I'd Rather Eat Oatmeal

Floating restaurant in Thailand

My missionary friends Lilli and Rene just got back from Thailand and in honor of the upcoming release of my Too Blessed to be Stressed Cookbook, entertained Spouse and me with foodie stories for hours.

In Bankok, they encountered floating markets on wide canals that contained little shoppes and restaurants. The restaurants were quite unique.

Get a load of those squid

Ladies in little skiffs below the platform cooked the food on charcoal and propane grills - shrimp, crab, squid, fish - and passed the plates up to the servers.

My friends didn't know the reasons behind this strange arrangement, but we theorized that maybe in case of fire, they could just shove the skiff out onto the water so not to burn down the entire wooden market.

I know that's why kitchens were often built away from the rest of the house in early America; kitchen fires from wood-burning stoves were rather commonplace and spread too quickly to save the rest of the house.

Fried crickets. Yum, right?

But the most memorable food experience of all was when my friends were served fried crickets. Rene said they're crunchy like chips but have a nasty aftertaste.

Oh. My. Salivating. Glands.

Lilli said she preferred to stay away from any foods that might hop, slide, swim, or squirm off her plate. 

All photos by Rene Palacio

Reminded me of the time Spouse and I traveled to Bavaria and picky me couldn't stomach all the pickled foods (I'm squeamish about vinegar). So I lived off instant oatmeal packets I'd snuck into my luggage from home (just add bottled water, and voila - lunch!).

Come to think of it, I lost 5-lbs on that trip. Maybe I should go to Thailand - I could shed that extra 10-lbs I picked up preparing and tweaking and preparing and tweaking recipes for the Too Blessed to be Stressed Cookbook.

So the moral of this story?

Don't become a missionary (or misson'ry as Lilli says in her lovely South African accent) unless you have an open minded palate or a crate of instant oatmeal.