#AND TALKING ABOUT HOW SALTY CRABS IS ILLEGAL

[snudootchaikovsky]

MAGLUCK WEEK: DREAMS

THERE'S AS MUCH RHYME AND REAOSN KN THIS AS THERE IS A COHERENT THOIGHT IN MY DREAMS MEANINF THAY THERE IS NONE

[captainmdhridoyhossain-blog]

[ad_1] LOS ANGELES — Ava Phengsy is a Lao house prepare dinner, however I additionally bring to mind her as an artist.Her medium is Instagram, and the topic of her obsession is thum mak hoong — Lao papaya salad — a synthesis of many actual flavors together with concentrated black crab paste, intensely bitter roasted hog plum and the powerfully fishy, unfiltered fermentation referred to as padeak.“My palate is hard-core Lao,” she mentioned. “I don’t water it down and I don’t shy clear of it.”Ms. Phengsy, who lives within the South Bay house, isn’t exaggerating, and her devotion to Lao flavors, which she thinks had been unappreciated outdoor her neighborhood for too lengthy, is fierce.In a single clip, she may name your consideration to the odor that lingers on her palms after blending the thick, treacle-dark dressing. In any other, she’ll focal point at the tune of the dish: the rhythmic scrape of a steel spoon towards the mortar, adopted through the juicy thump of the pestle.Thum mak hoong is Ms. Phengsy’s on a regular basis convenience meals, her five-minute meal, her anytime snack. She realized to make it from her mom, and has been doing so each and every different day for the remaining two decades.“Thum is adored and beloved,” she mentioned. “However numerous other folks don’t are aware of it’s a Lao dish.”Maximum American citizens realized about papaya salad in Thai eating places, partly as a result of Thai eating places have all the time been extra abundant in the USA. Thailand, Laos’s wealthier neighbor, even invested in culinary international relations starting within the 2000s, lending Thai companies cash to open extra eating places across the world.In his superb 2019 cookbook, “Hawker Fare,” the Bay House chef James Syhabout writes about how his Lao mom labored in a Thai eating place when she arrived in the USA. Later, she opened her personal Thai eating place.Why no longer a Lao eating place? For plenty of Lao immigrants organising a brand new trade in a brand new nation, the fear was once that a Lao menu could be too difficult to understand for American diners — too sour, too highly spiced, too fishy, too salty. Briefly, too dangerous.As it wasn’t simply the meals tradition of Laos, however the entirety concerning the nation, that was once unfamiliar to maximum American citizens. This, in spite of the deep involvement of the USA there right through the Vietnam Struggle — the American army dropped two million lots of bombs on Laos starting within the overdue Nineteen Sixties, and illegally sprayed greater than 600,000 gallons of toxic herbicide into its fields.1000's of households fled then, right through the Lao Civil Struggle, and after it when a Communist govt got here to energy. Many escaped through crossing the Mekong River, arriving at refugee camps in Thailand and different portions of Southeast Asia. They each revised and preserved their foodways in those in-between areas, inside of Lao immigrant communities, round Lao Buddhist temples and at house.For many years, Lao delicacies in the USA has been virtually hidden from outsiders, however that’s converting as increasingly more chefs percentage their meals at markets and in eating places, at pop-ups and occasions, on Instagram reels and in YouTube tutorials.Chefs like Ms. Phengsy say they’ve been impressed to talk slightly louder about their meals because of Seng Luangrath, the chef and restaurateur in the back of Thip Khao, in Washington D.C. Ms. Luangrath realized to prepare dinner within the early Nineteen Eighties from her elders on the Nakhon Phanom refugee camp in Thailand. In 2010, she took over her first eating place, Bangkok Golden, coaching personnel to inform diners concerning the “secret” Lao menu.“In the beginning, I didn’t have the braveness to do full-blown Lao meals,” mentioned Ms. Luangrath. However later, she added Lao dishes to the menu and renamed her eating place Padeak, after the chunky Lao fish sauce.Saeng Douangdara is a non-public chef and cooking teacher in Los Angeles who makes pleasant, ceaselessly cheeky cooking movies.

