Potato Salad

I read this story in an expat forum. It sums up nicely the eating out experience here, and why we usually eat at a westerner-owned place.

A gentleman saw on the menu “potato salad.” ‘Oh, boy,” he no doubt thought. “That sounds delicious. I haven’t had potato salad in so long! I think I’ll order that.” And so he did.

He was served a plate of lettuce, topped with a serving of french fries. Jim commented, “they didn’t even see a picture of that one.”

Home

To some people, home is an absolute thing. It may be the house in which they grew up, the town in which that house is located, or at least the general geographic area surrounding that town. It doesn’t matter if they travel, get relocated by their job, or even if they retire to sunnier climes. “Home” remains that place of origin, and there they return when they are able.

Other people define home differently. Home is wherever you happen to be living. The location can change or not, depending on the person and their life choices, but “home” is still not a fixed locale.

My husband was one of the first sorts of people. I am one of the second sort. It took a powerful inducement to get him to not only move away from his home, but to move to a non-industrialized country 12 time zones away. That inducement was retirement at 49, while being financially comfortable. It was his idea, but one I responded to with enthusiasm. So here we are, 24 hours by air from the place he once called home, and yet it feels more like home to him than the old place ever did.

I’ll Forget It by Then

Yesterday I made lasagne with an altered recipe, and in the process discovered how to season ground pork to transform it into yummy pork sausage. You can buy lots of ground pork here, it’s the Thai version of hamburger. You cannot buy bulk pork sausage, not even imported Jimmy Dean. Knowing how to do this is a handy thing, and I’d very much like to keep this tidbit of information. I want to enter it into my recipe database before I forget how to make it. 

Not much chance of that happening in the next few days. Ok, wait, I can record this manually. I can use a pen and paper! I have those. I can put it in my recipe database later, when I have a computer again. 

*Tries to write recipe down*

Have I ever mentioned anything about the pens here? Like about them not working? Not for over half an inch at a time, anyway? We’re switching to mechanical pencils. Pens aren’t worth the hassle. And I still don’t have the recipe written down.

Pork Sausage

1/2 kilo ground pork (about a pound)
1 tsp rosemary, crushed
1 1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp ground sage
1/2 tsp marjoram
1 tsp MSG (optional)
1 tsp salt
1. Mix well and leave overnight in the refrigerator to blend the flavors. 
2. Shape into patties and fry it up.

Another Week??

Another Week??

It’s been 2 weeks since my computer broke. The iBeat shop says it will be another week until I get it back. I’m about ready to go crazy. I can surf the web, I can play Packrat, I can play a lot of other games I own that are Windows only. I even updated my website with a new Sims outfit. 

But I have 130 emails in my inbox, waiting to be downloaded to Mail and then archived by Gmail. I don’t have my address book or calendar. Thai holidays have been sneaking up on us, causing some inconvenience. I have no tunes to listen to on this laptop.