Kitchen Journeys

About author / Amy Powell

World traveler; gourmet 30 minute meals; lover of exotic ingredients; winner on FoodTV's Chefs vs City; graduate French Culinary Institute. Her recipes will tantalize your taste buds.

I have recently returned from a vacation of sorts. Although I don't think that the adventurous three weeks of my journey through China constitute the sort of rest and relaxation that the word "vacation" implies. No matter, however, because that is how I like to spend my time off. You see, travelling is a necessity in my life, both for my work and for my peace of mind. A journey to explore a place--whether it's as close as my neighboring borough or as far as Southeast Asia--is an opportunity to expand my global understanding and to gain perspective, particularly on the life I left behind.

The way I approach a journey has changed over the years from the frantic need to cover all the sights in a guidebook to the seduction of total lethargy on a beach blanket. In the end, neither approach is totally satisfying. I realize I need to experience the land and its people as much as the monuments that they have erected. If that means an afternoon to break away from the tour group or guidebook to wander "off-the-beaten-path," it is certain to be an enlightening and worthwhile use of time. This is when I truly gain perspective. I get lost in the winding lanes, see clothes being hung to dry, butchers chopping meat, locals shopping . . . and I eat.

Being an avid cook and self-proclaimed trencherman, 'eating' may seem obvious. But in reality nothing draws people closer together than the sharing of food, even when the language is not shared. So I no longer think it a waste to spend a rainy afternoon on a Parisian weekend get-away drinking wine and nibbling olives with friends and a view of Notre Dame. Nor do I think a Peking Duck dinner for one in the city of its invention should be considered anything but the visiting of a crucial city attraction.

This coming month I am going to share stories from some of my travels and the recipes I have picked up along the way. Eating in other worlds and bringing those dishes home are some of the best ways I can think of to revisit the places I have traveled and to share those journeys with the people of my own world. I will start this week with my first journey to Southeast Asia, a relatively quick but eye-opening trip to Northern Thailand.

Thailand was a trip, to say the least. Not only was it my first time in Asia, it was my first attempt to travel on a group tour, and the friend I brought along was someone I hadn't seen in three years. Summing up my trip in the abridged format would go like this: daily massages, solicitous locals, exploitative foreigners, golden temples, trekking in 90 degree humidity, elephant riding, sponge bath next to the family pig, hidden caves with enormous Buddha, curried pumpkin, abundant noodles, raucous night markets, nightmare in a foreign hospital, recovery with more massages, obnoxious group members, beautiful and hospitable villagers.

It took nearly two weeks to recover my appetite after getting sick from the water at the end of the trip but only a month before I was trying to recreate some of the dishes I had tasted along the way. During a home stay in a village north of Chaing Mai our group was treated to the most lavish feast of our journey. There were spicy chicken wings and fried pork rinds, noodles, vegetables--the list went on. What I remember most was the pork mixture that our hostess warned us was a bit on the spicy side and to only approach with caution. Most of my companions did not even venture a taste. And even though I am hardly the masochistic variety of spicy food lover who drowns out taste with hot sauce, this brought just the right burn to bring tears of delight to the corners of my eyes.

Our hostess was a jolly woman with an abundant waistline descended from the local hill tribes. A bit like Jack Sprat, her husband was a slight but athletic man, a Thai local, and together they host foreign travelers. They house them in bamboo huts on stilts, treating them to local food and dance, and serving as guides for treks to the hill tribe villages.

I complimented my hosts on the meal, particularly the pork. Their English was minimal and my Thai was non-existent. But between us they understood my appreciation and were so kind as to share the recipe. The ample hostess described how in a mortar and pestle she ground together shallots, garlic, dried red chilies, and dried shrimp. The lumpy mash went into oil in a hot wok over a wood-fire. Sizzling and aromatic, ground pork, chopped by hand with what I observed was something like a giant cleaver, was tossed into the wok and stirred until almost all the pink was gone. A few chopped tomatoes with their juices were stirred in and the mixture was left simmering for a few minutes until most of the liquid had been released from the tomatoes and evaporated. Cilantro, chopped roughly with, no doubt, the same cleaver (foreign countries, particularly Asian ones, don't seem very concerned with cross contamination) was tossed in and stirred for the last minute or two. It was tasted and seasoned if necessary and served with some fluffy long grain white rice.

I don't think I will ever be able to make this dish exactly as how I remember it. The problem of bringing a wood burning cooking fire indoors is just one of the factors. It may not be identical, but it is close. As a taste of my Thailand adventure, there is no quicker and simpler way to bring me right back to the blistering tropics of a Southeast Asian summer than with a dish that leaves the tongue just prickling and my skin with an ever so slight glisten of perspiration. For a one dish meal I will toss in some green beans or serve them blanched along the side.

If we are lucky, when all is said and done, what we are left with from a vacation are no less than a changed self, some good pictures and the memories. For as much as we have experienced and shifted internally, we inevitably return to our world to find it the same as how we left it. So we hang a few pictures, relish our stories, and revisit those worlds either in a glass of Bordeaux on a rainy day or in the fire of your own kitchen.

Serves/Makes: 6

• 2 shallots, finely minced
• 2 cloves garlic, finely minced
• 2 small dried red chiles (or more to taste), chopped
• 3 dried shrimp, finely minced (available in Asian food markets)
• OR
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce or water
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 pound bulk pork sausage
• 3 plum tomatoes, diced (reserve any juices accumulated while dicing)
• 1 bunch cilantro, leaves only, coarsely chopped
• salt, as needed
• 6 servings cooked jasmine rice