Today we enjoyed our first home cooked Thai meal. Su is a flight attendant on Thai airways, so she has been away from the farm for the past few days because she had a flight to Japan. After we got home from the farm today we were sitting around Neil and Su's house, relaxing after our long work day. Su's older sister Pimon dropped by the house and insisted we all go to the market together. We hopped in Pimon's car and headed down the street to the local market, which has a few hundred food stalls. This market, like all Asian markets, was fantastic to walk through. Some of the things we saw at the market: fried bugs (cockroaches, grubs, crickets), pig's face, various meats on a stick, all kinds of vibrantly green vegetables, Thai sweet desserts, crabs, shrimp, fish, whole chickens and ducks, fried baby sparrows (including feet and beak), animal organs, lots of tropical fruits, and much more. It is so much fun to s0imply walk up and down the aisles of this market and try to take in the whole scene. I highly recommend going to these sorts of markets with someone who knows the locals language and who can point out to you what the various edibles are. Pimon, a bossy women who was clad head to toe in pink, dragged us around the market buying all sorts of vegetables, herbs, fish, and fruits. By the time Pimon was done with us our arms were laden with bags. Eric recently tried a fruit called mangosteen and really enjoyed the flavor, so he decided he wanted to get some mangosteen from the market. There was only one vendor selling mangosteen and apparently the fruits were going out of season or something because he put his entire stock of mangosteens in a huge shopping bag and gave them all to us for only 20 Baht! We came home with 6 kilos of mangosteens (most of them bad), watermelon, vegetables, 6 whole fresh fish, chilis, rambutan, Thai snacks, pomellos, rice sausage, and some other things.
When we got home Pimon promptly put me to work washing and cutting up some green vegetables. After that I was assigned to take the tops off the small green and red chilis. I took the tops off about 50 small chilis with my finger nail and then foolishly itched the back of my neck. Wow, that really burned. I felt like my neck skin was going to disintegrate off my body! So I went to my medicine kit and decided to put Tiger Balm on it. That was another bad idea because that just made it burn even more. Then I ran to the sink and washed my neck, and then it was alright.
It took Pimon only 20 minutes and she had whipped up a delicious dinner of tom yom kun soup with fresh fish, stir fried vegetables, steamed vegetables, rice, and sticky rice in bamboo shoots. The meal was delicious! We all gathered around the floor of Neil and Su's house and shared food, beer, and conversation. The meal was fantastic, but also the whole process of going to the market, examining foods, bargaining, preparing together, and serving made the whole meal even better. I am looking forward to more home cooking with Pimon. Apparently she cooks up a mean green curry, which I am hoping she will teach me to make.
Below: Me, Eric, Pimon, Neil, and Su waiting to eat our delicious Thai dinner of Tom Yom Kun soup at Neil and Su's house.
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