Onion bagels.

Lewisburg.

Nothing quite like fresh bagels. I'm really beginning to get the hang of these:



Onion, and a real treat. As I don't make them as often as I (perhaps) should, I'm still working through the best process. Tips that I can, for now, recommend:

• Use a high-protein bread flour. I've mostly switched to King Arthur's all-purpose for breads, since I get good results and a slightly crustier crust. Sometimes, though, when that extra gluten's important - chewy bagels, or breads loaded with non-structural flours and grains - bread flour's worth using.
  
  
• Retard the shaped bagels in the refrigerator (or winter garage) overnight. Using a pre-ferment gives great flavor, but tends to a softer dough, which isn't ideal for bagels. The cold also helps prevent them from expanding too much when boiling, so that they stay nice and chewy inside.
  
  
• Along those lines: allow minimal rising. They'll puff, and still be tasty, but less bagel-y. An hour of primary fermentation seems ideal.
  
  
• Use a low hydration. Hamelman recommends 58%, but I bumped it down to 55%, since the onions contribute extra moisture. I'll have to fiddle around for regular bagels, but I have been happy with the 58% benchmark in the past. This makes for a tough dough to work - and it really needs some serious kneading - so a stand mixer is essential here.
  
  
• Bake on stone. There's some uneven coloration here, since my firebrick arrangement can only accommodate a dozen bagels (at 900g flour for the batch), giving a browner crust around the edges. But overall, they're better-looking than any I've ever made on sheet pans, and surprisingly easy to move about on a peel.
  
  
• Make friends. These are amazing they day they're made, but get a little tough to slice by the time two people can work through a dozen. I could bake fewer, but a full dozen at once - like making two loaves of bread - is just a few minutes more work. Really. And who'd turn these down?

Bannetons and soakers.

Lewisburg.

Bread. Good stuff's hard to find around here, it seems, so I bake most of what we eat.^{1, 2} This is not, of course, unusual - I've been baking bread for the past dozen years or so - but I've been making steady progress ever since. I started using the Tassajara Bread Book, so beloved of crunchy hippies, and the Joy of Cooking. Both are fair enough for a place to start, and will get you far enough to make soft-textured loaves with a fine crumb that's delicious lightly toasted, spread with butter and jam.

But I couldn't do much else with that. Crusts were soft, and sometimes thick. The color was always a dull, pale brown. Baguettes were an impossibility, but I didn't know why.

The big step came with the no-knead recipe Mark Bittman wrote about in his Minimalist column. Crisp crust! Tender, airy, irregular crumb! No more confusing kneading!³ Suddenly, I could make more than kind of bread. I don't make that recipe much anymore, but I do use the container baking method from time to time. Two loaf pans, held together like a clamshell with binder clips, are my preferred method for sandwich loaves.

Now I'm following Jeffrey Hamelman's lead. His book, Bread, is for serious home bakers and professionals, and it really rewards precision and care. Those breads I can't bake now are so only because I haven't had the practice - I'll get to brioche when I get there, but it's not top priority.

Today's new experiment was with soaked grains, inspired when a friend asked for some advice on moving beyond the basic no-knead bread recipe. I've been making breads with a variety of flours for a long time, but other than rolled oats, large grains had never been in there. Now, though, they will be.



Soaking's stupid-easy. Soak grains overnight in water, and add to dough. Then they aren't texturally offensive, but flavorful and part of the bread. Rolled oats are never going in un-soaked again.

More specifically, you need to account for the weight of the grains when calculating water and salt. Any water that's not going into a pre-ferment goes here, as does all of the salt. Salt slows enzymatic and microbial activity, so there's no unexpected sourness. Make it at the same time as a pre-ferment - I like poolishes - and let 'em sit out, side by side. Here, I used 5% rolled oats and 5% bulgur, which are good soaked in cold water. Wheat and rye berries, being much tougher, would need boiling water to soften sufficiently.

The rest of the dough was 80% all-purpose flour, 10% whole wheat flour, 10% whole rye flour, and 69% hydration. My usual method is to use 50% pre-fermented flour, as a poolish at 100% hydration. If I'd been using more whole grains than 10%, I might have needed to use a drier pre-ferment to have enough moisture to accommodate the soaking.

Knead, rise, fold, etc. I let the loaves do their final proof in bannetons:



I love these things. They're not cheap, but the resulting loaves look fantastic. I've found that I'm better off slashing these and moving them into the oven earlier than I would other loaves, because getting a good-looking score pattern's not my forte. (Again, practice. I can't get enough.)

