Nancie McDermott learned about Thai food during three years as a Peace Corps volunteer teaching English in Thailand



Nancie McDermott learned about Thai food during three years as a Peace Corps volunteer teaching English in Thailand

Match made in Thai heaven;
Exotic cuisine pared for daily meals

By Robin Mather Jenkins

Chicago Tribune

February 16, 2005

Nancie McDermott learned about Thai food during three years as a Peace Corps volunteer teaching English in Thailand. By her own admission, she fell in love with the street food and palace cuisine she encountered. Her love affair continued, long-distance, when she returned to North Carolina. Like any besotted suitor, she went to mad lengths with good cheer to spend time with her beloved, and minded not a whit the hours she spent tracking down tools and ingredients.

By the time McDermott married and moved to southern California, the great influx of Southeast Asian immigrants and the markets they inspired there made pursuing her consuming passion for Thai foods much easier. In the following years, she began to teach Thai cooking, and wrote two cookbooks: "Real Thai: The Best of Thailand's Regional Cooking" and "Real Vegetarian Thai."But the births of McDermott's two children enlightened the new mom, she said.

"I began to understand the despair I had seen on some of my students' faces as I presented a recipe with 23 ingredients and 19 steps," she writes in the introduction to "Quick & Easy Thai" (Chronicle Books, $18.95). "I gravitated toward dishes I could cook with one hand while the other hand held a telephone, a Raffi cassette (by the Canadian children's entertainer) or a cookie."

Such is the difference between the idealism of the dreamy swain and the pragmatism of the happy parent. But pragmatism a la McDermott implies no compromise.

Instead, she collected 70 recipes for the kind of everyday meals that Thais eat at home, and encounter at the street vendors' and night market stands. Here, too, are favorites from Thai restaurants, reproduced in home-kitchen proportion and technique. Where she found shortcuts for simpler versions of Thai classics, McDermott also included those.

"I wrote this book because I want to enjoy the dazzling flavors of Thai food even on a weeknight, to be able to cook Thai dishes as easily and happily and quickly as I make other favorite dishes for our table," McDermott writes.

Well, thank God for that.

Many of us have reveled in the pleasures of the Thai table, if only at restaurants. The lively, sensual pleasures of Thai food, with its complex mixes of sweet-hot-salty-sour flavors, refresh and intrigue even jaded palates. But cooking Thai at home, especially for the novice, has been intimidating. To cook that kind of Thai requires a pantry deep with specialty ingredients and a refrigerator chockablock with pricey perishables.

McDermott's book makes it possible, however, to introduce Thai flavor profiles with easily found ingredients like fresh cilantro, chilies and limes. These recipes permit canned coconut milk and cream, rather than requiring the cook to start with coconut and hammer. McDermott thoughtfully includes mail-order sources too.

The recipes are well-written, easy to follow and quick to prepare; all three of the recipes we tried received raves from tasters.

McDermott plays matchmaker with this book, cheerfully introducing you to a cuisine she suspects is just perfect for you. Later, if interest deepens and friendship turns to love, you may want to cement the relationship by exploring other, more scholarly cookbooks like McDermott's earlier works and Su-Mei Yu's spectacular classic, "Cracking the Coconut: Classic Thai Home Cooking."

Still, "Quick and Easy Thai" may become your closest Thai confidant and companion.

First dates are for fun, not forever. McDermott says that the Thai philosophy of food is "playful and varied, delicious and diverting, full of energy, surprises and wit."

Sounds like a recipe for love to us.

When this story was posted in February 2005, this was on the front page of PCOL:

The Peace Corps Library Peace Corps Online is proud to announce that the Peace Corps Library is now available online. With over 30,000 index entries in over 500 categories, this is the largest collection of Peace Corps related reference material in the world. From Acting to Zucchini, you can use the Main Index to find hundreds of stories about RPCVs who have your same interests, who served in your Country of Service, or who serve in your state.

