Story Jar - Crispy Fried What?

The Story Jar is a bi-weekly column published in the Patriot, Cuba, NY
copyright 2007 Elaine Hardman
It couldn’t have been what I thought. When we walked through the night market in Sukothai, Thailand, the light was poor - everything in shadows. A florescent lamp hung above the stand below a lamp post sprouting a spaghetti-tangle of wires that would have made an American electrician run screaming.
I was moving quickly in the crowd and didn’t look closely. My eyes flew over something fried golden brown and crispy –maybe some kind of noodles – but they looked like…never mind.
I could have stopped or gone back to look and erase the image from my mind. It would be good, maybe, to know that they were cookies or cheesy squiggles but I didn’t stop. We hurried on that night but today we are at the Antique House Restaurant in Chaing Mai and the image returned to me in living color while reading the menu.
The Antique House is an upscale restaurant. Meals cost about $10 instead of $3 as in other restaurants. There are many attentive waiters and the tablecloths are silk. There is always live music and the menu - in 2 languages -is 20 pages long.
It offered fried vegetables with pork served in a taro cup and that sound great. My choice was settled so I just whiled away the time browsing the menu and waiting for Rick to choose and that’s when I found fried fish stomach with oyster sauce. Well, if I had grown up here I would think that was dandy but given my background fish stomach was out.
Reading on, I found crispy fried worms. It seems that the light at the market had been adequate that night. The inadequate was my knowledge of Thai cuisine. Those little bumps weren’t wavy designs or fancy slicing but the remains of many appendages.

I ordered the fried vegetables and hoped that most of were yellow or green or orange and and that little would be brown, or wavy, or crispy. I didn’t think until now that everything was probably fried in the same oil. Well, that’s why travel is so interesting.

The next day we went to a huge outdoor market and found aisles and aisles of snack foods – dried fruits, cakes, donuts, cookies, banana chips and cashews. The cashews were wonderful - tasting of sweetness and coconut milk. We munched and walked past piles and piles of crispy, fried you-know-what.

Story Jar - Bako National Park

copyright 2007 Elaine Hardman
Borneo. It’s a magical name, don’t you think? Makes a person picture monkeys flitting in the trees or hear screaming macaws and buzzing insects. It’s a lot like that. Sure Borneo has cities full of traffic and shopping malls but much of the island is wrapped in the myriad shades of green that cover the ground and block out the sky in an Asian jungle. Such a jungle is on the tiny island of Bako sheltering 150 species of birds and 23 mammals including the rare proboscis monkey.
Borneo has some rough roads, some barely detectable roads - really just paths over boulders and around trees but we covered the road to our long boat in a nicely air-conditioned car over a smoothly paved road. I can do this, I thought leaning back into the seat separated from steamy heat by a tinted window.
I was 99% comfortable. The problematic 1% was a large, painful blister on the ball of my right foot. We bought something called Dettol disinfectant (not sure if it was for scrubbing toilets or washing feet) and I soaked my foot in it in the hotel sink the night before as well as that morning. Now the raw area was covered with a blister patch and while I knew we would trek all day on the Island my plan was to hobble along and keep my foot dry.
The car brought us to the docks where the heat and humidity smacked us hard as soon as we opened the door but once the boat started moving it was great. The wind was refreshing and we sped across the South China Sea to Bako.
If a person gets into a boat from a dock and it’s all dry and tidy, who can fault said person for expecting to get out of the boat on a dry, tidy dock? Bako is a national park and people go there from all over the world but it seems they get there by taking off their shoes, rolling up their pants and walking over rocks and the occasional slimy bits of once-sea life. With misguided faith in my blister patch, I arrived on the island. When I brushed off the sand to put my socks back on, I realized that the blister patch had joined other bits of debris in the sea. I thought longingly of the Dettol on the hotel sink but pulled on my sock and went in search of monkeys.
We chose the easiest trail, a predicted 3 hours out and back. It was a root covered trail – so steep at times we had to crawl. The rocks were wet and slick and it was hard to remember the primary jungle rule: no walking and gawking. (Combining the two sometimes resulted in tripping or stepping on someone or something, events that don’t always end well.)
We saw 3 proboscis monkeys and countless smaller monkeys. There were lizards and snakes on the trail and flowers and plants everywhere. We saw one of the rarest pitcher plants – only 26 known to exist at the time. We spent a little time watching a bearded pig. She had floppy pink lips that were remarkably capable of digging and she chewed the outer shell of a coconut as we might munch a carrot or bit of celery all of which means don’t get too close to a bearded pig.
During our hike, we sweated out gallons on that “easy” trail and wondered what the advanced trails might have been like. Resting afterwards, we drank water and a Gatorade-type thing called 100 Plus. We ate satay, fruit, rice noodles and unknown vegetables at the park’s restaurant and then strolled out on another trail where we heard voices. It was an odd conversation – two men talking but at the same time. We rounded the curve and found two guys sitting between boulders, each talking on a cell phone. So much for wilderness.
We, of course, had to kick off our shoes and wade to the boat to get back to the dock and that marvelously cool car. I expected my foot to be red and swollen the next morning but it wasn’t and that was even better than getting a ride in an air conditioned car.

