Batten Down the Hatches- Preparing for Floods in Bangkok

Bangkok is currently in preparation mode as flood waters from the north move closer and rain continues to fall. In our neighborhood, life seems to be going on as normal, with a few exceptions:

Shop owners building a concrete wall in front of a shop along Rama IV

Lumpini MRT station with new steel gates on the windows

Pile of sandbags outside the Silom Complex 

Nearly empty shelves at the local grocery store

While things may be deceptively calm here in our neighborhood, we are still contemplating going south to get away from the floods.

In a related note, the manufacturing plant where Eric works is currently under six feet of water. The flood waters broke through levee after levee and inundated the entire industrial park. We are still not sure what that exactly means for us and our stay here in Thailand. Hopefully, we will have some answers soon.

Image from The MacLeod Thaimes

If you are the praying type, please pray for all of the families that have been affected by these floods. Entire cities are currently underwater and the devastation is so immense, it is kind of hard to comprehend. 

If you are looking for up to date news about the flooding in Thailand and you are on Twitter- @RichardBarrow and #ThaiFloodEng are great sources of information.

Roast Duck Extravaganza!

The very first night that we met our friends Brock and Josh, we were sitting at the beer gardens by CentralWorld asking each other the typical questions that expats ask when meeting a fellow expat for the first time, such as; "How long have you been in Thailand" ,"What do you do","Where do you live" etc. Eventually the discussion came around to eating and cooking (as it usually does) and when we casually mentioned that we had an oven in our apartment, Brock immediately exclaimed " I am going to roast a duck in your oven!"

Fast forward five months, and we finally got our act together for the roast duck extravaganza. The adventure began with a trip to the Klong Toei Market to pick up a duck as well as the ingredients to make the duck sauce.

After wandering through the market for a while, we made our way to the duck section. There we found a booth with duck and duck parts as well as live ducks. I assumed that we would get a duck that was already dead- but boy was I wrong. The adorable girl running the duck booth, after hearing Brock's request for a whole duck, proceeded to pull a live duck from a cage and tried to hand it to us. After some very disturbing pantomime, we finally got the message across that we would prefer the duck to be deceased. We were afraid that she was going to kill the duck right in front of us, but luckily she took it away and came back with it all wrapped up in a plastic bag.

It wasn't until we arrived at our apartment that we discovered that they neglected to gut and clean the duck. Luckily, the internet was there to save the day! It's amazing what you can find on YouTube. Athough watching men say things like "You don't want to rupture the gall bladder cause that will taint the meat." is not really the most enjoyable way to spend a Saturday morning.

After watching a few videos about how to gut a duck, Brock tackled the disgusting task. I don't want to talk about the disgusting details too much, but I was amazed at what came out of that duck! Needless to say I was impressed with how well we were able to keep our gag reflex under control, although I think Brock almost lost it when the metal I.D tag on the duck scraped the cutting board and it sounded just like a duck quack. 

Brock carefully making the first incision

After the disgusting part was done, we worked on prepping the the bird for it's 4 hour roast in the oven.

Removing pin feathers

Cutting strategic slits to make the skin delicious

After hourly flips and basting with an orange tamarind sauce, the duck was ready to be served to the hungry masses who spent hours drooling as the smell of roast duck filled our apartment. I don't really have any details on the recipe used or the specific techniques, but perhaps Brock will write about them on his blog.

After this successful duck roasting, we've already started planning for our next cooking adventure, so stay tuned!

Who wants some duck?

Klong Toei Cooking Class

Yesterday I took the first steps towards becoming a Thai master chef. My friend Mary and I signed up to take a cooking class offered by Helping Hands- a non-profit entity that helps people living in the Klong Toei slum build a better life for themselves by supporting micro-business opportunities. The Thai cooking class was taught by Khun Poo, a wonderful lady who was full of energy and laughter.

Our adventure began when Khun Poo picked us up from the Tesco Lotus located near our apartment. We then drove to the Klong Toei Market. The market begins at 2:00 am every day and is the source of fish, meat, fruits and vegetables for many of the restaurants and food vendors in our area. Khun Poo then led us on a tour around the market, stopping to point out exotic fruits and vegetables, and explaining how many of the ingredients we saw were used in Thai cooking.

Klong Toei Market.

 Pickled garlic and dried onions.

Butchers preparing pig skins. Thai people like to deep fry the skins and put them on many of their dishes.

Squid in front, sea prawn in the middle and river prawn in the back.

Crab trussed and ready to cook. 

Mmmm pork. According to Khun Poo many Thai of Chinese ancestry will leave pig heads like this at temples and shrines as offerings.

Many restaurants get their ingredients from this market. These vegetables are already chopped up and ready to use.

Grass hoppers ready to deep fry. This is the first time I've seen insects as food in Bangkok. It really isn't a common practice here in the city.

After our tour of the market, we took a van ride into the Klong Toei slums, to the small cooking classroom located across from Khun Poo's house. There we were taught how to make three Thai dishes; sum tom- a very spicy papaya salad ; tom yun goong- a soup with lemongrass and prawn; and pad thai gai- a fried noodle dish with chicken. We also had mango sticky rice for desert, but since Thai sticky rice takes 8-24 hours to make properly, we had rice that was already prepared. 

 Khun Poo teaching us how to make sum tom.

Tom yun goong boiling on the stove.

The ingredients for pad thai gai- minus the gai (chicken)

Mary and I cooking up a storm!

Pad thai gai plated and ready to eat. Tasty and good looking!