butterisbetter

Pumpkin Bread!!!!!!!

Will get that.. Developed somewhat of an addiction I think..

What's it like? Properly spiced with things like Cinnamon, Ginger, Cloves, Cardamom and Nutmeg?

That sounds like a Dutch version of pumpkin bread. The Dutch like lots of spices in their pastries. For Americans. it's a bit over the top. Ours is American style. So cinnamon and allspice only.

Thank you Butter is Better.

YOU WIN!!!!!!!!!

I didn't realize it was a competition but I'll take my victories wherever I can. So, like, hooray, man. Hooray.

200bht a slice, I'll give it a miss.

Can you divulge the place they sell it at? I probably wouldn't buy it but I'd sure like to take a look at it.

Saw these on the shelf at Rimping Nim City a couple of days ago.

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That Polenta in the picture is great, easy to make and eat with a variety of sauces. Would probably make fine tamales.

They might taste good but they wouldn't taste like Mexican tamales which use masa, not corn meal.

hmficc mentions a golden crust, my mom made her cheesecake with a crust made from a product called melba toast, never graham crackers.

My mother had a few recipes for cheesecake. One of them used zweiback which is similar to melba toast.

In the past my wife had one of our employees do it for us. That person is now an ex-employee. Our autos are in my wife's name. Does anyone know if I can bring my wife's info to the station to do the registration. My wife thinks that while a Thai person could do it, I wouldn't be allowed to even though I have a Thai driver's license, and, of course, a valid passport.

Don't trust joy of cooking.

First of all traditional NY cheesecake didn't have sour cream that is Philliadelphia style.

But overall, why not just call it cheesecake. You don't get a philly cheestake in Philly, you just get a cheese steak. You don't eat brazil nuts in brazil, you just eat nuts.

The cheese cake might be good, which it is at many places that I have eaten, but you can only get NY cheesecake in NY.

Did you know that by adding a name to food it is an advertising ploy only. Chillean Sea bass sounds different than just sea bass, but I would bet that you wouldn't be able to tell east coast atlantic sea bass from chillean.

But go on and add your locations to your food and convince others that it is the same.

Plenty of real New York Cheesecakes are made with sour cream. That's the kind I prefer. Others are made with heavy cream. I never had Philadelphia style cheesecake. There is Philadelphia cream cheese which makes a good cheesecake because it has vegetable gum in it. But you can get other brands that have vegetable gum and have a flavor and feel that's pretty much indistinguishable from Philadelphia cream cheese; especially once it's been mixed and baked. As for being able to get NY cheesecake only in New York, why is that? Is there something special in the water? You can get all the ingredients here that you get in New York to make a real NY cheesecake. We used to make an 100 percent authentic NY cheesecake. Then we gave in to the complaints of Thais and substituted butter cookie crumbs for graham cracker crumbs. Sales took off. Actually we made our own graham cracker crumbs which are more authentic than what Nabisco now makes.The quality of that product has gone way downhill. We still make our own sour cream which has a lot more flavor than the commercial American variety. Not only is it repasteurized to kill the culture and give it a long shelf life, but it's a different flavor from the traditional Eastern European kind which is what traditional NY cheesecake makers used if they used sour cream.

As for sea bass. I used to shop for seafood for restaurants at the Fulton Fish Market in New York. I also used to fish for Black Sea Bass (I assume this is what you are referring to as "east coast atlantic sea bass") off the Connecticut coast. Chilean sea bass is nothing like Black Sea Bass or, for that matter, European Sea bass. The Chilean Sea Bass has super rich meat. So rich it's often used as a substitute for snowfish. The other two "basses" are quite lean. Also, Chilean sea bass is an endangered species and shouldn't be eaten by anyone who is not a sea creature.

