Back in the USA

We’ve been back in the USA for over three weeks now. The plan to try living without a car? It lasted two days after arrival. We got caught in a nasty cold pouring rain the second day, with a bit of a walk from the bus stop to our destination, and then back, using a bus stop with no shelter. Jim was afraid I would get sick out in that cold rain, and he says he didn’t want his stubbornness about not having a car to be the cause of me getting ill. We got a car on day 3.

So we have a shiny new red 2009 Chevy Aveo, and we love it. Jim says it is nicer than our Honda Jazz/Fit we had in Thailand. It’s not a hatchback, but has a spacious 2-body trunk. We have a free year of OnStar, too, and 0% financing. Woot! Being out of the country for three years left Jim with a wholly clean license, so the car insurance was less expensive than I feared. And we got a discount by getting renter’s insurance from the same company. Jim is keeping that license clean by not speeding.

Our apartment is almost fully furnished, thanks to Ikea. All our furniture is from there, except Jim’s desk. If you are curious, just ask and can link you to what we bought.

Our bedroom is white and blue, a calm retreat. It has warm fluffy down alternative pillows and comforter. The living room is white and birch, with a red sofa. It really needs that splash of color. We are using the far end of the living room as a dining nook, and using the dining nook as my office. It’s really working well for me, to be open to the kitchen. My desk and bookcase are white, as is my chair. The dining room table and chairs are birch. No real decorating has been done yet. Plenty of time for that.

We are both happy to be back. Jim is following the Detroit Lions, seeing how long they can extend their record-setting losing streak. I am shopping at the local food coop and farmer’s market for fresh food. I still shop at Meijer’s, but I’m spending far less there than I would otherwise. I can’t wait for the kitchen appliances I ordered to arrive! Having only a toaster and coffeemaker is a bit limiting.

Fish on Friday

We’re not really practicing Catholics, but we do try to avoid eating meat on Friday, year round. During Lent, it’s an obligation. It was easy when we lived in metro Detroit. Metro Detroit is historically a predominantly Catholic area, with a Catholic church every 8 or 10 blocks in the suburbs. It seemed like every other one of them had a fish fry, too, every Friday of Lent! It was fun, it was cheap, and it was an easy way to avoid meat.

Let’s just say that the Catholic population here isn’t even close to the 50% mark it is in the Detroit area.

Apparently God works in mysterious ways, because we have discovered an even easier way to eat fish for dinner on Friday than going to a parish fish fry. We have placed a standing order at the clubhouse restaurant (I’ve mentioned it before) for fish and chips at 7PM every Friday. Delivered to our home. At a total cost of just under $8.

Lent begins in 18 days, and we are ready.

I Vote No

Can you call it “spaghetti” if:

• the pasta is the size of elbow macaroni, but the length of  spaghetti
• there is no tomato sauce, just diced tomatoes and sauteed onions
• there is no cheese
• chili sauce is an ingredient

Jim found this to be a perfectly acceptable form of “spaghetti.” I did not.

Don’t Eat the Food

In case this little tidbit doesn’t make it into the Western media:

Hong Kong (dpa) – Melamine has been found for the first time in eggs imported into Hong Kong from China, a media report said Sunday.

 

The move has prompted concerns that the industrial chemical, which can cause kidney stones and other renal problems particularly in children, has contaminated more of the city’s food supply than first thought, the South China Morning Post said.

Melamine had previously been restricted to dairy products.

 

The territory’s Centre for Food Safety said it would test samples of all eggs imported from China starting Monday after melamine was found in a box of eggs from Dalian in northern China.

 

Tests showed the eggs contained almost double the legal limit of the chemical, which is believed to have been in feed given to the chickens.

 

A centre spokesman said a 3-year-old child would need to eat 12 of the eggs to exceed the safe daily intake of melamine. An adult would need to eat 144 eggs.

 

I Can Haz Yogurt

My first attempt to make yogurt didn’t go well. I ended up with a quart of curdled, spoiled milk.

I tried for a second time yesterday. This time I used my rice cooker as the place to let it sit. I didn’t actually turn the rice cooker on, I just filled the cooking pot with water the right temperature for the yogurt culture and set the sealed jar with the milk in the center. I could only make a pint (half-liter) because the quart (liter) jars were too tall for the rice cooker. I replaced part of the water with warmer water after about 4 hours. I checked on the yogurt after 10 hours and it was perfect. It is neither as thick nor as creamy as commercial US yogurt, but that’s because I didn’t add any powdered milk in the milk. The melamine thing again; I know it’s in the commercial yogurt and I suspect it’s in the powdered milk as well.

I still want a yogurt maker. It will make more at one time, and I won’t have to check on the water temperature every few hours. But now I will be able to have yogurt in the weeks and months while I wait for Verasu in Bangkok to order one for me and ship it.

More Woes

My broken washing machine needs a part that has to be ordered, which takes 45 days. The owner of our favorite appliance/electronics shop is trying to get a part from Bangkok instead in only a week. He is talking about a “loaner” washing machine while mine is being repaired. No loaner as yet, though to prevent me from washing a load of white clothes in the bathtub tonight. A friend offered to let me use her washer, but I really would rather not. She’s very weird about her washer, to the point of keeping a dust cover over it when not in use.

