Farewell to Thailand

Lunch today ended with mango sticky rice for dessert. What a way to end my visit here, that will live in my memory as a festival of flavors and a whole new appreciation for thai food!!

Being my first visit to a tropical location, I knew the fruit would be of a whole other dimension... I just couldn't imagine pineapple that was so mild that it wouldn't burn my mouth! I couldn't imagine tree-ripened mangos (they taste NOTHING like the mangos we get in MN!), jackfruit, roseapples, dragon fruit and papaya that didn't smell like Mickey's skates.

I'm sure that I will be able to get good thai food in the states... but it will always be missing the situational seasonings... the scent of jasmine and gardenia in the air, the sound of bottlebirds gurgling on the other side of the bamboo hedge, the indecipherable murmuring of the Thai women working in the kitchen and laundry room. These other sensory stimulants add a dimension to the food that can't be duplicated at home!

I refuse, however, to be a snob when I return!! I will be grateful for the memory trip I can take when I eat kau soi or sour prawn soup... it will allow me to recall the depth of my experience here. I promise to be glad to get ANY form of Thai food once I'm home, without diminishing it by comparing it to the food I ate here.

I have seen plants in tree form here that I only thought of as annuals in my flower garden or plants in a medical clinic. I've never experienced the natural form of many of these plants, though I've seen them in an arboretum or botanical garden... which has always seemed interesting-but-contrived.

If any of you have any experience raising/growing kaffir lime in Minnesota, please be in touch, I"m not sure that's something I'll be able to live without from here on.

Thanks for reading,

Wish you were here...