Thai-Style Feasting: My Thai Restaurant Review - Part 1 - by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Thai-Style Feasting: My Thai Restaurant Review – Part 1 – by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

I first ate Thai food in the mid-1980s at the Thai 55^th Restaurant in Hyde Park, Chicago when I was a student at the University of Chicago.  I always ate sweet-tasting Panang Curry with jasmine rice there.

When I saw the My Thai Restaurant in Marina (California), sweet memories prompted me to query the editors at The Monterey County Weekly (Circulation: 200,000) to do a review.  I described the food, especially an elusive ingredient called galangal and won the assignment.

Thai-Style Feasting is the official name of the article, but I liked the photo caption, too – Bite of Bangkok.  The article follows:

Thai-Style Feasting

“Thai food is totally individual, befitting a country which has never been conquered, yet it has similarities to both Indian and Chinese food,” notes Charmaine Solomon in The Thai Cookbook:  A Complete Guide to the World’s Most Exciting Cuisine.”

I decided to see how My Thai Restaurant fare in Marina held up to her standards after just a few months in existence.  On a recent visit for lunch, I ordered Panang Curry with shrimp over rice. 

There is a major difference between Indian and Thai curries.  Notably, the chile paste used to prepare Panang Curry is made with fresh ingredients like cilantro roots, lemon grass, galangal, and kaffir lime zest whereas Indian curries rely on dry spices for flavor.

I have perused many cookbooks at home to make Panang Curry, my favorite Thai dish.  I asked my waiter if My Thai uses peanuts as a thickener in its version.

“Absolutely not,” he responded.

“We thicken our curry by letting it simmer a long time.”

My Thai takes no shortcuts in the kitchen, but does not keep customers waiting long for their food.

My Panang Curry arrived piping hot within minutes, tickling my nose with a sweet aroma of shrimp paste and coconut cream.  The orange-pink color of the curry matched that of the plump shrimp and contrasted with the flavor of the green beans and peppers, sweet red peppers, and carrots.

The sweet and savory curry no doubt got its salty flavor from Thailand’s namm pla fish sauce.  I ate each curry-coated vegetable leaf of Asian basil and shrimp with bites of flavorful jasmine rice.

The carrots and green beans were crisper than what I expected, but that did not keep me from eating them; I did not want to waste any curry.

The Panang Curry came as part of a lunch with a cup of hot and sour soup, which had fried tofu, mushrooms, and slices of galangal in it.  The Thais use galangal like the Chinese use ginger, which galangal resembles in appearance.

End of Part 1.

To be continued…

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Making a Nature Walk Journal with Children by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Making a Nature Walk Journal with Children by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Many local parks have nature walks set up for families to do outings on a regular basis in all seasons.

Using a local resource like a nature trail allows parents to help young children keep observation journals and introduce them to the recordkeeping necessary for science fair projects.

The first project children could do with a journal concerns the walk itself.  Before going on a walk, parents and children could consult a Peterson’s Field Guide about wildflowers, animal life such as birds, and rock bed formations in an area for a walk.

Using my local community in Marina (California) as an example, we have two parks for doing nature walks that can provide lots of data for journals:

-Locke Paddon Wetlands Park by the library

-Marina Dunes State Park

In each of these parks, a parent could help a child note data in a spiral notebook to make each visit unique:

“Ecosystem Observations”

Where:

Date:

Day of the Week:

Time:

Temperature:

Latitude:

Longitude:

Tide Level:

Flora (Plant Life):

Fauna (Animal Life):

Rock Bed:

(Igneous, Metamorphic, or Sedimentary)

Cloud Types:

(Stratus, Cumulus, Thuderheads)

Water Cycle in evidence in area:

Food Webs in Area:

After making a good journal observation list, the reward could be going to Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Pacific Grove Natural History Museum.

Souvenir Ideas:

Compass

Books:

The Complete Book of Science Fair Projects:  The Classic Science Fair Resource by Julianne Blair Bochinski

Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling by John Muir Laws

(Books like those two above can be found in public libraries as well.)

Spiral Notebooks

Postcards of wildlife – Sets

Tracing Paper for postcard pictures

Colored pencils

Crayons

Books about how to make scavenger hunts for birthday parties and outings with tea parties afterwards

Happy Trails!!!!

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France


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Sports Rallyes with Chicago-Style Greek Buffet and Suggested Conversation Topics by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Sports Rallyes with Chicago-style Greek Buffet and Suggested Conversation Topics by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Background:

I began doing tennis championship rallyes in high school featuring fresh-squeezed orange juice for the US Open, strawberries and cream for Wimbledon, and crêpes for the French Open.