At this time of year, I'm not sure if any waterfall is safe. We've had an awful lot of rain. Given the limitations on trekking, you might want to try the Mae Sa waterfall in Mae Rim. Parking is very convenient to the falls It's actually several waterfalls cascading down. If you don't have a thai driver's license or thai identity card, they charge you a lot more. Years ago it was 500 baht. But that price may have been lowered. Lots of restaurants in one of the parking lots, too.

My favorite local place for water is Op Khan national park. You can definitely get the water pounding on your back experience upstream a bit and there are usually very few people there. You can park right beside the lower portion of the stream which is great for swimming. But again, at this time of year, there might be too much water for it to be safely enjoyed.

We feed our cats Royal Canin brand cat food - imported, as well as "pla too" from the market (3 fish about 20-25 Baht).

Most vets will tell you not to feed cats salty food. Their kidneys aren't equipped to handle it. Even lots of commercial cat foods have too much salt. That said, Thai cats seem peculiar in lots of ways so maybe their kidneys have adapted.

if you rent a house outside the city, do you need to live in gated community, or you will be robbed? At least in Pattaya it is horrible like that. I prefer a house then condo but condo is safer regarding burglaries.

I just want to keep my laptop while I am there in CM not to get stolen by some locals.......

I thought the smog was from cars, but I rather breathe the burnig smoke than car fumes

Removed. Rather too explicit.

I loev pattaya but the crime is the huge deal for me, a deal breaker

I live in an ungated community and there have been occasional burglaries here. Our house has bars on all the windows. And we have dogs. So far, after 6 years, no problem.

It is a strange story, and probably unlikely that the BIB got anywhere with investigating it. Thankfully nothing happened, but it is worrying.

Worrying would be an understatement but TIT and the realm is not a safe family tourist destination any longer.

Do you have any statistics do back up this contention or is this just a case of you airing your prejudices? Your use of this case as an example is a particularly poor choice since cases where foreign children are involved are exactly the kind that are extremely difficult to cover up. I haven't seen anything in the press about foreign children actually being kidnapped. I suspect your sources are extremely alternative.

I prefer waterfalls and streams to lakes and there are lots of those available for swimming in the area. Beautiful national parks. There's one not far from us, about 1/2 hour, that seems never to have more than a few dozen people at most.

It rarely gets as hot here as it does in Bangkok, although the heat during the late dry season (and pollution season) is intense.

The winter clothes pictures are for real but it's good to keep in mind that the locals think 20 degrees Celsius is very cold. Still, on some winter morning it's gotten as low as 10 degrees centigrade where we are and we're in the valley, Up in the mountains, it can get a lot colder.

Gratuitously nasty! Oh dear. Here I thought I was posting a light-hearted chastisement. I guess it's the usual hazard of email and forum conversations where tone and intent can be projected or assumed that just wasn't there in the original. The intent was to call you guys out on the Thai bashing that was creeping into this thread (mostly Gonzo, who knows who I am in real life), and to do so with good cheer and a gentle ribbing. Sarcasm is risky when written. I'll try to avoid it.

Anyway, they didn't close the gates to let the water out, the river did not crest over its banks, and my bet is that that's the closest we will get to flooding this year. We can carry on enjoying our lives of mostly good cheer and good fortune. Maybe I'll swing by for one of your most excellent reuben sandwiches today. Jeez, I sure hope the big G will still let me have all that gravy on his chicken-fried steak.

Well-intentioned sarcasm probably can't work well anonymously. That said, people who get angriest when their intelligence is called into question, probably are the most deserving of being called on it. So I will have to retreat to my cave and brood about this. Anyway, any animus I may have harbored has evaporated. Wait a minute! Evaporated is a 5 syllable word. At least it is if I have five toes on my right foot. Five syllables! In the words of the philosopher Fredo Corleone, " I'm smart. Not like everybody says...like dumb."

..... maybe someone should tell the guys on the new dam and locks south of the city, now would be a good time to close the locks and thereby lower the water level of the river.....5555555 I still wanna see that one work

How exactly is that contraption supposed to work?

