Kao Man Kai, an easy but yummy dish

I love Kao Man Kai , that 's what Thai people call the dish when we order at the restaurants. It is steamed rice toppled with chicken and served with dark brown sauce and  a bowl of light soup. It is one of my favourite dishes.

You may find kao man kai available at food stalls on the street or at trendy restaurants in five-star hotels in Bangkok. Its taste surely satisfies a wide range of people here, from millionaires to beggars. The formidable secret seems lying on the sauce.  You have perfect steamed rice and chicken but with plain or wrong-taste sauce, you can say goodbye to your customers soon, that was some friends told me and I agreed.

The sauce for kao man kai is mainly made of garlic, fresh ginger, taojiew(salty soybean sauce), sweet black soysauce, sugar and fresh chili chopped. Some people added lime juice to make it sour a bit. 

Thank Jack, my good college friend, who invited me to have dinner at his place. I had a great chance to help him and his wife prepare kao man kai and its sauce during their preparation. That's how I quickly memorized all into my curious brain and later tried doing it myself at my apartment.  That was thousands of miles across the earth away from my hometown and kao man kai was not available at the street corner. :)

 

My "bualoy" , a Thai dessert

It's Friday afternoon. Yeah, tomorrow is a holiday weekend and few people wants to think of heavy stuffs, except, heavy stuffs like what to eat and where to go for fun.

That's how I offer you who may want to stay home and get your kitchen utensils work a bit with this Thai dessert called bualoy. It is made from sticky rice flour and cassava flour as well as water, coconut milk, sugar and salt. But since I love pumpkin, I added some steamed pumpkin in the combination and I got pumpkin bualoy.  Bualoy is long known as a popular Thai dessert among sweet tooth Thai people and some love adding eggs in this dish. I am one of the latter.

Here is my product to tempt your cooking skill.

<Plain bualoy with egg>

< Pumpkin bualoy>

Rally for freedom of expression in Bangkok Nov 24,2012

November 29, 2012
Bangkok, Thailand

I joined  a big crowd of  Thai citizens who are sick of our current Thai government and its corrupt authorities on last Saturday, November 24, 2012. The gathering took place at Bangkok's Royal Plaza  and on the roads nearby. It was a gloomy day with dark clouds that turned into dowpours later in the afternoon until late night.
 
The general public was invited to join the rally. The gathering was quite peaceful and not exciting except the times that the police simply used teargas, clubs and force with no warning to block a crowd from entering the rally ground. The police claimed that they found metal spears and bullets amid the crowd and arrested more than 120 persons including the press who were shooting and recording the situations. 

Dozens of protesters and news reporters/photographers were injured by the police forces. Few free TV channels reported the situations there. Many people outside the gathering ground had no clue about what happened there. Others simply thought the protesters were such a nuisance for Thai society. That's pity how the truth has been covered and distorted to the world.
 
Looking back at the protesters that day, I  must say the Thai police and the governent are a talented story teller team. They join hands well to create pictures opposite to the fact. At the rally, about 70 percent of protesters were middle-aged and senior people. Many were on wheelchair, aided by their children or maids. Some  were healthy but enough to drag their own feets along and that's the end.  Some protesters came in group while many others came by themselves.  They were not hire-handed. I spotted several leading thinkers and academics amid the crowd. My friend and I went there with our mobile phones and wallets. Yes, those were the weapons we had.
 
Here are some pictures that I took from the rally ground.

 

The world is burning.

Bangkok, Thailand
Wednesday, March 7, 2012

It is not actually real summer time but the temperature is rising quickly here. It 's hot. It's burning. It's killing me. It 's 38 degree Celcius and TV weather forecasters just told us audiences that the temperature is expected to rise beyond 40 C this April. God please helps us.

I remember that I still felt a bit cold in January and mid February. The winter prolonged from last year. Then, a couple days later after that cool air cringed, the air simply turned very warm. Once March arrived,  that cool air was quickly out of my mind.  Now that weather prediction  is haunting me and many other audiences for sure.

Thailand used to have three seasons. Winter lasted from mid November to February. Next was summer from March to May or mid June.  But some rain storms often showed up in mid April and we call it  Songkran Rain. Songkran is Thai word for Thai New Year festival in April yearly. The rest period was rainny season when we would experience tropical storms, monsoons and heavy rainfalls until November. Those were then, now I no longer see such pattern of weather.  It 's hard to tell which season we are facing at present. 

The weather is simply hot and hotter all yearround. Then, unpredictable rain  can arrive any time and flashfloods especially in provinces. My Bangkok city just endured huge floods last year and no one ever reamed that it could happen to us city dwellers.  The scary flood was gone a few months ago and our life returned to normal. But that last year flood still clinged in our mind and what we are wondering is if we are facing it soon this year and what we have prepared to cope with the possible flood can save us this time , if it happens.


Gigi

New Look in 2012

20 Feb 2012,
10:12 am.
Bangkok, Thailand

Hello All,

Gigi's blog gets some changes to have a new look.  I pick whatever available in this service. :)  The new colours may be darker but  more exciting ( my feeling :). Hope this new look may help me gain more followers. ( Hey, I never give up and optimism helps slow down aging.)


I am back, be warned.

Gigi