our near future. Promise.


And, while we're at it, why not a little Plaa Tap Tim Taut? (Are you hungry yet?)

Turkey Tales

Ok. So, recently you heard me toot my own horn about being on top of my game (figured out how to upload vdo). Well, yesterday I completely dropped the ball (got to get in as many idioms as possible, as my peeps here just don't get it).

I invite TWELVE people for Christmas dinner. We have exactly ONE small toaster oven, ONE wok burner, and .... well, that's about it. What the hell was I thinking! I wasn't, clearly. And, it didn't hit me (hard) until 2 pm, with everyone due to arrive at 4 pm. Even with the Thai total disregard for clock-time, I suddenly realized I was up the proverbial creek. Luckily, I had two paddles - my dear sister-in-law Nok and my equally dear friend Nong. They stepped up the usual Thai-mindfulness-pace and chopped the vegetables, arranged the flowers, and set the table (well, floor actually) in record time. My (dear) husband just kept saying - why didn't we do this yesterday? Good question. Particularly for a Thai person who never plans ahead. (It seems to be catching.)

Anyway, it all came off beautifully. With not a grain of rice in sight, my Thai family and friends cheerfully ate Waldorf salad, duck with cranberry-orange glaze, mashed potatoes (with a precious dollop of sour cream!), and carrot salad. A word on the carrot salad. We have here the most gorgeous fresh coconut and pineapple. Wow, what a carrot salad. We even had a respectable (bakery-made) apple pie for dessert. It was lovely, as you can see. (If you want to see more, click the More Pam's Pix link in a day or so.)


All of this holiday food wrangling reminded me of another story that I gave my family a couple of Thanksgivings ago. It's a turkey tale, and in my family turkey makes an appearance at both Thanksgiving and Christmas (when you've just barely choked down the last of the Thanksgiving leftovers). So, having made in through another Christmas weekend, I offer you a little tale about holidays past. Make that holiday repasts.

. . . . .

I love my family, but they are terrible cooks, every last one of them. And, their attention for dinner conversation is short. Holidays at home are always buffet served on Corelle from the Formica island in my aunt’s kitchen. The eating, because it is eating, rather than dining, is dispatched with quickly, so the day is mostly cooking and cleaning up with big doses of t.v. for added distraction.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my people. I love that total lack of pretension. Actually it is distain for pretension. And, I love the card games after dinner. Was a time that cards also meant cigarettes and whiskey, but those days are gone. Now it’s just cards. Competitive, chicks-only cards at the kitchen table. The young men sometimes get suckered into a hand or two, but the old guys know better.

I do have vivid memories of my grandmother preparing the Thanksgiving turkeys. The night before, a big store-bought frozen bird would get set down into the scrubbed stainless steel sink for an over-night soak. In the morning, early, the stuffing preparation would begin; because it takes all day to cook a turkey until the meat has fallen-off-the-bone, my grandmother’s doneness standard. I should clarify. Fallen-off-the-bone means, in fact, meat desiccated to the point that it shrinks away from the bones under a layer of whisper-thin, cracked skin. This solves any problem of the bacteria brewed in the over-night bath.

Stuffing pre-preparation actually began a week or so before, with the drying out of the bread. Sun Beam Bread set around on baking sheets and air-dried until slightly curled. You see, there was a desiccation theme. First thing Thanksgiving morning the cast aluminum meat grinder came out of its cardboard box and got clamped to the kitchen table. A big mixing bowl was set under it, and the bread and a couple of peeled raw onions brought to the table. And, now the fun part. In rapt attention with my nose right at the edge of the mixing bowl, I watched my grandmother turn dry bread into bread dust moistened with essence of ground onion. There was a fear factor which held my fascination. I’m sure I was warned against fingers in the hopper, yet she pushed and poked that dry bread and those wet onions dangerously close, it seemed to me, to that grinding mechanism. Sometimes I would turn the handle for her, and I loved the sound of the meat grinder chewing up that dusty bread. You could almost feel it scratching the back of your throat.

For flavor, my grandmother would sprinkle her stuffing dust sparingly with Bell’s Poultry Seasoning, the little yellow box with the turkey on the front. And, then the most graphic part of all. The bird was lifted from its bath, and with the back of a big spoon, my grandmother packed that stuffing dust into that bird, and I mean packed. Packed so tight, that many hours later at the table, she had to shave that stuffing out of that bird the way you shave hard ice cream out of its tub.

It was never my favorite part of dinner, the stuffing; but I loved to watch her make it. So, this year, as I plump organic raisins in Spanish port before making my dried fig and cranberry compote, I’ll remember all the wonderful lessons about the pitfalls of pretension that I learned from my family.

A Christmas Story

I wrote this story for my brothers two Christmasses ago, and I thought I should "re-gift" it this year. Since writing it, Santa has come back into my life after a long hiatus. We're busy making happy Christmas memories for our little guy, and though he won't remember his first Christmas, we will always.

P.S. Aunt Kappi Rocks! The Santa suit (with real plush velour) is to die for!


I am the oldest of three, and so I was the first to come to doubt Santa. But, I do remember the last Christmas that I wanted to believe, and so do my brothers, even now.

