Thai Food adventures in Chicago for Savvy Mom Ruth Paget
My childhood buddy and I took turns heaping thin, green
chile rounds into our now forgotten dishes the first time both of us ate Thai
food at the Thai 55th Restaurant in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood
in 1983.
“I really don’t think you like spicy food,” I taunted as she
placed a spoonful of peppers on her plate.
“You’re the wimp, Ruth,” she said as she placed another
spoonful of the dark, green seedy peppers over her dish. Was it Pad Thai, the stir-fried egg
noodles? I could not let that remark
pass, so I helped myself to a few more spoonfuls.
We considered ourselves spicy superwomen after downing
bowlfuls of hot sauce with chips at the Las Brisas Mexican Restaurant in
Detroit where we grew up. We emptied the
glass container that held about ¾ cup of chiles.
I took the first bite.
A sensation like ammonia-flavored hot wax sent little needles of heat
into every surface of my mouth and into my glass of water and chomped
unceremoniously on the rice.
“Rice is supposed to help,” my childhood buddy ventured to
say.
I ignored her and waved my arms to get the waiter’s
attention. He looked at me and started
to come our way, but I could not wait for him to come to the table, go get
water, and return.
I made what I hoped was the universal sign for water by
cupping my hand and tilting it towards my mouth.
He understood and walked very slowly to our table with a
pitcher of water. I indecorously blew my
running nose on my napkin and breathed in through my mouth to cool off my
palate. What was taking him so long?
When he finally arrived, he took one look at the green chiles
heaped on our dishes and laughed.
“Those are very hot,” he needlessly said.
“Please leave the pitcher,” I managed to say before I
snatched up the water glass.
I chomped on some more ice cubes, which seemed to numb the
pain and what I thought was swelling under my eyes. I could see the waiter laughing with the
busboy in the back of the restaurant; no doubt talking about the pepper lovers
in the corner.
My childhood buddy started to move the green chiles off to
the side of her dish. I crunched some
ice before breaking the bad news to her.
“The juice is hotter than the peppers,” I said, feeling like
a marathoner who has crossed the finish line before another runner.
“You’re just trying to scare me,” my childhood buddy said
somewhat hopefully.
“Just try it and see,” I cackled before wishing her, “Bon
Appetit.”
I poured another glass of water and felt the heat finally
subside from my forehead.
Reason returned; I was no longer living for ice cubes.
My buddy, on the other hand, had just taken her first
bite. Her face turned crimson. I offered no solutions to her problem and
just laughed at her cruelly.
She grabbed her glass of water and looked at the pitcher.
“You drank all the water, Ruth,” she said with a scowl. The waiter brought a new one and my buddy
went through the same water drinking and ice crunching ritual that I had just
done.
“The restaurant owners have not watered these babies down
yet for the Yankees,” I said.
I knew my buddy was thinking, “This is another fine mess you
have gotten us into!”
“Maybe the heat wears off after you get used to it,” my
childhood buddy said.
“Let’s see who can eat the most bites before taking a drink
of water,” she said, knowing that a challenge might get us through the
meal. We had each taken one bite of our
meal so far.
For the next three hours, we alternated between fanning our
open mouths and eating. The chiles
prevented me from tasting or remembering my food that evening.
“What were those chiles?” I asked myself for twenty years as
I read cookbook Cracking the Coconut: Thai Home Cooking by Su-Mei Yu. Prikk Namm Som in vinegar reminded me of my
steamy evening eating “Thai Bird Chiles.”
The Thai 55th visit encouraged me to check out
the Thai Restaurant in my neighborhood with my daughter Florence – Baan Thai in
Seaside, California.
End of Article
My family’s visit to Baan Thai in Seaside, California forms
Part 2 of this blog series on Thai food.
Traveling with small children is hard, so I was happy I could introduce
Florence to other cultures at restaurants in our neighborhood and by cooking
foreign food at home.
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