Sea Scape by Scrubb

Fermented Pork Balls – Sai grop brio

It’s not what you think. Ok… what are you thinking? These make a great snack food and eating them is rather like doing tequila slammers but instead of lick, sip suck you eat the pork ball, some raw cabbage, a slice of raw ginger and bite the end off a Birdseye chili. A sort of assemble in your mouth kind of meal. But the flavours and textures taste great.

Sai grop brio is basically a pork sausage ball stuffed with rice where the rice is used as a catalyst to ferment the pork.

David Thompson’s Thai Food book has a recipe for doing this.

Wedge Resection anyone?

When is a pedicure a pedicure and when is it a medical procedure? When it comprises a minor wedge resection of course.

For those who don’t know, a wedge resection involves cutting down the sides of the big toenail downtown to the bed at the cuticle.

Now I’ve had one of these performed when I had in-grown toenails and even with three injections it hurt so much I finally had to go under full anesthetic. Nanarin on the other hand signaled discomfort only once. Five minutes later the blood was cleaned up and her nails painted shiny and new.

I know I’m not brave enough for that :-/

Pepsi in a bag

Ok I thought I had seen everything having been served my Pepsi in a tin cup but then this afternoon while waiting for Nanarin to get her nails done I discovered… Pepsi in a bag.

Now I’m not talking Pepsi in a bladder in a box ala chateau le cardboard back home. No, I literaly mean Pepsi in a small plastic shopping bag.

Forget about putting it down anywhere ie it’s a bag–remember. Thankfully, the one handed texting is starting to get better. Albeit accuracy is a little down having to use the side of my thumb.

Oh and the price? 10 baht or about $.33 AUD

P.S I took the photo, edited it, wrote and posted this using only one hand. I love my iPhone

The no name noodle bar in Ari

I felt like I’d died and gone to Tom Yum Heaven when I first visited this eatery with Nanarin back in February. It is, in one word–outstanding.

I imagine most foreign tourists would walk straight on by this joint with it’s sagging ceiling tiles, battered tin drinkware and faded plastic stools but it serves the best Tom Yum I have ever tasted and is nearly always packed with customers.

Served with fish balls, fish tofu and glass noodles the taste is just sublime. Nanarin carefully chooses a set of chopsticks for me with no split ends and the next 10 minutes are consumed with constant oohs and ahhs as i savour it’s spicy crisp and sour flavours.

The one toothed Chinese restauranter smiles as I take photos of the meal and his condiments with a look that implies that not even Mao himself could leverage the recipe from his lips so I would have fat chance too.

But the saving grace is that for the next 7 months I can taste a little bit of Tom Yum heaven every day.

Being in the moment

Ok so this is a post about the shot that got away. I guess in a way it also says something about being a photographer and being in the moment.

On the way to a seminar with my fiancée when the taxi driver chooses to stop on the railway tracks what a train approaches from about 200 metres away.

I don’t remember being in a panic but wondering if the train was stopped or moving. I then experienced the requisite mental images of post train impact and then it ocurred to me. Get a photo you fool. Unfortunately by the time I got the iPhone out and ready to take the shot we had moved off the tracks. “Damn!” I thought. Well more like damn spelt with an F actually.

I then realized that this was where film cameras have it all over digitals because assuming the film is wound on, you can take the shot immediately. In other words a point and shoot film camera is always ready–so to speak.

But then again so is a good photographer

Postscript: railway crossing on question sans train