The Queen of Thailand has the same birthday as Mel. And the King celebrates his on Katie’s birthday. Today is the Queen’s 76th Birthday. The Queen addressed the nation last night in a televised speech advocating environmental improvements, especially conserving the forests and cleaning up the water. She inspired people all over Thailand to “Go Green” to celebrate the national holiday (her birthday). The newspaper has stories of people planting trees and clearing water hyacinth from lakes.
We are impressed that the royal family uses their influence to inspire environmental improvements and to support organic food production and distribution. We don’t have anyone equivalent in our country. If any leader takes a stand it encounters as much opposition as influence. But another interesting observation was the format that they used to promote their ideas—one on television and the other at a mall exhibit, two venues that we can no longer claim as exclusively American.
In honor of Dad’s birthday, we took a cooking class. We chose the class for two reasons: it was vegetarian and it’s named and instructed by May Kaidee- in Dad’s honor even more so. And it was the first Thai name that I could easily pronounce. Anyways, the class was fabulous! We made something like ten or twelve dishes all in four hours and we ate them all too! There were 10 people in the class half from the UK half from the US (one girl actually just graduated from UC Davis which was fun for me), and we were paired up two at each stove. All the ingredients were prepped and placed in bowls which made the cooking easy and fast. She gave us the recipes and we went at it. After each dish we would eat what we made. By the end we were quite full. Some of the dishes included Tom Yam Spicy soup, Isaan Vegetables, Green Thai Curry, Pad Thai, mango with sticky rice, green papaya salad, and pumpkin Hummus. Everything was so fresh and pungent and divine. We also got to grind and mush our own chilli paste with a mortar and pestle. The class ended with May Kaidee leading us in song and dance. It was a true experience of all the senses! I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone, but don’t judge by the looks of the restaurant- just trust the name.
I’ll post a recipe soon but for now here are some pictures…
1 comment:
I'm guessing there was an ensuing scene where mom tried to explain to May Kaydee, that she had another daughter named Mae and then this daughter named Katie and how she would often put their names together in forms such as Matie. Then, not fully understanding, May Kaydee probably smiled politely and went back to making amazing Thai food.
anyways I expect some good cooking next time we are in the same place. have fun on the farm!
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