start spreading the news

everytime the united nations gets together for their annual general assembly, the american media is just sitting around waiting to hear what crazy new thing that ahmadinejad or hugo chavez might say. but what about president choummaly from Laos? well, he was there in new york city too and apparently attended some very important meetings; although his attendance was without the fan fair of the iranian president; in case you weren't aware, fan fair means crazy in this context. but choummaly has returned to Laos, and all is well. see link below.

http://laovoices.com/2010/09/29/president-choummaly-sayasone-back-from-new-york/

the boat landing cookbook

a new northern Lao cookbook has been published and is available for purchase! thank you kees for letting me know about this! (he let me know that there are 3 recipes for padek inside!) maybe my life-long - well, not really life-long, but long enough - dream of making my own bucket of padek will finally come true. and i'm just waiting to see if it's got a good recipe for khao soi, the northern Lao's answer to the plain, not-nearly-as-good, vietnamese pho. as soon as i get my next paycheck, i'm going to order a copy!

but here is the cover art and link (below) so you can buy a copy and keep real Lao food in your kitchen and not a distant memory in the past.


and maybe i will abandon my plan to make all of the recipes in penn's cookbook, and i will start anew with this one. well, i really haven't made anything new out of hongthong penn's cookbook in a while anyway. sorry ben, i know you said you hate it when people say they're gonna do something with their blog, but then quit after a couple posts. that is me; let's hope you don't do the same.

this is a great website with lots of info and it's meant to be interactive - so take a look:
http://www.foodfromnorthernlaos.com/

war of the world trade center

i may be a little late in commenting on this, but why is a christian church in florida planning on burning copies of the quran in acknowledgement of the 9/11 anniversary? admittedly, the pastor looks like he stumbled out of a pig farm in a william faulkner novel, but seriously? i guess we can feel somewhat comforted that most of the nation is against this. (the white house, angelina jolie, and utah condemn the event.) even general patreaus is asking the guy to stand down, saying something like, "uh...people will die over this."


well, maybe this event will force americans to take a step back and reconsider their position on islam and muslims in america. i think most people would not wish to be associated with the hillbilly pastor (from deliverance?) and may rethink their position on the new york city mosque that is planned for construction by the site of the world trade center. i am still puzzled that 61% of americans feel that the mosque shouldn't be allowed, and 70% think it's an insult to 9/11 victims. (since we are negatively categorizing religions, i am offended by quaker oatmeal, and when i was five my favorite movie was the gremlins... i don't know how this applies, but i don't know how the mosque controversy fits together either, so there you go.)


well, this is another one of those situations that causes me to pause and consider our superior-to-the-rest-of-the-world american values...
below is an article from the seattle times, about a guy that seems to take his ideals a little bit further than an american flag t-shirt and a sarah palin 2012 bumper sticker. he is a pastor of an evangelical christian church here locally that has been reaching out to area muslims to build stronger interfaith coalitions. michael ly is "self-described chinese cambodian american evangelical christian." read his story below:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2012827459_michaelly07m.html

rooster song

i swear i thought that rooster sauce came from thailand or vietnam or something. instead it was developed in the 1980s right here in the u.s.a. by mr. tran, a chinese viet refugee. there are even imitations that have popped up... shark sauce, for one... i can't imagine a world before rooster sauce (sriracha) and i can't imagine a world without it. (and i really can't imagine a plate of broken rice and grilled chicken or some fried egg or a bowl of pho without it.) so read this article from the new york times and then head to your favorite pho shop where you're bound to find some rooster sauce sitting on the table next to the chopstick holder.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C05E1D9143FF933A15756C0A96F9C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1