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WWII participants became RPCVs Read about two RPCVs who participated in World War II in very different ways long before there was a Peace Corps. Retired Rear Adm. Francis J. Thomas (RPCV Fiji), a decorated hero of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, died Friday, Jan. 21, 2005 at 100. Mary Smeltzer (RPCV Botswana), 89, followed her Japanese students into WWII internment camps. We honor both RPCVs for their service.

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February 12, 2005: This Week's Top Stories Peter McPherson keeping busy in DC 12 Feb Martha Ryan wins Award for pre-natal program 12 Feb John Perkins reveals dark side of U.S. aid 10 Feb Kathleen DeBold involved in lesbian activism 10 Feb Jim Doyle to fix Wisconsin deficit without raising taxes 10 Feb Chris Dodd proposes Class Action Fairness Act 10 Feb RPCVs create Tsunami Assistance Project for India 9 Feb Donna Shalala talks about her Peace Corps days 8 Feb Senator Frist proposes Global Health Corps 8 Feb Bush's budget to end Perkins loan forgiveness for PCVs 8 Feb Tom Petri's Direct Loan Reward Act to save $18 billion 8 Feb Izaak Edvalson helps educate a Doctor 7 Feb Carol Bellamy condemns Female genital mutilation 7 Feb Carl Pope criticizes Bush environmental priorities 7 Feb Mike Tidwell defends wind farms 6 Feb Kinky Friedman for real? Voters may not care 5 Feb Bruce Anderson's Newspaper folds amid money woes 5 Feb

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Bush's FY06 Budget for the Peace Corps The White House is proposing $345 Million for the Peace Corps for FY06 - a $27.7 Million (8.7%) increase that would allow at least two new posts and maintain the existing number of volunteers at approximately 7,700. Bush's 2002 proposal to double the Peace Corps to 14,000 volunteers appears to have been forgotten. The proposed budget still needs to be approved by Congress.

RPCVs mobilize support for Countries of Service RPCV Groups mobilize to support their Countries of Service. Over 200 RPCVS have already applied to the Crisis Corps to provide Tsunami Recovery aid, RPCVs have written a letter urging President Bush and Congress to aid Democracy in Ukraine, and RPCVs are writing NBC about a recent episode of the "West Wing" and asking them to get their facts right about Turkey.

RPCVs contend for Academy Awards Bolivia RPCV Taylor Hackford's film "Ray" is up for awards in six categories including best picture, best actor and best director. "Autism Is a World" co-produced by Sierra Leone RPCV Douglas Biklen and nominated for best Documentary Short Subject, seeks to increase awareness of developmental disabilities. Colombian film "El Rey," previously in the running for the foreign-language award, includes the urban legend that PCVs teamed up with El Rey to bring cocaine to U.S. soil.

Ask Not As our country prepares for the inauguration of a President, we remember one of the greatest speeches of the 20th century and how his words inspired us. "And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man."

Coleman: Peace Corps mission and expansion Senator Norm Coleman, Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee that oversees the Peace Corps, says in an op-ed, A chance to show the world America at its best: "Even as that worthy agency mobilizes a "Crisis Corps" of former Peace Corps volunteers to assist with tsunami relief, I believe an opportunity exists to rededicate ourselves to the mission of the Peace Corps and its expansion to touch more and more lives."

RPCVs active in new session of Congress In the new session of Congress that begins this week, RPCV Congressman Tom Petri has a proposal to bolster Social Security, Sam Farr supported the objection to the Electoral College count, James Walsh has asked for a waiver to continue heading a powerful Appropriations subcommittee, Chris Shays will no longer be vice chairman of the Budget Committee, and Mike Honda spoke on the floor honoring late Congressman Robert Matsui.

Latest: RPCVs and Peace Corps provide aid Peace Corps made an appeal last week to all Thailand RPCV's to consider serving again through the Crisis Corps and more than 30 RPCVs have responded so far. RPCVs: Read what an RPCV-led NGO is doing about the crisis an how one RPCV is headed for Sri Lanka to help a nation he grew to love. Question: Is Crisis Corps going to send RPCVs to India, Indonesia and nine other countries that need help?

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