The bannetons - or brotformen, auf Deutsch - came from Fante's. I use these large round ones for my typical 450g loaves⁴, but I have a pair of smaller rounds that get occasional use, as well as a triangle and a torus that were gifts. I don't bake in them as often, but the resulting loaves are pretty sweet.

As for this one:



Aside from the dark flecks from the bulgur, you can't tell there are whole grains in here. They're seamless in the crumb. Flavorful, but otherwise invisible.

Perfect for tonight's dinner: lentils, kale, and some fresh Brie.

* * * * *

¹Sometimes, we're able to buy good loaves from Gemelli Bakery in State College, but that's limited by: season (they attend our weekly growers' market); availability (they're not there every week; we're not able to make it every Friday, either); and demand (since they do sell out). Gemelli bakes some loaves that I'm not up to speed on - especially big, airy loaves like their ciabatta - so that's an occasional treat.

²One of the best bread-related moments we've had: Sharon's sister's sheer befuddlement that we had made Thanksgiving stuffing from a loaf specifically baked for that purpose. She simply couldn't get over it - never mind that I'd made everything else on the table from scratch.

³Kneading's tough. Not the actual act, but knowing when to and when not to. Knowing how much. When you only bake bread every once in a while - and unless you're baking professionally, once a week is frequent - acquiring the sense for it takes forever.

⁴I think of them in terms of the total flour weight. Final loaf weight's about a pound and a half.

Chestnuts.

Lewisburg.

Chestnut season is whenever I can get my hands on them, which isn't often. But Melissa surprised me - at her wedding reception, no less - with a bag full of fresh ones picked from her parents' yard. (I think.) I was a little slow to dealing with them, but now there are enough to enjoy with several meals.

They can be kind of a pain to peel, so I'm glad they're an at-most-once-a-year deal. I'm certain there's a more effective way to do this, but the traditional way is something like this:

Cut an X into each nut's flat (or flattest) side, pitching any with obvious insect damage.



Boil them for a few minutes, then leave sitting in the hot water as you peel them, one by one. The shells and skins remain flexible when warm, so you can tear them off with fingernails. Be ready for the occasional shell edge slipping under a thumbnail, which feels about as good as you might imagine. Be ready for raisinized fingertips. Be ready for tedium.

Then it's time to trim out any bad sections, insect larvae that've just been boiled to death, etc. This should leave you with a pile of sweet, golden nutmeats:



Now cook 'em, freeze 'em, or whatever. We added a handful to dinner, of course. One of my favorite uses is to add coarsely chopped chestnuts to polenta, added near the end of cooking so that they retain some texture. I didn't quite do that last night, but it was close. I had some fresh shell beans from the garden - the season's last - that I'd been meaning to use, and a big head of broccoli that Sharon had reserved for roasting.

An onion, diced, cooked in plenty of butter, with the beans added when they got soft and a bit brown. Some duck stock from a bird I'd turned into confit a week or two ago to braise the beans to tenderness, with more to enrich the polenta. (More butter and some Parmigiano do wonders for the polenta.) We had some fresh thyme, left over from curing this year's olives, so I added that, and the chestnuts, coarsely chopped, when the beans were coming near tender. The broccoli, after a toss with olive oil and salt, went in a hot oven until tender and a little brown. It's even better with cauliflower.

Top with a poached egg - since there isn't much that couldn't use one on top - and a light grating of cheese:



Perhaps the rest of the chestnuts'll have a repeat performance this weekend.

A pair of interesting chestnut facts:

• Chestnuts, being highly perishable, need to live in the fridge, and even then they don't last forever. But Harold McGee notes that freshly gathered chestnuts benefit from a few days at room temperature, during which time some of the starches convert to sugar.
  
  
• Alan Davidson points out that chestnut meal was the original ingredient in polenta, before the introduction of corn from the New World. Small, but flavorful - and free - wild chestnuts would have been the source, and were also used to stretch wheat and other flours in lean times.

Fingerlings.

Lewisburg.

Root vegetables always carry an element of surprise. Carrots and parsnips will twist about each other if they grow too close together. Sometimes they spur off new finger-like taproots. It's impossible to tell, until you've pulled them, whether the turnips and radishes look perfect or terrible. The size and number of potatoes underground is always a mystery.

And fingerling potatoes will sometimes do this:



It's a result of inconsistent watering, given our severe lack of rain this season. But, still, a great harvest of spuds, and since I rarely bother peeling potatoes, not a big deal at all.

Jeow.

Lewisburg.

Summer! It means ripe tomatoes - including the first Green Zebras from the vines today - and chillis and eggplant, all just right for Lao-style jeow. The word means something akin to sauce or dip, particularly in the salsa vein. Something very thin, like fish sauce¹, has nam in there someplace, which is the word for water or water-like stuff.