In a extra earnest second on-camera, he explains why his oldsters shared sticky rice along with his pals, however by no means padeak.As a kid, Mr. Douangdara couldn’t comprehend it, however “after two decades of being informed that bucket of fish sauce was once gross, embarrassment and disgrace was a part of their lives.” That Ms. Luangrath named her eating place after the factor — pushing it into the foreground, celebrating the actual attractiveness and gear of its wonderful stink — wasn’t misplaced on Lao chefs who had hidden their padaek away, whether or not actually or figuratively.Relating to his oldsters, Mr. Douangdara closes that video through announcing, “I’m pleased with Maeh’s artistry making unfiltered fish sauce; I boast about Poh’s abilities in slaughtering a cow. Our meals is highly spiced, stinky and most significantly, it's sufficient. We're sufficient.”A standard, family-style Lao meal revolves round sticky rice. Surrounding it, there may well be jeow — a delectable relish of a few type — together with a soup, meat and vegetable for everybody to achieve for communally.However Lao delicacies is difficult to compress. It’s intensive, regional and various, making deliciousness out of the entirety inside of achieve — wild vegetables, plant life, tendrils and sour herbs, a pile of sentimental white ant eggs, blood and offal of each and every type, or even the tiny, pesky crabs that are living in rice fields. Not anything is wasted.That very same scope isn’t all the time possible in Southern California. At Kra Z Kai’s Laotian Barbecue, in Corona, Calif., Musky Bilavarn’s menu is edited to stay issues quite simple: a couple of types of marinated and grilled meats, drippy papaya salad and a number of sticky rice.Diners get those aggregate platters to move, strolling again to their automobiles with aromatic, sweaty luggage of Lao sausage, or they sit down through the window, pinching items of sticky rice with their palms, chewing at the glistening, elastic meat round cleaved quick ribs, minimize identical to Korean galbi.Tharathip Soulisak runs a tiny, roving pop up in Los Angeles that adjustments its title and menu with the seasons. He ferments his personal padeak, and serves subtle little cubes of blood cake with hand-crafted noodles. And he ceaselessly plans menus round what he craves consuming — in the event you’re fortunate, it may well be nam khao tod, the habit-forming, labor-intensive fried-rice dish, stained deep crimson with curry paste and speckled with bits of tart and bouncy cured beef.Mr. Soulisak is lately making plans so as to add a chewy grilled brisket to his menu, conscious that some diners may be expecting the minimize to be wobbly, steamy and soft. “Am I going to get proceedings about it being chewy?” he mentioned. “I don’t know, however chewy is a texture that Lao other folks love!”When Mr. Soulisak’s oldsters fled Laos, they lived within the Nong Khai refugee camp in Thailand, and he ceaselessly refers to his personal cooking now as “Lao refugee meals” — dishes got rid of from house, converting out of necessity, surviving thru resilience.California is house to extra Lao immigrants than every other a part of the rustic. Whilst there is not any centralized Lao group with temples, companies and eating places in Los Angeles or Orange County — no Little Laos — there are hubs for Lao meals scattered throughout the house.The sisters Manoy and Kayla Keungmanivong took over Vientiane, in Lawn Grove, Calif., from their father, Saveng, greater than a decade in the past. That they had prior to now labored of their father’s kitchen, turning out each Thai and Lao dishes (together with a Lao papaya salad with complete salted crabs served at the aspect, if you realize to invite for them).The goi pa, a colourful fish salad, is shimmering and luxurious, scented with many types of mint, the meaty items virtually invisible amongst a beneficiant mass of makrut lime leaves and crimson onion. The laap (additionally Anglicized

