Have you made your Father's Day reservations yet?

If coming to True Thai Restaurant is part of your Father's Day plan, it never hurts to call in and make a reservation. Father's Day is never quite as busy as Mother's Day, but it's still pretty busy!

I wrote about my Dad two years ago, and how my parents' families immigrated to Thailand from Vietnam a hundred years ago. Not everyone's family story is quite so dramatic (or sometimes even more so), but everyone's stories about their father or mother is special because our parents are special to us.

Have an enjoyable Father's Day with the Dad you love.

Eat Your Vegetables Day

Tomorrow is national Eat Your Vegetables Day. Thai people really like vegetables. I tried to count how many we have on our menu but lost track at 34 (I am sure there are more than that!). We serve leafy vegetables (lettuce, napa, gailan, spinach, cabbage), onions (green, yellow, purple), peppers (bell, Thai, jalapeño), and hard to find items like Thai eggplant, purple yams and Chinese broccoli, as well as almost all the usual "American" vegetables (peas, corn, tomatoes, green beans, potatoes, etc.).

You can't make Thai food without Thai spices, but all the spice in the world cannot turn a cauliflower bud into a Thai eggplant, or a jalapeño pepper into a Thai prikki-nu hot pepper. Vegetables are very important to Thai cuisine, and it's very hard to order food from True Thai without finding vegetables on your plate.

Children love our vegetables, but we have had a few adults who insisted on their right not to eat any. For them we have appetizers and desserts, but that is no way to go through life. Everybody needs vegetables in their diet, and if you don't like vegetables, you're either eating the wrong ones, or you're eating poorly prepared vegetables. (Hint: the right seasonings help a lot!)

True Thai fans love vegetables. This year, why not drag a vegetable-hating friend to True Thai to find out just how good vegetables can be. They taste good, they're good for you, and veggie dishes are cheaper than dishes with meat or seafood.

True Patio!

Memorial Day weekend has come and gone, Minnesotans are wearing shorts and it's time for True Thai's patio dining season to begin!

An old picture, but we're getting to be an old restaurant!

Closed Memorial Day

In my lifetime, Thailand has not known war firsthand. Border skirmishes and internal conflicts, yes. And Japan did invade us during WWII, but only for about eight hours and then we established an armistice. Modern Thailand is not a warlike country, but we certainly know war.

During each war in Asia, Thailand becomes home to countless refugee camps. What I know of war, I learned from others who had fled from war. When I was young and our family would take food baskets to nearby refugee camps, it was heartbreaking to see the smiles of refugees because you could tell it had been a long time since they had any reason to smile.

This picture is of the Umpiem Mai refugee camp in northern Thailand. Over 150,000 people live there, mostly Burmese refugees who have fled the military junta in Burma.

There is nothing good to say about war, and each war creates a flood of victims. Memorial Day is the day we set aside to think about war and those who didn't come back.

True Thai Restaurant will be closed Monday, May 30, in recognition of Memorial Day.

Thai grrr!

I was happy to learn that there may be more tigers in Thailand than was previously thought. I like tigers, maybe because unlike crocodiles, I have never met a tiger except in a zoo.

In Asia, the tiger is the King of Beasts! In fact, the tiger really is the King of Beasts, having been voted the "world's favourite animal" in a poll conducted by Animal Planet. (Dogs finished second.)

Three species of tiger have become extinct, but six species still remain. The tigers in Thailand are Indochinese tigers (Panthera tigris corbetti), but no matter which species you pick, there is no such thing as a small adult tiger. Male adults of each species grow to eleven feet in length and weigh about 650 lbs.

The Wat Pa Luang Ta Bua Temple in western Thailand is known as the Tiger Temple. There are 34 tigers living with the monks there. I think those are very brave monks! Sadly, that's ten percent of the tigers still known to live in Thailand. You can see a video of those tigers at YouTube.

Now that I live in the United States, I am much more pro-tiger than I used to be. My sister Mem, who still lives in Thailand, is not as big a fan.

*****

I think this is the first time I've ever updated a post, but I just learned there is some good news from Thailand for tigers: Sudjai Chanthawong, the head of Thailand's biggest tiger trafficking ring, has been arrested!

Have you made your reservations yet?

Every time we celebrate a holiday, I find myself thinking about the next holiday. After Easter, the next holiday is Mother's Day on Sunday, May 8.