In our family, we had a tradition. Christmas eve dinner at the living room coffee table featuring Mom’s once-a-year seafood casserole. Pretty simple really; mayonnaise, heavy cream, buttered bread cubes, chopped boiled eggs, a can of crabmeat, and a fist full of frozen shrimp (we are WASP's, obviously). And, she sprinkled the top with more bread cubes and melted butter, before putting it into the oven (I know, but it was the '70's). We loved it. And, there were side dishes. Chex party mix, chips and dip, popcorn balls, and homemade cookies with M & M stains baked into the dough. Actually, I remember feeling like throwing up on more than a few Christmasses, but I never put it to the Christmas eve dinner (not 'til now, anyway).

Mom was great with decorations too, which went up the day after Thanksgiving. Lots of “arrangements” on all available horizontal surfaces. She got the lingo from selling Home Interiors, Italian baroque injection-molded plastic items (which they cleverly called "syrocco"). She peddled the stuff at home parties (again, it was the '70's). The Christmas “arrangements” consisted of ceramic dancing angel trios balancing votive cups improbably on their heads, plastic mini-garlands wrapped around pillar candles, and tiny (empty) wrapped packages set (precisely) at random among more plastic garland. But, our three Christmas stockings were never part of the "arrangements." They were always held in reserve until Christmas eve.

After dinner, we were allowed to open one present. This was the second part of the tradition. It was always new pajamas. We ripped them open, and then put them on. They were a little scratchy, having come directly from the plastic packaging, but that was just part of the deal. After the ritual pajama opening, it was time to hang the stockings, the third part of the tradition. As the evening drew to a close, we each strategically placed our stockings for maximum impact. And, I gave mine an extra tug, to be sure the weight of the goods wouldn’t pull it to the floor.

Santa was very clever with our stockings. I noticed some kids at school got socks and soap in theirs. Filler. Ours were filled with precious little treasures, and none of them were ever wrapped. He seemed to wrap some kid’s gifts, which initially puzzled me. In our house there was a clear demarcation. Santa’s booty was unwrapped. Mom and Dad’s was wrapped, labeled, and bowed.

By the time I was ten, my brothers were seven and four. That winter at school, I couldn’t avoid hearing that Santa was a scam, and I could see it was probably true. I didn’t let on to my mother, thinking it would only disappoint her, and why interrupt the flow of gifts at this juncture? So, that year after hanging our stockings, we all went off to bed a little on the early side, as usual. In the middle of the night, I woke up and decided to get my brothers up too. I wanted them and all their tingling excitement in my room with me on this last Christmas, when I would rather have believed.

On our way back to my room, one of my brothers whispered, “Do you think he came yet?” We tiptoed to the top of the stairs leading down to the family room (yes, a split-level, I repeat - it was the '70's). The house was dark, and I opened my eyes wide and stared into the black. It was then I saw it. And, they did too at the exact same moment. We bolted to my bedroom without a word. When we were out of earshot of the family room, I asked, “Did you see it? Santa’s hat?” The white pompom on his red hat floated through the deep darkness of the basement family room as clear as day. And, we had all seen it. We lay there in agony, not sure if he had seen us and decided to skip us over that year.

With much debate, we realized we had no choice but to wait until morning. After fitful sleep, mercifully morning came. We got Mom and Dad up at about five (another tradition) and headed for the family room. He had come, and he had left us his beautiful unwrapped booty.

Santa made many more visits to our house, before my youngest brother gave up believing; but none of those visits would ever be as sweet to me or my brothers as the year we saw Santa Claus.

Thanksgiving Thoughts

This being Thanksgiving (where you are, anyway), I am reminded of home, good food, and the many people who've served it up to me over the years. It seems an appropriate occasion to share a family recipe. (The baby is just eye candy.)



When I was growing up, Mom was more or less disinterested in cooking, shall we say. She will vehemently deny this today (and if she figures out how the "comment" button works, you may hear from her directly). The happy result of her culinary apathy, however is three children with real interest in food. Each of us could whip up something in the kitchen at a pretty tender age. My brother Pete can even recall specific dishes of mine, like the fried liver with lemon juice I offered up at age 10. (Hey, sometimes you just gotta work with what's available.)

We grew, we learned (from horrid mistakes), and we later became cooks who could feed multitudes from our various kitchens, grills, and smokers. (I should say that I redeemed myself righteously with the grilled pizzas topped with Susan's organic shitake, carmelized onions, and fresh mozzerella, which I know some of you will remember.)

But, today I'm thinking about home cooking. My home. And, my home was with my Mom for a good many years. So, I offer you (yes, Pete and Perry will have guessed it three paragraphs ago) Mom's recipe for Stuffed Spam.

Stuffed Spam

1 Can Spam, sliced into quarter-inch slices
1 Box Stove Top Stuffing, prepared according to directions on the box

In a loaf pan, arrange alternate layers of Spam slices and stuffing (think books on a shelf - books titled "Spam" and "Stove Top"). Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Serve warm (cause cold will just nasty you out).

Serving suggestion: One can of Tab per person helps cut the salt. Vegetables are just too much work.

Love you, Mom. Happy Thanksgiving from your sassy-ass kid.

P.S. Today my brother Pete is spending (yet another) holiday in the hospital. Healing thoughts to an awe-inspiring man whom I'm lucky to call my little brother.