A year and a half ago, I posted a message about my adventures with heating up pork buns (Why Did We Invent Cooking?). That was back when sweet chili sauce was a necessity to fix all Jackie-made foodstuffs and when the answer to the question: What do you eat? Was: lots of cereal and fruit.
In August 2010, I decided to go Primal (no pasta, no bread, no excess sugar, no cereal, no…rice? see Mark’s Daily Apple). Not an easy task when you live in a country that appears to consider rice to be more important than water.
“I am no longer eating rice,” I declared to my friends at the restaurant after the decision was made. They stared blankly at me then said: “but if you don’t eat rice, you can’t go to the bathroom.” Well that explains why so many people eat rice around here…
I started frying up veggies and eggs at home and for eating in the forest, and continued going to the restaurant for my afternoon meal of Thai food (now minus the rice) with my friends. This lasted for about a month. Turns out, rice is important for digesting Thai food when you eat it everyday. And trying to work up to running 20k continuously without those extra complex carbs and sugar boosters was proving to be really difficult… I really missed my cereal.
It took a few months but eventually I managed to adapt a fairly balanced “as Primal as I could be” nutrition regime that worked with my endurance goals and daily forest excursions, and included occasional small servings of rice with my Thai food.
One night in March, when Kazunari came back to collect more data, as I started making myself dinner he exclaimed: “You are cooking food!” ha ha… by then I was used to it and forgot that once this was a really odd sight. :)
One day I came home from Tesco with green onions, Jambee said “Oh, for Pad Thai?” “Heck no!” I exclaimed, “I can’t make Thai food. These go with potatoes.” “You are in the restaurant helping them make food everyday!" She responded. "Why can’t you make Thai food yet?” … uh, good question.
Though I help the girls in the restaurant when I have free time and there are many tourists here, I never actually MAKE the food. I fry eggs for them, chop vegetables, peel the plastic wrapper off these weird sausage-like-sweet-hot-dog things that Thai people gobble up in the mornings. I watch them toss this and that and this again into the wok and take mental inventory of all the ingredients in the kitchen. I taste the food when they ask me to test it before they serve it and I stare blankly at them when they say “What else should I add to it?” – I don’t even know what’s already in there!
But then one day Bahn stopped making the Spicy Thai salad that I like so much because she doesn’t think she can make it properly. “It’s not delicious, I won’t make it.”
“It’s so delicious! I want to eat it all the time!” I protested. But she would not make it.
And so the stimulus was set in motion: I’ve been watching them make Thai food for a while now, I know what all the ingredients are, Bahn won’t make the Thai salad and it’s “so easy!” What if I did try making Thai food on my own?
This week I came back from the grocery store with ingredients to make three Thai dishes: pad gra-pow gai, pad prik gang gai, and yam woonsen.
My first Thai dish:
It really tasted like it too!! There was a bit too much soy sauce and sugar did end up all over the kitchen floor, but otherwise an excellent self-made meal. :)
AND the best part about this whole plan was that during the whole production and consumption I came up with a genius idea for a conservation initiative for the Jackie Prime Project; anyone looking to invest in a “Khao Yai comes to Canada” themed restaurant? :)
The moral of today’s story: Try new things, you just may be inspired to create something exceptionally amazing from the whole experience even better than a plate of food.
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Comments are always welcome, please share your thoughts.
*Note: Comments are moderated to avoid spam.
In August 2010, I decided to go Primal (no pasta, no bread, no excess sugar, no cereal, no…rice? see Mark’s Daily Apple). Not an easy task when you live in a country that appears to consider rice to be more important than water.
“I am no longer eating rice,” I declared to my friends at the restaurant after the decision was made. They stared blankly at me then said: “but if you don’t eat rice, you can’t go to the bathroom.” Well that explains why so many people eat rice around here…
I started frying up veggies and eggs at home and for eating in the forest, and continued going to the restaurant for my afternoon meal of Thai food (now minus the rice) with my friends. This lasted for about a month. Turns out, rice is important for digesting Thai food when you eat it everyday. And trying to work up to running 20k continuously without those extra complex carbs and sugar boosters was proving to be really difficult… I really missed my cereal.
It took a few months but eventually I managed to adapt a fairly balanced “as Primal as I could be” nutrition regime that worked with my endurance goals and daily forest excursions, and included occasional small servings of rice with my Thai food.
One night in March, when Kazunari came back to collect more data, as I started making myself dinner he exclaimed: “You are cooking food!” ha ha… by then I was used to it and forgot that once this was a really odd sight. :)
One day I came home from Tesco with green onions, Jambee said “Oh, for Pad Thai?” “Heck no!” I exclaimed, “I can’t make Thai food. These go with potatoes.” “You are in the restaurant helping them make food everyday!" She responded. "Why can’t you make Thai food yet?” … uh, good question.
Though I help the girls in the restaurant when I have free time and there are many tourists here, I never actually MAKE the food. I fry eggs for them, chop vegetables, peel the plastic wrapper off these weird sausage-like-sweet-hot-dog things that Thai people gobble up in the mornings. I watch them toss this and that and this again into the wok and take mental inventory of all the ingredients in the kitchen. I taste the food when they ask me to test it before they serve it and I stare blankly at them when they say “What else should I add to it?” – I don’t even know what’s already in there!
But then one day Bahn stopped making the Spicy Thai salad that I like so much because she doesn’t think she can make it properly. “It’s not delicious, I won’t make it.”
“It’s so delicious! I want to eat it all the time!” I protested. But she would not make it.
And so the stimulus was set in motion: I’ve been watching them make Thai food for a while now, I know what all the ingredients are, Bahn won’t make the Thai salad and it’s “so easy!” What if I did try making Thai food on my own?
This week I came back from the grocery store with ingredients to make three Thai dishes: pad gra-pow gai, pad prik gang gai, and yam woonsen.
My first Thai dish:
 |
| Pad Gra-pow Gai sai Kai Dow = Stir fried basil chicken with a fried egg |
It really tasted like it too!! There was a bit too much soy sauce and sugar did end up all over the kitchen floor, but otherwise an excellent self-made meal. :)
AND the best part about this whole plan was that during the whole production and consumption I came up with a genius idea for a conservation initiative for the Jackie Prime Project; anyone looking to invest in a “Khao Yai comes to Canada” themed restaurant? :)
The moral of today’s story: Try new things, you just may be inspired to create something exceptionally amazing from the whole experience even better than a plate of food.
---
Comments are always welcome, please share your thoughts.
*Note: Comments are moderated to avoid spam.
Comments