Our supplies

This year for the 4th of July we all went over to a friend’s house for a nice BBQ. It was great! We had all sorts of our favorite foods including hot dogs and hamburgers, macaroni salad, potato salad, corn, potatoes, and even kielbasi and sauerkraut. I brought pork and chicken kebabs in two different kinds of marinade. One was just BBQ sauce and the other was some middle eastern lemon and mint mixture. We were all surprised at how great they were. I love trying all these exotic foods, but I also love the foods I grew up with. Let’s just keep it at: I love food!

The grill

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Yum!

Alright, you knew it was going to happen. It happens every year. So here it is: the obligatory trash plate post. Boy, my mouth is watering just looking at these. I should start selling these in Thailand. At least give my friends who have never heard of such a thing witness the magic within. I wonder if it could catch on?

Beautiful!

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mmm...turkey

Thanksgiving was more than a week ago, but we just had our belated feast. Turkey is not common in Thailand although it can be purchased at a pretty penny in most upscale grocery stores. If you do decide to splurge on a turkey, then you encounter the problem that ovens (and definitely not ones big enough for a turkey) are not common either. So how can we get a nice, big turkey cooked on Thanksgiving? Enter Tops delivery. We are fortunate enough that Tops will be happy to cook up a turkey for you and deliver it with some stuffing, gravy, and cranberry sauce. The only thing you need to worry about is carving it.

Our turkey arrived on time and hot. The guests brought dessert, salad, and mashed potatoes. I’m not sure if it was simply a dearth of turkey over the previous year or simply that it was good, but the Tops prepared turkey was delicious. In true Thanksgiving fashion, we had plenty of leftovers to last us a week later. A little bit expensive, but after you factor in the leftovers and holiday mood, it was totally worth it.

our 'buffet'

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Catfish 'fingers'

Here’s a plate of catfish pieces from Dinosaur BBQ.  I prefer to call them catfish ‘fingers’.  nothing too odd about these, but they are very different from the catfish in Thailand.  Thais eat a lot of catfish (bplaa duk [ปลาดุก]) prepared in many ways.  Thailand is also known for some of the largest catfish in the world: the mekong giant catfish.  These fish can be in excess of 250 kilograms!  Unfortunately, they are very endangered due to overfishing so I don’t plan on giving them a taste anytime soon.

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A wonderful scallop entree

Here’s an entree of scallops from a restaurant in Rochester. Nothing too strange about this one, but it was so tasty I couldn’t resist posting the picture.  While scallops are common in some asian cuisines, it is rare to find them in Thailand.  As far as I know, even though the use of shellfish is common in Thailand, no Thai dish makes use of them since they are not harvested in the region.

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Another delicious meal

Well, everytim I make it back to the US, I must have a trash plate at some point during the trip.  Here’s this visit’s.  Wow it makes my mouth water just looking at this photo.  Too bad there’s nothing like this available in Bangkok.

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Deer and goose meat

Nicely cooked goose meat

Some pheasant meat

Here’s a nice collection of some less common meats.  I certainly wouldn’t consider these rare or strange, but we don’t see them all that often.  And they sure are tasty!  This is venison, goose, and pheasant all three of which my friend hunted and smoked for our eating pleasure.  We should have made some Thai dipping sauces for them.

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Tofurky

What better way to celebrate Thanksgiving than with a Tofurky? Actually these photos were taken in April, but that’s besides the point. What we have here is a totally vegan imitation turkey. Unfortunately this one isn’t molded into the shape of a turkey like the one I saw last year, but it certainly tasted a lot better. While it’s not something I’m gonna go out and search for or even order if it happened to be on a menu somewhere, I will admit that it didn’t taste too bad. Remarkably similar to turkey. The texture is what really puts me off though. Weird, mushy, close to meat but still tofu-ish.
Anyway, this one even comes with all the fixins. You get vegan stuffing, gravy, and even a fake wishbone! I don’t know what the wishbone was made of, but it wasn’t nearly as good an imitation as the tofurky itself. Anyway, I guess it wouldn’t be too bad if I was a vegan craving turkey meat. Although I’m still curious why tofurky isn’t spelled tofurkey? Wouldn’t that be a real combination of tofu and turkey?

Inside of a tofurkey...with 'stuffing'

Why is tofurky missing an 'e'?

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Odd looking geoduck

Fresh geoduck

Here’s a strange one that unfortunately I haven’t had the opportunity to try yet.  These photos were taken in an Asian grocery store in New York City  I don’t know much about geoduck, but I’ll definitely need to add it to my ‘To Eat’ list.

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Alligator bits

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