thai ginger: serving more than just red curry for 15 years

one of the comments on this article said, "i'll have an order of pad yhai and a bride to go, please."

seattle's thai ginger restaurant's owner has been arranging sham marriages between its employees and thai citizens wanting to get green cards. i don't know if i've ever eaten at thai ginger, but now i gots to. if their food is as creative as this scheme, its gotta be good. here is the link to the article, and once again, the comment section is always colorful:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009373478_webthaiginger23m.html

jacob - you may just need to be a contributer to my blog... it would cut out the middle man.

ny times article: Lao and thai food

here is the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/dining/17larb.html?_r=2&ref=dining

and thanks to jacob for sending this to me, and for his astute observation that, "unfortunately they say nothing about padek."

a round of applause for the white people

i was invited by the farrar family for dinner on sunday for a curry festival. everyone brought a curry dish of some sort (and mine is the one in the bottom-most picture with the basil swimming around on top.) i was pretty durn amazed at what everyone came up with. there was some good food!




as we were contemplating the success of different dishes, and i proposed "a round of applause for the white people," someone pointed out that unlike some countries that really stick to their own dishes and diets, americans -without a cuisine they can call their own- have gotten pretty good at borrowing (or if you want to get cynical: stealing) recipes from the rest of the world. to this someone else added, "yeah, its not like you see people in other countries making tuna casserole." but as mom farrar put it: "who would want to eat tuna casserole? even i don't want to eat tuna casserole."

Lao vs. Laotian

i just finished reading this discussion on lonely planet's website (see link). which is it, Lao or Laotian?

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/message.jspa?messageID=15723942

i always felt that the word "Laotian" referred to any person, thing, food, etc, from Laos - and that it was meant to refer to these things in the broader sense. additionally, the term seems useful in that it differentiates from a specific reference to the ethnic Lao people/language.

for example, most hmong people in the usa would fall under the category of Laotian (in the sense that they may be refugees from Laos) but would not fall under the category of Lao (in that Lao is a specific reference to a specific people, language that makes up the majority population in the country of Laos.)

also, certain foods maybe consider Laotian dishes, but may not be an actual dish of the lowland Lao people.

any comments on this? when i tell people i speak another language, i almost always say "i speak Lao." and i use the word Laotian for clarification purposes only. the word Laotian does seem to be a western invention - i've never heard it used in Laos. although the Lao government does have certain words in place to assist in developing a greater "Laotian" identity... (the terms Lao loum, Lao theung, and Lao soung, would be examples but i will save that for another post.)