Hello, Bangkok :: by mama

We (meaning I and the baby, thankfully still in utero) have been here for a week now, and this is the only photo I've taken -- of Thai Airways planes at the airport.

I am normally a fairly adventurous and independent person. Except, that is, for when I have a full-term baby in my belly, at which point I apparently become fearful of straying more than a one-block radius from the hospital. I go to the grocery store every single day -- partly just to get outside, and partly because I can only carry a few items home at a time -- and that pretty much sums up the full extent of my excursions in Bangkok.

Oh, but what a grocery store it is. This is a real, American-style grocery store we are talking about, with products like provolone cheese and chocolate chips. They even have American health food brands like Amy's Organics and Earthbound Farms. It's fairly unbelievable. Of course, the prices are exorbitant, probably because every last item in the store is imported. Even the produce is imported, which makes no sense to me. Why would a tropical country be importing tomatoes from Holland in the middle of winter? Even Bangladesh can get itself organized enough to grow its own seasonal produce, so why would that not be happening here? Maybe I'll have to actually leave my little neighborhood and find a regular produce market to find some local vegetables.

And maybe then I'll take more photos.

Checklist for having a baby :: by mama

:: Spend several months in denial about the necessity for a checklist such as this one. Then,
:: Purchase plane tickets to travel to Bangkok.
:: Rent an apartment for two months in Bangkok.
:: Obtain medical visa for Thailand, good until February 2010. Think, "Holy moly. I had better not need to be there until February 2010."
:: Convince insurance company that it is medically necessary to travel to a different country to birth a baby following a normal and uncomplicated pregnancy.
:: Prepare paperwork for passport and visa applications for the new baby, including an original marriage certificate, work permit, and letter from employer.
:: Borrow a crib from a very generous friend.
:: Realize that the baby cannot sleep in the crib without being eaten alive by mosquitoes.
:: Call the tailor to order a custom-made mosquito net for the crib.
:: Ask the tailor to finish the flannel baby wipes that were apparently too much for the sewing machine to handle, necessitating three trips to the Singer repair shop and still being unfinished.
:: Pack the few maternity clothes that are big enough to still fit, the post-partum clothes that may or may not fit, and the baby clothes that seem too tiny to fit anyone.
:: Fill the refrigerator, freezer, and all cabinet shelves with all the food and supplies necessary to sustain a husband and 4-year-old boy for the next two weeks.
:: Fly to Bangkok by 36 weeks gestation, in order to comply with airline rules, and prepare to spend a month waiting for baby.
:: Hope that the baby actually takes that long to arrive, or at the very least waits until his father and big brother get to Bangkok to witness his debut.

All but the next-to-last item have been taken care of. We are off tomorrow...

Recipe Roundup :: by mama

I have been trying to expand our cooking repertoire around here, and focusing especially on ingredients that we don't use often. Here are some things we've tried recently. (As usual, I am only posting recipes that I've found online, so others can access them easily.)

Pineapple Rice:

Here is the thing about pineapples: I think you either like them in savory foods (e.g., as a topping on pizza, in stir fries, etc.) or you don't. Chris does; I don't. He also really likes cashews and tofu, both of which I am kind of indifferent to. This dish had all three. Not surprisingly, Chris loved it and asked for it again the next week, while I was not particularly impressed (and haven't made it since). I wish I liked it more, because pineapples are plentiful, sweet, and cheap here. However, it's quite labor-intensive, and it just wasn't worth the effort to me.

Note: I adapted the recipe to include tofu instead of seitan. I made the dressing a day or two in advance, pressed the tofu, and marinated it in the dressing overnight. Then I pan-fried the tofu before adding it to the dish at the last minute. Like I said, rather labor-intensive.

Gougères:
When I went to Rio de Janeiro way back in the winter of 1998/1999, I discovered that Brazilians really, really like meat. In everything. At seemingly every meal. I, on the other hand, do not, and instead I ended up eating a whole lot of pao de queijo, a cheesy bread concoction that I have been missing ever since. Gougères, I have recently discovered, are very similar. Mine end up flat and somewhat pathetic-looking, probably due to the fact that our oven has no temperature control. (It is either on or off, and that's it. This recipe calls for baking the gougères at 425F and then turning the oven down, mid-bake, to 375F. Hahahahaha. I just opened the oven door for a while in the hopes that it would cool down a bit.) So they are not very attractive, but they are super delicious, and that's all that matters to me.