to “larb”) is a pleasure, and comprises one made with red meat and fuzzy, stretchy tripe, seasoned with bile in the event you’d adore it, which pushes the flavors outward till they’re significantly sour and mouthwatering.“There are numerous foodies available in the market, and numerous eating places alternate issues up for them, however no longer us,” Manoy Keungmanivong mentioned. “We stay it conventional as a result of our elders are used to these flavors.”It could be a disgrace to go away Vientiane with out preventing through the refrigerator, which is all the time stocked with slender, terrazzolike slabs of som moo, a preserved beef the sisters make in space, and tubs of deeply flavored dips and relishes, constituted of substances like mustard leaves, roasted chiles and grilled tomatoes.You need to select simply this sort of dips up and make a sumptuous meal of it at house, hanging in combination a range with some sticky rice, beef cracklings, lettuces, herbs and uncooked greens, or no matter you've round. The whole lot might be advanced through somewhat bath of relish.There’s not anything extra exciting than a prolific, beneficiant house prepare dinner opening up her kitchen to you. Within the Venture Hills group of Los Angeles, Mannie Sithammavong went skilled in 2018, when she took over a Chinese language eating place with reference to her husband’s auto-body store.Ms. Sithammavong referred to as it Kop Jai Lai, serving most commonly Thai meals, however devoted a piece of the menu to the Lao dishes she’d cooked for friends and family at house: papaya salad, the slippery, fragrant steamed catfish dumpling mok pla, and an entire vary of laap and noodle soups.A neat menu makes issues deliciously easy for diners, regardless that many Lao dishes aren’t simply or rigidly classified — they’re without boundary lines, served in multiple genre, belonging to many of us throughout many puts.The khao poon pla, made with catfish, is especially wealthy and comforting. And the khao piak, which murmurs softly within the world language of chicken-noodle soups, includes a heap of housemade rice noodles.Nokmaniphone Sayavong, who is going through Nok, moved a couple of years in the past from Vientiane to Santa Ana, Calif. She began promoting highly spiced, delicately crisp red meat jerky and scrumptious sai oua — a dreamy beef sausage seasoned with head-filling crimson curry paste, made sensible with makrut lime leaves and lemongrass.Bought at her Orange County trade Nok’s Kitchen, the Lao sausage was once successful, in particular with native Vietnamese and Thai eating places. She took be aware, and in only a few months, Ms. Sayavong and her husband plan to open their very own eating place in Westminster — any other small victory for the blossoming Lao meals scene. [ad_2] #Obscured #Lao #Chefs #Proportion #Have fun #Delicacies

[funky-boat-zone]

the lighthouse chronicles: part 9/??

who turned off the lights?

funnily enough, i was just thinking about my horror au and this episode is adapted from “ghosts”

again with warrior making the brave/sensible suggestion and suggesting they go look for big stack when it looks like he’s missing! i think sl!warrior is absorbing the rest of the stars’ brain cells

“nothing looks the same in the fog.. everything looks different” hm yes, the floor here is made out of floor

i feel so bad for big stack’s va

and now warrior sees the mud bank ahead of time and leads the shrimpers away! it’s so weird that warrior is semi-consistently the smartest tug in this version of the star fleet

all of you stop singing, i hereby decree it illegal

why is top hat so surprised at the idea of big stack singing? pretty much all the tugs have (unfortunately) sung at some point 

if the clue fits wear it

if they’re so desperate to find lillie, why has no one checked if she’s out at sea? p sure that’s where she’s usually stationed as a lightship

jfc lillie’s like one of those people on facebook who vagueposts abt something that happened to them and then says they don’t want to talk about it when someone expresses concern

this is just a whole episode of the tugs playing a guessing game with nothing exciting outside of flashbacks

there was another fire???

that osha visit can’t come soon enough, good lord

the tugs are acting like they solved the mystery when they didn’t, lillie just didn’t want to immediately tell them and made them play a guessing game, and the tanker that hit her is presumably still out there

tbh this was a boring episode even by salty’s lighthouse standards

desperately seeking sadie

how are tugboats going to play hide and seek if the larger boats are very clearly at a disadvantage?

the irony of sunshine constantly getting found when she’s the smallest boat and (theoretically) would be the easiest to hide

let me guess, sunshine’s hiding place is going to be the log jam from “up river”. 

i was right

no top hat, you didn’t get found because you forgot to remove your hat. you were found because you had your wheelhouse extended, making your hiding place plainly visible 

gotta love zug sullenly looking at top hat as he leaves. gives the impression that he’s just trying to do his job and doesn’t have time for the star fleet’s nonsense