Chicago Sports Bar

Tennis championship rallyes morphed into football rallyes after I graduated from the University of Chicago and worked on the first Super Bowl broadcast in the People’s Republic of China.

I think I sold my first sponsorship, because my telephone pitch was, “This would be great PR for the Cubs and trade for the City of Chicago.”

Après-guffaws, I sold a big sponsorship. 

Long-story short – I became a big football promoter.  On the weekends, I went to Bennigan’s Sports Bar and read the Thursday and Friday editions of The Wall Street Journal that I bought at Brentanno’s Chicago store.  I read “The Journal” while I watched the game and gave the paper to the wait staff and cooks when I left.

Monday Night Football Rallyes

On Monday nights, I hosted a “football rallye” for the people who worked with me on the First Super Bowl in China and their spouses or partners.

I worked as an “admin,” so I could get off at 5 pm and deal with deli items for dinner.  I walked to the Treasure Island Supermarket and took a taxi home to Marina City.

I kept receipts that my guests and I (about 8) divvied up.  My guests paid my cab fare for shopping and bringing the deli items up to my apartment.  If they wanted beer, they went to the grocery store in the lobby of Marina Towers where I lived.

While I organized food, my guests and I would talk about:

-current art exhibits

-good magazine or newspaper articles

-movies

-books we were reading

I asked everyone why they thought the book, article, movie, or art exhibit they spent time on was important.

The Buffet was laid out nicely on tables and counters in my pie-shaped apartment.  The living room was devoted to comfy seating for the game.

I did football night in the era of Greek catering.  We ate what we wanted and divvied up items to be taken home.  My friends shared cabs late at night

The Mostly Greek Buffet

-Taramosalata – Greek caviar spread – orange-colored

-Greek Village Salad – a no-lettuce salad made with tomato wedges, feta cheese, Kalamata olives, and mild green peppers

-Tomato – Onion – Oregano Salad

-2 Dressings on the side:

-oil and red vinegar with oregano (rigani)

-tzatziki –cucumber-yogurt sauce

-2 or 3 garlic bread loaves to bake

-2 ready-made Greek bread loaves

-Roast lemon-garlic chicken with dark and white meat separated on a plate

-cheese cubes sprinkled with paprika

-apple slices

-tangerine sections

-pineapple chunks

-banana slices

-vanilla bean yogurt for the fruit

-baked Parmesan cheese sticks

-baked spinach-feta phyllo pastry triangles

-vegetable terrine slices

-smoked salmon open-faced Danish sandwiches

-coffee made from beans by me

Everyone tried a little of everything and leftovers were sorted out for another meal or two.

There are lots of seasons and championships to do a sports rallye night for.

Planning one is great training for ordering catering.

Later in life, I loved learning how to make these items, including spinach-feta phyllo triangle pies.

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Note: Locally all 3 Demetra locations, Paprika, and Yaffa might be able to provide this meal.

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It's About the Cheese - Part 2 - Lugano Swiss Bistro Reviewed by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

  

It’s About the Cheese – Part 2 – Lugano Swiss Bistro Reviewed by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Raclette’s history evokes Switzerland’s pastoral heritage.  As snow melts in the spring, cow herder’s can take cattle higher up on the mountain slopes until they reach the lushest pastures at the foot of the glaciers.

The herders stay on these high pastures all summer and make rich cheese.  Villagers go up to the pastures where they heat half wheels of the new cheese over branch fires.

The villagers scrape melted cheese over steamed new potatoes, making raclette.

Lugano’s raclette lived up to my foodie musings.  Generous amounts of Swiss cheese covered the potatoes I ordered.  Sour-sweet cornichon pickles added crunchiness and a sour taste to the rich cheese dish I had before me.

My friend took advantage of the weekly savings to order roast rack of lamb with a demi-glaze and seasonal vegetables.  The tender lamb was juicy with a slight crust.  It takes decades of roasting to achieve that finish at home and make it look simple.

My friend’s dish came with Swiss Roesti potatoes as a side dish.  Roesti roughly translates as “potato pancake.”  The Swiss eat them for breakfast along with milky coffee.

To make roesti potatoes, the cook boils waxy potatoes, peels them, and, then, rubs them through a ricer.  Finally, the potatoes are fried in lard with a little bacon until they form a sturdier version of hash browns.

Lugano offers several interesting beers.  We drank Späten Oktoberfest and a Czech lager.  The Oktoberfest is a smooth beer while the Czech beer had more bite to it.

We ate chocolate fondue for dessert.  We dunked musk melon balls, banana slices, and strawberry halves in the chocolate.

I felt like a kid and still do when I eat fondue.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France


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