Must-Have Thai Snacks :)

okay, i'm still addicted to the sparkling lime-ade (soda manao) ... but fried seaweed and strawberry-cream-covered pretzel/"buiscuit" sticks (with "strawberry flakes") have now made the list.

As a extra plus, they're readily available at any seven eleven, taking care of any salty or sweet craving, 24 hours a day... perfect study food - they join the box of cornflakes as the most ubiquitous food on TOP of my refrigerator...

for those curious about the "tempura seaweed" -  http://www.taokaenoi.co.th/

A Merry Drifter Thanksgiving

Cranberry sauce is my specialty (my mother's recipe, which has also gone through a few tweaks over the years!) - and green bean casserole. i make mean mashed pototoes, too, yummy yams - never stuffing or turkey, though! This year, i miss cooking with Chris in the kitchen - or, home with my aunt diane (this year, with cousin julie and kids - what fun!) or home with my mum in DC (her favorite holiday too!) - or with Chris' family in Mass. (i miss being Auntie V!) - i guess i just enjoyed getting swept up in the holiday swing, no matter where i landed!

So my first holiday on this side of the world - i miss it, and have been a little drifty, not knowing what to do with myself today (other than normal thursday things).

However, Thanksgiving did not go uncelebrated, as my Kiwi friend and her American fiance ("... he MAKES PIE!") stepped up with their roommate to toss up a truly delicious spread for about 15 other drifters. It was amazing that their little oven turned out that whole spread! Carina's at KMUTT with me, but Isaac goes to Chulalongkorn, which is right in the middle of bangkok. More of his classmates showed up, an assorted mix of world citizens including americans, swedes, brit, canadians, norwegians, lao, and thais...  an interesting bunch!  i thought it was genuinely cute seeing the lao and the thai taste stuffing and pumpkin pie for the first time :)

So, a hearty thanks to the hosts of a Drifter Thanksgiving! it takes a special kind of energy to do that -making a holiday for strangers - for which this year, i'm both lucky and grateful to have found. Now, time for a little (much anticipated!) holiday skyping...

just a saturday

another day wondering why i haven't done more. today. this week. this  month... i've had gym clothes on for hours, but instead been reading internet stories and painting my nails. okay, not a complete loss - i watched clips from Jeff Corwin's 100 Heartbeats documentary, reminding me of the inspiration behind my studies. Save nature from the unconscionable rivers of trash and CO2 that are literally choking our planet to death. But exactly where i fit in, and what exactly i'm going to do about it, continues to elude me.

Corwin, of course, focuses on the animal rescue and conservation side. I think there are plenty more qualified than me to care for the animals (cute as i think they are!) - but doing something to protect forests...carbon trading is exciting, in this regard, because for the first time, conservation can actually be treated as a commodity in a market-driven system. This does not negate the need for government involvement, just that it presents a new tool for financing conservation as well as mitigating its success. It may also be tied with some ecologically sustainable market opportunities for local citizens - both as stewards of the land as well as sustainable businesses (one example i love is the mushroom harvesting from protected reforestation land here in thailand). Ecolodges, bee farms, and orchid farms are other examples i've come across.

then there's the trash bit... gathering what's out there, and turning it into something useful. This aspect is partly inspired by the e-waste project i did in florida a year ago. Not to get into specifics, but the recycling alone could save millions in cold hard cash as well as environmental impact/emission by avoiding new extraction, processing, and transport, let alone the volume NOT added to landfills, etc. I look at the trash in the rivers (there is one riverway a block from me that gets clogged up constantly - Jeff Corwin is not kidding about the foul smell that comes off that stuff!) and beaches... and i wonder how hard it would be to gather all that stuff up and turn it into something useful? Waste-to-energy, seems to be a sound idea, but there are reasons it does not entirely take off... but what if it could be turned into something else? I wonder about that...

Then there's the new tech thing. There should be a way to get the new technologies up and running faster, particularly to countries that benefit from small, community-specific growth - it might be a "test site" but it would still change people's lives... and maybe that's where i'm at... but do we focus on solar, or wave converters? wind? we'll see, i guess...

where to love jazz in bkk...

Okay, i'm a little spoiled when it comes to my love for music. it's like having a fantastic lover, you come to "expect" things. Bottom line, i crave to hear creativity, layers, playfulness, inspiration, and emotion along with technical skill - any combination, really - but i still drive a hard bargain - ironically, one which i can only scratch the surface of achieving myself. (another story, though!)