“man overboard, what a boomer!” you know you have bad luck when your name ends up a noun/verb

someone needs to instill a rule to keep sunshine away from logs, it literally never ends well for her

as annoying as she can be, i feel super bad for sunshine. she just wanted to find a better hiding spot and what happens? she nearly burns to death

colossal crab

i hate the implication that the tugs’ running lights are their eyes and their front windows are merely decoys for intimidation (like the eyespot markings on some butterflies)

i could’ve sworn that little ditcher was presented as a guy in previous episodes? either way, i feel bad for her no matter what, she’s seemingly doomed to constantly get hit and spun around by warrior

i cannot stress this enough: it’s genuinely surreal to see warrior holding the brain cell and being one of the most sensible boats in snugboat harbor. 

make the singing stop, i beg of you

[ash-travels-peru]

Day 3: Ballestes Islands and Nazca Lines

Today started very early, as in ridiculously early. I had a tour booked for today which began with a 3am hotel pick-up. I woke up at 12:45am nervous that I would sleep through my alarms. I was able to roll back over, but I woke up again at 1:45am and had had enough. I got out of bed that extra time earlier and took my time getting ready. Turns out I needed that time I was that tired!

At 3:10am, my hotel pick-up arrived. The guide and driver took me to the bus interchange. En route they gave me my itinerary and my bus tickets to and from Paracas. My bus left departed Lima at 3:45am and was due to arrive in Paracas at 7:20am. The couch was super comfortable, with reclining seats and curtains to keep any street light out. I think I was just so nervous about going somewhere on my own (I was picked up and dropped off at either end of the bus trip by tour guides, but was actually on the bus on my own) particularly when so jet lagged!! 

I arrived in Paracas and was met by my guide at the bus interchange. He also picked up four other passengers. We hopped into our guide’s mini van and dropped the four people, a mother and son and a couple at their respective hotels. En route, our guide informed us that both the private and public piers were presently closed due to the overcast and strange weather. Thus, at this stage there was no Ballestes Islands tour!! i was a little dismayed...I would still be able to fly over the Nazca lines but would have to sit around for a few hours and twiddle my thumbs. Paracas is not a large place, and the population is mainly tourists and most of the buildings are hotels for them to stay in whilst they visit the Ballestes Islands and the Nazca Lines. The final review regarding the operation of the piers was to be made at 8:30am. As we dropped the final pair, the mother and son at their hotel at about 7:40am, a message came through to the guide that the piers had been opened! Huzzah! 

I had befriended the mother and son a little on the bus and then during the morning drop off. They were Colombian, but the son lived in London and was the only other passenger who could speak English. His mother was keen to get to know me and he kindly translated between us! She asked whether, and why not I was not coming to Colombia on this trip. I didn’t mention the DFAT warnings and i certainly didn’t bring up the issue of headphones! His mother gave me her business card, stating her contact details at an NGO she volunteers back at at home. She said that if I am ever in Colombia, I am to contact her and she will show me around, and if I am ever in London I am to contact the son!

By 8:10am we were walking onto the pier to head off on our boat tour. The pier was wooden and white washed and looked exactly like something out of an American movie. The mother told her son to ask me if I wanted him to take a photo of myself with the Ocean behind me. At first I hesitated, but gladly accepted. He took quite a nice photo and I’m now using it as my facebook profile picture! I really appreciated how friendly the Mother and Son were, it was so lovely to have someone to talk to and share the experience with! 

The boat for the tour was open topped and could seat up to 25 people. It was sea worthy, but I thought the boat was probably a little overdue for some TLC. I was seated at the very back of the boat. This had the benefit of having uninterrupted views! But I didn’t have the windshield to protect me from the sea spray and wind. By the time I got off the boat, my hair was a matted and salty mess! On our way out from the pier, we passed some fishing boats and there was the unmistakeable odour of rotting fish emanating from the not too distant fishing vessels. It was around these fishing vessels that we came upon a pod of dolphins! There must have been fish guts and food hanging around in the water. There had to have been at least five or so dolphins and they swam so so close to the boat...one was within a few metres of me!

