Get ‘Em While They’re Hot
Welcome to my random musings about the world, on a weekly-to-occasional basis.
Where we are: Eating our way through Bangkok’s markets and sidewalk stalls.
Get ‘em while they’re hot
Yesterday morning, I went to the market down the street to pick up some pomelo. For about three dollars (that might be the tourist price, but I don’t mind), I can get about a pound and a half of fresh, sweet pomelo, peeled and segmented. No pith, no rind—perfect. Pomelo, if you aren’t familiar with it, is similar to grapefruit, but without so much of whatever makes grapefruit bitter. I find grapefruit inedible, but I love pomelo.
Anyway, while I was there, I picked up some khanom krok. This was the dessert I most wanted to try the first time I came to Thailand. I had read about it, and it just sounded unlike anything I’d ever had before.
I was right. It was an introduction to Asian desserts that I will never forget, and never stop loving. Khanom krok (which means, basically, mortar-pounded snack) are little half-domes, cooked in something like an aebelskiver pan. They’re made from rice flour and coconut milk, with a bit of sugar and salt. Mild, simple, and comforting. A perfect khanom krok is crispy around the edges, and soft in the middle, almost as soft as a pure white pudding.
On our first day out of quarantine, Toby’s girlfriend took me to the local market and showed me where she gets the best khanom krok. I’ve been back to this khanom gentleman at least once a week since then. A box of ten little pillows of coconutty goodness costs 40 baht, or $1.33. He tops his with a sprinkle of fresh corn kernels, a few slivers of chive, some grated pumpkin, or grated baby coconut. I always get the coconut ones. He’s generous with the coconut, more so than anywhere else I’ve seen—thick shreds of the tenderest, juiciest coconut you can imagine adorn the tops of each little pancake.
He’s also generous with his smiles and enthusiasm. One day I arrived before he had started cooking, so I did the rest of my shopping first, and went back. I waited while a pan of coconut khanom cooked; I could’ve had another variety sooner, but I wanted coconut. I waited. And waited. After six or eight minutes, I had a piping hot box of snacks, and a new friend. We have little language to share, but I know he is proud of his khanom. He is teaching his young adult children how to make them, perfectly, hovering over their shoulders to supervise.
One day a couple of weeks ago, I thought of those khanom as we were finishing a spicy hot lunch, and immediately had a fierce hankering. They’re the perfect antidote to blistering Thai chiles. I hurried along to my new friend’s stall, but he was gone for the day. It seems he cranks out his specialty between about 10:30 in the morning and 2 in the afternoon, weekdays. So now I know his hours, and can plan my market visits accordingly. At this point, even Lee is vaguely aware that we only get khanom krok sometimes. Would they be as good if we could get them any old time? I think not.
Yesterday, when I told Lee I’d gotten some, he said, “Ooh—hot? I guess we’d better eat them right now. They’re ephemeral.”
Isn’t that true of all the best things in life?
From my writer’s notebook: I stumbled across an article this week about a family squabbling—in court—over an early Rembrandt. In a nutshell, one member of the family is suing everyone else, plus a whole bunch of other people/entities over the sale of a painting that he says should have been his. He claims that his cousins ‘pilfered’ the painting from his grandmother, and auctioned it off without his permission.
The article is here. Family dramas are the best.
Also, for what it’s worth, I saw the painting in 2018. But that’s another story, for another day.