Wednesday, December 7
It takes me a while to process things, sometimes longer than others. It’s as if the inputs go to some interior storage place, and only after some mysterious process occurs do they bubble up to my consciousness. And what I came up with when I woke up this morning, and then on the long drive from Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai was this:
Rachamankha is an architectural masterpiece
On leaving this morning, it occurred to me I should really look at the hotel we stayed in last night. I was enjoying the stay. It was pretty and all, but there was something more to it, so I took our last moments there to really look at the structure, and the way the structure led a person through it. Here’s what I’m talking about.
You drive through a nondescript back street and turn through an opening in a wall. There are two fairly plain, similar-looking buildings. The one in front of you is a restaurant, the one on the left is the hotel. It has a doorway you walk through
and you just have to slow down. It’s not immediately obvious that you have to walk down this space and turn left. Through the opening you come into a second entryway
that invites you to look more closely at that remarkable tree.
The front desk is in a glass-walled room on the left. On the right is an arch that you walk through to get to your room.
It’s bright out, so it’s hard to see what’s inside that structure in front of you.
As you approach you see an impressive display of flowers in the center of the table, so you stop yet again, and look
at the cozy lounge with its wonderful artwork before you continue on to your room. Perhaps without being conscious of it, you’ve just had a relaxing, soothing experience.
That was a really good lesson in cooking
Fairly often I rely on Mary for her observations to help me out.
Some writers about Italian cooking have said it’s all about the ingredients. It occurs to me that for Thai cooking it’s all about understanding the flavorings. Before we sat down to chop and pound our ingredients in preparation for cooking, our host took us on a tour of his farm. While at the moment I was enjoying the look of the place, Mary reminded me that he was also showing us and having us smell and taste the ingredients, i.e. the flavors we were going to use: galanga, turmeric root, hot basil, sweet basil, tree basil (each one used for a different dish!), lemon grass, etc., etc.
These were used to create the ‘layers’ of flavor that you hear about on Food Network. They were really there in force in the tomato and pork dish, and especially the soup we made.
Lesson learned: Pay better attention, Steve!
Oh Yes, Chiang Rai
After about three hours of driving, we arrived in Chiang Rai, at the Meridien Hotel. It has dramatic landscaping and an impressive appearance. It is very clean and comfortable. Our room is spacious, with a king-size bed and excellent Internet connectivity.
An hour later we were picked up by our Chiang Rai guide and whisked off for an afternoon of touring. No, I’m not going to show you a picture of Mary and me in front of the sign that says ‘The Northernmost Point of Thailand.’ We didn’t take one.
Next: Chiang Rai cooking class
