I think in my personal heaven, there will be authentic Thai food and authentic Italian food to eat for all eternity.
Last night, I made my special Thai meal for a group of four students. Let me backtrack for a moment and explain why I was cooking for kids. Every winter, The Academy has an event Winter Fest. As the name implies, it is a festival of sorts during the winter. Kids set up tables and sell cupcakes or face paint, and all the money that is made goes toward financial aid. One of the service clubs on campus has a "promise tree" each year, where people donate things that are silently auctioned off. I donated a Thai meal, cooked by yours truly, and so, last night, the kids who won came over.
The dish I always make when I make Thai food is called gaeng gai (which I guess in English is pronounced something like "gang guy) and it is basically a chicken curry dish. It's made with a base of coconut milk and is probably one of the most delicious things in the world. I also usually make a Thai omelet with it, since the mildness of the omelet balances out the spiciness of the curry.
On Wednesday, I went to the store and bought ten chicken thighs. Unfortunately, they only had thighs that had skin and the bone still on/in them, but I figure that it would be ok. So at 5:00 yesterday, I started skinning and boning 10 chicken thighs. I thought this would be an easy task, but I forgot to factor in my "repetitive stress" injury. Yes, I have something akin to carpal tunnel in my right wrist, which, of course, is my dominant hand. So, I was frantically cutting up each thigh while trying to avoid getting any raw meat onto my wrist brace. Doing anything with a brace on is difficult, and cutting up meat is no different! After about 5 thighs, I started to panic about getting everything ready in time, so I enlisted the helps of The Boyfriend, who kindly obliged and cut vegetables. At 6:00, I threw everything into the pot, and frantically made the omelet. Somehow, everything was ready at 6:27, and at 6:30, the kids arrived.
The dinner itself was mostly just funny. Funny how kids pretend to hide gossip from adults while really wanting them to know what's going on. Funny how each kid is s self-absorbed, in the way only teenagers can be. Funny how each of them things him/her self to be so mature, so worldly, when really they only have to worry about the grade on their next test.
I love working with these kids, high schoolers in general. I love watching them interact with each other, watching them squabble over things that won't matter years, months, days from now. It's fun to watch them develop that more mature self-awareness, to see them leave that selfish teenager behind. It's also fun to remember how similar to them I was when I was there age. So silly, so naive. Such is life.
Anyway, it was a fun night and the food was pretty spectacular, if I do say so myself. Good thing there are lots of leftovers!
ciao
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