Now, bangkok is a really fun place to go out. Fun clubs, good DJs that'll shake you up. A couple of places can rock out classics, and punk (even Thai-grown!). Jazz, though, gets tougher. Sure, lounges abound with the usual standards, played the usual way. Any actual brilliance would undoubtedly dissipate in those insufferably stuffy places - and that's if i last long enough in all that oppressiveness. Talk about killing jazz...!

 If you're looking for hip places where the music will really blow your mind - well, i'm still looking...however, i have recently had the luck of stumbling into Niu (silom 19). Okay, the faux bookcases have GOT to go - they're totally pretentious, which actually contradicts with the music they deliver - yes, they do standards, but they mix it up with offbeat and inventive stuff... this place offers up music worth getting lost into...

Notable drummer Ari Hoenig played last weekend. Incidentally, used to play with the Jazz Mandolin Project... yeah, that's what i was looking for. Tunes that made the very matter in the room rattle and shake! I know it's not new england, but i do hope i'll find a little more of this in bangkok over the next few months...

November Adventures... (I)

Mostly re-adjusting to my surroundings. For a week or so, i had my clothes literally all across the floor - then all my notes from last semester and papers (and yes, i got my grades, and passed everything)... managed to throw out a bagful - always nice when you whittle down the Load...hoping i didn't pitch anything that indispensible...I've got less classes, though i imagine the work will pile up - but at least there's a bit more flexibility...

i've promised myself that this semester, i WILL get more exercise. I played badminton yesterday with a few classmates at a school gym. It was so hot, didn't take much to work up a sweat! but i actually like the game very much, and it's nice to find something to do communally...

A "Larb" Lesson

Followed by food and  beer, of course. Lots of "larb" (pronounced "Lahp") dishes - one of my absolute favorite thai dishes - i could live off the stuff. usually made with ground or sliced chicken, pork, or beef - contains roasted rice powder along with fresh lime, shallots, basil, mint, and chili - served with sticky rice.

(Recipe, for those interested, this one seems about right: http://www.recipezaar.com/Larb-Gai-Spicy-Thai-Chicken-Salad-88611 )

Incidentally, though - i tried a new version of the dish - apparently, in the Issan province, it's actually made with raw beef and blood. If you're cringing about now, you're right. it's absolutely horrid! it's one thing to have thin, clean slices of raw beef (Japanese style) - but in chunks, soaked in a deep red "sauc"e - uh-uh,  not even the larb spices could make that work for me...

 A Sidenote on Sticky Rice

In thailand, sticky rice is generally served  in a dense little clump about the size of a fist, from which you pull off bits as you eat the other dishes. This more glutenous rice is actually very functional in that not only can you eat it with your hands, but generally keeps very well - for up to 2 days - without extra heat or refrigeration, whereas regular rice would start to spoil after a day. Plain (fluffy) rice only became more common with increasing rice trade (from the West, ie, to accompany Indian dishes). The sticky rice is a bit more caloric, so i try to stick to the plain one - although it's absolutely un-exchangeable when it comes to mangoes and sticky rice (where the rice is actually generously "drizzled" sweet coconut milk)...

Cool November

october was a whirlwind! i did pass my classes - even energy technology, painful as it was... and then whisked away to the States, with 2.5 weeks to see friends and find ways to streamline my life - like sell my car and pack up my stuff (for easier mobility). Then i came back and went to Singapore for the Carbon Forum Asia (http://www.carbonforumasia.com/) - which was quite inspiring - i've several new ideas - an urban wind energy tunnel (with a twist, of course) - and i've come across a plastics recycling project (using pyrolysis) that might serve as a precedent for a similar idea i'd had (but with different end-products)... still like the wave converters... that's going to hit the big time one of these days ;) Mostly, i've been gravitating to the totally clean energy lately, rather than the biofuels - though i believe there's a definite and necessary role for biofuels to replace existing fuel sources, particularly while other infrastructures are built. the problem is, biofuels needs it's own infrastructure too... it should still be developed as a source for electricity via waste-to-energy (ie, biogas) in a closed system, or back to a grid. In terms of vehicles/transport, it seems to me the most versatile solution would be an electric (fuel cell) car.

If that's the case though, scientists and engineers must find a way to replace rare earth metals with synthetic or polymeric alternatives - look at mining now - every country with gold or any other metal worth something is more likely to be experiencing significantly more violence and civil wars, often a territorial fight over mines, which are notoriously undocumented.

so, as you can see, i'm raring to go for semester two. It is nice to be in bangkok - not sure if it's "home" exactly, but it's something...