Happy Winter Holiday!

A refreshing 23 degrees Celsius on Christmas day in Chiang Mai, the first hot Christmas I've ever had. Very peculiar, agreed Zippy and Heather, Canadian comrades teaching in Vietnam and Hong Kong respectively. It's like Christmas already happened and we weren't there for it.

Nevertheless, we dutifully opened presents under palm trees over plates of eggs and pancakes from Bake&Bite, exchanging handmade crafts from not so far-flung exotic locations.

We took a clattering song taew to Wat Umong, wandered through the temple tunnels and overgrown paths scratched up by chickens and dogs, hoping to spot any escapee antelopes who had broken free from the old zoo on the grounds. Instead we found ourselves in the monk pad where they do their laundry and sleep. Whoops. We walked to the pond and bought pellets for the catfish. Man those things are ugly. As they swarmed around the food in a writhing gaping-mouthed mass, Zippy said, "It's like when someone has a really gross scab and you keep looking at it over and over." Some of them were huge. The picture doesn't quite capture the alien gullet maw of the giant catfish mob.

Gives me the Freudian creeps. Am I right, ladies, am I right?

So we washed our hands and went to the market to buy fruit and nuts in exciting colours for the party flapjacks. Here is the recipe for forgieners who don't what a flapjack really is.

Recipe for Party Flapjacks

200g butter
200g demerera sugar
200g honey
400g oats
pinches of any or more of the following spices:
nutmeg
cinammon
star anise
cloves
handfuls of any or more of the following treats:
chocolate chunks
raisins
chopped mango/ pineapple/ cherries/ almonds/ fresh ginger
multicolour sprinkles (that's the party bit)
M&Ms

Heat oven to 180 C
grease up a pan, make that thing slick so nothing sticks
put the butter, sugar and honey in a medium or large saucepan on medium heat (I have only one smallish-medium sized saucepan which made this whole thing a rather careful procedure) and stir till the butter melts and the sugar dissolves. Then get it off the heat.
Whack the oats into the pan.
Hassle the spices o'er top.
Impose the treats.
Stir everything up so it's good and wet, but holding it pretty much together, not falling apart like a sissy.
Press the sticky mix into the pan and put it into the middle of the oven. Cook it for 15-20 minutes. The edges will be crispy and your kitchen will smell like hot sugar (unless you have a sinus infection and you will be making this recipe for your friends only since you won't be able to smell or taste a thing)

When it looks done, take it out of the oven. Divide it into squares or any shape you want. Eat any bits that don't fit on your serving platter. Then it's up to you to party.

a roi maak maak.

So we took this winner of a dish to Small House and had an actually good time with excellent chefs and budding professional line dancers. We wore our matching Christmas sweaters, fluffy and bedazzled. Ukuleles were played, turkey was digested next to the butternut squash dissolving in our stomachs.

Later, we song taewed merrily to the 24 hour coin-operated laundry and computer shop, where I called the Showers's, Zippy called the Doiron's, and Heather snoozed on a plastic chair. And who should flicker onto my screen but father Showers, decked out splendidly, if a little snugly, in a glittery google-eyed cartoon robot t-shirt with the word FRENZY! on it. "I'm thrilled with my present, thank you so much! I've been wearing it all day." How did I know my dad and my 12-year old brother had so much in common? Note to self, put names on presents when you wrap them in the same paper and ship them to different countries.
Enjoy your brown cushion cover, Michael.

Then we tra-la-lah'd home, and I listened to Lucy Day on the Myspace to send me off to sleep.

Happy Festive Time.