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Stone's Throw Away

~ Adventures of a Mom, Teacher and Traveler

Stone's Throw Away

Category Archives: Cuisine

Info on foreign cuisine. The good, the bad, the dried and smelly.

Part 2: Adventures With Food

30 Sunday Apr 2017

Posted by Vicki Hamlin in Cuisine, Tokyo and Aomori

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If I hadn’t kept a journal on this trip, I’d have little to say, since I wouldn’t remember anything. I was consumed with counting the gang, checking in with them, ensuring their passports were still in my possession, counting them again, going over and over the itinerary for the city part of our trip, convincing my internal clock to wake me at the right hour. Counting them again. I think, in truth, I was afraid to sleep. What if? What if? What if?

So when they knocked on my door that first night in Shinjuku (a section of Tokyo, like Brooklyn in NYC), hungry, as I’ve explained, I was glad to see them. If I could see them, I could make sure they were safe. Did I want to leave this hotel at this particular moment? No I did not. Did I want them to be alone, or to be alone, even less?

Off to the convenience store we went.

A first trip to an Asian convenience store is both fun and overwhelming. You want and need food. But you just aren’t sure what it is you’re buying. And even if you recognize, say, oreo cookies, something tells you they won’t be the same. It’s the design of the package: too light, too strange. Which is correct, says experience. Buy you it anyway. Unless it’s dried squid in a vacuumed package, indeed, I say, have at it.

Oh! By the way, Zima still exists in Japan! My host told me to take a picture because no one back home would believe me. And then we joked that it’s not fresh Zima, it’s just been on the shelves for, like, 10 years, which is untrue. They still make it in Japan! Anyway. I digress. 

I don’t know what all the students bought that night/morning in our bodies. Crackers, cookies, power bars, fresh fresh fruit, some juice. I’m not sure. Enough to quell their hunger. Enough to get them through the night/day in their bodies. Enough to start their journeys about being brave eaters, which they were going to need later, when at home stays, when dinner was offered and the only thing familiar was rice. Their love affairs with snacks had begun.

Look familiar-ish? Maybe some tic tacs? Some starbursts? A sandwich cookie? Gobstoppers? Would it surprise you to hear that none of these are remotely like any of those?

The adventure of food. It’s a huge part of travel. Snacks sustained our crew that first night. But then came morning.

We had a bus to catch for a day-long city tour, and we were going to miss the breakfast included for the price of our rooms (apparently for 4 out of 6 rooms, that is,) so we had to find something to eat. We saw a few restaurants with traditional breakfasts (and luckily, most restaurants have vivid pictures of what they sell outside) but the kids weren’t yet feeling bold about eating.

In their defense, this next pic is of a traditional Japanese breakfast, which may not be for everyone, and which was served to me by my host grandmother. I personally love this food, this light style of eating, all of it. The kids, however, found a McDonald’s not two blocks away, and they ate hash browns. From McDonald’s. In Tokyo. And were happy.

From left around to big plate: pork and scallions, greens, apple pie, boiled apricot pasta salad, a washcloth, and on the plate an egg, a tomato, and two types of fish.

Bellies full, we figured out the short trip to meet our bus (at the Hyatt, the very one at which we’d been dropped the night before.) We took the subway this time (no hour-long walk) just two stops, as one can think a lot clearer when one has had sleep, and can decipher just how to choose a subway line and figure out how to purchase tickets. For about $10 and in about 3 minutes we were there to meet our guide.

Into the heart of the city we went.

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Tastes of Traditional Thai

21 Saturday Apr 2012

Posted by Vicki Hamlin in Bangkok, Thailand, Chiang Mai, Thailand, Cuisine, Out in the Big World/Travel, Thai Food

≈ 6 Comments

One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must

regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating.  ~Luciano Pavarotti

****________________________________________________________________________****

Well said, Mr. Pavarotti.  And yes, yes it is.

