Adventures in Paradise

G is for...

Guam! Our first step on American soil in over six months. It's not quite home, but it will do.

And with only a day in port, what adventure did I find?

Dinner at the local mall food court and a movie. Then again, there are very few mainland mall food courts that serve good dim sum, so I didn't miss out too much. And the movie was good.

With this I'll be caught up with the Alphabet-Along, but I may be off a bit in my postings. I am either allergic to Guam or it's just a coincidence that I've gotten sick after both visits.

Next up will be more Thailand pictures. I'm close to being done there, but you all want a whole post of monkey pictures, I'm sure.

F is also for Food

  You guys should already have known that, right?  I'm always happy when I'm eating somewhere new and Thai food is good stuff, so it didn't really matter where we went...

Our hotel offered a cooking class taught by the Executive Chef, and it included a trip to the local market, which was a lot of fun.
Lots of different individual stalls, with a mix of the very familiar (tomatoes, onions, peppers) to the really different (dried shrimp and squid, greens I hadn't seen before). XO bought some mussels on impulse and we added those to a Tom Yum soup that we made in class.

Once we realized that there would be no pictures if we both cooked at the same time, we took turns volunteering to go to the front and make the dishes. He did the soup and I did the green curry. It was wonderful stuff.

This class, and this dish in particular, is what opened my eyes to the wonder that is Thai fish sauce. It transformed the dish, though XO and I wanted more than was prescribed in the recipe. Those little green things that look like big peas are actually minature eggplants - slightly bitter but very interesting in the curry. This dish is totally do-able at home and will probably go into my rotation once I find a good supply of fish and oyster sauce.

Out in town, we had some good meals as well. We had decided to spend our last day wandering around the main town in the center of Phuket, and picked up a map with a walking tour of the historic part of the town. Mind you, we didn't pay much attention to the map, but we had one. We walked past a food court that was as open as it gets in the tropics - a roof but no walls. It seemed full and smelled good, so I peeked over the wall and got this picture. An hour and three wrong turns later, we ended up back at the food court, which we decided was fate.

So lunch was a simple stir fry with pork, noodles and lots of veggies. I had a Thai iced tae but the dish was more mild than I'd expected so didn't really need it. XO had a similar meal - total cost was about $5 for the both of us.

And our last dinner, which I photographed and then didn't burn to a disk for some reason, was at this lovely little shack right on the beach. Imagine a 90 foot wall of water looming over this place - it was totally destroyed during the 2004 tsunami. The owner rebuilt and she's struggling a bit because the two hotels on either side of her, which should have provided ample customers, were financed through Bernie Madoff and remain unfinished. She's a lovely lady and the food was amazing - if you ever visit Phuket, stop by White Orchard and have a sunset meal on the beach.

Food in Chennai

You knew my first post was going to be about food, right? From my very first deployment, I think my mother has been convinced that all I do on deployment is eat and shop. Sadly, I spent so much time on the ship that I didn't eat local but for my last  meal. Breakfasts were taken during the sporting events, which on day one was very English tea-like...little crust-less sandwiches and biscuits with tea or coffee. The sandwich filling though - way better than anything I ever had at a tea, they all had a delayed kick that was great. Breakfast with cricket was much more traditional to South Indian cuisine and I went back for seconds. And thirds.

My final day in port I actually got out to see some sights, the photos for which I am still processing in between gun shoots and engineering drills, which means slowly.  After the tour of some archeological sites, we had lunch at a resort restaurant near the beach. (The cost of said lunch was such that what one person paid for lunch would have paid for all of us at dinner that night!)

I noticed a few things as I was editing here...first, I will apparently opt to go totally vegetarian without even thinking about it when I'm eating Indian - didn't have anything at all with meat or eggs the whole day.  My favorite vegetables are pretty obvious, too - I picked two different preparations of okra (which I only like Indian style) and cauliflower (which I will eat at any time, in any form).  There's also dal (lentils), which I finished, and rice, which I didn't.

We had dinner at a local place on the beach where our group was the only non-Indian table - which is my favorite way to eat. The specialty is idly, a steamed rice/lentil patty, but my photos of the idly didn't turn out well, so you get the banana leaf, chutneys, sambar and the uttapam (onion packed pancake) that I loved and need to learn to cook. Amazing meal, and one which I will look for again.

We walked around the beach and found meals and street food that I'd have eaten in a heartbeat if I hadn't been full from dinner.  I'd have no idea what is was I was eating, but that's half the fun.

Okay, this I recognized - roasted corn!

There were about a dozen carts set up identically, but this is the only photo that came out well enough to share. Doesn't everything look appetizing?

 

E is for Experiments!

Remember the Molecular Gastronomy kit I showed you? One of my young cooks (we call them Culinary Specialists because the Navy can't just use a simple title) has been intereested when I cook, probably because I've made caramels and toffees which aren't part of the standard Navy curriculum.  He joined me for this set of food Experiments...

