พุ่มพวง ดวงจันทร์ or The Moon

My dear friend Paja is a fan of late Amy Winehouse for not only her songs but also for the infamous beehive and full eye makeup. She must have heard the news about her favorite singer death by now and saddened the loss of gifted musician. Well I really feel for her especially after watching this particular Thai movie, namely” พุ่มพวง or The Moon”, subtitled in English of course. It is about the life of Thai megastar พุ่มพวง ดวงจันทร์ Pumpuang Duangjan, nickname ผึ้ง (bee), who passed away in 1992 at the age of 31. She was an ordinary girl, grew up in the sugar cane filed in Suphanburi, one of the central provinces in Thailand. Would you believe that she can’t read and yet she learns by heart and can sing almost 100 songs by the age of 12? The illiteracy hasn’t hindered her a bit while trying to be successful in life. Her personal life tells another story: a life of Tears and Sorrow. She has been called “ราชินีลูกทุ่ง” the Queen of Thai Country music (เพลงลูกทุ่ง), music reflecting everyday life of the rural poor and is considered as Thailand’s most famous and loved singer. She died from a non-contagious auto-immune disease and her funeral was held first in Bangkok , then in Wat Tapkradan, Suphanburi province. According to Wiki “an estimated 200,000 people turned up to pay their last respects, even the Thai King himself, Bhumibol Adulyadej came to pay his respects; for a peasant-born woman this was unheard of and has not been repeated”.  I know we all have to die eventually but I still wish both stars lived long enough to tell a tale of their lives. 

Shrimp Sour Curry

Sour curry is one Thai curry dish that I fell in love with recently, thanks to the omelet with acacia pennata (cha-om/ชะอม/ ဆူးပုတ္ရြက္). A dear friend also made the similar omelet in her delicious blog too. Mine is not different than hers actually, except the fact that I boil the acacia for a few minutes. Then add 3 eggs, light soy sauce, whisk them together, pan fry them with oil, and finally cut them into bite size.

For sour curry, or spicy sour soup I might say, I use the ready-made paste, which is widely available in any supermarket in Bangkok. Here are the ingredients I use: shrimp, mushrooms or (any vegetables), shallots, lime, fish sauce, sugar and coriander for garnish.  As usual, I stir-fry the shrimp until it changes color and set them aside with the acacia omelet. 

For the soup like curry, I pan fry the curry paste with shallot until fragrant, add 3-4 cups of water and simmer for about 5 minutes. Afterward, add the mushroom or vegetables and shrimp, taste the curry, and adjust the taste with fish sauce, lime, a bit of sugar (optional). Finally, add the omelet just before serving this delightful dish and garnish with coriander. Enjoy!

Phad Thai without noodles

I am very fond of Phad Thai but I rarely cook them at home, the reason behind is the noodle, which can be over-soaked, and I could never get the right texture. Recently, I had lunch with one of my Thai friends and she recommended me to eat the Phad Thai without noodles, and I love it.  Of course, who could resist the Phad Thai with the variety of meat and seafood minus noodle? I thought of trying that at home and bought needed ingredients like eggs, firm tofu, shrimp, chicken, bean sprout, and spring onion. Luckily, basic ingredients such as tamarind puree, sugar, fish sauce, garlic, shallots, crushed peanuts, oil and ground-dried chili pepper are in the pantry. Since I believe most of us know how to cook Phad Thai, I won’t be writing down how to cook them in detail. However, as I can’t eat anything raw or even the medium rare, I stir-fried the tofu, chicken, and shrimp in advance.  I added crushed peanuts to the wok while frying the bean sprout, spring onion and eggs. That was it my Phad Thai without noodle, which I find very appetizing. You can eat them with fresh bean sprout, spring onion, sprinkle them with lime, and garnish with coriander too. 

King Naresuan

My other half is quite a fan of this movie and last week he got the DVDs for us to watch during the weekday.  The reason he bought them is that the Part 3 start showing from 31^st March and he wanted us to refresh our memory. It was quite challenging for me to enjoy the film while reading the Thai caption mostly in royal language. I was kind of discouraged for my ability to understand the language and I managed to get through this somehow. On 31^st March, I tried to buy the tickets for Part 3 but it turned out that we had to wait for a day or two since the English subtitled version has not available yet. Of course we watched that yesterday and it was in deed entertaining. Since it is not so hard to find the trailers in youtube, I have decided to link those in this post. By the way, the movie is about King Naresuan the Great, and you can find out more about the movie here and the King here. I almost forgot, there will be part 4 but they have not announced the release date yet.  


*Afterthought, I wish we could film the life, the struggle, and the tragedy of one of our heros, General Aung San  for the generation who doesn't aware of the fact that "Independence has high price".

Part I

Part II

Part III