Comfort Food

Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate this wonderful American holiday!

Here in Thialand the grocery stores are only too happy to help make the traditional dishes, like pumpkin pie, by providing the ingredients. Naturally the pie filling only costs $15... 

Plan B.

Pookie, a friend and I made pie from scratch, boiling halved pumpkins and pulling together all the delicious ingredients.

Mmmmmmm

Turkey and cranberry sauce were out of the picture since both are quite expensive but the table was never-the-less full of tasty dishes such as green bean casserole, mashed potatoes...

Yummy!

Now, this was last week that we celebrated with the Williams family.

Today, the official Thanksgiving Day, we made reservations for four at Duke's, a lovely American food restaurant that claimed to be serving a full traditional Thanksgiving meal... turkey included.

No prep, no dishes, plenty of leftovers... can't beat that!

So, after a full day at the office we headed out and enjoyed a lovely Thanksgiving evening.

I chose ham over turkey, it sure was good!

Dessert was a huge piece of tasty apple pie that I ended up taking half home in a box.

HappyThanksgiving! 

Inspirational Bird Droppings

Today I rediscovered the fun of taking random photographs.

Like stopping at the side of the road to take a picture of bird droppings...

Or the headless horse...

And the really cool table in my front yard.

Sometimes you just got to get out there and take some photos!

A Simple Cheer

I was given a lovely iPod Touch by my coworkers before I left for Thailand as a parting gift. It has been the greatest tool I've ever held in the palm of my hand.

From communicating with my family using wifi and free apps to making friends with little kids I can't speak with due to the language barrier.

The latter has been quite entertaining and it always cheers me to see the grin on their little faces when they touch the screen to color a page.

I have built up a collection of coloring pages...

Homesick On Veteran's Day

I miss the Stars and Stripes as I sit here in Thailand.

 I miss celebrating this wonderful day with my family, especially my father who served in the US Navy.

And I miss walking around my hometown in America where uniforms are an everyday comforting sight.

I am glad that America is proud of and upholds the honor of those who serve and have served.

God bless each veteran and those who support them.

Pancakes for Supper

There's nothing like bacon, eggs and a plate of pancakes.

It all started when my friend mentioned the magic word "pancakes."

I know how to make those! My mind began spinning with how to make the fluffy kind... how was I going to find all the ingredients in the store? I can't read Thai.

But I had a recipe!

Compliments of my father and Pillsbury.

But with quite a bit of determination I walked out my front door, hopped on my bike, crossed four lanes of highway traffic and finally arrived at my challenge.

The grocery store.

I figured I could walk through every single isle and pick up the things on my list as I went.

Well...

Searching the isles only turned up a bag of raw sugar off my list of eight or so things to purchase. At least I could read that part of the bag.

My determination got me around the store a couple times before people started singing "she'll be com'n 'round the isle..." You get the idea. Besides, it's not like the store associates were wearing blue vests saying "How can I help you?"

And this nut seemed to be mocking me.

Nutella ad

So, a few days later, and with a lot of help from Krinny, the ingredients were gathered. I took off for my house during a lunch break to mix my happy little concoction together in preparation for supper.

I donned an apron and got busy.

The flour, sugar, oil, baking powder... everything was lined up on the counter, but something was missing and it wasn't the mixing bowls.

I couldn't find the measuring cups!

"Well," I thought "they didn't call them Cup Measures and Tablespoons for no reason."

So I used a cup,

and a spoon.

Mixing a bit of this and a bit of that into the two bowls I felt like my storybook cooking hero, Miss Amelia Badelia.

Finally combined, I loaded what I hoped would become something tastefully edible, into my bike basket and headed back to the office.

Supper time couldn't come soon enough! When the time came, my friend (Pookie) and I cooked bacon (gotta get the house smelling good) and then started pouring batter and frying eggs.

Photo credit: Khemjira Peekaew

Perhaps it is a good thing that we were too busy devouring the fruit of our labor or else you would now have to deal with a photograph of steaming pancakes smothered in butter and topped with maple syrup.

New Missionaries In Town

Photo credit: Khemjira Peekaew

The Nat and Anne Williams family has arrived in Chiang Mai along with Tianna Hammond to help them as they re-enter the Thai world. 

Both Nat and Anne have been in this part of the world before but the same cannot be said of their young jet-lagged son, Paul. 

Poor kid doesn't have a clue what is going on but I will spare you my inexperience and let you read Momma's blog about that struggle.

Moving in to a new home is tough, and for the Williams it has meant more than unlocking the front door and unpacking suitcases. Bro Nat changed the first light bulb... which we hoped, in a good way, would not be his last.

Ta da! Success!

To keep the new arrivals awake, and to fill some hungry tummies, we headed out to an Irish restaurant named Kelly's. Yup it's a favorite of mine.

Tiana is figuring out the new money here... and no that's not a hundred dollar bill, it's one hundred baht which equals about three US dollars. 

Makes us feel rich though! ;)

So after a lovely dinner where most of us had fish and chips...

... we all made a beeline for home.

Photo Post

I have decided to post selected photos from my iPod from the past few adventuresome days.

Here goes! 

First we have a cool food experience.

I gave up on a lot of things after seeing this message appear. :(

This confused me at the grocery store...

The clock in my room was too loud so I took it out, but I could still hear it through the closed door.

I was elated to find mint ice cream, not green tea ice cream that looks like mint, but alas it tasted more like cough syrup. Mint cough syrup.

Discovered this lovely little creature in my shower. Other than startling me, I have not been bothered by the creepy crawlys here in Thailand... yet.

I shall finish this batch of photos with my friend's dog, Mulan. She is very protective of her meatballs, but looks so adorable at the same time!

A Little On Fire

I'm glad I didn't get this stuff in my eyes!

7 hours later my hand is on fire! Why? Because I offered to help with the meal that Pookie was preparing for everyone to eat after the church service.

See that evil grin on her face? No?

Well, what she's about to cook is something spicy.

And since I asked to help (first mistake right there) she had me mash the hot peppers and garlic cloves.

See the look on my face? That's complete ignorance of the fact that what you may have already noticed on my left hand is going to burn like crazy.

That yummy dish (oh yes I ate some) is partially the fruit of my said labor.

Now to be fair, Pookie did tell me to wash my hands a lot... But I thought scrubbing my hands two separate times was good enough. I was very wrong.

A note of caution to those who have yet to experience this agonizing pain... don't wash your hands in warm water. Just don't.