Several girls mix individual bowls of noodle soup at the Sam Neua morning market in Laos.

Greetings from the American Southwest. Jerry and I are home to a house that looks much the same. The herb garden grows again, the pomegranates bloom. And we fight the remnants of jet lag while leaping back into stateside life. I’ve had sporadic postings here lately, but that will change next week. Stay tuned for new reports and lots of stories from the weeks and months behind us. Meanwhile, you can also follow the Rambling Spoon Facebook page, where I often write between blog posts with links to food news and interesting tidbits.

Though the body has made it to New Mexico, the brain remains in Laos. Amid five months’ worth of dusting, vacuuming and laundering, I’m spending my hours typing and organizing hordes of notes. I’m remembering a steamy Sunday morning, just a few weeks ago (I cannot believe it was this month… feels like ages ago), when Jerry and I strolled through the Sam Neua morning market, which sprawls along the riverbank. We sat on a long wooden bench at a wide table covered in trays of herbs. A friendly woman stood beside her bubbling pots, ready to dole out servings of buffalo foe (or fer). Hers was one of the best bowls of noodle soup I’d had in weeks—rich meaty broth infused with galangal and thin tender strips of buffalo meat, very lightly cooked over parboiled wild water grasses; topped with a variety of fresh wild mints and additional raw wild water grasses, lime and the usual chile. This is what I love about Lao foe: most every bowl in every little village or town tastes different. It is one cook’s creation and none other.

As we ate, we watched seven little girls marching toward us. They aimed straight for our table, crowding around us, sitting patiently for their own bowls. They were, you might say, granddaughters of the revolution.

When their soups arrived, I watched as each little girl painstakingly constructed what was obviously her personal ideal—just enough chile, herbs, salt, fish sauce, shrimp paste and locally made Lao tomato-chile ketchup to make a uniquely individual breakfast. Each girl also brought a personal baggie of sticky rice to be dipped into the soup.

Slurp, slurp, smack, smack—they ate to contentment. But the girls’ bright red bowls contained so much chile, their little lips burned at the edges. They didn’t seem to mind. The vendor offered each of us a cup of drinking water served in a recycled glass shrimp-paste container, with label still intact. They were, I realized, the exact size and dimension of Vietnamese coffee cups.

Now that I’m back in the States, I’m struck by the freedom those little girls enjoyed. Seven kids, roughly between the ages of 9 and 12, out on their own for a Sunday morning breakfast and shopping spree. All across Sam Neua—all across Laos, really—we encountered little kids, some as young as 4 or 5, wandering and playing away from parental eyes. Kids walk to school alone. Kids hike through the forest alone. I’m not saying this always works. But coming from the perspective of a fear-riddled country in which parents drive their kids to the bus stop two blocks away—this sort of Lao-style freedom is refreshing. There is little cause for worry. Laos is not a place of rampant kidnappings. But it is a country in which parents help parents and neighbors help neighbors. In Laos, the village rears a child. If a mother isn’t watching her kid, chances are every other mother on the block is.

Anyway, it was a great bowl of soup. And even more pleasant to see young girls enjoying the food on their own terms.

A while back, I posted my account of eating for nine days in the northern Lao village of Sophoon. That was an example of what comes to the dinner table when the hosts know they have guests to feed. A few days ago, we trekked to the Hmong village of Ban Pakeo, several hours on foot from another Hmong village outside of Phonsavanh. We went there for a variety of reasons (old jars, for one), and you’ll have the opportunity to read much more about this in the future. But first, let’s consider dinner.

Ban Pakeo has no electricity (though that might change if villagers agree on allowing solar panels into their community). When we visited five years ago, villagers had to walk up and down steep hills to retrieve small buckets of water (that’s changed, thanks to a couple of water taps installed by Engineers Without Borders and a man named Don May at Fort Lewis College). Ban Pakeo has a cell phone, but it takes an afternoon hike to charge the phone in the nearest roadside village. Bottom line: no one knew we were coming for dinner. We had no way of notifying them. When we arrived around 5 p.m., all but a handful of kids and a few adults were still working in the fields. This is so all across Laos–the rains have started and it’s planting time.

So the villagers offered a live chicken, and our guide found a few young women to cook (presumably they killed and prepared the chicken–we never saw it again until it appeared as pictured above).  They had no vegetables, but they did have steamed rice (the Hmong traditionally eat mountain rice grown in slash-and-burn fields; and some of the families here also grow wetland sticky rice). When dinner arrived on the table, around 8 p.m., it was soup, rice, and two leftover jaeows we had bought before the trek began. We finished it off with fresh mango, also purchased in town before we started hiking.

