KRISTIN WINET
is an award-winning travel writer, blogger, and
photographer. Her work, featured both online and
in print, covers culture, cuisine, accommodation,
and experiential travel. Check her out at
www.
kristinwinet.com
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The whole soiree — and accompanying
disaster — had been my idea in the first
place. I’d just come home from 10 days in
Thailand, learning how to prepare with
flair some of the world’s most glorious
dishes, and I wanted to woo my friends
with my recently acquired skills. My
cooking classes in Nakorn Pathom had
been such a learning experience: we’d
delicately prepared dishes like green
papaya salad, spicy shrimp soup, coconut
soup, green chicken curry, flat noodles,
and fried basil and pork. In my few days
there, I had learned that lemongrass makes
everything better, that there are roots other
than ginger (galangal, anyone?), and that
you can never add enough chili pepper. By
the end of my visit, I was feeling confident
that I could come home with my cookbook
of scribbled notes and recreate a feast for
my American friends — and I decided to
start with the green papaya salad.
I will say this: papaya salad looks
deceptively simple to make, but it is not.
First, I couldn’t figure out how to properly
shred the oblong, slightly unripe papaya
with my American cheese grater, so it
ended up a mushy mess in the bottom of
the bowl. Then, because I didn’t have a
mortar and pestle to mash up the garlic,
beans, and tomatoes, I used a tiny hammer
I found in my storage closet to try and
“slightly bruise” the beans and lightly
press the tomatoes just enough to release
the juices. Instead, I completely flattened
the beans and decimated the tomatoes.
Next came the palm sugar. I peeled it out
of the packaging, examined the solid lump
and realized I had absolutely no idea
whatsoever how to turn it into a paste. In a
desperate act of improvisation, I decided to
chop it into little pieces, crush it in wax
paper using the side of a knife, and then
dump the clumpy shavings into the bowl.
Evidently, shaved-off hunks do not
magically turn into a paste all by
themselves.
Then, the fish sauce. Apparently there is
more than one kind of fish sauce, and the
one I’d bought was the thickest, most
pungent fish sauce ever produced on the
planet. I didn’t account for this fact,
though, so I poured a glob of the stuff on
top of all the ingredients, stirred, and
ended up with a soup that didn’t even
remotely resemble the colorful, aromatic
salad everybody had been eating in
Thailand. I took a photo and sent it to my
new Thai friends. I captioned it: “What did
I do to my papaya salad?”
The responses were pretty unanimous.
One friend told me I should not plan on
becoming a famous chef. Another gave
more practical advice, suggesting I first
use a kiwi peeler to shred the papaya, set it
aside, put the garlic and chili in a Thai-
style blender, add the rest of the
ingredients, and then add the papaya. The
last one just texted back an emoji.
S t a n d i n g t h e r e i n my k i t c h e n ,
contemplating what to do about my failure,
I thought about what Dutch painter
Vincent Van Gogh once said upon
finishing a painting he decided looked like
a big ugly blob.
What would life be if we
had no courage to attempt anything?
I opened the lid of the trashcan, dumped in
the remains, and washed my hands.
Luckily, there was a family-owned Thai
restaurant down the street from us, so I
rounded up my dinner guests, walked them
to the restaurant, asked for a big bowl of
papaya salad, and shared my love for it
with them. Around a large table, we
enjoyed every bite of the fresh, crisp
perfection.
23
enVoyage