But not in Thailand. In Thailand we celebrate Mother's Day on the Queen's birthday, which is August 12. May 8th is Don Rickles' birthday, but I do not think that is why they picked the second Sunday in May to be Mother's Day in America.

Have you made your reservations yet? There are only two days in the year when I know in advance that True Thai will be packed with customers: Valentine's Day and Mother's Day.

Father's Day? We do OK, but our customers seem to like their moms better than their dads. If you like your mom and want to take her to True Thai on Mother's Day, make your reservation now!

Closed Easter

Just a reminder that True Thai Restaurant will be closed Easter Sunday so our employees can spend time with their families. We will be open during regular hours on Saturday and Monday.

Please accept our wishes for a happy holiday weekend.

Happy Songkran!

Sorry not to have been posting more often, but a friend just sent me a link to someone else's pictures of the Songkran festivities in Thailand.

I promise to post more often in the future, but in the meantime enjoy Regina's pictures.

Thailand's Got Talent!

Forget Susan Boyle — the new talent discovery for 2011 is fifteen-year-old First!

First is one of many, many very talented Thais. Here's another video that's much more Thai and much less American.

Yes, Bell Nantita is a transgender Thai, in case you were wondering about the sudden voice change. In Thailand, anyone can be Michael Jackson or Celine Dion or both!

Your vote is very important!

It's that time of year again! City Pages is accepting ballots for their annual Readers' Poll. I'm not saying who I voted for, but I used a lot of T's when I filled out my ballot.

Nutritionists owe the coconut an apology!

When I came to this country, I was very skinny and very healthy. I was shocked when I learned in college nutrition classes that coconut oil wasn't good for me. When I was growing up nearly everything I ate was cooked with coconut oil!

Now the experts are saying, "oops, maybe coconut oil is not so bad for you."

[W]hile it is still uncertain whether coconut oil is actively beneficial the way olive oil is, small amounts probably are not harmful. The new federal Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend that no more than 10 percent of total dietary calories a day come from saturated fat. For a 2,000-calorie diet, that’s about 20 grams.

I could have told them that. As a public health nurse, I should probably defend nutritionists. I should, but I cannot. Since I started working out regularly, I've learned more about nutrition from fitness trainers than I ever did in a college classroom.

What have I learned? I've learned that in most countries, the traditional dietary practices are almost always healthy and good for you. I've learned that the less time food spends being processed, the better it is for you. And I've learned not to eat anything with a lot fine print on the label.

Good food is made fresh, from fresh ingredients. You may have tried to stock up on True Thai takeout. If so, you've learned that Thai food is not meant to be kept in a refrigerator. Once prepared, it should be eaten, not stored.

I do not wish to be rude, but in my humble opinion, people who invented lard should not criticize other people's cooking oils.

Of course, it is easy to talk about fresh food when you are from a country where it never snows. Preservatives made life in the frozen north (and south) possible. But if you have a choice, always eat fresh foods because given a choice, wouldn't you rather live longer and be healthier?

Plastic food

A friend just sent me a link to one of the saddest stories I've ever read. In China, criminals are selling fake rice to poor people! Fake rice?

The "rice" is made by mixing potatoes, sweet potatoes and plastic. The potatoes are first formed into the shape of rice grains. Industrial synthetic resins are then added to the mix. The rice reportedly stays hard even after being cooked....

"A Chinese Restaurant Association official said that eating three bowls of this fake rice would be like eating one plastic bag.

I have never eaten a plastic bag but I cannot imagine that they are very tasty, even when cooked with MSG.

The really terrible thing about this story is that rice is already very cheap. Yes, yes — I know that prices went up last year and that rice hoarders almost created a shortage and that prices are still at historically "high" levels —but even at grocery store prices a cup of uncooked rice still costs less than 25¢.

That's why True Thai did not raise our menu prices when the price of rice went up. We go through at least one fifty-pound bag of rice every day, but when the wholesale price of rice skyrocketed, that still cost us less than $10 a day. Still, much smaller restaurants who go through much less rice used that as an excuse to raise their menu prices. I will not share with you what I think these restaurant owners have in common with people who sell fake rice, but maybe you can guess.

I am less reluctant to share with you a link to Jeremy Iggers' review of Tracy's Saloon, an outstanding casual dining establishment just a few blocks west of True Thai Restaurant. The next time you stop by on a Friday or Saturday night and there is a line of people waiting to get into True Thai, remember that Tracy's is just a few blocks down the street and they are Jeremy Iggers approved!