chiang mai chillin'

heat a wok over an open flame until the heat radiates off the inside and in goes fresh coconut cream. the pan crackles as the coconut oil starts to separate and that's the time when you throw in the chilli paste. soon as it hits the pan, the flavors release into the air. the heat of the chillis popping in the oil are enough to burn your nose and make your eyes start to water.

maybe it's masochistic, but i can't get enough spicy.

so the natural next step is to spend some time in one of the chillest cities on the planet, chiang mai, thailand, and learn a little bit about the great cuisine that is thai.

six dishes a day is just about enough to make a food lover like me faint with joy. this is one of the most delicious choices i've made in my trip so far.

the professionalism is high. numerous fully equiped wok stations. fresh ingredients and super smart staff. the teachers crack jokes while chopping garlic at rapidfire speed. then, outfitted in themed aprons (a gimmick, i know, but it does make me feel special...), we go outside to take a shot at replicating it ourselves. afterwards, we sit down with our spoons and eat. three times a day. by the end of the day we're stuffed and happy. i sneak leftovers home to share with new friends. if you're in cm, find out more about the chiang mai thai cookery school.

highlights: red curry with roast duck and pineapple, spicy coconut soup with chicken, rad na, panang curry, tom yum soup, sticky rice with mango... what more can i say?


chiang mai is one of my friend josh's favorite cities, and i start to see why. one of the coolest markets i've been to yet is the sunday walking street. several blocks of the old city shut down every sunday evening for vendors of all kinds of goods-- shoes, lamps, dresses, paintings. lots of handmade stuff. and the place is packed with a mix of locals and thai folks who gravitate towards the market from the surrounding towns. man... you can get yourself some new clothes, a thai massage, eat some good food and listen to local bands rock out, all in one evening.

it's also the place where young thai people come to kick it. friends tease each other and crack up, as they turn to yell chants to the passing crowd for pastries they're selling to fundraise for student groups. chiang mai university hipsters lay out handmade bags and keychains with cute bug eyed figurines, and flocks of fashionable young people crane their necks as they walk by.

not only is the chiang mai vibe really nice, but the people are good folks. via an awesome connection through josh, i get to hang out with his friends here-- really cool people!


there's oo, a foodie like me, and director of a chiang mai preschool. i meet up with her and her friends down the block at the swinging feet restaurant, located on the second story wooden deck, with outward facing seats that let folks enjoy good food while dangling their legs over the side of the building. oo, mam and i eat again, and even MORE at the sunday walking street.


and there's the gorgeous film, chiang mai university student with an awesome vibrant energy. riverside's the spot for live music and a view of the river, and i meet up with her, her brother, his girlfriend and a bunch of their friends.


i meet taa at root rock, where he and his crew are regulars, dancing it up to a live reggae band. we sip on his favorite concoction-- thai whiskey, coke, soda, red bull and lime. later in the eve he, pam and i go over to kick it at an outdoor bar run out of a converted van. the high bar stools, hip people, heart to heart about loves, has me feeling like i'm hanging out on the set of the thai sex in the city.

cm. i love it.

see more of my chiang mai fotos.

check out more of josh's videos on cm and his other travels. they're hilarious-- you will not be disappointed.

oishii...

imagine you discovered that you had family in japan. imagine that they were breadmakers in a countryside town nestled in a quaint valley between immense green grassy mountains. learn that while you were rolling your tricycle around paved streets in the neighborhood, cousins grew up catching bugs in tall nets and watching fireflies dance over the river in mid-june. and then take a train and arrive at their doorstep. speak japanese. make bread.

shigenori-san is a breadmaker trained in france and germany, whose renowned bread shop is indicated on the yufuin city map. those in the know come early. at opening time customers lined up outside the door flood in. the first hour is a flurried rush of "irashaiimase!!" and customers requesting bag fulls of the different kinds of specialty bread. one favorite, "raisin cabocha" (raisin pumpkin bread with a just a hint of sweetness), sells out in a matter of minutes. in the afternoon, it's an-pan fresh out of the oven, a japanese specialty, small round buns with the outsides slightly toasted, and inside warm azuki bean (red bean) filling.

and then there's me, bagging bread trying frantically to keep up with the "hitotsu"/"futatsu", "iko"/"niko" requests, and trying not to make it overly obvious that i don't know what i'm doing.

midori-san, my mother's cousin, is immensely friendly and willing to strike up conversation at any given time with friends, neighbors, shopowners. she takes me around and introduces me with with something to the tune of, "this is stefanie, from america. she's staying with us." and as their eyes get wide, she adds, "nandemo tabemasu!" (she will eat anything.)

and man did i eat.

one of the regional specialties is river fish, particularly ayu ("sweetfish") and yamame. midori and shigenori take me out to eat one night, and we drive up the winding road to yufuin to a two hundred year old house tucked into the hills. a stream runs alongside the house, and strategically placed boards and nets help to contain the fish so that they swim in circles right outside the back door of the house. just one woman runs the place, a middle aged woman with a warm smile, and after greeting us she ducks into the kitchen to catch and prepare our meal.

then she brings out dish after dish of river fish prepared in every possible way. there's shio yaki ayu, grilled and salted sweetfish that is prepared as if it's jumping off the plate. and then there's deep fried yamame, yamame soaked in sweet-shoyu and yamame sashimi. all this accompanied by ochazuke, rice with tea poured over it, and a sprinkling of the shells of shiso seeds.

this was just one of the many delicious meals i had in the area, others including sushi (with a skilled woman sushi chef... the first i've seen, gives me hope for my secret dream of becoming a sushi chef) and tempura (of incredible palate teasing varieties... egg, goya, and edamame included). drop me a line if you are planning to go to the area, and i can try harder to find out the names of these places.

but perhaps the best moments were unexpected. shizuko-san, my grandmother's sister, breaks open an album of old photos that midori-san and i start to look through. and there, shizuko-san and my grandmother, both young and sharply dressed, strike a pose with by the golden pavillion in kyoto. my grandmother's parents come to life, resting on a picnic blanket with my grandmother's brother as a child in my great grandfather's lap. and strangely, me-- a baby laughing at the table next to shizuko-san in her visit to los angeles. somehow all these years i had been there, amongst these memories in a place i'd never known.

after a week of immersion in delicious foods and incredibly loving and generous family, this has been one of the hardest places for me to leave so far.

pictures of food and family here.