Connor lost another tooth today-- his last lower incisor he had to lose. He's got a glorious gap-toothed grin right now, and he keeps putting his fingers in there to feel around. It's very cute.
We're pretty much skipping the tooth fairy in this house; Connor wouldn't get in the least excited about being left any money under his pillow (if he slept on a pillow, which he doesn't) and Ellen should already have lost all of her primary teeth. If things go well we do plan to adopt one more child four or five years down the road-- this time younger than Connor-- so maybe we'll end up starting the tradition then. But for now we just congratulate the little guy and leave it at that.
Ellen has an absolutely gorgeous smile; apparently the orphanage has a pretty good dental hygiene program. She eats pretty well too; the orphanage website posts her daily lunch and dinner menus. Today, for example, she's having pineapple soup and fried squid with basil for dinner. They eat ice cream a lot-- probably coconut based ice cream, since most Thais are lactose intolerant and there aren't a whole lot of dairy cows wandering around there anyway.
I've started writing down entrees that I see appear fairly frequently on the orphanage's menu, because I've decided to start trying to find Thai recipes for them. Obviously the odds of me coming up with exactly the same recipe the cooks at her orphanage use is pretty slim, but I'm hoping that with some of them I can at least get relatively close. I think that in a stressful situation, having familiar foods can be tremendously comforting, and so while I won't be cooking Thai food every night I do want to incorporate it into our meals a couple of times a week and have some recipes at hand that I know she's relatively familiar with.
My kitchen pantry is slowly filling up with ingredients from a traditional Thai kitchen, like palm sugar, galangal, fish sauce, kafir limes leaves and tamarind paste. My collection of mortar and pestles is growing. And I've started throwing Thai spices into many of my regular recipes; it's amazing what a little fish sauce will do for a steak marinade or a pasta sauce.
That being said, some recipes are going to be easier to recreate than others. I bought a book of Thai recipes recently and want to start working my way through, but some of the recipes look incredibly intimidating. At the beginning I had to look up half the ingredients because I had no idea what the heck they were. I'm slowly starting to understand what most things are, but that doesn't mean I'm going to be whipping up something like "Lotus Root Soup With Pork Short Ribs, Peanuts And Jujube Dates" (page 139) any time soon.
I think I'll start with pineapple soup.
~Jess
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5 years ago
8 comments:
Is Ellen lactose intolerant? if so or if she just likes coconut ice cream a good brand is NadaMoo. It is also gluten and egg free.
We're not sure yet if she is or not! About 90% of the people in Thailand are though, so it's a pretty good bet.
Thanks for the ice cream recommendation! I'll have to add it to my shopping list and try it out. We've got a few brands of coconut-based ice cream in the store, so maybe I'll do some taste testing.
The ice cream in Thailand is real old dairy ice cream. The food in orphanges is good and healthy. The nice thing about adopting form Thailand is they come like vegtables and sea food. My son to this day (he is 16 adopted at almost 6) favorite foods are squid, clams in the shell. Most Thai kids are not lactose intolerant, my son isen't and the other Thai kids I know are not.(I'm sure some are) My Chinese adopted son,on on the other hand is, he can tolearate some dairy just not large amounts of it. Thais use a lot of sweetned condensed milk in things like their iced coffee and tea. That stuff is probably not really milk any more it is mostly sugar, but had an addictive quality to it.
The ice cream in Thailand is real old dairy ice cream. The food in orphanges is good and healthy. The nice thing about adopting form Thailand is they come like vegtables and sea food. My son to this day (he is 16 adopted at almost 6) favorite foods are squid, clams in the shell. Most Thai kids are not lactose intolerant, my son isen't and the other Thai kids I know are not.(I'm sure some are) My Chinese adopted son,on on the other hand is, he can tolearate some dairy just not large amounts of it. Thais use a lot of sweetned condensed milk in things like their iced coffee and tea. That stuff is probably not really milk any more it is mostly sugar, but had an addictive quality to it.
Huh! Really? Pretty much all of the people I've talked to/Thai food blogs mention coconut-based ice cream as the most common type over there-- often topped with sticky rice or mung beans and sometimes served on rolls or buns. I'll have to ask again-- maybe they serve something different in the orphanages from the typical street vendor, which is where most of my Thailand-traveling friends got their ice cream from.
Glad to hear that the food is healthy, though! Ellen's favorite food is som tam, so I've been playing with a papaya shredder. And I'm totally addicted to Thai iced tea-- I make it at home, sweetened condensed milk and all!
would have to agree with a previous poster & say our son (thai adoptee) is not lactose intolerant & neither are any of his adopted thai friends (approx. 30 or so kids) and when we travel back there - (every 18mths or so) we find the thais are devouring standard dairy based icecream pretty much all over the country, & we travel a lot in the countryside. not to say that your daughter isnt lactose intolerant just to say that i think the thais are similar in this regard to many other cultures w/r/t lactose intolerance, some are & some arent. having said all that milk is not a favourite item and is not drunken much either in thailand nor back here by thais.
Thanks! Good to know.
Yes Kathryn You are right Thailand ice cream is really old dairy food in orphanges is good for health and i will follow you recommendation.
Thank you.
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