Going Domestic

stalking the crazy foreign lady

There are probably million things that I am baffled about in my Bangkok life that I will never completely figure out. This week, I've been pondering the activity of shopping in a department store. Madeline's preschool class is doing a play on Friday, and she needs a plain white shirt to wear. The department store nearby only opens an hour before I need to pick up my kid from preschool, of course (grr!), so I need to be a fast shopper. I get to Central as soon as it opens, go up a few floors to arrive at the girls' wear department, and start looking for white shirts. I find one in the Guess section, so I find a size that might fit Madeline, and grab the shirt. I see, across the way, that Shelter has a sweet white blouse as well, so I go over there and grab one of those. Then, I notice that Benetton has a few contenders as well, so me and the three white shirts go over to the Benetton section. A few feet away, I notice DeFry and they usually have nice plain tees, so I wander over there. Me, the shirts, and three sales associates, one from each of the Guess, Shelter, and Benetton departments. 

I hate this. I hate being stalked while I shop. I hate comisssion-hungry sales associates. All I wanted to do was find a few shirts and compare them. Why were now four sales associates staring at me like I was a crazy foreign lady? Was I a crazy foreign lady? 

I pick the white tee from DeFry - it was the closest to what I was looking for, and the cheapest. One of those sales associates escorts me across the floor to a cash desk. Where I wait for ten minutes while the person working the register apparently processes a return for an invisible customer, as I am the only customer standing at the desk. Sigh. Another thing I probably will never understand.

i came, i shopped, now what do i do with two litres of buttermilk?

The longer I live here, it seems, the better the grocery options get. Last week was awesome - the little grocery store near us had a double whammy: Dr. Pepper and buttermilk. Now, Chris and I know what to do with Dr. Pepper and we bought up nine cans of it, but buttermilk was trickier. 

I've never bought it in Thailand before - it comes in a clear plastic bottle and is sold next to the soy milk and juice at the grocery store, so it was rather flukey that I even noticed it. I bought two litres, and have frozen the first litre in 1/4 cup quantities for future use. I still had one full litre to use up this week. I made banana bread, trying out a new recipe (and I rather like it).

Today, I am tackling buttermilk pancakes. Pancakes have not been a great success in our household. We burn them, whether I make them in a non-stick skillet or Chris makes them in cast-iron (in which case they taste metallic and burnt at the same time. I am trying to be better about watching my pan on the stove this time. 

The other buttermilk project is from a blog post I stumbled upon that it called, conveniently, "Things To Do With Buttermilk" from Fine Furious Life. I have two of those yellow mangos sitting in my fridge right now, so maybe Madeline and I will enjoy our pancake lunch with a couple of mango lassis ... 

Life Lessons

Banana Puddingness
Originally uploaded by goingdomestic

I have a few words of advice for anyone attempting to make the oh-so-heavenly recipe for Not Yo Mama's Banana Pudding: Open up both packages of chessman cookies at the beginning and make sure that you have enough unbroken ones to cover the top. I would have been happier with the aesthetics of my dessert had I done so and not spent twenty minutes trying to piece together broken bits of cookie. My first package, which I used for the bottom layer, was perfect. Every single cookie intact. My second package only had fifteen uninjured cookies. Bah!

On a related note, I am almost certain that there is not a single recipe containing cream cheese that I would not love ...

are you being served?

I have refrained from posting about one of my biggest aggravations about trying to get things done here in BKK for a year and a half, but I cannot remain silent any longer: I will never ever understand why the relatively straightforward process of buying something at a department store (whether it's Central, the Emporium, or Paragon) takes so darn long. At least ten minutes is typical, and I often only have one item to ring up! Why does it take so long? Well, sometimes other customer who get to the cash desk after I do have their purchases attended to first. I have no idea why, and it's kind of upsetting to me. Additionally, when it's my turn to pay, sales associates from every single department I've shopped in (ie. baby clothes, infant toys, children's toys, children's books) must be tracked down and summoned to the cash desk so that they can have their commission cards scanned, even if they were conspicuously absent when I was making my selections! Ugh. This is why I really like shopping online ...