We continued on our adventure to the Islands. Our guide explained that Paracas, and the Islands are of environmental significance because more than three million birds roost in the area. Apparently it used to be a greater and more diverse bird population, but us good ol’ humans have ensured that their numbers have decreased and that hundreds of species are now extinct. About half way out to the Islands, we pulled up next to some of the hills that lined the ocean front. The hills weren’t rugged and sharp, but were smooth and sort of rolled along the sea. They looked like they had been drawn into the landscape with soft pastels! The reason we stopped is because of the line marked into the side of these hills. They are not attached to the Nazca lines, but look highly similar! There are many differing theories as to how this line got there and what it signified. Some believe it was made by the Pirates that used to populate the waters along the Paracas coast and the line is a map, perhaps leading to treasure? I always enjoy how any map that involves pirates must always, therefore, be related to bounty or treasure. Others speculate that it was a map/plan of action communicated to the man (whose name escapes me) that began the Peruvian revolution of independence from the Spanish. The most infamous theories are those spruked by Erich von Daniken. I read one of his books for my extension history major in year 12, and it was how I became aware of the Nazca lines. Although I thank him for contributing to my experience of Peru, I must say that I was suitably underwhelmed by his theories and their lacking credibility. 

As we left this mysterious line, the water started to turn from choppy to quite rolly! The occasional spray made it feel as though I was white water rafting at a few points. The skipper handled the boat really well, I was comfortable and happy! Our guide at the front of the boat kept looking to the back at me and we would exchange smiles. It happened quite frequently there and back from the Islands. At first I thought he was staring at my glasses, but that would have been unlikely because he wore specs too. I thought maybe I lipstick or something on my forehead (even though there was a fringe in the way)? I realised on the way back that I was the only passenger not feeling seasick or nursing someone who felt seasick! I was the happiest and most comfortable passenger on the boat!!! 

We finally made it to the Islands! The Ballestes Islands are three individual islands grouped close together and, as i mentioned above, have more than three million birds roost on them. The islands themselves are stunning. They are volcanic rock, but the islands are different colours according to the layers of exposure. There were some white lime layers, some basalt and other parts of the islands green with moss (not envy!). The Islands are UNESCO protected due to the birds, but also because of their economic value. Bird poo is a highly prized and valuable fertalizer and there was plenty of bird crap to go around here! Our guide said that when the islands were first harvested for their bird poo, the islands decreased more than half in size; there was that much shit on them. There were a few buildings on the islands where there used to be guards to prevent illegal harvesting on the island. The son later told me (because it was said in Spanish and not English) that many guards committed suicide because they felt trapped and the smell from the islands got to their heads. Oh, I forgot to mention...the islands stink! They stink, as you would expect, of insane and concentrated amounts of bird poo! Aside from the unfavourable smell, the islands are also home to sea lions, penguins, cormorans, South American Pelicans, bright red crabs and many other species that are too many to name!Our boat floated around the islands and we were driving around them for a good 40minutes or so. I stood most of the time to take photos, and I nearly stacked it (not quite out of the boat though) due to the swell at a few points. Thank goodness I was at the back of the boat where there was a handrail! The skipper at times brought the boat within metres of the islands so we could take a good look! They’re are really quite spectacular! 

On the way back to the pier, we stopped by one of the large oil tankers that was anchored. Under the bow of the ship was a population of sun-baking sea lions!! One we reached the Paracas shoreline, the tour had organised dry and slightly stale croissants and black coffee for refreshments and we were given a little souvenir, either a brown or black sea lion sitting on a rock! I said farewell to my new Colombian amigos and headed with Gabriella, my new tour guide (she stuck by me for the rest of the day) out to Pisco airport to FLY OVER THE NAZCA LINES!!!!

