June 2, 2010
I didn't give up on writing my blog, I had a family emergency and had to travel to Thailand for ten days after graduation week. It was not fun at all. With a low temperature of 94-95 at night, a great cool day at 110 or a bad evening at 122 the heat was deadly!
I had a chance to refresh my palate memory for a lot of food, most likely I'm still OK. For example most curries, they are so hard to get the classic flavor like before. Even from the best chef, most of the curries lack a third dimension, and of course no forth dimension at all.
I took a lot of pictures for you guys. I went out hunting for lychee nuts and I found a lot of them along one of the major highways. I found a variety of lychee nuts some that are the size of a golf ball! I bought 16lbs of them, I paid $12.50 USD estimate about 80 cents a pound.
Lychee 1
Lychee 2
The first stand we went to the skin was so bright they had just picked them three hours before. When I bit into it it was so sour. The guy at the stand said it was so fresh that the fruit hasn't forgotten the tree yet. At the next stand the lychee nuts were much darker in color they had been picked two days before. They were delicious so sweet and juicy. I saved the fresh lychees to eat over the next few days. Each day they got sweeter and sweeter. I ate half of one right there at the stand. The first half was a little sour because they just picked it 3 hours before. So I saved the other half and eat it after about 36 hours of being picked. The skin was quite dark and they were so sweet. I wish we could get lychee nuts like those here in Syracuse. I have paid $4 to $6 per pound for lychee nuts imported from China and Florida but they were not very good and 1/3 of the size.
Now that I am back I have a lot to catch up on. The Annual MOST Gala is coming up in July. I am finalizing the menu and locking in my wine and food donations for the event. We will also be trying out a new fish vendor this week.
Over the next few weeks I will share more about the food I had overseas and also keep you posted on what's going on here at the Grass and my Big Elephant.
Your Chef,
Max