Features

As a followup to Barb's item about deepfried turkey, here's a funny Flash movie about how to prepare deep fried turkey which includes several video games!

Thanksgiving is just around the corner for our American friends when many folks will be serving turkey. I wonder how many people will be serving deep fried turkey? It is a cajun tradition and sounds delicious. But it seems to be a bit too much trouble and hazardous even for an avid cook like me!

If any one has tried this, I'd love to hear about your experience making and eating it!

Via Lark Farm, I found the blog The Making of a Restaurant. It's written by two folks who plan on opening a restaurant in 5-10 years.

Well I don't know about opening a restaurant (other than it's a lot of work) but they always have lots of cool food related links. Please check it out!

In my first report about the Loy Krathong festival, I erroneously spelled Miang Kham. Miang Kham is a Thai snack food which we assembled ourselves at the festival (some Thai people prepared all the ingredients beforehand). Normally it consists of shallots, peanuts, toasted coconut, dried shrimp, lime, ginger and chili with tamarind sauce wrapped with wild betel leaves. We had it with basil-like leaves instead because betel leaves are not available in Vancouver. I'm sure both are delicious: hot, sour, spicy and sweet: one of my favourite flavour combos. Yummy!

Every aspect of the Loy Krathong Festival held yesterday at the Asan Centre of UBC was fun. To mention just a few highlights: there was excellent food, first nations drumming, world class folk dancing from northern Thailand by the Lai Muang Ensemble from Chiang Mai, ending with a procession to place the Krathongs on the water outside. The Krathongs themselves glowed softly and beautifully on the water and were fascinating to watch as they gently moved to and fro.

Barb and I are celebrating Remembrance Day by having a belated Thanksgiving dinner (since we were in Italy on Canadian Thanksgiving) with some close friends and family. We need to remember past war to prevent future wars.

DiningOutGuide.com is yet another Vancouver restaurant dining guide. However it looks pretty decent based on their entry for Vij's.

I like the fact that menus are available in Adobe Acrobat Reader form(PDF) and that the restaurant information they give is very useful. But I would classify Vij's as casual as well as Indian and they only seem to classify it as Indian. Oh well, minor quibbles for what looks to be the start of a cool Vancouver restaurant directory.

Spicy Steve is a local South East Asian food expert and celebrity who has a TV show and gives cooking classes. I've never seen the show but his Thai, Malaysian and Indonesian recipes look fabulous. Check it out!

Here are more details that Ann sent to us about the Thai Loy Krathong festival on the 10th that we promised yesterday:

• It is sponsored by the Friends of Thailand Society, whose byline is "a non-profit educational society dedicated to helping Canadians understand and apreciate Thai culture and society."
• It features a concert by the Chiang Mai musical troupe, Lai Muang, who are renowned for reviving authentic Lan Na music.
• There will be a Thai welcome dance.
• There will be demonstrations of Thai food preparation and making Krathongs.

At dinner on Friday, we met Walter's Thai friend Ann who told us that there will be a Loy Krathong Festival (Executive summary: Loy means to send adrift, and Krathong means: a little basket-like boat containing small flowers and other offerings suitable for the water spirits and in Thailand during this festival, people make krathongs and set them loose!