I'm sorry to say, but you probably wouldn't understand

You must be a Thai Engineer with a degree in politics to understand the physics of the program

There is no way a logical westerner can explain or understand it

Ok you rocket appliance geniuses. Let me try to explain.

You see, you actually open the gates when the river is running high to let the water discharge. The new gates have a higher discharge capacity than the old ones did. The old gates, when fully open, were a choke point or bottleneck immediately south of the city during the 2011 flood. Replacing them with greater discharge capacity removes this bottleneck and so allows the river to handle more water before flooding.

The reason the dam is there is so it can be closed during the dry season to prevent the river from becoming a mud ditch and to allow boats to continue to float.

If you need any help figuring out how to get toothpaste out of the tube when those silly Thais have put caps on all of them, PM me and I'll get you sorted out.

Lesson learned: Don't let restaurateurs anywhere near flood control operations.

Wasn't aware that there ever were any gates.. On the other hand, I was well aware that there were lots of gratuitously nasty posters on Thaivisa. Didn't need you to offer yourself up as an example. .

If you run or plan to do workouts you should bring good quality gym socks. I haven't found any here except some very, very pricey imports.

By way of update...... the river is on the rise !!!!

No thanks to the inefficient, and non caring flood chart folks ...... who have now posted [as of the time of this post]

3 times in the past 24 hrs + ....

The river has risen about 1.4 metres in this time but the chart people are just not doing their job.

The river is just a few cm from coming out of its banks by me and very possibly may be over the banks by Nong Hoi.....

So heads up guys

G

Just as an aside..... maybe someone should tell the guys on the new dam and locks south of the city, now would be a good time to close the locks and thereby lower the water level of the river.....5555555 I still wanna see that one work

How exactly is that contraption supposed to work?

Have you looked at agriculture forum? I did a cursory search there and found lots of hydroponic threads.

you go to school?

try to self study 1-2 hours everyday and it will take you a year and you fluent speaking..

BS, he might be able to make himself understood BUT he will never be fluent (not as an ethnic)

I was in a restaurant one night with my bird and a very long term resident was speaking (out of her sight) and she thought it was a Thai. That is an exception to the rule.

Perhaps 1 case in a 100,000 could claim to be fluent or ever hope to become fluent.

This old one again. What do you mean by fluent--native speaker? Agreed, he cannot become a native speaker (kind of goes against the definition) but fluent just means that it is flowing and not broken. I can do everything I need to at the bank, government offices, stores all in Thai, usually without hitch. I meet people and we hang out, sometimes for hours on end, all in Thai and I think in Thai while doing so. I do forget words, don't know them, or mess up grammar or tones sometimes, but then.....fluently.....I ask people what the word for that thing is, if the tone is right, etc. That is "fluent." It is far from native.

And the guy you overheard at the restaurant speaks with "near native fluency," based on your description.

Just as an example everyone knows....ever heard jackie Chan speak English? He is fluent (you could analyze it and determine what level of fluency he has if you were his teacher or something), but he is not a native speaker. He can have 30 minute to hour-long TV interview in English and you aren't sitting there waiting as he scratches his head for several minutes waiting on words. He just talks, relatively smoothly,, with some inconsequential errors. He is fluent.

The Oxford Dictionary disagrees with you about the definition of fluent. As does virtually every other English Dictionary I've consulted online.

you go to school?

try to self study 1-2 hours everyday and it will take you a year and you fluent speaking..

BS, he might be able to make himself understood BUT he will never be fluent (not as an ethnic)

I was in a restaurant one night with my bird and a very long term resident was speaking (out of her sight) and she thought it was a Thai. That is an exception to the rule.

Perhaps 1 case in a 100,000 could claim to be fluent or ever hope to become fluent.

