BANGKOK REVISITED

So did ya forget we went to Bangkok this year. Not long ago as a matter of fact. I was looking at photos and thought I should share.




So this guy was just like everyone else in Bangkok, he wanted to sell you something or he had a service to offer. This guy had a service to offer. He owned and operated the "tuk tuk" taxi behind us in the photo. We were only a few blocks from our hotel, at the main intersection, we had already been ask if we would like a taxi, wanted a massage, needed food, or wanted a suit tailored just for us, me that is. No to everything, as it was early on our last morning and we didn't know what we wanted to do. It was raining so that put a slant on plans. Anyway this guy stopped us at the corner and ask if we wanted a ride. A tour if you please, 100 Bhat for 2 hours. That was a great deal, but we declined. We just wanted to hit the vendor a few blocks up and get some $3 tee shirts. So instead of trying to sell us a ride he started to chat us up. I didn't know Stacey was snapping photos. It was great, the guy wanted to know where we were from, how long would we be here, did we speak Thai, where were we going from here. Those are the same questions all the locals ask us. It was great the way people wanted to talk to you. They usually tried to sell you something and then they just wanted to talk. Like this guy. Believe it or not we were talking food.


So this was breakfast one morning. The guy who drove the "tuk tuk" for our hotel caught us coming out of the hotel one morning and it was raining. He stopped in front of us and ask us what we were doing. Don't know I said I guess we wanted breakfast. He ask if we wanted American or local. Of course we said local. He told us to get in and away we went. He dropped us just around the corner. He got out of the tuk tuk and spoke with the smiling lady there to greet us. Tuk tuk driver left and smiling lady sat us at a table. It was a indoor/outdoor place, many restaurants in Bangkok were. Once we sat and looked around we noticed three other ladies there a few tables away preparing food stuff for lunch. We were given menus and there was very little to choose from for breakfast. We both ordered the same thing. Omelet with Basil. We had no idea. The green you see in the photo is fried basil leaves. The other part is the omelet. I think we had potato's with it. I am sure it was very good.You can see the rice in the background and the small bowl of sauce next to the omelet. Scrambled eggs with fried Basil leaves, rice and a house made sauce. Shut up!

So I walked pass this place once. There is supposed to be a huge sex for hire scene in Bangkok, but we didn't see much of it. From what I read only 5% of the sex trade was from foreigners. It was a local thing.

This lady cooked for the King and Queen of Thailand at some point. Her name is Sisamon Kongpan. We were lucky, this is the day we were able to join the folks on the food tour. {see the guy below,mr.knuckle head} Sisamon was most gracious as were all the folks in Bangkok. Check Stacey out. She's looking hot and showing off her new cookbook.
This is the knuckle head we went with to Bangkok. Don't let the smile fool you.
This young lady was is a good example of the attitude of the people we met. Nice people and happy to have you as a guest in their country.

HELLO CAN YOU HEAR ME? HERE I AM!!

It has been a very painful month for me. Blog wise that is. Once I started writing this blog I was hooked. I guess I have always wanted to keep a journal of some sort and this blog filled that need. Stacey and I often took lot's of photos and wrote about trips we took, but we were never able to share like we can with this blog.

Writing a blog is not the easiest task in the world. Discipline is the toughest part. You have to make time to do it because it takes an hour or two to write most post. I guess I average about 250 words per post. Usually that's not hard to come up with, but then you have to edit yourself. Fine tune your post so that everything is just right. Then if you want to add photos, which you do, you have to take the photo, edit the photo on Photo Shop and then you have to place it on the post. Like anything one does regularly it get easier with time. I had a handle on getting post done without to much pain until the company who host my site upgraded the template I use for SOSOSOUTHERN.

That's when it all fell apart. The old way was not the same as the new way and I was lost. I had spent a year learning how to do the things I wanted to do with my blog when, BOOM it was totally changed. And the company hosting my site was no help, I was on my own.

So I have decided to try a new host, Google. Why not, they are a really, really huge company and hopefully I will be able to figure it all out and continue with this blog, SOSOSOUTHERN, which I enjoy doing so so much.

So stay tuned and be patient.

DIDN'T LIKE THAT CAR ANYWAY

Yesterday was the worst day of my life. I woke at 3 a.m. to the barking of my dogs. I rolled over and went back to sleep. Wrong move. Dogs kept barking, I finally got up to find that my car was
missing from in front of the house.

At 5:30 a.m. I was at the city park starting my "boot camp" work out. It was still dark and it was still 78 degrees. I was 3 minutes into my work out and my cloths were dripping wet.

At 7 a.m. I was sitting at my desk, in front of the computer, where I would spend the next 9 hours working.

At 9 p.m. police call with good/bad news. Good news, found my car. Bad news, see above photos.

Hope your day was better,
Stacey

“The service is terrible, but the waitress is super hot.”

