Following the food.

Today is a new day, marred by the haze of smoke that prevents us from seeing even the closest mountains. It drains the color from the landscape. But we know, as we always do, that it cannot last forever. We wait for, best, rain, and second-best, wind.

I have made myself the most delicious dal, vegetables, and coconut chutney and I’m eating it for breakfast. It’s too good to be true. The other night I made dosa for the first time, and as Kenya ate them, she closed her eyes and I knew she was back in India. We travel through food. And when we travel really (one day, again, we will) we follow the food.

But I follow the food not only because I like to eat (I do), but because people gather and live where good food is. Like language, you find discover things about people and groups of people in their food. And eating connects people. For example, the dosa I made was from the ingredients that my friend Leaf left me when she moved back to Australia. She has fed my family many times, and she is still feeding us through the ingredients she gathered from shops around Chiang Mai. Having the ingredients on hand caused me to overcome my resistance to cooking something I love. (I resisted because of the steps of soaking, grinding, and fermentation, but it was not so hard after all.)

One thing I have learned from people in my region of Thailand is that there are dozens and dozens of edible greens, with all kinds of health benefits, something you won’t learn in an average Thai restaurant. Most often you will never see these greens unless you end up eating at someone’s house, maybe sitting on their bamboo floor.

Just the other day, I went to the little house where a family sells fresh ground coconut. I call it a little house because the family used to live in this one little building, but recently they built a beautiful new house. I chat with one of three people whenever I go there, the grandmother, the grandfather, or their daughter, who is my age. The daughter and I talk about my life. She’s curious about my kids and homeschooling and whether I will ever buy land here. The grandfather tells me of the benefits of drinking coconut water every day. His excellent physical health is all the proof I’ll ever need, is his gist.

When I went to get coconut for my chutney, it was quite late in the day. The grandmother was sitting in her garden, pulling weeds. It was beautiful, seeing her there. The air was beginning to cool, and it had been a while since I bought coconut. I hadn’t seen how lush the new garden had become. Now peapods were clustered on vines that leaned against the wall. The garden is raised so that the grandmother and I were at eye level with one another, though she was sitting.

“What are these?” I asked, pointing at a bean with large pods. I had never seen it before.

She told me it was a bean that people eat here, in Pai.

“It’s spicy,” she said, and gave me one to taste. It was spicy. It tasted a little like horseradish. She picked a bunch of fresh pods to give to me, and then a bunch of dried pods. “You can plant them in your garden,” she said. “When they grow, you can put them in soup or curry.”

She told me about how good it feels to eat from her garden. Sabai jai. Heart at ease. Mind at ease.

We talked about the difference between food in the north and south of Thailand when I asked if she eats coconut every day. “No,” she told. “But in the south they eat coconut every day. My husband eats like he is from the south. Very spicy.”

They are always curious about what I make with my ground coconut, so after I made chutney, I went back and took them some. I have always told them Indian food, but it has little meaning for people who have never been to a dosa restaurant.

“You can eat it with rice and vegetables,” I said. “It’s a little like nam chim.” It’s not, really, but I don’t know how to describe it. I wonder if they will like it.

I think of how my friend Sonal and I cook together. She always makes the chutneys, but she makes red and green chutneys more often than coconut. And I think about language, how I know many spices by their Hindi names because that is how I learned them. Sonal will try Gujarati when she tells me we need a spice, but then if Gujarati doesn’t work, she switches to Hindi. We both speak English, but this is the kitchen language for these dishes. I haven’t seen my friend in a year, but I still think of her every time I am making puri, or chutney.

I am still learning the kitchen language in Thailand, because as soon as I think I know, there is another word, another green, another foraged food. People have always come to my house to find leaves they can’t find elsewhere.

Leafy remarked on this the other day.

“I like how people share the leaves of plants,” he said. “Almost as though plants don’t belong to anyone.”

This is what I mean by folowing the food. Because knowing food is also knowing how people think about food. Like growing it to make your heart and mind at ease. Or the health properties of foods. Bitter is good for you. This wild plant is good for your stomach. This one helps your blood.

In India, Jaya would treat every ailment with some kind of food. Boiled cumin water for her stomach. Coconut for cooling the inside of the body. Here it is the same.

Today is a new day. When I cannot see the mountains, I will water the earth and the plants in my garden. Days are surprising. I didn’t know I would write about this today.

It is why a new day is such a lovely thing.

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