I don't suffer from insanity,

For those of you unfamiliar with my awesome husband, he's half Thai. His father, a Texan, was an only child, Matt is his only son, and Matt's two brothers are actually full Thai sons of their mother. They married Thai women. All this means all of my in-laws and nieces and nephews on Matt's side are full Thai. Fun, huh? I think so. ^_^

I love Thailand. Thai culture, architecture, and history fascinate me. Especially the ethnic clothing (I know, shocker). Matt thinks I'm silly when I tell him that it's exotic and exciting. To him, it's just part of who he is, like mundane American stuff for me like blue jeans or .... I don't know. It's hard to think of what American things could be exotic to others (not Texas stuff, though. Of course Texas rocks). Anyway, I am captivated by it all. I've been to Thailand only twice for a total of about six weeks.

Well, I also love Thai food.

Where am I going with all this? Well, Matt has discovered a very useful website: Thai Table. Let me just state: YUM. He hasn't looked at all the recipes since there are so many, but the ones he has looked at are pretty down right authentic. Which is, I must say, absolutely awesome. Oh, and one of the neat features of the site is that it has a little sound file for each title, with the name of the dish said in Thai. Coolness! (I do find it amusing that most of my Thai vocabulary has to do with FOOD)

So if any of yall out there want to try making Thai food, the recipes are there. If you don't know where to get the ingredients, there are two really good Asian groceries in Carrollton. I dunno about the rest of the DFW area. There's H-Mart off 190 and Old Denton, and the other one whose name I can't remember on Josey and Belt Line.

And my wonderful husband made me some Tom Kha Gai last night just because I wanted it. He really is the best husband ever. It's Thailand's version of Chicken Noodle Soup, but personally, when we have sick kids, they're getting this not the American stuff.

We're going to make more tomorrow morning to take to the family 4th of July party for the potluck lunch. YUM.

Tom Kha Gai
(Tom = Soup, Kha = Galanga, Gai = Chicken)
Aka "Galanga Chicken Soup" or "Coconut Milk Chicken Soup"

1 can chicken broth (2 cups)
2 cups of water
1 inch of sliced galanga (kha)
2 full stalks of lemon grass/citronella (ta-krai) cut into 1 inch lengths and bruised
4-6 torn & bruised kaffir lime leaves (bai ma-grood)
4-6 tbsp fish sauce (nam pla)
1 tbsp sugar
Some sliced chicken breast (to preference, at least 1)
1 can coconut milk (2 cups)
Juice of 1 lime
1/4 cup torn & bruised cilantro/coriander leaves (pak chee)

Optional
- 1 can straw mushrooms
- Crushed chili peppers (prik khee noo)

Directions: Put everything in the pot except the lime juice and a quarter of cilantro. Bring it to boil, then simmer to cook the chicken. After about ten minutes, check the chicken to make sure it's cooked. Then, while stirring slowly in one direction, add the lime juice and the last of the cilantro and serve.

Newbie note: You don't usually eat the lemon grass and galanga. If serving it to folks new to Thai food... you might want to strain those out of the soup. Old pros just eat around them!

Serving: Serve as a soup in a bowl by itself to compliment a meal or poured over heaping mounds of jasmine rice as a main dish.

Matt, here's the wild dog that's native to Thailand: the dhole. I knew I'd find it sooner or later!

It is 3pm on the 18th here, so it's 3am on the 18th there in Texas. Funny to think of that, isn't it? Oh, and please excuse grammatical errors or idiosyncrasies, as I'm not on a US machine and I don't think that their MSWord will function quite right for me in English. ^_~

( Vacation log: )

*Right now I'm in a suburb of Chiang Mai in a little internet cafe, paying 15 baht per hour (which is almost $0.50) to use the internet while Matt's mom is back at the house visiting with our hosts. Since I speak/understand very, very little Thai and their topics range from the possibly-slightly-interesting-but-about-nothing-that-we-know to the extremely mundane, Matt and I escaped here. I dare say that it will be $4 well spent ($2 for me and $2 for Matt on another computer). Whee!

Tonight, though, we're heading to Chiang Mai's famous Night Market. First of all, I think that name is very, very neat. And of course, in Thailand, having a market in the evening is incredibly smart, since it's so extremely hot during the day. Obviously. ^_~

I'm starting to get really excited about our trip to Thailand. Finances are falling into place, and plans are being made.

So far, we know when we'll be arriving in Thailand, and we've also discovered that Matt's brother will be taking time off, and his children will be out of school, too. So we're going to take a family trip up to Chiang Mai, which is a province in the far north. We'll be visiting Doi Suthep, which will be a real treat. It was built in the 1300s. Our time there is also during the water festival.... I don't remember what it's called but that should make things exciting, too!

Whee!