My grandma is well-known for her rolls. Everyone looked forward to eating them at family gatherings. I don’t actually have a recipe for her rolls because she doesn’t use a recipe. She just knows how to make them because she’s done it so many times.

One of her sons once videotaped her making rolls and cinnamon rolls so that we could learn how she does it. When I last watched that video, I had never made bread before, so I didn’t know what to observe. I’d like to watch it again and see if I can learn more. Until then, I’ll just try re-inventing the recipe on my own.

If any family members are reading this and have some suggestions, please let me know! Do you remember Grandma using an egg? I don’t, but I could have missed it.

This recipe is based on one I found for Homemade Pan Rolls on Allrecipes.com, but I have altered it some. Mostly I simplified the directions so that they’re easier to follow. Here’s my version:

• 2 C flour
• 1/4 sugar
• 1 t salt
• 1 T yeast
• 1/4 C butter (softened)
• 1/2 C cold milk
• 1/2 C boiled water
• 1 egg, whisked
• 1 3/4 C flour

1. Mix 2 C flour, sugar, salt, and yeast
2. Mix boiled water with cold milk. Should be 100 – 110 degrees farenheit. If it isn’t, wait til it is.
3. Stir butter, egg, milk and water mixture into the dry ingredients. Stir until thoroughly combined
4. Add the rest of the flour and knead until the dough has a uniform texture (no clumps of dry flour on the outside of the dough).
5. Set dough in a greased bowl and cover with a cloth. Let rise until doubled (40-60 minutes).
6. Cut dough into 16 pieces.
7. Place rolls in a 9 by 13 inch pan and let rise for another 40 minutes.
8. Bake in a 400F oven for about 15 minutes, until golden brown.

We have a new kitten! She just sort of showed up a couple weeks ago. Since she was a stray we took her in. She’s cute and pretty healthy for a stray. She has little white feet, so we’ve named her “Sokkie” which means something like “little sock” in Dutch. It’s pronounced “soakie”. I also like this name because in Lao, “Sok” means “search for” and she was searching for a home.

Maybe it seems to you like I keep getting new cats and kittens? Well you’re right, but currently we only have one cat. It seems that cats in Laos, and especially kittens, are quite unpredictable. First we had 2 kittens who died. Then we adopted the cat from James’ office who had 2 more kittens. The kittens ran away (or were taken) while we were out-of-town. Then their mother moved back to the office (which is fine because they really need her there to keep the rat population low). We hope Sokkie sticks around longer than our other cats did!

Her tongue fell out while she was sleeping!

Pumpkin is a common vegetable here, so I’ve learned how to make a variety of things with it. Actually not much variety – mostly soups that are a lot like this. Most of the time I use a packaged Thai curry paste instead of making a spice paste myself, but this recipe includes directions for an Indonesian style of spice paste. Thai and Indonesian foods have some similar flavors and both ways of making the soup taste delicious.

I found this recipe in a wonderful cookbook called “Southeast Asian Food”. It was a wedding present from my friend Katie and it’s been so useful because most of the ingredients are available here. The original recipe included meat, so I’ve adjusted it a little.

I really enjoyed using my new mortar and pestle from Thailand. It’s smaller than my Lao one, but it’s made of stone, so it’s better at grinding dry ingredients. I think the Lao kind is better for large batches of spicy sauces (cheo) and papaya salad.

First make the spice paste by crushing these spices together in a mortar and pestle in the following order:

• 1 t whole coriander seed
• 7 thai red chilies, sliced (this was quite hot, you could use 3 and still have plenty of flavor)
• 1 inch ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
• 8 almonds
• 1 large garlic clove
• 5 shalots
• 1/4 t turmeric
• 1/4 t ground cumin

Heat the 2 T oil in a medium saucepan and briefly fry the spice paste.

Add everything else and simmer over low heat until the pumpkin is very soft (about an hour).

• 1 t salt
• 1 C broth
• 2 thin slices galangal root
• 2 kaffir lime leaves
• 2 3/4 C coconut milk
• 1 kilo (2 pounds) pumpkin meat (seeded, peeled, and cubed)

Serve over rice and top with fresh lime juice.

serves 6-8

This is the first pie I’ve ever made. Okay, I’ve made pie crust before for fruit tarts and I’ve made pie shaped things like quiche, but I’ve never actually made a pie. If you know how much I love pie, it’s even more suprising. I love pie so much that at my wedding, I didn’t want a wedding cake, I wanted many kinds of pie (and got what I wanted)!

Sweet potato pie is sort of like pumpkin pie in that it’s an orange pie made from a vegetable and it includes spices like cinnamon and nutmeg.

I made this pie with sweet potatoes that we bought in Vientiane. We can’t usually get them up here yet. The variety of sweet potatoes that we can get in Laos isn’t as rich and moist as the kind in the US, but it still made a great pie.

You can find the recipe here. I made 3 changes to the recipe:

1. I roasted the sweet potatoes instead of boiling them because I love the sweet flavor that roasting adds.
2. I don’t know what percentage of milk I used because the box doesn’t say. I’m pretty sure it’s not whole milk (maybe 2.5%) but it worked fine.
3. I used turbinado sugar instead of white sugar, but I don’t think it matters much.

The Once and Future Apple Cake is a cake with a story. It began with a little girl whose mother baked apple cakes, but then died when the girl was young. When the girl grew up, she searched and searched for an apple cake like her mother’s. Please read the story and recipe here. I can’t tell the story any better than it has already been told.

When I bake this apple cake, I make a couple alterations because of where I live:

1. Brown sugar doesn’t have to be the kind of brown sugar we know in the US. I either use “nam oi” (pure cane sugar paste) or raw/turbinado sugar. It’s not as strong and moist as brown sugar, but it works.
2. I leave the pecans out. You could substitute walnuts, but the walnuts here aren’t great quality anyway. I don’t think peanuts or cashews would be quite right, but I haven’t tried it.