Creamy Pumpkin and Cashew Curry:

Again with the cashews, for Chris. And again, this was a somewhat labor-intensive dish that I felt was not entirely worth the effort. I had high hopes, because all of the ingredients are readily available here. I was also excited to be using two of them -- curry leaves and coconut cream, as opposed to coconut milk -- for the first time. However, it just turned out kind of bland. One thing I noticed afterwards was that the recipe didn't call for any salt at all, so that may have been part of the problem. Or maybe the green Bangladeshi pumpkin that I used was just not meant to go in this dish. Maybe someone else should try cooking this and tell me if it tastes any better with a different type of pumpkin.

Pasta with Cauliflower:

Yum. Cauliflower is just coming into season here, so I am looking for new ways to use it... and this one is definitely a keeper. It's quick, easy, and delicious. The bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese on top make all the difference. Kaya gobbled it up without a word. Yay!

Bean and Barley Soup:

I was destined to make this soup. Most of the ingredients are hard to find here, but they all serendipitously came together at once, without any real effort on my part. I had picked up some dry pinto beans and barley in one market, and then I spotted celery at one of the local grocery stores, and then the fruit stand next to the American Club just happened to have parsley. (Celery and parsley are only available in the winter here, and this was my first sighting of either one.) Also, Chris's basil plants are just big enough for me to pluck a few leaves here and there. In the end, I realized that I had everything I needed for this recipe. The soup was delicious. This will definitely be a new favorite for us. I did make a few changes to the recipe: I used half the onions and then doubled the carrots and the salt. It was perfect. Behold the evidence:

Happy Halloween :: by mama

Most expats here in Bangladesh hire tailors to make their kids' Halloween costumes. The tailors are skilled at making nearly anything, even without a pattern, and they are cheap and quick. I, however, took it upon myself to make Kaya's costume at home. This was a project that started last summer, when I began purchasing supplies. Three JoAnn stores and two cities later, I had finally found the pattern I wanted (McCall's 2335). I also brought back some of the notions -- like the zipper, single fold bias tape, and velcro -- that I knew I wouldn't be able to find here in Bangladesh.

[Okay, I know it sounds strange to say that I wouldn't be able to find a zipper in a city of over 10 million people, but it is pretty much true. Keep in mind, friends, that most women here wear (a) saris, which essentially consist of one really long piece of fabric wound around their bodies, or (b) salwar kameez, which are long flowy tops over drawstring pants. At most, there may be a hook and eye closure somewhere on their clothing, but no zippers. Hence, no zippers in the shops. Really, why sell something that nobody would need??]

:: A few days beforehand, Kaya practiced trick-or-treating using a peeled pomelo as his treat bag ::

I did buy the fabric here, and even that turned out to be a challenge. You see, fabric in the States is normally 44-45" wide, and then you buy a certain number of yards, according to the pattern instructions. So I went to a local fabric store and bought 4 yards of solid cotton fabric, brought it home, and immediately realized that it was only 34" wide. Typical! I am guessing that it was meant for sari blouses, which would only require a narrow strip of fabric, but of course that didn't occur to me in the shop. Of course not. In any case, rather than going back and buying more fabric, I decided to take this incident as a sign that I was not actually meant to use all of the pattern pieces after all. So, out went pattern pieces for feet and mittens. Less work for me, and Kaya could not have cared less.

:: Note to self: Long, spiky tails are not conducive to climbing on playground equipment. ::

After two Halloween parties, the tail was nearly falling off, having been stepped on, pulled, used as a weapon, and manipulated every which way. I had reinforced it with several rows of stitching, but the thing is just heavy, perhaps too heavy for the light cotton fabric of the body. In any case, it has since been re-attached, perhaps for future use by another small dinosaur in a few years!