En route to the airport our little van picked up another few passengers. We picked up a Portugese couple. They were really lovely people! I heard them speak three languages during our time together (english, spanish and portugese) and they kindly went out of their way to converse with me in english so I felt included and had people to talk to! That is one thing I have noticed; as soon as others realise you are travelling on your own, they go out of their way to look out for you and converse with you!

We arrived at the airport around 11:30am and  Pisco airport is brand spanking new and quite large for only 12 seater joy flights over the Nazca lines. The terminal was about half the size of the Sydney domestic terminal and was filled with...nothing. Some of the check-in desks were still wrapped in plastic! I presume that domestic flights between Lima and Nazca must be starting soon to increase tourism in the area (instead of catching 3am buses down for the day!). 

We checked-in, I payed the US$5 airport tax and then we found out the plane was not ready and we would have to wait about an hour and 40minutes (max) until we got up in the air (approximately 1:20pm). We went through some basic bag scanners and then sat in the domestic departures lounge to wait it out. I spent the time sifting through my many photos from the boat tour and deleting most of the blurry ones! Finally, around 12:50pm our flight (I think the only one) was called and we walked out onto the tarmac. I was so so so excited!!!! 

Our plane was a 12 seater and it was one person down either side of the plane, meaning each passenger had a window. I was in seat three and murphy’s law, because I had the biggest camera on the plane, I got the seat directly under the wing. I think the plane wing features in most, if not all my photos! We had two pilots who looked a little too smartly dressed for a 12 seater plane, but nevertheless it affirmed that I was flying with a verified and safe company. There you go Mum! All was safe

We took off at approximately 1:08pm!!! It was a 1hr 40min flight in total; 35mins flight out to the lines, 30mins over the lines and 35mins back. I was sitting on the left hand side of the plane and we flew south, so my view for the first half was of the beautiful rugged Andes range! I couldn’t believe the contrast of the landscape; detailed and rugged mountains that led directly into a broad and flat plain, which eventually became the Pacific. 

We made it to the lines and they were incredible! The plane would fly around a certain line on one side, then quickly turn around and fly past the line on the other side for the other half of the passengers. This was awesome because there was no one sitting opposite me and I got a double sight of each line. I think the pilots were stunt pilots because the plane would literally turn almost on its side to turn around quickly. It certainly made my head spin and there were vomit bags ready and waiting in the back of the seat in front for any passenger that required them! My stomach was fine, I was just more worried I’d faint from the rush of blood around my head. I soon realised that looking at up, rather than down to my feet decreased the effect of the evasive stunt flying!

The lines were incredible! They are all situated on a 200square km plain. There were many ‘trapezoids’ as our pilot called them scattered around the entire surface. I saw the space man on the side of some rogue mountains in the middle of the plain. I thought the line looked more like a golliwog than a space man! I saw the monkey, the hummingbird, the hands and the gecko! The gecko isn’t quite as famous because the main highway through the plain cuts directly through the gecko line. When the road was built, the lines were not yet discovered! Its still a little ironic but sad to see the poor split lizard. I laid eyes on the ant, the dog and many geometric patterns. On advice from Daniella, I would look first at the lines with my eyes. I would then use my camera, set to high speed burst and try to get as many photos of the line as possible in the limited amount of time! I saw each line for probably less than a minute each! As Daniella said, if you have many photos, surely one will be good! 

Our little plane landed back in Paracas at 2:50pm! Daniella took me straight back to Paracas, where we walked around the ocean front finding me some food because I had not yet had lunch and my stomach was starting to eat itself! The afternoon had cleared and I finally saw some sun! It was actually really hot and the Pacific glistened beautifully! I grabbed a sandwich and then was dropped back to the us stop. My bus back to Lima was supposed to depart at 4:!0pm. It didn’t turn up until 4:30pm! The bus was a little more full than the one I was on this morning but I was still served some breads and drink by an attendant who looked cute in his tightly fitting suit and bus company tie! I arrived back at the Lima bus interchange at 8:20pm where there was my hotel drop-off driver and guide waiting for me with my name on a sign. The guide and I talked about Cuzco and his advice about dealing with altitude sickness. 

I got back to my hotel at 9pm and exhausted, was not long out of bed!