The basic ingredients: Peanut Butter paired with Tapioca Maltodextrin and Strawberry Jam paired with Agar Agar. You've seen the shot of the Peanut Butter turned into powder already.

Then we boiled the jam, agar agar and some water together, strained it to get the seeds out, then injected the mixture into tubes to make strawberry jelly noodles. A couple of things we learned - three tubes isn't enough to make this an effcient process...they either need to be longer or you need about a dozen or more to fill at once. Also, if you let it cool, it gels and if you take too long to make the noodles and leave the mixture on the heat, it thickens then, too. Timing matters! One person can do it, but two sets of hands makes things easier.

Strawberry jam noodles resting on a platter...we learned that it's better to let them rest in the ice bath for longer than the 3-5 minutes recommended in the instructions, otherwise they come out very fragile.

The final product:

Tastes just like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich! In the end, a very successful Experiment! Our next project will be a deconstructed vinagrette - olive oil powder, balsamic vinegar pearls...and something else.

Geek Food

I think the molecular gastronomy kit is available other places, but I ordered mine from ThinkGeek.

Because one of the things I wanted to try wasn't included in the kit, I ordered the tapioca maltodextrin from here.

Here's a sneak peek:

New Toys

Because I succumb easily to suggestion, when one of my guys, who knows I'm somewhat food-obsessed, sent me a link to this, I had to have it.  Actually, it was just the link to the kit - the other stuff I had to order individually. Photos to follow once I have some time to play...

Food!

One of the trips XO and I absolutely agreed on was to the grocery store. The one we went to is located in the ground floor of a large, high end shopping mall and is sort of the equivalent of a Super WalMart given the stuff they carry. But I've never seen a WalMart, Super or otherwise, with a spice market in the center of the store. I bought some ground cumin for mom here and now my closet smells like an Indian restaurant.

And then there's these...vegetables. I don't know what they are because I've never seen them before and they were in a section of the produce section labeled "Indian Veg." Which means at least half of me is ashamed that I don't recognize it. (For those of you not in the know and have seen pictures of dark skinned me next to my blue-eyed mom - I'm half Indian.) Not ashamed enough to buy it an experiment with it...but only because I just realized I could have done that. Maybe next visit, assuming things are calm enough for a field trip.

Of course, it wouldn't be a grocery store without a wall full of Betty Crocker, would it? Remember, there lots of Americans here working with the Navy, including families. Still it was odd. And this just confuses the heck out of me...

Such an American brand, yet nothing I've ever seen in an American grocery store.

XO and I both agreed that after 50 days at sea, there are few places closer to heaven than a well-stocked, artfully arranged grocery store.

Oh. My.

This afternoon, one of my Supply Corps Officers walked into my cabin bearing a strange plate...

That is probably what you think it is.  Specifically - a plate of fried twinkies...

and fried Oreos...

The Twinkies taste mostly like donuts, meaning, yummy but not something I wanted more than a small piece to eat.  The Oreos on the other hand...well, she brought them to me warm, so it tasted like a melty Oreo.  It was really, really good.  Thankfully, I had enough will power to send them out for others to taste - because that plate you see had two Twinkies, four Oreos and a bowl of fruit topping and it was all for me.  Portion control isn't exactly a strong suit for military cooks...

MPA

You know how sometimes you walk into a new place and there are a few people who you click with instantly, even though you've never seen them before?  It applies here.  This is our Main Propulsion Assistant, the guy who is the primary assistant to the ship's Chief Engineer.  He's a former Senior Chief Petty Officer who was commissioned a few years ago and provides some guidance and maturity to my wardroom full of 20-something officers.

He loves to grill and can be seen manning the ship's grills during any Steel Beach picnic - in this case we were both taking a break to cool off during the event the Wardroom hosted a while back. He can be counted upon to provide some seriously old-school music to the crew during meal times or during cleaning stations, though that's not universally appreciated, he's got enough of a mix that everyone ends up happy.  He dances Folklorico and is a strong enough lead that even I can follow him on the dance floor. 

Care Package

We got nearly a thousand pounds of mail the other day and while I only got one piece of mail, the fact that it was a care package and not a bill or financial statement made my day.  It's from my former roommate (from a ship way back in the 2002-2003 timeframe,) or actually, from her 14 month old daughter.

 
Given that it came from a one year old, it's no surprise that while there was a pretty clutch purse and a book mommy thought I  might enjoy, it was heavy on candy, with marshmallow pumpkins, candy corn and chocolate covered almonds.  There might be some candy corn left.

BTW Mom, based on the postmark, it took 23 days to get to me.  We've got another couple or three thousand pounds of mail waiting for us in various locations that we're hoping to get in the next week or two.