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Bio:
Craving is a desire. Karma is a consequence. Maybe it is the nature of being Thai and my grandmother's protégé that motivates me to satisfy my craving. I do believe that life is all about living one's senses to the fullest.
Born and raised in Thailand, I moved to the US during my teenage years to live with my adopted parents. Knowing only a few words of English, the new culture sharply contrasted with my old one. From fried fish to fried chicken, from rice three meals per day to peanut butter on Challah, and from curry to gumbo--my world turned upside down. One of the few things that stayed the same was my taste buds. And I owed having a good sense of flavors to my grandmother.
I am not a professional chef, nor a food critic. However, growing up with my grandparents I was immersed in the kitchen since as long as I can remember. I was a sous chef to my grandmother. The first test she set for me was killing and cleaning my first live snakehead fish at the age of 7. I graduated with the "license" to cook my own pot of curry in middle school. A pot of curry is not as simple as one might think. How about picking up those aged coconuts with dry, brown husks and hard outer skin and getting the coconut milk out with a machete? The curry paste is... a "no brainer" you could say. What if I told you that every ingredient was picked from the backyard and hand-ground with mortar and pestle? Splitting a whole chicken... I could not earn the right to cook a chicken without knowing how to butcher it. All of which had become my foundation of cooking skills.
My grandmother was Thai-Chinese and my grandfather was Thai-Laotian. So you can imagine the tastes that ran through my veins growing up. We ate everything with one condition...it had to meet my grandmother's standards. An example of her standards can be understood over her conversation with my grandfather, discussing the texture of the farm raised versus wild caught fish. Wild is always tastier, according to her. The fat of the prawn makes the soup sweeter. Catfish is a "no no". A bottom feeder is not up to par. Duck must be roasted or stewed with five spices. Every Thai meal must have soup to clean the palate. The list goes on.....
I am an architect professionally. Having had the chance to work and to live in the Ticino canton of Switzerland, I had my first taste of wine and polenta from a 100-year-old pot, at the top of the Alps. Traveling around Europe, my taste buds grew worldly. The composition of flavors is not far from composing a space. Mixing light, air, texture of the material, placement of the building on the ground and the recognition of spaces that inspires one to live is very much like mixing flavors and crossing cultures to produce a uniqueness that dances on the tongue and touches your inner spirit.
Traveling is one of the ways I fine-tune my palate. Occasional visits to places such as Southeast Asia, Europe and all around the US expand my palate and remind me of the classic flavors. The senses can be heightened even when spoken words are hardly recognizable. The fragrance of the soil is different in all places, producing different tasting products that are unique to its particular growing ground.
14 years ago I married into a Southern family. I introduced roast duck to the Christmas holiday dinner and in turn gained a craving for Smithfield ham, pork BBQ, and an appreciation for jello and cottage cheese salad. My own children, 6 and 4, have acquired an appetite for foods from many different regions of the world. Fried fish without bone in Thailand, French frog legs and Gorgonzola cheese are a few. They often accompany me in judging the restaurant food.
After living in the Washington, DC metro area for over 15 years, I have relocated with my family to the Triangle area of North Carolina. My craving is still with me. The nature of me is a motivation to explore the local cuisine; cook the food from local products, and we shall see how the Triangle matches up with my cravings. For all of you out there, join my quest...and help me find the ways.
Teera
