Remember my trip to Malaysia back in March?
Well, I went there to meet up with my buddy Matt Gross, who was writing a story about Malaysian food. His article — and it’s really fantastic — ran in last weekend’s New York Times. Don’t miss it.
Not only has Matt accurately described the many flavors of the delectable food there, but he’s done an admirable job of explaining the history and culture that has informed Malaysian cuisine.
Guinea pigs: they’re not from Guinea and they’re not pigs.
Discuss.
But seriously:
Guinea pig: It’s what’s for dinner in Peru – and the US: Farmers in Peru boost their income by exporting guinea pigs to immigrants in the US.
I tried this special dish on a couple of occasions when I lived in Ecuador — the Spanish word is cuy (pronounced coo-ee). Doesn’t taste like chicken. Tough. A bit oily. But maybe my own particular issue was that as I munched on those tiny drumsticks I couldn’t help but picture Betty, my late, great, beloved pet, whose lustrous coat I used to groom lovingly with an old toothbrush when I was but six years old….
Previously: Ecuadorian Soup in The New Yorker.
For what it’s worth, in the photo above, that’s not, in fact, cuy I was cooking with my Ecuador friends Mike F. and Angelica last year…
Last night A and I had the pleasure of meeting up with Claire and Frans [their Flickr site; Frans’s site], my good friends since college. They’re in Bangkok for a few days on their way to Bhutan. (Yes, I am utterly roiling with jealousy that they’re going there).
We ate at Baan Khanitha; if you ask me, the highlight of our meal was the yam som o — spicy pomelo salad with shrimp and chicken. Our other dishes — a yellow chicken curry, a steamed whole fish, and more — were also tasty. For dessert, the mango with sticky rice, while perhaps not as sublime as my favorite khao niaow ma muang joint on soi Thong Lor, was also quite succulent.
Safe travels, Claire and Frans, and thanks for paying ole uncle Newley a visit in Krungthep.
The Firefly, Invented by Eric Goldfarb is a unique design which turns your bottle into a lantern. The Firefly’s unique design allows it to be used right side up, upside down, or hanging from the nearest handy branch.
Related:
— H2Oh No! (Don’t miss the comments.)
— Nalgene Bottles Inscribed with Foreign Language Cheat Sheets
A and I just returned to Bangkok after five excellent days in the north of Thailand. We spent most of our time in leafy Mae Hong Son, a picturesque town near the Myanmar border.
We were inspired to visit MHS by our pal Austin, who’s a big fan of the region, and I can only say that I’m delighted to have seen it; Mae Hong Son is now certainly my favorite part of northern Thailand.
Here’s the full photoset of 67 images.
Below are some of my faves along with some notes:
— We rented a motorbike and explored the area around Mae Hong Son. Fantastic. Our metallic steed was no Minsk; nor was it the beloved GTO. And frankly, we could’ve used some two-stroke torque for the hills and twisties. Rather, we piloted a somewhat anemic but nonetheless serviceable 125 cc, four-stroke, four-speed Honda Dream step-through.
— The scenery was incredible.
— We consumed some transcendent vittles.
— We stayed at the excellent Fern Resort; our tidy bungalow had a balcony overlooking a stream.
— And, finally, since we flew to Mae Hong Son from Bangkok via Chiang Mai, I got a chance to check out, for the first time, BKK’s brand-new airport, Suvarnabhumi (pronounced “Su-wanna-poom”). Its main terminal is blinged out in blue neon lights and ultra-modern, glistening steel. Sweet.
Legendary Timesman R.W. (Johnny) Apple Jr. has shuffled off this mortal coil.
Quoth the Times’s Todd Purdum:
R. W. Apple Jr., who in more than 40 years as a correspondent and editor at The New York Times wrote from more than 100 countries about war and revolution, politics and government, food and drink, and the revenge of living well, died yesterday in Washington. He was 71.
The cause was complications of thoracic cancer.
