butterisbetter

We had one on loan a few years ago - a cheap one - and it performed beautifully. That said, anything that encourages home baking, I'm against. On principle.

Thanks for the warning about the classic butter. I have only had one box of that which was fine but I'll continue to buy the regular Orchid or Allowrie as normal.

Sometimes it would be okay but very often not. We stopped using it over a year ago and maybe they have fixed the problem. Also, we use unsalted butter. Salted butter disguises off flavors better.

There is also a German guy in town that advertises a foot therapy clinic. I have no idea what they offer there. He advertises in some of those monthly advert mags like Chang Puak Magazine - or one of those.

The german guy owns the Podology Center cited in the post somewhere above yours.

My wife runs a bakery in Chiang Mai and we use a lot of butter. (the name of the bakery is Butter is Better.) I strongly advise against using orchid classic. lots of times it's rancid or has an off taste. it's not the same as the high quality orchid butter that comes in 250 or 500 gram units for consumer use.

I had a similar problem with my desktop. It just died. I thought it might be the power supply but when I went to get it repaired at the very very prominent merchant who sells HP, they told me it was a motherboard failure and could take 2 weeks to repair and a lot of money. . I took the computer to micro genesys in chiang mai land. they diagnosed it as a burnt out power supply, replaced it and had it up and running in less than 2 hours. they also gave me the burnt out power supply unit just to show that they had really replaced it. total cost was, i believe, 800 baht.

I tried them all, including the advised ones on this forum... Exactly what you say... Never got anything fitting the first time, always had to alter things. In Pattaya and BKK are the real better ones! The first thing a tailor has to do is take the right measurements, they all fail here.

It's my understand that genuine bespoke tailors never get it exactly right the first time. you are expected to go for 3 or more fittings. even more some time. that was my experience in Ireland 35 years ago at a first rate tailor. I also did an internet search under "bespoke tailors how many fitting" and that confirmed what i thought. here is a short explanation that i copied from one web page of a Savile Row tailor.

"Why do hand made suits require so many fittings? - Cutters are perfectionists and can see faults that the untrained eye would never notice. Our cutters will not rest until your bespoke suit reaches perfection, even if that means up to five fittings."

I buy Agar-Agar Powder at Villa, Big-C, Jusco..I'm sure all the bigger food stores have it. I use it in my gluten free bread I bake every week.

-O

thanks, I'll try that too. we have it in our supermarkets and the japanese food store in chiang mai.

My wife has a bakery and she has gotten several requests for gluten free bread. However, to make this kind of bread, you need something to substitute for the gluten. Guar gum, being derived naturally from the guar bean, and having greater viscosity than the locust bean, seems to be the substance of choice. Any ideas about where to get it? I know that most of the world's supply comes from India, so maybe suppliers of Indian food ingredients might carry it? Although I don't have a clue if it's used at all in Indian Cuisine.

Are these 3G connections shared or private. I'm asking because on land lines high speeds are often promised but the lines can be shared by 2,4, 10, or 20 other users depending on the plan. Is that the case with these 3G plans also?

I never understood this Burma smuggling thing.. Specifically: Is it honestly more convenient to grab a wild elephant from the jungle in Birma, smuggle it all the way to Chiang Mai, Bangkok or Pattata, and then break it in and get it to perform in shows and/or be docile enough for elephant treks riding around tourists or even walking the streets? And that's less effort and/or more cost effective compared to just buying / breeding a domestic one?

I really don't get that part. But I'm very open to people with more knowledge than I do to provide better information on how that works.

(My suspicion is that smuggling does probably happen (not sure of scale), but then for already domesticated / 'working elephants' in Burma.. Many news reports (including BBC and everyone else) make it sound like their poached straight out of the jungle.

Secone point: A lot of the adversity to elephant shows are just fairly new sensibilities on using 'noble' animals.. It anthropomorphs elephants by making the assumption that an elephant would somehow find it more degrading to kick a football or hold a paintbrush than he would shoving logs. And / or: that elephants are to good for this, but that pulling a plough is less of an issue to a water buffalo or horse. That, is ludicrous. Don't get me wrong, I don't enjoy watching an elephant playing a harmonika, but let's keep things real a little.