I will not be able to get a yogurt maker until a week from Monday, 10 days or so away. There wasn’t one available in town, so a friend in Bangkok will buy one for me and deliver it via her husband who commutes regularly between Korat and Bangkok. Whatever shall I eat for breakfast until then?

and now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go wring out some clothes and get them into the dryer.

Making Yogurt

My plans for today include learning how to make yogurt. It seems that the company which makes my favorite yogurt, the one I eat almost daily with my muesli, has 20 tons of melamine-contaminated milk powder imported from China in their warehouse. I’m not averse to another food I make at home if it will be safer that way.

A number of other Chinese-made products have already been pulled from store shelves pending tests by the Thai FDA. They are actually pretty good, and work closely with the US and EU FDAs. Thais are very concerned with food safety and contamination -not that you could tell by the average Thai kitchen- and prefer organic products whenever possible. 

Anybody got a good yogurt recipe? I’ll be heading into town to get milk and a different brand of plain yogurt for my starter.

Salsa!

Today I made salsa. I used canned whole tomatoes because the fresh tomatoes here make the hothouse tomatoes in the US seem flavorful. I chopped up a small onion and three peppers that looked a lot like jalapeno peppers but probably weren’t. I used salt, pepper, garlic, MSG, and a bit of vinegar. I sauteed the onion, garlic and peppers in a bit of olive oil, then added it to the chunked up tomatoes. I added a bit of cornstarch to thicken the juice and simmered it a while. The initial taste tests were very promising, but we’ll know more later tonight when we try it with tortilla chips.

Life As I Know It

This may be the best CD by Sek Loso, but they are all good.

Jim’s computer is back from iBeat. It is working perfectly after the repair. We still don’t know what was wrong with it, as there is a bit of a language barrier. Their English is about as good as my Thai, which means advanced concepts, like what was wrong with Jim’s computer, can’t get communicated.

It seems that the local Immigration office will be closed or moved, leaving us with a trip to do our 90-day reporting. If they move to Surin it’s only about 100 kilometeres-a couple hours- away. Otherwise it’s a trip to Bangkok. There’s a petition going to keep the local office here which is supported by the local Immigration officers as they want to stay here as well. We have the nicest Immigration officers in Thailand.

Sek Loso has three albums available at the Apple Music Store! Two of them comprise a greatest hits collection (volumes I and II) from his Thai CD releases and are well worth buying if, unlike me, you don’t have all of his Thai CDs. The other I’ll be buying if I can’t find it locally.

Yesterday Jim was asking -not for the first time- for the Pillsbury Orange rolls we used to get in the USA. They were hard to find, and I think they have been completely discontinued by now. They were my traditional Christmas morning breakfast, so I need a replacement. I think I found one yesterday. It’s recipe that uses my bread machine to make the dough, and uses no trans-fats. Even better, all the ingredients are available locally. I’ll be making them today to test the recipe. Later I’ll test them using a cool-rise method to see if they can be made the night before and baked in the morning. 2 1/2 hours of waiting for rolls for breakfast is too long.

Changes

 

I’ve been in Thailand for 18 months now. A lot has changed, particularly things that affect me in my daily life. It’s almost entirely changes for the better.

On December 5th, His Majesty the King’s birthday, a Starbucks opened at The Mall here. While Starbucks is not the best coffee in the USA, it quite definitely is the best coffee here. It’s expensive, too; I paid over $3 for a grande Mocha Frappuccino. (That’s a medium for those who are not savvy to the wholly inscrutable naming of Starbucks beverage sizes) It will never replace the Thai vendor where I am able to get my iced coffee with no sugar for $1. Starbucks will remain an occasional treat, while the Thai vendor will remain a standard part of a trip to The Mall.

After a year of avoiding the Pizza Company, Jim and I tried it again the same day the Starbucks opened. Jim thought he discerned a difference in the picture of the double pepperoni pizza since our last visit. So we ordered an onion and pepperoni pizza. Were we ever in for a surprise! It had three things the pepperoni pizza there had previously lacked: real pepperoni, real pizza sauce, and real mozzarella cheese. We are trying to limit ourselves to one per week so we don’t get burned out on it. It’s not just “good for Thailand,” it’s just plain good.

This is the thin crust. The pan pizza is really good, too. Why is there no good medium crust, my preferred style? All the medium crust pizzas have weird stuffed edges. Photo stolen from the Pizza Company website.

Taking trips to Bangkok, something I really dislike doing, is becoming ever less necessary. I can buy Kraft barbeque sauce locally, with which I make my own special (and fast) BBQ ribs. Heinz cocktail sauce is available locally, too, so that Jim can fully enjoy his scampi fritti (battered fried shrimp). He brings it with him to the local restaurant/bar with the best shrimp. I found a chili seasoning mix that is an effective replacement for the chili beans I use to make chili. Once Jim even found Doritos at Freshmart, so there is hope they will return. Not that there isn’t a huge variety of chip-like snack food here without having Doritos!

I can’t get Bisquick locally, but if I get a food processor I may try making it. I have a recipe, but I don’t see myself being able to blend the shortening into the flour without a food processor. Plus I then need to keep it refrigerated so it won’t get rancid. Maybe in my new freezer? (Merry Christmas, Cathy, a stove and a freezer from your sweetie!)