Birthday curry

We could have ordered Thai food. It would have cost less money and taken a whole lot less time. But when my daughter requested Thai food for her birthday bash, I couldn’t resist the urge to cook. Yet this was not a feast I could cook up on my own, mainly because Thai is not a cuisine you can cook ahead.

Solution: Call in the troops.

A quick conversation with my sister was all it took to put in motion the awesome cooking machine that is my family. I would make the fish curry I had tried at The Wine Spectator restaurant in St. Helena. My daughter would make spring rolls.

One nephew would make potstickers and pad thai noodles with giant prawns and chunks of succulent chicken. Another would make a lime- and lemon grass-infused Thai soup.

For some, that might have been a meal. But not for us. My sister
would make rich, creamy Jungle Curry and spicy-sweet mango salad. Dad would make a melange of Thai vegetables. And my aunt would act as sous chef, running for ingredients and kicking the sous chefs if they got lazy on the job.

After a day of cooking — and turning our kitchens upside-down in the process — our dishes were brought together for what was, hands-down, the most delicous feast we as a family have ever prepared.

Every dish was it’s amazing self; together, we had created a
convergence of fresh, exotic flavors that we will not soon forget.
What made this meal so much fun is that we were all in it together, exploring a cuisine that we don’t know well, learning about many of the same flavors and ingredients.

As we ate, we talked about the elusive kaffir lime leaves, the heat
you get with true Thai chiles, the trick of balancing sweet with
sour, and the trials of turning lemon grass into a paste.

Were our dishes perfect? No. Were they authentic? Likely not. But as we divided up the leftovers we all agreed that this was way more fun than picking up boxes of takeout from the local Thai kitchen.
Jolene Thym