Category: in thailand

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foooood in thailand

thai cerelac

…is a bit different from our own! first, they have these “stars puffs” thinguies that melt into nothing in your mouth and they taste a little bit like childhood.

but then, strolling around a fancy supermarket in chiang mai we found this:

what is this?! are they mixing cerelac with fish? is there a savory cerelac in thailand?! this is so intriguing that i’ve been regretting not bringing it to the hostel to give it a try. :(

how many varieties and regional flavours of cerelac are there in the world? perhaps we should do an exhaustive study… :D

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foooood in thailand

butterfly pea tea

this is a very funky tea that we first learnt about on a cooking class in chiang mai. the class itself was conducted on a farm, and included a tour of the gardens. our very nice teacher showed us a bush of butterfly pea with its blueish/purple flowers in bloom, and instructed us to collect 3 each:

back in the kitchen, we put the flowers in a cup and drowned them in hot water…

…and after a moment, voilá! blue tea! :D

everyone was mesmerized by the color slowly leeching from the flower.

just this would be enough to delight me, but then we discovered that lowering the pH of the drink makes it change color to purple… so add some lime juice and voilá! :D

i’m hoping to bring back some seeds, to see if we can grow the bush at home and impress our guests with this concoction. wouldn’t that be fun!

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in thailand

like rolling a mortar up the hill

the other day, we went into a buddhist temple featuring a mummified monk wearing sunglasses, and i tried my hand at having my fortune read by some magical sticks. first, you shake the sticks on a little cup until one of them falls out. each stick is numbered, so you read the number on your stick and proceed to collect your fortune from a cupboard. mine was number 28, the last number on the cupboard.

here’s what it read:

It’s like being reaped by the whirlwind so you scarcely find any good fortune. Your karma brings you hardship and obstacles. Your life is tired like rolling a mortar up the hill. However, your illness is not so serious. You’re still quite far from finding a lover. May be your friends will get angry about some nonsense. Your escaping debtors would never get in touch. If you’re expecting a baby, you surely would have a daughter.

ahahah! :D i laughed so much when i read my (mis)fortune — there’s nothing good in it! and then i felt kind of bad for the people who believe in these things…

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foooood in thailand

malkist

we’re in thailand at the moment, and this might be the “snackiest” country we’ve ever been in. everywhere there are salty and sweet bites to be had — it feels practically obligatory to carry around some form of sustenance for the idle time.

we found malkist at the breakfast table of our guesthouse in chiang mai, and became fans of this chocolaty cookie.

it looks deceptively normal, like a butter cookie with a chocolate stuffing, but when you bite into it, the cookie dissolves into flakes (that fall everywhere if you’re not careful). chocolate is chocolate, but the cookie tastes slightly “malty”, which is nice for a change.

i approve!