Take-Aways

Although I have spent a day and some in Bangkok already, I guess my trip really starts here, in Northern Thailand. Quite an apt gateway for a quest. This is were all nomads converged in the past and will undoubtedly do so in the future. Caravans of Yunnanese merchants met with mountain tribes and travellers from Burma probably stopped here long before I ever did. My initiation is a much less adventurous one. Today I spent the day cooking. Or is it really cooking when all menial chores like pealing and grating and washing are dispensed with? All was already done for me and iI really felt like a phony celebrity chef. Today, Thai cooking was demystified. Kind of an anticlimax akin to seeing how a magician does his tricks. Do we really need to know? I imagined fish sauce to be as dangerous and delicate to handle as nitroglycerin when in fact it does the job of salt and exotic sounding ingredients such as galangal, palm sugar, coconut cream, tamarind juice, lemongrass and lemony thai basil can be respectively replaced by ginger, bleached white sugar, lemon juice and basil. Thai Tom Yum soup, the epitome of a culinary masterstroke is in fact a piece of cake. I have to say though that making a Phad Thai was probably the most stressful thing I did today. It requires quickness, presence of mind and coolness under pressure, the kind of stress equalled only by the atmosphere in the stock exchange - at least the way I have seen it in the movies. Today I made all the classics of Thai cuisine: Tom Yum soup, Thai Fishcakes. Green chichen curry, Thai chicken salad, Phad Thai and for dessert water chestnut in coconut cream. Yes, you are all invited to dinner when I come back. And just so you know, I have signed up for the whole 30 dish course.