Slowly Making Tamales in Thailand with One and a Half Arms, Part II

Six weeks after shoulder surgery, I can use my right hand for light duty, but nothing more demanding than slicing veggies or washing dishes. I can scratch my face and my groin but not my head. I haven’t been cooking much lately, which hasn’t been as difficult as I expected – if there’s any place in the world to live without a kitchen, it’s Thailand.

There are thousands of food stalls and dozens of fresh markets in Chiang Mai alone, and my walks to and from work take me past an array of options that makes me drool just thinking about it: fried chicken, fried bananas, fresh-cut fruit, grilled chicken and pork and squid, noodle soups, hanging ducks, stewed pork leg, oyster omelets, sweet iced tea and coffee, and a newly discovered favorite translated as “turtle egg” or some kind of “bird egg,” which is a fried ball of semi-sweet dough that’s crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside. Almost as ubiquitous as the food stalls are small family-run restaurants offering both made-to-order and steam-table dishes; for about a buck a person you can have a nice lunch of fried noodles or green curry or pad gra pao on rice. And I finally figured out how to order online a pizza for delivery. All of which means I’ve been perfectly content to let others do the cooking for me.

However, the desire not to waste the dry goods I have left, coupled with the increasing need for physical activity, has drawn me back to the kitchen to whip up more exotic fare. More than any other cuisine, I’ve missed Mexican-style food the most. Although Chiang Mai has a couple Mexican restaurants with adequate Mexlike dishes (www.miguels-cafe.com and www.thesalsakitchen.com), they tend to be overpriced and not nearly as delicious as what I can make for myself. As mentioned in Part I, that sack of masa harina is calling to me: ¡Ey, gringo, hágate tamales pronto!

In Part I, I mentioned the slow-cooker, which behind the hot-water pump and the toaster oven is the kitchen appliance I use the most. Slow cooking with an electric slow-cooker should not be confused with the “slow cooking” advocated by the Slow Food movement, founded on the idea that good food and “fast food” are all too often mutually exclusive. Being under-employed by American standards, I’ve had the luxury in Thailand of taking my own sweet time when I cook and of having time to think about How Slow Food Can Save the World from Itself. Ultimately I have found that Slow Cooking is a lifestyle choice, one I will be loathe to give up when I come back to the States in May. Anyway, I like to think of myself as a Slow Cook who enjoys using the slow-cooker….

The tamale feast I have planned will be four days in the making.

Friday. Before my 45-minute walk to work, I picked through ½ pound dried pinto beans, removed a molar-crushing pebble, and covered the beans in several inches of water. Man, that was hard.