Just Desserts

Lately my Thai cooking skills have taken a turn towards the sweeter side. Bay has recently taught me how to make two Thai deserts, and I’m going to pass a bit of my recently acquired knowledge on to you. Too bad you can’t taste over the internet because both were amazing. If you want to try to make them yourself or are more curious about exactly how they were made, I've included the recipes below.

The first is bau loy, tiny balls made of sticky rice flour, colored with veggies, and served in coconut cream. It’s extremely rich and probably very unhealthy for you, but that’s ok because it’s hard to eat more than a little. Here are some pictures from our cooking session.

We used four vegetables to color our bau loy: taro root (silver), carrots (orange), pumpkin (yellow), and pandam leaves (green). This is me using a mortar and pestle to make sure that all the little bits of pumpkin are pounded to a pulp.

The four colors of dough before we form them into tiny balls.

The tiny balls before they are boiled (this takes forever!)

After boiling

Added to the coconut milk

And the final product!

The second dessert, Tab Tim Grob, Bay made for me a few weeks ago. It is actually small cubes of water chestnuts soaked in sugar syrup and then served in coconut milk on ice. It’s less heavy than the bua loy, but still quite rich. I was not present for the entire preparation of this one, so there are only two pictures.

The first is after the pieces have been boiled and are cooling off in the cold water.

The second is the finished product.

Here are the recipes translated by Bay. Of course when we made them there weren’t measurements for the different ingredients. As Bay put it Thai cooking is more experiment than measurement, but she found measurements for me since experimenting is not my forte.

Bau Loy

1. Coconut milk 2 cups

2. Sugar ½ cup

3. Salt ¼ teaspoon

4. Glutinous flour ½ cup

5. Boiled veggies 1/3 cup

6. Warm water ¼ cup

1. Boil veggies until soft and blend.
2. Mix glutinous flour with blended veggies and water.
3. Make small balls.
4. Heat a saucepan of water to a rolling boil.
5. Put the balls in the water.
6. Take the balls out of the water when they come up to the surface.
7. Boil half of coconut milk with sugar and salt.
8. Put the cooked balls into the pot.
9. Before serving, add the rest of coconut milk to the bau loy.

Tab Tim Grob

1. Water chestnuts (cut in small cubes) 1 cup

2. Tapioca flour ½ cup

3. Sugar 150 grams

4. Water ¾ cup

5. Coconut milk ¾ cup

6. Syrup (for color) ½ cup

1. Soak water chestnuts in syrup for at least 10 minutes.
2. Coat the water chestnuts with tapioca flour (Tab Tim).
3. Heat water to a rolling boil.
4. Put Tab Tim into the pot.
5. Get Tab Tim out of water when they come up on the surface and put them in cold water immediately.
6. Boil water with sugar to make syrup. If you have Bai Toey (pandam leaves), you can put it in to improve the aroma.
7. Serve Tab Tim with syrup, coconut milk, and ice.

Vacay

How do you sum up an amazing 35 day vacation that spans 3 countries, temperatures between somewhere cold enough to snow and 117 degrees Fahrenheit, from sea level to 16,000 feet, old friends, new friends, yaks, camels, tents, sleeper trains, beautiful hotels, tea tastings, a WWF wrestler, and emergency taxi rides that just barely get you to airport? I’ve been thinking it over since I’ve arrived back safe and sound in Khon Kaen. The task seems daunting, but I’ve put it off for a month now and if I don’t write it soon, I’m not sure I ever will.

The first leg of our journey begins with a broken camera. One of our oldest friends (Joe’s best woman from our wedding) flew into Bangkok to join us as we backpacked a giant loop that began in central Thailand, then moved through the north, stopping in Chiang Mai, then to the border where we took a two day river cruise to the serene Luang Prabang. We then flew to Laos’ capital where we just spent a few hours before heading south through north-eastern Thailand. The last day was spent in Khon Kaen before we bussed back to Bangkok. On the very first day, our 7 year old camera bit the dust and we were “forced” to buy a spiffy new one which captured every place we visited much better than I could in words. I’ve written about most of the places we visited before, so I’ll focus on the parts of Laos that were new to me.

The river trip down the Mekong was something that we’ve wanted to do almost since we arrived in Thailand, but had never gotten to do. I’m glad we made the time because the scenery is gorgeous! Between the sunsets and constant fresh air, the two days flew by.


At the end of the long trip, we arrived in Luang Prabang with sore derrieres (from long days on the boat’s wooden benches) and ready for some French colonial food. We were not disappointed. Luang Prabang is the most beautiful town I’ve seen in SE Asia. It’s unbelievably chill with beautiful temples, great shopping, and restaurants with selections and cheap prices that are seem too good to be true- but they’re not. It’s very small, and I think if you spent more then a few days there the enchantment might start to wear thin, but since we left after just two days, I’m sure the magic of the place will stay with me forever.






















Saying goodbye to our friend was sad, but we had a lot to look forward to, namely the three weeks in India that we’ve been saving for since we arrived. You can see a few more of my pictures here.


