Monday, August 11, 2008

day 75- "no, no, no. only use fish sauce. then it is thai!"


imported from thailand- fish sauce! according to patsy, a thai woman in my employ, thai food is just not thai without fish sauce. she shook her finger at me and said, "no you cannot use soy sauce. it has to be fish sauce. to many places use other things besides fish sauce. this is not real thai food. that is something else!" she would not let in on what that something else was though...
my plan for dinner was to make some thai fried rice. i had never done it and since thai food involves a whole lot of ingredients i knew i would really be able to get some practice in with the knives that the lady got me for my birthday.
the recipe i was given was simple. cook the garlic in the oil then put in the chicken and all the stuff you are going to to cook. then the fish sauce and then the rice goes in. the rice should not be hot. mix it all up and then you are ready to eat.
thanks patsy. not quite the recipe i was hoping for, but it did help me to get the process down.
i made the rice with chicken, green beans, broccoli and pineapple. a couple of thai orange peppers for some creeping heat and of course the fish sauce. i made the jasmine rice and cooled it. i think it would have been quicker and easier to buy the rice from mei zhong wei (the chinese takeout downstairs), but still it was a decent success.
it was really quite simple, and if you are ever trying to get rid of extra vegetables this is the way to do it. with the exception of the rice it took about 20 minutes total time to cook and prepare. thats a good meal for someone who is busy.
add in the possibility of getting rid of those tidbits from the weekend groceries and you have a winner.
with oil prices dropping it seems we are headed closer and closer to recession. this means i am going to need some cheap and easy meals that will keep my refrigerator in check.
wait a minute... did i say oil prices dropping as a sign of recession?
why, yes i did.
it seems that although three weeks ago people were screaming recession as oil prices rose, when the price dropped due to a lack of demand they are saying the same thing.
as people have run out of their stimulus money they are now tightening up their belts for the long hard winter. this means we are using less energy since we are buying less.. doing less.
sometime i think the whole economy is projected by waving a stick over some water or something. while everything the economists say makes sense, it seems like that for every happenstance there is a reason. some reason. we just accept it as word.
and wait for a few months to see if the predictions were actually true.
if the news was good then we will be better for it, having saved and been careful.
if the news is bad, then we will be ok, having saved and been careful.
anyway we look at it, i think now is the time to just be careful. save a bit now for later and eat all our dividends from our plates.
in the end it will add up to something.
or not...
but don't worry some economist will tell us to what.
wrapping up
477.68 at the start
a buck69 spent
the kitty stands at 63 cent
maximum spending tomorrow
2buck27
i can spend that much tomorrow
you can't stop me.

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