The broth was delicious–very salty (much needed after hours of sweating) and infused with a forest herb that tasted to me like the fragrant essence of Christmas trees–piney, green, minty. We were told this was a local herb eaten to restore strength and cure illness.

But where did half the chicken go? We got the head, the feet, the neck, some of the innards. But the breast? The meat? Nowhere to be seen.

Breakfast the next morning was sticky rice, more leftover jaeow, and more leftover soup. This, we know, is what most villagers eat on a daily basis–or some variation thereof. They eat what they have, they have very little, but they survive on what the land around them offers. 

Khmer sour fish soup, Boeng Keng Kang Restaurant, Phnom Penh

In Cambodia, sour fish soup with water grass is everyday food. It’s basic, it’s cheap, it’s easy to make and everyone eats it. A day without samlor machou trou kuon trey is almost like a day without rice–almost. But not quite. Our story on this simple tamarind-rich dish is now out in The Wall Street Journal.

This is but one of many sour soups found across Cambodia. When we return to New Mexico this summer, I have every intention of experimenting with a whole stash of recipes from this trip. So stay tuned. I can taste a batch of samlor machou kreung in the future — and I’ll tell you all about that lovely green tint extracted from lemongrass leaves.

Meanwhile, imagine a bowl of this (restaurant details in the story):

Khmer sour fish soup, Khmer Kitchen, Phnom Penh

Khmer sour fish soup, Sa Em, Phnom Penh

Breakfast, Day 5

Last month, we spent nine days in the field with Jim Harris’s team in rural Phongsali province. We camped at the local dispensary and showered with cold river water, which was piped uphill to the village. The team hired two young women to cook, clean and launder. Our meals were served communally, outside, on an old red table. There weren’t enough benches and chairs, so we stood around baskets of sticky rice and the plat du jour. Each person paid 30,000 kip ($3.50) for three daily meals.

In those nine days, I kept a diary of what we ate. With a few small exceptions (late meals, off trekking), I managed to record almost every meal. I present that diary here because I find it a fascinating telltale of village life, its limitations, its repetitions and routines. Villagers bestowed the team with little gifts of homegrown garlic and backyard tamarind. But after the novelty faded (Sophoon is unaccustomed to foreign guests), I don’t think our cooks quite knew what to do with us. I would have loved more of the roots and vegetables that villagers collect in the forest, as well as the greens they grow in their garden. I offered to pay extra for fresh lettuce, spinach, herbs and other greens–but the residents of Sophoon almost never sell their vegetables, so the concept somewhat confused them. When something new appeared on the table, it likely had come strapped to the back of a dusty moto, driven by itinerant peddlers who make the daily trek from Dien Bien Phu, not far across the border. These sorts of travels make me a more appreciative person. The surprise of a fresh mango or mustard leaves tickled my palate with delight.

I’m a lover of simple, spicy farm food; homegrown and homemade. But it didn’t take long for my tongue to tire. By Day 3, I was sick of fish (and egg, which neither Jerry nor I eat). Of course, repetition is a matter of life in Sophoon. Villagers eat what’s in season, what falls off the tree, what pops through the soil in the forest, or what comes through on the occasional truck to Vietnam.

On the other hand, Sophoon is an organic locavore heaven. When a cook walked into the kitchen hut with a chicken, we ate it for dinner that night. And Michael Pollan would approve: nothing on this menu contained more than five ingredients. With a couple of canned exceptions, absolutely everything originated in the hills between Sophoon and Dien Bien Phu.

Dinner ’round the red table

So goes our week of village sustenance (with comments in parentheses):

DAY 1
Dinner
-Sticky rice
-Red jaeow (or jeow—spicy paste made with toasted chiles. More on this to come.)
-Minced fish with chile
-Plain boiled cabbage
-Green & yellow beans with tomato, onion, chile, garlic

DAY 2
Breakfast
-Sticky rice
-Red jaeow
-Fried egg with green onion, garlic, tomato, chile
-Boiled cabbage with garlic and chile

Lunch
-Sticky rice
-Red Jaeow
-Boiled cabbage
-Fried small fish

Dinner
-Sticky rice
-Red jaeow
-Fragrant fish soup with lemongrass (which team leader Vilaisack plucked from a field after a bomb demolition)
-Fish laap