The short answer to your question is "yes". Breeding elephants is very difficult. When male elephants are in "musth" or heat, they are very dangerous. The majority of mahout deaths are due to attacks by male elephants in musth. Unfortunately in captive conditions, it's very dangerous for a female elephant to be exposed to a male elephant in "musth". They have nowhere to run should they need to get away. Gathering sperm for artificial insemination is not easy either. And because of the generaly low sperm count, repeat insemination is necessary. That said, artificial insemination is starting to be used with increasing success but it's still difficult. Of course, one day that will be the only way to breed Asian elephants because they are mostly gone from the wild already.

And because breeding elephants is so difficult, most trained elephants began their life in the wild.

We have used Dr. Morgan twice. The first time for a person employed by my wife who got very substandard treatment at a Thai hospital after a motorcylce accident. She was going downhill fast until we prevailed upon her to go to Dr. Morgan. She got propert treatment and in 3 days was back to work. Then one of our 9 year old girls intervened in a dog fight got bitten. So she had to get rabies vaccine. Dr. Morgan was very gentle with her and with no tears at all our girl took her series of 3 shots. (the dog was being monitored for symptoms of rabies but showed none and thrives to this day.) Dr. Morgan speaks English very eill with a pleasing, if somewhat unusual, Anglo/Thai accent.

I got mine at a shop on the suan dok moat road. the store is past the suan dok gate (heading south) and just a little before ratchamanka road. after lots of research the machine i got is a spirit. it got consistently high revies that said for the money it's a great machine. that said, it did cost about 30 or 35 k baht. so if that's out of your price range, i think a gym is a good idea. the cheaper elliptical machines feel flimsy to me. but maybe i was just spoiled by years of using high quality machines at gyms.

I would also highly recommend the course offered at www.changthai.com. This is one of 2 programs offered at the elephant conservation center. This particular program is administered by Supat who does a great job making sure everything runs smoothly. I have been there 3 times, the first time alone, and the other 2 times with friends, and they all loved it. Supat could have moved on to higher paying work a long time ago, but he loves the elephants there and won't leave. Very good food is provided for guests, too.

The elephant conservation center is where the elephant hospital is. This hospital takes care of the elephants at many, if not most of the elephant camps in the north, as well as the working elephants. So helping the center will help elephants up north in need of medical assistance

Thanks for the info personchester, would you know what stage molasses I would use for curing bacon for example? I've googled it but can't find anything...

MaiDong ... For curing bacon you need the least sugary type (grade 3) the last boiling stage, that is to say "Black Strap Molasses" the product from Australia comes in a 550 g.

jar and the price is in the region of 220 Baht.

All the recipes I've seen for bacon call for brown sugar or maple syrup. Which is not to say that you couldn't use molasses. But the molasses most similar to these 2 sweeteners is the light or grade 1 molasses not black strap molasses. Unless you use a very tiny bit, you're going to have a very bitter taste. But if you do use a tiny bit, you're not going to get much if any sweet flavor.

For what it's worth, I've read that Thais consider shallots from Sisaket to be the best. Though, what their criteria are, I cannot say. The king's project sounds like a good bet 2. Also, you'll be helping to promote sustainable agriculter. Just to clarify the directions previously given, it's at the intersection of the canal road and doe saket rd. It's on the northwest corner.

I've also noticed a lot of signs up lately all over Chiang Mai that promote contacting farmers directly. However, they are all written in Thai except maybe for the words "Farm Project"or something like that. So you might need a Thai person to help you.

I'm looking for molasses, does anybody know where I can find?

I don't really know where to start

I've seen an organic blackstrap molasses at Rim Ping Supermarket in Chiang Mai. I assume that other upscale supermarkets in various parts of Thailand could carry it too. But that's blackstrap molasses which to my taste is way too bitter and sulphury. Blackstrap molasses is what remains after a lot of the sugar has been removed from the cane juice.

I once did find some Granma's molasses at Rim Ping but it's long gone now. This is a molasses that is essentially just boiled down sugar cane juice with no sugar removed. It tastes great. But maybe in bangkok or elsehwere you can find it or something similar.

It has occurred to me that you can can get fresh sugar cane juice in some markets. So you could boil that down to molasses. If you are desperate enough.

Health food stores might also carry molasses.

A correction. In an earlier post I wrote that Robertson's makes a high quality fruitcake for sale in upscale supermarkets. I was wrong. It's Walker's that makes this fruitcake.

http://www.crfg.org/pubs/ff/jujube.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jujube

Not : http://www.wackypackages.org/stickers/4th_...cts/jujubes.jpg

Those must be very old or, if you prefer, very ripe jujubes. All the ones I've seen for sale are either green or green mottled with brown.

