On Why I Would Make A Terrible Food Blogger

I'm a glutton at heart, in word, and in deed. When the food hits the table, the last thing I want to do is haul out my camera.  By the time I remember to get a photo, we've already dug in.  But no matter, I will try to get better. In the meantime, here are some action shots of the dinner Dave and I had at Thai Vegan, an absolutely terrific Thai restaurant.



This was our appetizer--well, the last of it anyway--dumplings filled with vegetables, deep fried, and topped with sweet red chili sauce. An order is six dumplings, but there you see the last two, spared for a moment by the arrival of the four other dishes we ordered.



This was our green curry with onions, carrots, peppers, bamboo shoots, basil, and tofu.



This was a beautiful cucumber salad in a sweet vinegar dressing.



This is a half-demolished plate of pad voon-sen, stir fried mung-bean noodles with broccoli, peppers, onion, mushrooms, and tofu. This is one of my favorite noodle dishes, simply because it is very straightforward in flavor and has not a speck of chile in it, which can be nice if all the other dishes are spicy.



I like pad voon-sen, but this? This is my absolute all-time most favorite Thai dish ever, tom kha tofu, a coconut, lemongrass, garlic, kefir lime leaf, and dried ginger soup with onions, carrots, mushrooms, tomato, and tofu. It is just the best thing you could ever put in your mouth, ever. I could eat this every single day and never have enough of it. I even remember the first time I ever ate it, at a small Thai restaurant near our house at the edge of the war zone almost twenty years ago (!). We ordered it out of curiosity and when it came I put a spoonful of it in my mouth and immediately wished that I could be transported back to my childhood simply so that I wouldn't have wasted two decades of my life not knowing that soup. I lamented all those tom kha tofu-less years.  (I was pretty sad a few years later when we talked a friend into trying it and he was thoroughly grossed out by it, could barely hide his disgust with his characteristic politeness. I was sad, yes, but I was also kind of glad because then I didn't have to share the huge bowl of it with him.)



This is the rice that comes with it at Thai Vegan. I think it's a mixture of short-grain brown rice and red rice, which is why it's pink. The heart shape is entirely gratuitous.

Yes, we did bring home leftovers in boxes. No, it wasn't as much as you might think given this amount of food.

I ate and ate all day, actually, completely ignoring my diet. I am, of course, a bit of a stress eater and today was a stress-filled day. It was stress-filled because I started taking a new antibiotic for a tooth that is not happy. I hate taking new meds ever since I had an allergic reaction to one a few years ago. Ugh. Nasty. The Brain and I are convinced that I'm going to end up as one of those pharmaceutical statistics, dying over some bad drug interaction or allergic reaction. That seems so inevitable  that it stresses me out and when I get stressed out I eat like a pig. You can see evidence of that above, but what you don't know is that huge dinner followed an equally huge and much less healthy lunch at a local burger place. And before that there were two breakfasts and a lot of other snacks. Just too much in general.  I gotta figure out a way to get past the stress eating.

And just because this is a beautiful thing, here is a poem by Miyakawa Kenji called Ame ni mo makezu ("Be not defeated by the rain"), the English translation first, followed by the original Japanese:

not losing to the rain
not losing to the wind
not losing to the snow nor to summer’s heat
with a strong body
unfettered by desire
never losing temper
cultivating a quiet joy
every day four bowls of brown rice
miso and some vegetables to eat
in everything
count yourself last and put others before you
watching and listening, and understanding
and never forgetting
in the shade of the woods of the pines of the fields
being in a little thatched hut
if there is a sick child to the east
going and nursing over them
if there is a tired mother to the west
going and shouldering her sheaf of rice
if there is someone near death to the south
going and saying there’s no need to be afraid
if there is a quarrel or a lawsuit to the north
telling them to leave off with such waste
when there’s drought, shedding tears of sympathy
when the summer’s cold, wandering upset
called a nobody by everyone
without being praised
without being blamed
such a person
I want to become

雨ニモマケズ
風ニモマケズ
雪ニモ夏ノ暑サニモマケヌ
丈夫ナカラダヲモチ
慾ハナク
決シテ瞋ラズ
イツモシヅカニワラッテイル
一日ニ玄米四合ト
味噌ト少シノ野菜ヲタベ
アラユルコトヲ
ジブンヲカンジョウニ入レズニ
ヨクミキキシワカリ
ソシテワスレズ
野原ノ松ノ林ノ蔭ノ
小サナ萱ブキノ小屋ニイテ
東ニ病気ノ子供アレバ
行ッテ看病シテヤリ
西ニツカレタ母アレバ
行ッテソノ稲ノ束ヲ負ヒ
南ニ死ニソウナ人アレバ
行ッテコワガラナクテモイイトイイ
北ニケンカヤソショウガアレバ
ツマラナイカラヤメロトイイ
ヒデリノトキハナミダヲナガシ
サムサノナツハオロオロアルキ
ミンナニデクノボウトヨバレ
ホメラレモセズ
クニモサレズ
ソウイウモノニ
ワタシハナリタイ