Rick's furniture projects.

These are some of the items Rick has built in the last few years.
First, for no particular reason, is a blue cupboard with punched copper door. The long door was part of a built-in cupboard in our kitchen when we moved into this house. Rick took out that cupboard and built a new piece of furniture for the door.

















This is one of a series of three similar tables - cherry candle stick table with drawer












We had a lumpy, old recliner - the kind that shows the imprint of the person who sits in it most. Rick liked the recliner part so he kept the mechanism and figured how to rebuild it with oak to make a Morris chair but a recliner. There was a period of time when parts of it covered the kitchen table and the living room floor while we tried to figure out the upholstering.





The fireplace mantle is a group project. Jay made a mold for the square tiles and I made the mold for the rectangles. Rick did all the oak work. The hearth is covered in matching tiles and someday the similar tiles will be installed in Staiger's house in Almond.










The Shaker Sewing Stand is a complicated piece of furniture because of all the drawers and the beadwork on the legs and the tapers. there are small drawers on the top - for threads - and three drawers that open toward the front and three more to open on the side. Two quilters would sit on either side and be able to reach their supplies while working. Similar pieces can be found in the Shaker Museum.














A child's sleigh...









The bottom drawer has a curved, copper bottom designed for flour or vegetables. Called a Sow Belly Cupboard, this is in our dining room. On top is a wooden stand with a carved window from a Chinese house in Singapore. Resin statues of some of the Chinese gods are displayed. There's also a Tro (Cambodian violin) that I carefully carried on every plane to get it home where the lack of humidity made it fall apart.

Mission Style Bed

In the early 1980s, Dixie Klima and I went bed shopping. Our daughters (Kathryn Klima and Emilie Hardman) were ready for new just-for-them big-girl beds. Emilie's first bed was a white metal bed with brass details and she used it one day at a time until it was nearly 20 years old.

A few years ago, Rick decided to make a Mission Style bed for Emilie. Made of quarter-sawn oak, stately, heavy and beautiful, it now fills Em and Josh's room in Somerville. The next year he made a Queen size Mission bed for Jay and then he made a Murphy bed for Jay. Now he is building a King bed, slightly different in style, very different in size. This is a log of that newest bed.

Here's the center of the foot board.




This closeup shows the end of a wide slat getting a bit of fine tuning for a fit before assembly. (The tool is a number 90 Stanley bull nose plane. It's from England and is about as hard to find as black ebony.)



The center of the headboard was assembled next. "Hidden behind" these photos, of course, were hours and hours of planning, cutting and sanding.



Work continued in the basement to make the posts for the ends of the head and foot boards while the big elements spent some time in our messy garage.



The end posts were added. These are not single pieces of wood but laminated pieces so that all sides show the "flames" of quarter sawn oak.




Once the posts were on the headboard and foot board, Rick started working on the details. He tried on flat top pieces of different sizes to find the right size and shape to finish the posts. There are four holes in each post - one on each side of the top and two at the bottom on the side that shows. The other side of the bottom will be attached to the side rails. Ebony plugs will fit into the holes. The tiny plugs are cut and shaped to fit precisely in the holes.