I've been to Charlie's and not only were his f&c and mushy peas excellent, but so was his conversation. He seemed almost to come out of central casting for a workingclass english bloke from the mid 20th century. He has lots of interesting stories to tell about life in England back when. He struck me as being a very friendly and shrewd guy. He hasn't been well lately which is, I believe, the reason for the irregular hours of his restaurant. I hope he makes a full recovery soon.

Any good chemist should have it.

bakersmart and yok both carry glucose syrup. i haven't seen glycerine at either place but that doesn't necessarily mean they don't have it.

Many of the cheeses carrefour offers are raw milk and are delicious. some are well known types like reblochon and others are more obscure like st. felicien du dauphine. In Chiangmai Rim Ping Supermarket offers some french raw milk cheeses including camembert. It has much more flavor than the pasteurized variety and helps make explicable why camembert became so popular in the first place. So if rimping carries it, i suspect Villa or other upscale supermarkets in bangkog would carry that and other raw milk cheeses as well. Also, I would imagine the central food hall on sukhumvit would have lots of raw milk cheeses.

Robertsons, the people who make scottish shortbread, also make an excellent fruitcake with top quality ingredients. In Chiang Mai, it's available at Rim Ping Supermarket.

OK, I take back what I said.

Let's go back to the new Italian bread place, please.

Or the thread will be closed, forthwith.

As an added note, all businesses here should be aware that you can advertise for free. On our free Thai Visa Directory.

bazmlb, our TV director of sales, posted this above:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?s=...t&p=3031666

Hope this helps.

Someone earlier had asked me if Cannella's makes bread. It turns out they do. I think it's done to order. Sourdough bread. It turns out that Raffaela, one of the owners of Cannella, is from Sardinia.

I'll save him the trouble:

It's located in the Rimping Supermarket, Mee Chok branch on the Maejo Road.

And Butter is Better has my vote also. Everything I have tried there has been good (esp. the apple pie) and the staff are always very friendly and welcoming. Thumbs up also to the Wednesday discounts - every little bit helps.

Haven't run into you there yet Chiangmaibruce but eventually will, I'm sure. It's a great bakery at Rimgping. Have you tried the Boston cream cake? Unbelievable! And the OP's wife-owner is most gracious, friendly and talented (she does all the baking from what I understand). A real find and worth trying out.

Dao, my wife, used to do all the baking. She is kind of brilliant at this thing. I've been baking classic butter crust pies for over 30 years. Dao looked at me do it once, and made a pie that tasted just as good in half the time, but looked 10 times better. Her whole family is scary that way. But as good as Dao is, demand has risen beyond even what she can do. we have added bakers. Currently there are 3 bakers in addition to Dao. Dao had to go through quite a lot of staff to find people talented enough to keep to her stringent standards. The special properties of butter and wheat flour are not deeply ingrained in Thai culinary culture as brilliant and rich as it is. Second to none, really. That said, even they can make mistakes occasionally, Like over-stirring cake batter which overdevelops the wheat gluten and makes for a tough cake. Or not sifting the baking soda which brings an interestingly unpleasant and unforgettable flavor to the coffee cake. These mishaps rarely occur now but when they do, Dao is very very grateful when people tell her that something isn't right. She is glad to give either a refund or a replacement. We had one employee (long gone now) who forgot to add butter to a large batch of banana bread 14 loaves in all. She remembered after the batch was baked but decided to send them along anyway. One customer returned what was, functionally speaking, a banana flavored brick. That means 13 customers didn't say anything and, presumably, didn't buy banana bread again. Ouch!

Spamming isn't on our list of things to do. For mine, you get a break this time. BUT use that oversize font again and, sadly. you will see an altogether different fellow member. One with

a size 10 and a half boot.

Did you ever see one of those movies where someone is unwittingly about to press a button that is wired to some infernal contraption that will skewer that poor unsuspecting someone in an excitingly picturesque way.. Well, when I was composing this letter when I discovered the font size option. I had a range of sizes for 1 to 7 to choose from. I chose 4 since I thought it would be middle sized. Turned out not to be the case. Maybe if someone out in the audience had just screamed a little louder I might never have done it. And some of us might be a little less perturbed.

That said, even if I had done this on purpose, the offense pales in comparison to threats of violence. Don't people get banned for that sort of thing? They ought to be.