Team leader Vilaisack with lemongrass cut from a field near a bomb demolition

DAY 3
Breakfast
-Sticky rice
-Very garlicky red jaeow
-Boiled cabbage and tomato with garlic
-Small fried fish

Lunch
-Sticky rice
-Red jaeow, super garlicky and juicy
-Omelet with tomato, chile, onion
-Spicy slightly bitter fish (from Dien Bien Phu) stuffed with lemongrass in a soup of tomato, garlic and local sour fruit

Dinner
-Sticky rice
-Red jaeow
-Omelet
-Fish/tomato/lemongrass soup
(This is getting old and the team is griping. Only fish and egg, egg and fish. We lobby for more vegetables.)

DAY 4
Breakfast
-Sticky rice
-Red jaeow
-Omelet
(This is really old. And skimpy. We try to get the cooks to buy vegetables from the locals. It costs 3,000 kip, 35 cents, for a kilogram of any vegetables. We offer to pay extra if necessary.)

Lunch
-Sticky rice
-Red jaeow
-Pork with boiled garlic, tomato, chile
-Mustard greens soup with chile and black pepper
(Variety! A distinct improvement.)

Dinner
-Sticky rice
-Red jaeow
-Steamed cassava leaves (which the team collected after a demolition)
-Dried salty crispy beef
-Pork with tomato, yellow beans, chile, garlic

DAY 5
Breakfast
-Sticky rice
-Red jaeow
-Dried toasted buffalo skin strips (hard as rock)
-Yesterday’s leftover pork cooked with garlic, chile, spinach
-Minced pork fat cooked in tomato garlic broth for a Lao khao soy-style sauce
-Bowl of fresh raw lettuce leaves
(A pig was purchased before yesterday’s lunch, and we’re still eating it).

Lunch
-Sticky rice
-Fresh green roasted chile jaeow, super hot
-Pork fat with shredded tomato and cabbage
-Mustard green soup with hunks of pork fat

Dinner
(Jim succeeds in organizing “Mexico night.”)
-Raw cabbage leaves to use as tortillas
-Canned black refried beans cooked with fresh garlic
-“Salsa” of cooked tomatoes, onions, chile
(Jim uses the cabbage to wrap the ingredients like a taco. It works. The guys each try one and declare it sep, meaning delicious. Then they eat their sticky rice, pork fat with greens and green chile jaeow and deer meat of mysterious origins.)

Jim explains “Mexico Night” tacos to the team…

…which everyone enjoys before reverting to the usual sticky rice.

DAY 6
Breakfast
-Sticky rice
-Green jaeow
-Mild bok choy soup with chile and garlic
-Dark dried beef (we’re told beef, but it looks distinctly like the previous night’s deer) fried with bok choy, garlic, onion, a bit of tomato and pork fat

Lunch
-Sticky rice
-Red jaeow
-Dried beef pieces
-Beef, bok choy and garlic soup
-Fresh sweet mango

Dinner
-Sticky rice
-Red jaeow
-Fish soup (only fish and gingery broth, no vegetables)
-Watermelon (which I bought off a truck that stopped in the village and dumped its stash)

DAY 7
Breakfast
-Sticky rice
-Green jaeow with added tamarind
-Cilantro and green chile soup
-Steamed cassava leaves
-Canned sardines and tomato
-Omelet

Lunch
-Sticky rice
-Green jaeow
-Papaya salad with peanuts
-Mustard greens soup
-Green beans fried with chicken, chile, garlic

Dinner
-Sticky rice
-Red jaeow
-Green beans with chicken

DAY 8
Breakfast
-Sticky rice
-Red jaeow
-Boiled mustard greens soup, just a little chile and salt
-Plain boiled green beans
-Fried meaty bacon with little fat

Dinner
-Sticky rice
-Red jaeow
-Tamarind chicken soup
-Chopped “grenade” chicken with green beans
(In addition, I cook canned tuna, tomato, onion, garlic and chile.)

DAY 9
Breakfast
-Sticky rice
-Red juicy jaeow
-Fresh lettuce leaves
-Canned sardines in tomato sauce
-Sweet potato ginger soup
(This is good. Mild, young, fragrant ginger slightly sweetened from the potatoes. I think of making it at home: start with chicken stock, some small fresh garlic and garlic greens and/or chives, ginger, potato chunks, dried red chile, salt. If not using regular potatoes, add a pinch of palm sugar.)