This is the treatment chosen for the tops of the posts. The ebony plugs have the same pyramid shape.

Two days after putting up the image of the post tops and the ebony plugs, Rick was ready to start putting the stain on the wood.




























A nearly-completed night stand in the same style.

Story Jar - Yellow Shirts in Thailand

Published in the Patriot, copyright 2007 - Elaine Hardman



November 2006 was yellow shirts time in Thailand. We first noticed them at the Bangkok airport and thought the people were part of a tour but then I saw a man in a yellow shirt carrying a ladder. He wasn’t part of a tour group nor was the woman who was sweeping. Hey, there were yellow shirts everywhere - yellow shirts like you wouldn’t believe.
We missed our plane in Bangkok. Someone in a yellow shirt might have told us that they changed the gate after printing our boarding passes. A yellow shirt might have let us out of the security area so we could look for help or might have agreed to make a call for us but no yellow shirts came to our rescue.
The airlines changed our booking to the next morning and sent us to a hotel. The taxi driver should have gotten us there in 20 minutes but he drove around for an hour asking people in yellow and other shirts for the location of the Ibis Hotel. Finally he took us to a slick, western hotel probably thinking that getting rid of us was in his best interest but we could tell from the portico that we’d have to leave a stack of money at the desk to stay there while the Ibis would welcome us for $25. We couldn’t explain all of that since his understanding of English was limited to hotel names and the cost of a ride.
Luckily workers at this hotel knew where the Ibis was and drew a map for the driver and we celebrated - for a little while. We had to ask for directions two more times. Through the ordeal we saw people in yellow shirts and even saw shops selling nothing but yellow shirts.
Finally we found the Ibis Hotel where the manager, another gorgeous Thai woman in a country full of beautiful women, explained that the king was celebrating his 60th year on the throne so people wore yellow shirts with his crest every Monday.
Thailand is a country of uniforms. Every factory, restaurant and hotel has its own uniform so it’s reasonable that Thais would jump into yet another uniform for their king.


These shirts were flexible uniforms – uniform in color. Well-dressed ladies wore yellow silk jackets. Men and women wore camp shirts with the king’s crest on a pocket and bunnies prancing around the hem. Workers wore yellow polo shirts with pink or white collars and golden embroidered crests. Participation in this yellow shirt gig was accepted with wild exuberance.

I wore my own not-yellow shirts while snapping photos of people in yellow shirts in stores, on sidewalks and in the mall. Rick sat waiting (hiding) while I rode up the escalator 4 times trying for a clear shot of a store full of perfect, yellow shirts - shoppers and workers – while feeling happy that we had missed that plane.

Emilie created this blog and then created one for herself. Emilie's blog is dedicated to cooking and other matters of life in Boston.

Story Jar - Flying Foxes

Published in the Patriot, April 18, 2007, Copyright Elaine Hardman

To me, Asians seem more reserved than Americans. They seem to walk slower and drive slower. Indeed, in parts of Southeast Asia people manage to navigate traffic without lights, stop signs or speed limits yet roads safely accommodate trucks, buses, bikes, cars and motor bikes carrying an entire family or a carpet or a shipment of pillows.

In Singapore there is a zoo that requires visitors to be reserved. One ambles through it looking deeply in the shadows. They call it the Night Safari.
All the animals are nocturnal and their enclosures are showered in artificial moon glow. Food is placed under quiet lights and animals learn to gather there for an evening meal.

Sometimes a loud screech will slice through the soft-as-silk night quiet but the people only whisper, as if sharing secrets in the shadows.
Inside the Night Safari is a huge netted enclosure full of trees and elevated walkways. It holds gentle creatures with wide, deep eyes, papery wings and tiny claws – flying foxes – the fruit bats.

To see them we crept, with other tentative visitors, through two rows of hanging plastic chain. We stood against a railing and looked down into trees at first seeing nothing but the leaves and branches. I don’t know who found one first, probably Jay, maybe Emilie. Could have been Josh or Rick. I do remember turning to look in another direction and finding myself nose to nose with a bat.