With his Dickensian byline, Churchillian brio and Falstaffian appetites, Mr. Apple, who was known as Johnny, was a singular presence at The Times almost from the moment he joined the metropolitan staff in 1963. He remained a colorful figure as new generations of journalists around him grew more pallid, and his encyclopedic knowledge, grace of expression — and above all his expense account — were the envy of his competitors, imitators and peers.
Mr. Apple enjoyed a career like no other in the modern era of The Times. He was the paper’s bureau chief in Albany, Lagos, Nairobi, Saigon, Moscow, London and Washington. He covered 10 presidential elections and more than 20 national nominating conventions. He led The Times’s coverage of the Vietnam War for two and a half years in the 1960’s and of the Persian Gulf war a generation later, chronicling the Iranian revolution in between.
In honor of his passing, I thought I’d point out his superb story about eating in Bangkok that was published this time last year. Don’t miss it.
Apple also penned an article about ten notable restaurants world-wide that was due to appear this fall; it’s been published posthumously.
Thanks to Dave T. for passing along the shocking, shocking news regarding the existence of the Finger Forks. These contraptions, which were recently featured on BoingBoing, are clearly a shameless rip-off of my ingenious Chorks concept:
Two words: prior art! I am so calling my patent lawyer…
There’s a noodle stand outside my front door. I mean, really outside my front door.
As you can see in this image, when I come bounding downstairs, I’m practically on top of these poor folks. Not only am I 6’3″, but the door’s elevated well above the alley, so much so that there’s a cinder block I use as a step before landing on the street. I wish I could capture the looks on some of these patrons’ faces when they glance up from their bowls of noodles and see an enormous farang looming about ten feet above them. It seems that when I’m not amusing Thais, I’m frightening them.
(By the way, the owner of the stand, Muay, is delightful. And she turns out some seriously good food.)
I am very conspicuous in Thailand. I’m very tall. I’m white. And I constantly do silly farang (foreigner) things — like sit on the ground and eat my lunch.
A captured this excellent 30-second video of me today at an outdoor market about 500 meters from my apartment. (Click on the image above or go here to watch it.) I’d bought some chicken with roti and decided to sit on the ground to consume my snack. Unfortunately for me, a gaggle of Thai ladies saw me do this and were consumed with laughter — why would I sit on the dirty street when there were tables nearby? They found this to be hilarious. They guffawed and pointed at me, which I quite enjoyed. Then, with characteristic courtesy, they directed me to a table to sit down.
Indeed, making a fool of myself in Thailand is something of an inadvertent past time. Longtime newley.com readers will recall that I did this for the first time way back in 2001. And I wrote about it in an essay called “Soup to Nuts.”
Before: a mere squid.
After: squid salad.
A few nights ago, A and I made squid salad. Or actually, A made the squid salad and I cleaned the squid (the Thai word for squid is plaa meuk).
I volunteered to do so, as it sounded like an adventure. Cleaning squid can be a very messy process. It’s actually pretty cool. Squid have a totally weird clear plastic-looking/feeling spine (or “quill”) that you have to remove; see the first photo here for an example. And don’t even get me started on giant squid. Giant squid rule. (A later described the cleaning process to a friend as “very Jules Verne.” It was.)
Anyhoo, a question: how much squid did we have at our disposal?
Answer: over four pounds.
Why, you may ask, would two people need four pounds of squid for a simple salad? They wouldn’t, of course. But four pounds is what you end up with when you — and by you I mean me — go the grocery store with the intention of buying one pound and then get your metric system rules messed up and purchase about 2 kilos of squid, which is in fact over four pounds.
(I knew that 1 kg = 2.2 lbs but got confused. I was mistakenly thinking about how 1 km = .6 miles, and so assumed I needed roughly twice as many kilos as we need pounds. Dumb mistake. I really only needed about a half a kilo, not two kilos. Live and learn.)
The squid salad was delicious. We froze the three leftover squid.