Lunch
-Sticky rice
-Red jaeow
-Melon soup with green onion and grenade chicken
-Papaya salad
-Fried forest ferns with chile, garlic, fish (Borneo-style but these ferns have a leafier consistency… now why couldn’t we have had these sooner?

Dinner in Udomxai: spicy tam maak hung (Lao papaya salad) with padek, and Lao khao soi (noodle soup with pork-tomato-chile sauce and lots of fresh herbs)

It took four days to travel overland from Chiang Mai to Sophoon, in the northern Lao province of Phongsali, where we camped in the village dispensary with Jim Harris and his team. Eight days in the field, then another four (again) to reach the big city of Luang Prabang. A long haul, indeed. We’re tired, but thrilled to have made such progress in our research. (This just in: Jerry’s photos from this project received an Honorable Mention in the Santa Fe Center 2010 Project Competition. Jerry also has been selected to participate in this summer’s Review Santa Fe.)

In the 35 years since the end of war, Jim and the PCL team are the first to clear ordnance from Phongsali–bomblets in rice fields, mortars among cassava trees, even a 750-pounder that a villager found on the hillside where she plans to plant rice. In Sophoon, like elsewhere in Laos, village blacksmiths make their knives and hoes from bomb fragments found in the ground. Villagers said they’re often afraid to work in the fields or collect vegetables in the nearby forests. But what choice do they have? Until Jim arrived last year, with promises to return and destroy ordnance in a safe manner, Sophoon residents had no reason to believe they’d ever be free of bombs. They still aren’t. The job is far too large for one team to complete.

Don’t worry, I’ll have many stories to come. But I’m still dealing with painfully slow Internet connections amid continued travels.

For now, imagine the lovely Lao mother who served us a simple but delicious meal (above) in Udomxai. We recognized the flavors of Laos as soon as we crossed the border at Huay Xai. That night, we ate chicken laap infused with dill, thick sticky rice, a spicy jaew maak len (tomato chile sauce) and a deliciously herbal or lam stew with eggplant–everything distinctly Lao. Still, this country too often gets squeezed between its neighbors, its language and cuisine lost in their similarity to those of neighboring Thailand. Not surprisingly, some Laotians tire of visitors speaking to them in Thai or asking for foods using their Thai names. Laotians tend to be mild-mannered people, but sometimes, enough is enough:

Restaurant menu in Huay Xai, on the Lao side of the border with Thailand

We had a thoroughly New Mexican set of days last weekend. That perfectly pellucid sky. Those finger-nipping morning temps, which burn into bright sun-lit afternoons. Sandhill cranes chortling overhead. Enormous balloons. And posole.

Last weekend marked the tail end of the 2009 International Balloon Fiesta, and this year marked our first chance to witness the extravaganza (in years past, we’d been sweating in Asia by now). So we took full advantage of every opportunity, rising at 4:45 on Saturday to catch a (free!) Rail Runner ride to Los Ranchos, where a shuttle bus drove us straight to the Balloon Fiesta Park. No traffic. No parking hassles. Simply amazing.

And there, we watched the morning sun crest Sandia Peak, slowly turning the sky from black to pink to that lovely watermelon color for which those mountains presumably are named.

And then it happened. One by one they rose, painting the sky in every conceivable shape and color, casting shadows upon thousands of humans below. Have a look at Jerry’s photo gallery and you’ll get a feel for what happens during Balloon Fiesta time. My favorite (sorry, no photo: I spotted it while in line for the restroom) had an intricate batik-y sort of pattern that reminded me much of a Kelantan kite. That was my favorite. But Creamland certainly gets top honors for ingenuity, with its flying cow:

Something about the crisp fall air that morning made me think of posole. I called Rosi’s parents and made a date. That evening, I soaked a package of beautiful purple-red hominy, which I had picked up at our local fruteria. All Sunday morning, a hot pot of posole simmered on the stove. We took it to Rosi’s house that evening and enjoyed a warm-your-soul sort of stew. In truth, this dish became a mutt of a recipe. For starters, I had a pound of ground buffalo from this delicious farm and several strips of uncured apple-smoked bacon—not the usual meat combination for posole. But I figured it would work. I started with a recipe from Foods of the Southwest Indian Nations by Lois Ellen Frank. Then I added a dash of the Santa Fe School of Cooking Cookbook by Susan Curtis. Finally, I consulted Sabor! A Guide to Tropical Fruits and Vegetables and Central American Foods by Carolina Avila and Marilyn Root. We ended up with this:

Posole
(Inspired by many)

Ingredients:
2 cups dried Indian hominy
6 quarts water
1 lb ground buffalo
3 strips uncured apple-smoked bacon
1 yellow onion, chopped
1 head garlic, minced
7 dried red New Mexican chiles, seeded and stemmed, torn into small pieces
1 dried, smoked Naga chile*
2 T butter or ghee
1 T ground, dried marjoram
3 bay leaves
1 tsp azafran
several sprigs fresh oregano
dash of red wine
salt & cracked black pepper for taste
sour cream for garnish
diced tomatoes
fresh lime, cut into wedges

Method:
Cover the hominy with water and soak overnight in large pot. The next day, discard the water, rinse the hominy, return to pot and cover with fresh water. Bring to a boil on high heat, then simmer until kernels are puffy and tender (2-4 hours).

Add more water if necessary. Add buffalo, chiles, butter or ghee, onion, garlic, marjoram, bay leaves, salt and pepper. Fry the bacon until crispy; crumble into the stew, adding a bit of the drippings. Cook for another hour or more. Add half of the fresh oregano; cook a while longer. Stir, taste; add the red wine, azafran and remaining oregano. Cook a few minutes longer. Serve with warm tortillas and garnish with sour cream, tomatoes and lime.

*I used a single dried, smoked Naga chile, the hottest in the world, for an added complexity of heat and flavor. These chiles came from a village in Nagaland in northeastern India. The chiles are extremely hard to find elsewhere. Substitute chipotles or your favorite hot chile with a smoky aroma.

I’ve lost count of the cookbooks I brought back from Asia this time. I’m fairly certain my weight in books surpassed everything else in my luggage. Among that traveling library was a copy of From Spiders to Water Lilies: Creative Cambodian Cooking with Friends. It’s a beautiful book, which finally presents Khmer cuisine in a sophisticated way. I love it. Published by the Friends NGO, the book won due recognition this summer with honors at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards.

When I spotted the recipe for num banh chok (or nom pan chok samloh prahal), I had to make it—and so I did, as Rosi Recipe #5. HUGE success. As with so many of my favorite Asian recipes, the abundance of herbs makes all the difference in this dish. Jerry said it was closer to the real thing than any other Asian recipe I have made in the States. The entire kitchen smelled of Cambodia as I cooked. And Rosi’s mom? “This is better than khao soi,” she said.

That’s saying something.

Here’s what you do (my comments in italics, in parentheses):

Green fish curry and coconut with rice noodles
From From Spiders to Water Lilies by Friends-International

Ingredients:
300 g fish fillets, poached (I used tilapia)
3 T lemongrass paste
2 T roasted chopped peanuts
500 ml fish stock
250 ml coconut milk
250 ml coconut cream
1 tsp prahok (I used shrimp paste)
2 T fish sauce
salt to taste
1 T palm sugar

Lemongrass Paste Ingredients:
200 g young lemongrass stalks, about 15 pieces, sliced
1 T peeled and chopped galangal
2 T peeled and chopped fresh turmeric (I buy this in bulk and freeze it until I need it—so much more aromatic and lively than dried)
4 kaffir lime leaves, thinly sliced (my Asian market had sad looking leaves that day so I used lime juice)
4 garlic cloves, halved
Peel of half a kaffir lime, chopped (I used lime zest)
1 T peeled and chopped Cambodian rhizome (I didn’t have)
(I also added a little ginger)

To serve with curry:
800 g thin rice noodles, cooked al dente
2 small cucumbers, cut into matchsticks (I sliced them)
1/2 banana flower, thinly sliced and soaked in cold water with lime juice (I didn’t have)
200 g bean sprouts (didn’t have)
2 m water lily root, thinly sliced (didn’t have)
red chiles and Thai basil for garnish
(I also used shaved cabbage, radish sprouts and mint. Really, any cool, raw vegetables and herbs will do.)

Method:
First, prepare the lemongrass paste. With mortar and pestle, pound lemongrass into a paste then add remaining ingredients and pound until well combined. This paste will keep refrigerated for one day only (I froze the leftovers).