We landed at the Delhi airport not sure what we were going to do with our 9 hour layover, but that decision was soon made for us. We knew that we had a short bus ride from the international terminal to the domestic terminal, and we quickly found the waiting room for the bus that was supposed to leave every half hour or so. We were slightly taken aback when we looked out the windowed wall where the bus was supposed to arrive to see thousands of Indians screaming, holding signs, and pressing on the glass that did not look as if it were designed to hold back the masses. “I know India is over-populated, but this is ridiculous,” Joe said to me as we found a place in the un-crowded room to see if we could figure out what was going on.

After standing around looking confused for about 20 minutes, a nice gentleman came over and explained that famous WWF heavyweight champion, The Great Khail, was landing in India for the first time in 12 years. He then pointed out Khail’s father and other relatives relaxing on a nearby sofa to us as the TV station switched to breaking news: footage of the thousands of people from the outside of the airport. After airport security played a triple switcheroo on the crowd, leading them to believe that Khail was leaving from one door and then another, and then back to the first, the massive man exited the building and within 45 minutes the crowd dispersed.

After a long wait in the domestic terminal, a short plane ride, and a long, bumpy jeep ride, we made it safely to Sikkim for a few days repose in Gangtok (and lots of Tibetan monasteries brought to us by our jeep driver/professional photographer, Arby) before we heading to Yuksom and then off on our trek.







Sikkim is the least populace state in India and its residents are relatively well off. It is bordered by Tibet, Nepal, and Bhutan and it is stunning. Prayer flags, tiny children in school uniforms, and monkeys line the highway through the small villages. Humorous signs remind drivers on the mountain roads to honk and “Be gentle on my curves.”



“Just follow the yaks,” our guide, Choongda, said as he made final preparations at his house just before we set off on our first day trekking. I won’t even try to describe all nine days and 90 miles of our incredible trip through the Himalayas. Every day was full of intense climbing, but we were rewarded by forests of rhododendron, dozens of bird sightings (and a few other animals), freshly fallen snow on our tent, views from the tops of 13,000 foot peaks, secret waterfalls, sore muscles, communicating (badly) in Nepali, tea time in our tent, and a 3:00am start time that brought us to Goecha La, more than 16,000 feet above sea level and base camp for the third highest mountain in the world. If you want more details, you’ll just have to ask us or check out the picture posts below. Our last night on the trail we even tried Tsongba, a local alcoholic beverage made of fermented millet that automatically comes with free refills as you just have to add more hot water to the millet mix and wait a few minutes before sipping the wine-like beverage through a bamboo straw.






After another short break in Pelling where we showered for the first time sincestarting the trek, we got our final dose of Sikkimese culture before heading through the fragrant hills to Darjeeling for tea tastings and a ride on the famous toy train. I think we enjoyed Glennary’s Bakery and their chocolate tarts as much as the tea. I was also able to find macaroni and cheese, which had been haunting my dreams when we were out on the trail and eating camp food three times a day.

After cramming our bags full of tea for everyone we knew at home, we flew back to Delhi for a few days. This is the mistake we made in planning out trip. If you are going to India, don’t go to Delhi. I was reading an article in the New Yorker last week about a movie where they had to recreate Skid Row and they consulted photos of Delhi in order to make sure it looked sufficiently filthy. Enough said.






We then took an overnight train (where a random woman tried to climb into bed with me) to Bundi, a small town in Rajasthan famous for its miniature paintings, palaces, fort, and step-wells. This was what I imagined when we decided to go to India: burning hot sand, turbans, saris, camels, and really tasty paneer. We even stayed in a 400-ear-old haveli; our room was covered with miniature paintings that were copied from a nearby palace. There were only 5 other tourists in the village, and when we visited the sights we were always the only people there. Normally I like at least a few other tourists around, but after the craziness of Delhi we were happy to go about our business without too many touts.







The plan was to spend our last day at the Taj Mahal, taking a train from Rajasthan to Agra and then strait to the airport in Delhi. It was not to be. Shortly after boarding our train, a nice man asked us where we were going and informed us that the train was no longer going to Agra. We disembarked and went to shove our way to the one person in charge of reservations. The railroad employee informed us that yes; the train was going to Agra. We returned to the train where other passengers urgently told us that we were not going to Agra. After three trips between the train and “help” desk, Joe finally found the train driver (there was no conductor) who informed us that the train was not going to Agra. We then went back to the help desk for the fourth time and miraculously the help man now understood that the train had been re-routed. Unfortunately there were no more trains that night to Delhi or Agra, so we were in a bit of a bind since our flight left the next day. We ended up in taxis for 8 hours to get to Delhi and catch our flight back to Thailand. We were a little sad to have missed the Taj, but missing our flight would have been infinitely worse since after more than a month, we were definitely ready to sleep in our own beds. But what do you know, who did we pass as we made our way through customs? The Great Khail. What a great set-up for a bad pun about wrestling with India!


More pictures from India are here and here.