When we were eating at Japanese buffet place in Houston the other day I said, “Koph khun ka!” (Thank you!) to the server after she gave us our drinks. I don’t think she really heard me, thankfully, but Dom’s mom, sister (who are visiting with us for three weeks from Thailand) and Dom all chuckled at me.
As I was cooking massaman curry yesterday afternoon, the smell of rich, creamy coconut milk, mixed with a slight cinnamon scent, cozy cardamom, tangy tamarind, and roasted peanuts wafted into my nose, sending me whirring down the Bangkok Skytrain to the National Stadium station where off a narrow soi, sits a tiny restaurant, Pisces, where my fondest massaman curry memories lie.
After waking up in my friend’s apartment who lived near Dom’s, I would put on my fresh work clothes, which I knew would become wet with sweat from the Bangkok heat long before I got to work, and walk down the hall to knock on Dom’s door.
The first time I had Yum Woon Sen I cried, and it wasn’t from tears of joy.
It was my first week in Bangkok, and I was eating at a random restaurant maybe on the third floor of CentralWorld, one of the huge malls in Bangkok. I had just met my boss, but hadn’t started work, and the two other Thai friends I knew from my UNC-Chapel Hill days were working that day, so I was exploring downtown Bangkok on my own.
“Your husband is Thai?” person I’ve just met asks me.
“He sure is!” I smile sweetly as I think about my hot Thai hubby.
“Wow, how did you meet?” new person asks with surprise.
We were in Belgium standing in our Thai friend’s kitchen when it happened—I learned how to cut a lime in a way that changed my life forever. Continue Reading
Even though I’m head over heels in love with Thai food, as an American with an American-sized sweet tooth, Thai desserts don’t cut it for me.
