WHEN THE BAROMETER DIPS,
The inherent beauty of a cookbook is that with a few obscure ingredients and some kitchen chutzpah, you can travel far and wide without the inoculations. If Thailand has beckoned, or if you’ve been and still swoon with nostalgia, Chicken in the Mango Tree is an express trip to rural Kravan.
When Jeffrey Alford fell in love with his Khmer partner Pea, moving to her village in northeastern Thailand was a necessity born out of curiosity, restlessness and intrigue.
After 24 years in Toronto, he was eager to shed his urban skin. As a cookbook writer, Alford was easily consumed and energized by everything that was unfamiliar to him. In Toronto, he had lost that kinetic charge. He realized Toronto could never be his home, and somehow, in a place with six months of rain and fish swimming in the streets, he recalibrated and found love on all fronts.
Alford’s cookbook is a gently wandering blend of memoir and recipes, chronicling a year of eating and just being with Pea. It’s easy to fall under the spell of the recipes’ simplicity and connection to the seasons. They require very little beyond ambition, a wok, a mortar and pestle.
If you’re expecting pad Thai, red curry and rice-heavy dishes, you’ll be sorely disappointed. While baby banana with scorpions or red-ant egg salad might not become a family favourite, there are several recipes that are less intimidating such as stir-fried Chinese kale, salted tilapia and a fiery chile sauce. Even if you have no intention of attempting any of the recipes, the colour photos are so inviting that you might put Thailand on your 2016 travel radar.
Crispy golden spring rolls dipped in sweet and sour sauce instantly gratify. Or, how about a warming bowl of heady Tom Yum soup? The blend of lemongrass, lime leaf and tamarind broth will take you south of the equator despite wintry weather outside your kitchen window.
If your motivation is stirred, gather 10 of your friends and organize a cooking class ($35 per person) or fruit-carving lesson at the newest My Thai location at 44 Grand Avenue South in Cambridge. My Thai also has restaurants in Waterloo, Kitchener, Brantford and Ancaster). In fall 2015, poet, novelist and scriptwriter Lee Maracle was the Eastern Comma Writer-in-Residence at the solar-powered “living laboratory” North House at the Rare Charitable Research Reserve in Cambridge. The namesake of the program, the Eastern Comma Butterfly (easily identified by the comma on its wings), is one of the 3,300 species found at Rare.