THAI COOKING AT HOME

One thing I have a concern about is the amount that Tim eats.  The day consists of snacks and meals throughout the waking hours.  A "light snack" consists of a minimum of six very full bowls of miscellaneous food.  When I bring up the amount of food, Tim just says "Food very cheap" and points to each bowl — "Five baht, ten baht, ten baht, food very cheap Thailand."  Yes, but six bowls of 5 or 10 baht food three to four times a day does tend to add up not only in the wallet but also in the belly.  I'm trying to get Tim to understand that perhaps cutting down on the amount of food is a good thing (she asks me, "Why you eat little and you big while I eat much and I small?" — she is getting a belly on her, though).  (She does try to get me to eat large amounts; for example, today she said she would make me a fried egg.  The result was a huge plate full of egg — she'd fried four eggs together to make one big one.  I explained that frying one egg for me was more than enough...)

However, I can deal with this if she would learn (and I'm trying to teach her) the importance of sanitary cooking; often, the back door is wide open while she cooks using several different pots and is using a mortar and pestal on the floor to pulverize certain types of foods.  I've been trying to teach her about wrapping in plastic the various ingrediants that she stores in the refrigerator and that we're inviting all sorts of bugs inside by not being careful.  Just a short while ago, I went into the kitchen to find a cat sitting on the counter licking from the rice steamer amid several buzzing flies and noseeums.  Add to the list a can of air freshener and another can of bug spray (I already went through a king-sized one this week).  Yet, if we keep the door closed while she cooks then the smell permeates everything (and most Thai cooking doesn't smell that pleasant).  Hopefully we'll soon reach some sort of compromise; for now, I just grin and bear it and gently try to explain that a Western style of sanitary concerns in the kitchen can be applied to Tim's style of Thai cooking and that we'll both be happier and healthier as a result.