I didn’t have to go to Thailand to fall in love with Thai food.  It’s always been a favorite.  Thank Buddha, in Thailand it was better than I’d even dreamed!  Multiple flavors in every bite,  all fresh ingredients, brightly colored concoctions – with proteins and grains taking a serious backseat to nuts and exotic fruits and vegetables.   My kind of eating.  Guy’s favorite Thai foods include curry, while mine include coconut or coconut milk, or both.  While visiting Thailand, we never ate the same thing twice and often shared dishes.  We ate a lot. And often.  And did I mention a lot?

I find it funny that some doctor, at a clinic my mother went to before traveling to Asia, told her to avoid the street food in Thailand.  She may have meant to avoid street food as a general rule, with which I can’t sweepingly disagree.  But using your common sense, and eschewing filth and obvious signs of mold or rot, street food in Thailand is some of the absolute best cuisine. (And for the record, I never saw mold or rot anywhere.  Urine soaked trash, yes.  Mold?  Rot?  No.)

If you avoid the street food you'll miss out on the fried bananas. And that would be tragic.

Fresh coconut milk on a hot day? Yes, please.

Fried sidewalk chicken. I say go for it!

This particular fish, however? I opted out. The flies chased me away. Common sense, I tell you.

DIVINE fruits: sapodila, rambutan, mangosteen, papaya or mango, and dragonfruit.

Bugs are always a safe bet, too. Sometimes chalky, but safe!

Larvae is also safe. So I hear. The vendor wouldn't let us try these. And we didn't want a 1/2 pound bag full. So.

I’m a huge supporter of going right ahead and eating Thai street food.  I’m jinxing myself, but I’ve never so much as had a wave of nausea eating or drinking in a foreign country.  Yes, I know it happens.  No, I don’t want to hear the horror stories.

Then again, the restaurants are equally incredible.  I have never been happier to eat out every single day, for breakfast.  Second breakfast.  Lunch.  Dinner.   And snacks.  And desserts.  And coffee.  Miraculously, I didn’t gain an ounce.  Thai food is among the healthiest in the world (the fried bananas notwithstanding), and we took advantage of our time to swim at the hotels and walk a lot around the cities, too.  If I had stayed another month, maybe I’d have gained weight and be looking more like the famous tenor quoted above.  I promise you, I’d still be singing the praises of Thailand’s cuisine.

Little bites of lots of things = perfection.

I don't even know what this is. Except De.lic.ious.

Pad Thai. In THAILAND. Does it get any better?

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Beer and Kimchi

15 Thursday Mar 2012

Posted by Vicki Hamlin in Cuisine

≈ 1 Comment

Guy and I once visited a lovely brewery in Sonoma Valley, California.  Acres of wheat, hops and barley swayed slightly in fields nearby.   We soon made our way inside a rustic building for a tour of those golden, shiny, cylindrical kegs of liquid deliciousness.  I was happy then.

But the earth shifted slightly when, on an otherwise gloriously sunny day, I was made privy to exactly how beer is made. This putrid abomination of a process changed me.  I had suddenly seen and smelled too much and some things are best kept secret.  I might have done well to remember that.

Actually.  I did remember it.  For about a day and a half.  Then I reckoned that beer makes the world a better place, regardless of how repugnant the process by which it goes from hops to pint glass.  But that’s a different blog altogether.  I’ll start working on it straight away.

Well, so.  Making kimchi is likewise gross.  There’s all kinds of things you have to do that involve words I hate – like smear and moisten and squish and ferment.  It’s obscene.  But so is beer.  And I haven’t stopped drinking that, now have I?

Check it out.  Photos are taken from the day Guy and his 6th graders made 4 different batches of my favorite Korean food, with it’s whole shrimp smooshed up in there, eyeballs and all.

Unpresuming, isn't it?

                                     

                  

                          

It looks like surgery, I know.  But it really is delicious.

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