Anyhow. Jeow is a dip that you eat with balls of Lao/Thai sticky rice², and it's made from whatever's at hand. Start with some good fresh vegetables:



Here: tomatoes, eggplant, chillis, and garlic, all on skewers. Scallions and holy basil for later. Not pictured: fish sauce. If I'd had shallots nearby, they'd be ready to go, too.

The key, as far as I'm concerned, is fire. Not just the gas flame at the stove, but charcoal. I don't even bother with the grill, but cook it all right over the chimney starter, which is insanely hot. The trick is to cook the vegetables until soft enough to pound in a mortar, and the high heat works to char the hell out of the skins. For one, it makes them easy to peel. Even better is the glorious smokiness that results.



Tomatoes don't take but a few moments, and the chillis just a hint longer. Garlic and eggplant, though, take enough time to get awesomely smoky. I keep going until the skins are turning to ash at the tips, until they feel soft to the touch. If I could manage it with the tomatoes, I would, but there's a limit to how long I can watch before fearing they'll plummet to the coals, irretrievable.

Then it's peel skins, mash coarsely in a mortar, season with fish sauce, basil, cilantro, etc. Eat with sticky rice. I could pretty much call this a meal:



Eggplant on the left, with chillis, garlic, scallions, holy basil, fish sauce. Tomato on the right, with garlic, scallions, holy basil, fish sauce. These are the new summer standards.

* * * * *

¹Which is a condiment, really, and not a sauce. But "fish condiment" sounds even less appetizing, or else just confusing.

²Not to be confused with sushi rice, which is somewhat sticky, or Japanese sweet rice - since it's also sometimes called sweet rice - which is stickier than sushi rice. Lao sticky rice is super-sticky, requires hours of advance soaking, and must be steamed. But it's unique and delicious, and maybe my favorite rice. Which is really saying something.

Bitter melon!

Lewisburg.

Man, leave town for a few days, and this is what awaits:



Tomatoes. (Lots.) Tomatillos, zucchini, mini red bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, Lao eggplant, dragon's tongue beans, Sultan's golden crescent beans, tongue of fire beans, onions, scallions, edamame, blackberries, raspberries, and that knobbly fellow in front, the bitter melon. First one of the season, but they're starting to come on strong. And, thus far, looking healthier than I'm used to seeing my cucumbers.

Fingers crossed?

Duck, you sucker.

Lewisburg.

It rained! After nearly three weeks with nary a drop, we've finally had some significant rains recently. Not what we really need, unfortunately, but enough to lend a little help to the regular watering schedule. Rain plus heat means that things are moving along quickly. Flowers, including cosmos, bachelor's buttons, snapdragons, nasturtiums, love-in-a-mist, marigolds, and, uh, broccoli raab, are in bloom:



The peppers are big, bushy, and fruiting:



Most are from saved seed, and since peppers are more prone to cross-pollination than tomatoes, beans, or some of the others I'm also trying, it's interesting to see what's happening. The jalapenos, for example, are shaped a bit different, and the ones I picked earlier today are fruitier in taste, and less grassy, than those from last year. Near the same heat level, though.

The watermelon may or may not be from saved seeds. I didn't trust the saved seeds, so planted some that were left over from last year, but just about everything came up. And they're loving the heat so far:



Among the other so-far successes: giant, vigorous buckwheat in flower; sweet carrots big enough to eat as I thin the row; new potatoes; big pole beans flowering like mad. And tomatoes taller than me:



The trellis is more than six feet high, and the Sun Golds are just about there.

The main reason they're so tall is that I'm carefully pruning indeterminate tomatoes.¹ With big, long vines, they need support - mason twine and greenhouse clips, in my case, hanging from a wooden bar - and benefit from pruning off unnecessary suckers. Like these:



See those little stems growing out between the main stalk and the leaf branches? They're called suckers, and represent a new growth point and vine that'll produce more leaves, more flowers, and more fruit. If I lived in a tropical paradise, with all the time in the world to let these grow, that'd be no problem. But the extra energy necessary to grow them means that they'll slow down fruit production, and give smaller tomatoes. One plant can only do so much.

Pinch or snip them off, and the plant will devote more of its energy to the existing growth points:



It's a tangle of hard-to-see and harder-to-photograph little plant parts, but careful inspection reveals tiny developing leaves, flower buds, and more continually unfurling. It's the heart of the plant's growth, and damaging it means you're limited to what's already below it. Generally speaking, you want to be extra cautious to avoid damage, though clipping the top at the end of the season can force any unripe fruit to ripen more quickly.