Its wings were translucent satin; its eyes round and glossy. The small mouth was slightly opened showing tiny teeth and its black, bony feet clamped around a branch.
We all strolled through the area watching bats roost and fly, the air moving slightly and silently as bats sailed and folded again into wing-cocoons. The bats ate delicate bites of banana, orange and papaya and we developed appreciation and admiration for these silent creatures.

Don’t get me wrong. When a bat somehow made its way into our house this summer, I dropped my mug – running and screaming for Rick before the pieces finished clattering on the floor. But, in their own place they have grandeur.


That trip to Singapore was in 2003 and the experience immediately popped into my mind when we were in Siem Reap, Cambodia in 2006 and a fruit bat sailed overhead. Rick and I were walking downtown on our first night and that one bat made me start to look for others. I found them - in every direction – 5 here, 10 there, more than I could count over the river. As I looked, one glided between me and the streetlight showing a thin, silky wing – spanning at least 4 feet.

The next night, as I stood on the balcony of our guest house at dusk, every part of the sky was alive with hundreds and hundreds of fruit bats and all I could say was, “Wow.”

Travel - Food in Budapest

On the streets we found grilled chicken, grilled pork, grilled sausages or grilled kabobs. These are roasted on iron grills over wood fires. There are also huge flat skillets full of vegetables sitting on beautiful porcelain wood stoves. Sometimes the stoves hold vats of mulled wine. There are several such booths at the center of town where the cooking -and eating - seems to go on all day.

I haven’t tried any of the sausages but Rick had a few - 12 inches long with lots of garlic. They are served with a creamy, brown mustard and sliced bread or fried potatoes.

I’ve had potatoes, the chicken (pink with paprika) and the pork – also with mustard.

The whole town smells like pastry and it seems there are strudel shops in every subway center of any size. Rick got an apple strudel at the Great Market and I stole two bites of it- no small feat. It was flavored with cinnamon and brown sugar and melted nicely on the tongue.

Rick also had some ice cream in Rome – coffee flavored in a small cone with a pizzelle proudly standing at the top. Rome was also where we found roasted chestnuts –big, fat ones nicely split and easy to peel. They were great.

In Budapest we twice had lunch at a place called Paprika which is a thatched roof hut built inside of a stately Hungarian building. The furniture is something out of a log cabin but the food is great. I had a chicken salad and Rick tried the bacon wrapped chicken livers as well as the veal paprika which seemed like beef stroganoff and was served with macaroni and cheese flavored with bacon pieces. He also had a cucumber salad but couldn’t eat the whole thing though he made a stomach-poofing effort.

The pubs and internet bars are so smoke filled that it is barely possible to push through the fumes to get inside. Cigarette butts are plentiful and hazy, green, plumes of tainted air cling to the body after a visit but it is the only source of wifi.

Chocolate is everywhere and so I ate industrial quantities of it, just to keep my strength up with all the walking and staring agog at the magnificent buildings.

Our morning breakfast included orange juice redder than the apples and a wonderful dark brown bread with nuts and grains on the top.

The thing that Rick seemed to like best was the potato soup. Soups seem popular especially at this tiny restaurant where people stood in line during lunch hour to get bowls of creamy pea or spinach or potato soup. These were carried outdoors to the tables on the sidewalk and eaten with huge slices of bread and fried foods with a crispy coating. I'm not sure what all the somethings were under the coatings. Chicken and pork are likely candidates and some of the things were definitely mushrooms. I even have a mushroom story.

When were were there Rick ordered the potato soup (easy to do by pointing) and I asked for a breaded chicken (also available for pointing) and mustard (not in view). Mustard in English must sound like mushroom in Hungarian because the server pointed to the mushrooms but I said no, not that. Then it occurred to me to copy the word mustard. I could see it on the menu board but had no idea how to say it. (The Hungarians have a plethora of vowels.) Writing it on a slip of paper solved my problem but slowed progress in the serving line by several seconds.

We ate on the sidewalk sharing a table with two beautiful girls while the cars and the trolley passed by.