And where did you that 1 in 100,000 statistic from? The Big Book of If I Can't Do It, Then Only 1 in 100,000 Can? My wife who is Thai, knows several farangs who can speak Thai like a native. And that's just in Chiangmai.

Actually, for certain kinds of pickling, table salt is not suitable because of the various additives it has which interfere with the activities of various lactobacillus bacteria. Also, table salt is said to cause discoloration. You can get pure sodium chloride at the various laboratory supply houses in Chiang Mai. Last time I bought pure sodium chloride it was 15 baht per kilo in a 1 kilo pouch and a lot less when bought in a 50 kilo sack.

So if a recipe calls for 2 Tbls of kosher salt all I "have to do is put it in a mortar and pound it a little to get the texture that you want." How do I know the texture that I want if I don't have any kosher salt to compare it to?

The biggest brand of Kosher salt in the USA is Mortons. By volume, 3 units of Mortons equals 2 units of table salt. So for example a cup of Morton's would equal 2/3 of a cup of table salt. (To complicate matters, the ratio for Diamond Crystal Salt is 2 to 1.)

You could experiment with a simple, inexpensive recipe, taste the results and adjust accordingly..

I can't find two very basic herbs for western food, flat parsley and chives, and would be grateful for any pointers? (Rimping etc have the curly parsley and I've been making do with that.)

Flat (Italian) parsley is usually at Rim Ping from several vendors. Sometimes at Makro Hang Dong although I haven't seen it there lately. Often at Rim Ping it's hanging in plastic bags.Also at the Royal Project Store at the intersection of the canal road and Doi Suthep road. You should be able to find chives in the Thai vegetable section at Rim Ping, Makro or the local markets. Not precisely the same as western chives but very close. Also frequenty on offer are the flat (Chinese) chives but those are quite different from western chives.

Thank you Fellow-Indian Curry Enthusiasts.

Matter of fact, I bought some of the "Mothers Recipe" brand today and was going to mention it here but you beat me to it. Will be trying it tomorrow with some , dare I say it???? PORK! Also noticed Packs of a Pakistani Mix, which I used to use in Oz and it was pretty good as well. This was at Makro, Hang Dong Road. You're right about stocking-up while available. All too often these things seem to be a "one Hit Wonder" just like Birds Eye brand Baby Garden Peas from Australia. They had them at Rimping (Airport) they sold like crazy and I've been asking for over a year as to when the next lot will arrive. (Might as well ask the brick wall of course!)

Note to: Iamemjay, I'll also try Wororot (haven't heard of it before, can you let me know where it is????)

Cheers,

Torrens54.

Worowot is the Chinese Market down by the ping, also known locally as Kad Luang - excuse my spelling if I'm wrong. There is a stall in the covered market called Bombay ran by an Indian family that has a big selection of Indian spices, it's not overly cheap but they do have a good range and you can buy in the quantities that you need.

Here are the GPS coordinates for Waroros Market: 18.79011,99.000932

The Indian Spice shop is located in the southeast corner of the market. Actually,there are 2 markets. One building sells stuff like preserved fish. It's the other building you want. There, all kinds of delicacies and teas are sold as well as some fresh fruit and vegetables.

If you go to the weekend swap meet behind the playing field at Prince Royal's College you will often find country people across the road with big "fighting beetles". Apparently the live underground and come out during the rainy season (?) It's a rather ugly "sport" to watch, but to each his own.

The only beetle fighting in Thailand I know about are the Rhinoceros beetles. Their "battle" consists of 2 beetles who are trying to push each other off a stick. It's about as ugly as a tug of war. Is there some other kind of beetle fighting that you're referring to?

You can use fire proof brick .

http://www.sivilaibrick.com/main.php?do=Product&ln=en&catid=1&subid=2

http://lansaimaejo.tarad.com/product-th-610357-2851245-อิฐทนไฟมอท.html#

That would make a very thick pizza stone. The thinnest brick I saw listed was 5 centimeters. It would take a long time to get it hot.