Meanwhile, things are good at home! Mai and I have been experimenting making pizzas from scratch, with the idea of making them and selling them at the local twice-weekly market. Thai’s aren’t really big on western/European style pizza because they have weird ingredients. We decided to experiment making some pizzas with real local Thai toppings. Not “Thai style” but the real thing!
Our first topping was Laab Moo. Laab is a Lao dish, and Moo of course is pork…really! Laab Moo is minced pork with mint, coriander, lime juice, fish sauce, onions, garlic and some ground browned rice to give it crunch. We also bought some tomatoes and made our own tomato sauce from scratch, adding Thai basil and garlic. We bought frozen pizza crusts and grated Mozzarella at the grocery store.
The result, pictured below, was delicious! This may be the start of something!!
In local news, So Phisai got a nice new Sum Tam shop! Sum Tam is one of my favourite Thai dishes. Think of it as cole slaw but with shredded green papaya instead of cabbage. Then add tomatoes, chilies of course, green beans, dried shrimp, garlic, a little sugar and a dressing of fish sauce and lime juice. Crunchy, spicy, fresh tasting, a little sweet, salty and sour. You specify how many chilies you want because real Sum Tam borders on volcanic.
Thai Sum Tam has dried shrimp. They look a little like the dried shrimp you feed your tropical fish. Lao style Sum Tam has crab. Don’t think sticks of artificial crab legs. Think crab legs freshly plucked off a live crab! See the lady sitting on the green stool to the left of the photo? She’s plucking the legs and claws of a bucket of live crabs for someone’s Sum Tam! I don’t eat Lao style Sum Tam.
The shop also sells other prepared foods like Gai Yang (barbecued chicken) and Khao Niew (sticky rice).
Mai’s young son Max is a sweet little kid. We like each other but we don’t have too many things to do together. Last weekend I took out a Raspberry Pi micro computer I brought with me, downloaded some new software for it and turned it into a gaming console that plays a few dozen vintage video games from way back in the 80s and 90s. Remember Atari and those guys? Then I went to the local computer store and bought a keyboard and game controller and we were all set! Now we play Donkey Kong, Pacman and a handful of other games. Max hadn’t seen them before but he picks them up right away and routinely beats me every time!
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Bueng-Ken 