Can’t wait to eat here!

At Wilfie & Nell, a gastropub a few blocks south, the room is a chaotic mixture of J. Crew and American Apparel, management consultants standing at the bar, the actress Martha Plimpton at a table near the door. Those wanting a seat need a keen eye and ruthless elbows: it’s first come, first served, and there’s no list. Here the ceiling is low, and the room has the dark, claustrophobic dampness of an English pub. The waitress, dressed in clingy black, with an eggbeater tattoo on her wrist, wends her way through the crowd with a sweet nonchalance. The food is meant to sop up the beer: pigs in a blanket, though the blanket is bacon; a buttery grilled cheese, made with tangy Gruyère and caramelized onions; neat little pork sliders, with the perfect ratio of meat to bun. Still, it dawns on you that, although the menu was assembled by Joaquin Baca, who also helped mastermind the Momofuku empire, the food is beside the point. One patron summed it up: “The service is terrible, but the waitress is super hot.” (Gottino is open weekdays for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and weekends for brunch and dinner; dishes $5-$14. Wilfie & Nell is open daily for dinner; dishes $5-$12.) ♦

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THING I SAW TODAY

I was sent this email today. It really is beautiful, isn’t it?
Stacey and I like to eat at the bar at Artisnal when in NYC. We ate there last trip and must have supplied them with our address. I’m glad I did, helps keep me motivated to get back there. Click here to see the complete page.

PEACE LOVE AND BEL AIR MALL

The other day a few of us were sitting on the front porch just chatting. Along comes a neighbor, we got to talking and he told us he enjoyed the Rush Limbaugh radio program. My sister spoke up and said how she found Rush to be divisive and mean, really bad for our country. The fellow said a few more pro Rush comments, he also said Rush had never been proven wrong. The guy talked about how smart Rush was. I wanted to tell this asshole how stupid he sounded. I wanted to tell him that I thought he was just another dumb ass that confused Rush Limbaugh as being intelligent with someone who collected information. But, I just bit my tongue and high fived my sister.

Yesterday I was watching the news and Obama was making a short speech about Ronald Reagan. These are some of his remarks.

President Reagan understood that while there are often strong disagreements between parties and political adversaries — disagreements that can be a source of conflict and bitterness — it is important to keep in mind all that we share.

For all of the deepest of divides that exist in America, the bonds that bring us together are that much stronger. And we may see the world differently, but we must never stop seeing one another as fellow Americans — and as patriots — who want what is best for the country we love.

This nation was built on the basis of the principle that we are stronger, not weaker, for even the most vigorous debates — debates that have energized our politics since the inventors of America argued over our founding documents more than two centuries ago. Through the weighing of different views we take measure of where we stand and where we must go. And the moment we fail to recognize the good in those with whom we quarrel, is the moment that we’ve lost sight of who we are as a people.

Rush Limbaugh could care less about anything other then his wallet and getting his next pain pill.

Talad Ying Charoen

This was my favorite day in Bangkok. Chef arranged for us to tag along with his group of 30 or so. They were all in the food business and were there as a guest of the Thailand Department of Culture . That is how we ended up being in Bangkok. Chef told us he was going with this group, we ask if we could meet him there and the rest is history.

Chef had full days so we were on our own a lot. Tuesday they were to visit the Ying Chareon Market and there was room for us on the bus. And what a bus it was! It came with a sleeping cowboy.

The Ying Charoen is a wet market, talad sod in Thai. A wet market is the traditional market place to shop for all things food in Bangkok. For a very long time it was the only way to shop, now it competes with supermarkets and flea markets for customers.The wet market is a dying breed. In the last ten years the number of wet markets in Bangkok has dropped from 150 to only 60.

The wet market we visited, Ying Charoen, is the model wet market of the furture. It is owned and operated by Parinya Tumwattana and his family. Mr. Tumwattanas Mother started this market 54 years ago and it was the most successful of it kind for many of those years. As time and progress changed the standards of living in Bangkok the wet market was getting left behind. Mr Tumwattansa knew his market needed to change as well.

He has spent the last ten years, more or less, updating the Ying Charoen Market. Hygiene was the number one concern. Today each vendor has refrigeration, running water and a responsibility to help keep things clean. There are daily inspections from the Health Department and classes are offered to the vendors to teach them how to handle perishable foods. The classes take place right there at the market in their state of the art kitchen.

We met with Mr. Tumwattana first thing that day and you could tell how proud he was of his market. He spoke about how he and the vendors were a large family. How they had worked together to make this new concept work because it was the only way to continue the tradition of the old wet markets. As we listened to Mr. Tumwattansa speak I thought his ideas were brilliant and compassionate, then we went downstairs to the market and that’s when I realized how much work went in to all he had talked about. Just look at some of these photos Stacey took as we toured and tasted our way through the Ying Charoen Market.