Next, cook the fish. (I boiled the tilapia with a little salt and pepper, then used the water as fish stock). Use a mortar and pestle to pound fish with lemongrass paste and peanuts into a lumpy paste (this turned fluffy, with the most unusual texture, like pork floss). Set aside. Put stock, coconut milk, coconut cream and prahok into a pot and bring to a boil. Add the paste, fish sauce, salt and palm sugar, and simmer for 5 to 7 more minutes. Put a large handful of vegetables into each person’s bowl. Add noodles then ladle curry over the top. Garnish with chiles and basil.

This should be eaten squatting, using chopsticks and with as much slurping as possible (we ate at a picnic table, but the rest stands true).

Tuckered Rosi

Remember, around New Year’s, I mentioned an archaeological mission to see ancient log coffins in northern Thailand? Quite a trip, that was. The article is out in this month’s Archaeology. And while the story covers the history and scientific significance of this rocky terrain up near the Burmese border, it doesn’t say much of the fabulous Shan food we ate while on the job.

Take, for instance, a quick little roadside lunch in Tham Lod village, where we spotted a few hot pots of steaming pork and a rich, smoky tomato-y sauce to be spooned over rice noodles with fresh cilantro and crispy fried garlic. Perfect ender to a morning of exploring a nearby cave with a centuries-old chedi inside.

You’ll find numerous versions of this dish spanning the hills that stretch from Burma’s Shan State, through northern Thailand and into Laos. One cold winter morning in Shan State, we ate an exquisite bowl of thick, round rice noodles smothered in a toasty broth using a paste of tomato, fried garlic and chile. The locals called it khao soey “sweet soup,” distinguishing it from other noodles. “Tomato makes it different,” our guide, Sai, told us.

It reminded me of another crisp morning on the Mekong in Laos, where I had a similar zippy dish. I was so taken with those noodles, I asked for a recipe at the Tamarind café and cooking school. So simple! Make a soup stock by boiling pork bones. Meanwhile, mix chopped pork with fermented soybean, fish sauce, chile, garlic and tomato. Let sit 20-30 minutes until the flavors permeate the meat. Add to the soup, pour over rice noodles and serve with lime, lettuce, mint, green beans, watercress, cilantro and crispy rice cakes, if you desire. This is Lao kao soy.

The name is evocative of the kao soi (or khao soi) that in many ways makes Chiang Mai famous. But you won’t find sweet coconut milk curry in these noodle dishes. What you will find is a lot more heat. I imagine a Southeast Asian version of my mother’s spaghetti (ground beef, onion, green bell pepper, tomato sauce, tomato paste). I imagine her packing up that sauce and trucking it halfway around the world, then letting it stew long enough to absorb the local flavors.

Yum.

If you would like to make something like this, and you would prefer a more precise (and intricate) recipe than the one above, give David Thompson’s a try. It’s taken from his authoritative text, Thai Food:

Kanom jin nahm ngiaw
From Thai Food by David Thompson

Ingredients:
200 g (6 oz) pork ribs, cut into 2 cm (1 in) lengths and rinsed (often minced beef is used instead)
pinch of salt
2-3 cups stock
2 tablespoons oil or rendered pork fat
pinch of palm sugar
3-4 tablespoons light soy sauce (use wheat-free tamari for a gluten-free version)
2 cups coarsely chopped, deseeded tomatoes
2 blood cakes, cut into 2 cm (1 in) cubes, optional
150 g (5 oz) minced fatty pork
1 teaspoon deep-fried garlic
1 tablespoon chopped spring onion
1 tablespoon chopped cilantro
2 coils – about 100 g (3 oz) – fresh kanom jin rice noodles

Garlic and chile paste:
2 garlic cloves, peeled
pinch of salt
1 long red chile

Shallot paste:
6-10 dried bird’s eye chiles
pinch of salt
4 tablespoons chopped red shallot
3 tablespoons chopped garlic
1 tablespoons chopped red turmeric
1 teaspoon fermented soy beans (tua nao) or shrimp paste (gapi)

Method:
First, make the two pastes separately by gradually pounding the ingredients together using a pestle and mortar, adding one by one, until smooth.

Put pork ribs in a pot, add salt and enough stock to cover. Bring to a boil and simmer until tender (about 15-20 minutes), skimming as required. In a wok, heat oil or rendered pork fat and fry garlic and chile paste until golden. Add the shallot paste and fry until fragrant. Season with palm sugar and soy sauce, then add tomatoes. Simmer for several minutes and then add blood cakes, if using, and minced pork, stirring to prevent it clumping. Pour this over the pork ribs and simmer for 4-5 minutes. Check seasoning: it should be rich and salty, a little hot, sour and sweet. Sprinkle with garlic, spring onion and cilantro, and serve in a bowl alongside the noodles. Serve with bean sprouts, finely cut snake beans, shredded pickled mustard greens, deep-fried dried bird’s eye chiles and/or deep-fried pork skin

Eggs for sale, Ban Tham Lod lunch shop.

In honor of Bastille Day, as we Americans call the French national holiday, I figured I’d revisit Paris. For lunch.

Alas, I am not getting on a plane. I’m just journeying through my notebook from last fall, from a drizzly October day.

We come from the underground after touring Les Catacombes and emerge on a bleak Paris street beneath a sky that reminds me of Oregon winters. Chilled and soaked, we rush toward warmth and light and people.

Afternoon. Café Le Courlis, Cuisine Normandy. We duck inside to escape the wet and find a bathroom. We accomplish both and find, too, a Parisian affair. We score a tiny two-seater table beside a glass door, in a little nook with a prime view of the spectacle seated outside. Indeed, the French have an affair with lunch. White tennis shoes tap beneath tables as women blow smoke into the slowly emerging sun.

At 2:30, the place is still spilling with people: a woman with her golden retriever, squirming around her ankles. A stylish damsel flicking fingers across a laptop. Another young woman with, perhaps, her mother sitting in that so Parisian way—golden hair knotted behind her head, smooth face and perfectly plucked brows, black attire and boots to the knee, cigarette to the side. Everyone chatters.

It’s been days since I’ve eaten a proper amount of greens. I order salade Nicoise; Jerry the soupe à l’oignon gratinée (A friend who grew up in Paris later tells us this is a soup he has never understood because he knows no French people who eat it. Only tourists…. But that’s another story.). We enjoy our food and a couple of strong espressos. The tuna tastes fresh, the bright red tomatoes ring my plate in a burst of color. It’s a mound of fresh greens, anchovies, black olives and thin pepper slices.

Two gray-haired ladies in the corner rasp intently over slabs of beef, round house fries and a half carafe of red wine. Behind them, a smartly dressed woman meets a distinguished bearded man; she wields knife and fork with precision and hardly ever removes her eyes from his. I think of a French movie I watched somewhere—an airplane? a Vientiane hotel?—in which a middle-aged man and woman commence their weekly rendezvous with strong drinks and a Parisian lunch.

By 2:50 the dining room empties. The young bow-tied waiter takes a break. He and his colleagues have put their hip-slung bottle openers to good use this afternoon amid the rain, the crowd and a propensity for wine. By now, the drizzling has stopped and the luncheon affair has ended.

Serving mohinga in Pathein

Just a few days after we met the owners of Ancient House, we learned they would be leaving. Their small Siem Reap business couldn’t outlast the economic crisis, so they’ve decided to sell. If they get a decent price, perhaps they’ll go home. If not? Too many people are asking themselves that question now. We are of course saddened by this news, but they are far from alone. I expect to see a lot of closed doors in Siem Reap this year.

After my post on the Ancient House mohinga night, some of you asked for a recipe. Now, mohinga comes in many forms and every chef has his or her own secrets to the process. Some mohingas are distinct to region, even town or village. Some varieties contain banana stem (a really interesting part of the plant also found in some Thai and Cambodian curries and soups), some with black pepper rather than red. This is a subject I’ll write more about in the future. But the last night we visited Ancient House, the owners shared with me their version of the soup. Nothing written, no formal instructions, just a list of ingredients and a gentle nudge as to how they should be prepared. You need:

catfish
lemongrass
onion
garlic
ginger
dried rice powder
fish sauce
salt
black pepper
red chile
egg

It’s simple, I’m told. Boil the fish and remove the bones. Pound the lemongrass, onion and garlic (she didn’t mention turmeric, but I suspect it might belong on the list). Mix everything together, add water, cook and serve over rice noodles. Top with fritters, fresh lime, chile, cilantro. Now, I realize this isn’t very specific and many people prefer detailed directions and measurements. So I give you a link to another mohinga recipe on the informative hsa*ba site. While you’re there, browse a bit. It’s a good little corner of the food blogosphere.

Eating mohinga in Yangon