For the most part, it's straightforward. Pinch the unwanted suckers. Leave only the ones you intend to keep and train up. I keep one sucker per plant, and plant them with enough space so as to avoid crowding. Every so often, there's one that I've missed, that's just too large to remove, so I'll train that one, as well.

Be aware that there's a pinching procedure. Tiny suckers can simply be pinched off with fingertips, though doing so too close to the main growth point is asking for trouble, especially if you've misidentified what you're supposed to remove. (It happens.) Larger suckers can be broken off, but it's a two-step snap. Bend it left, until you hear the stem break, then bend it the other way to break it off completely. Just going in one direction runs the risk of stripping a swath of the stem's outer layer away, opening up the plant to infection.

Too big, and you need shears or another support.

Ideally, these are the scars you'll see:



Here you can see two different-sized scars, likely each pinched off at the same time. One was tiny, the other a bit larger. The smaller ones, I find, are more likely to give you this:



Sometimes, a sucker grows back from where it had been pinched off. So you need to check again, lest you miss a new, two-foot tomato plant bursting forth. Relatively easy, right?

If you're growing hybrids, sure. My Sun Golds are clockwork-level predictable. But I can't save seed from them, and there are a number of heirlooms that I really like growing and eating. The problem with heirlooms, though, is that they're less predictable. Whereas a hybrid almost always sends forth suckers from between the leaves and the stalk, with leaves branching out on one side, then later the other, heirlooms sometimes give you this:



Leaves twinned off at the same point. Sometimes no big deal. Sometimes, those two suckers are the only remaining growth point, and what had been the growth point is now just a flower cluster. Pinch off those suckers, and that's all the plant you've got.²

The other, just as vexing problem is this:



It's a sucker. Growing from the end of a fruit cluster.



Not at all where you'll hear about suckers forming, but heirlooms do it all the time. Thus far, I've found them on Black Plums, Wapsipinicon Peaches, Green Zebras (pictured), and Jaune Flammes. I've yet to find them elsewhere, but won't be surprised when I do.

* * * * *

¹I have one determinate variety this year, as an experiment. We'll see how it goes.

²My Black Plums insist on doing this. I don't know why, but I have to watch them very carefully because of it. If they weren't such fine tomatoes, I might be bothered.

First tomatoes.

Lewisburg.

No photo, but we harvested our first tomatoes of the season today. Five ripe red Stupice tomatoes. The first of the Sun Golds will be ready tomorrow.

Not bad for five-and-a-half weeks from transplant.

July's garden.

Lewisburg.

Things have been dry here. Not quite bone-dry, but given that the 10-day weather forecast is devoid of rain - and that's been pretty much par for the course - it's about as drastic a difference from last year as we might imagine.¹ Warmer than average. Dry enough to keep all but the most vigorous weeds down. Full of (minor) mistakes. The kind you learn from, but aren't interesting enough to explain to a second person.²

But, hey, it's a garden!



Is this impressive? I have no idea. It's green, though, and already producing food. Peas, radishes, turnips, and broccoli raab are mostly through. Not these, though:



Radish seedpods. Rat-tailed Radish. In the world of seed catalogs, that's an unusual name. They crunch like snap peas, but taste like radishes. I prefer them raw, because cooking seems to eliminate the radish spiciness.

What makes them especially appealing is that, unlike other related vegetables, bolting to seed is a good thing. Usually, hot weather results in plants like radishes becoming woody, staying small, and turning bitter before they plump to a size worth harvesting. Problem solved.

Peas haven't been thrilled with hot weather, but we've had a decent harvest anyhow.



Not enough peas to freeze for the future, but plenty to enjoy fresh. The plants and trellis come out of the ground this weekend to make room for more soybeans.

Other plants happy that summer's here? Tomatoes in flower:



Shiso that refused to germinate³ last year, but sprouted in a forgotten planter:



And this one:



Bonus points if you can identify it.⁴

Flowers are thriving, too. Hydrangeas that we planted two years ago are finally flowering, despite the limited shade we're able to provide:



And the hops planted last year are producing cones enough to harvest:



* * * * *

¹2009 was very cold, very wet, and the sort of year that benefitted certain vegetables (say, peas) and frustrated others. (Hey, eggplant!)

²That said, I've been taking notes for next year. Of course.

³Shiso is one of those finicky seeds that requires a chilling period to set the germination machinery going. I've never had good luck with them. After this, though, I'm planning to plant lavender seeds in a planter and leave it on the deck all winter, just to see if I get some viable seedlings come next spring.

⁴Momordica charantia. Bitter melon. If you haven't learned to love it, you really should.

Deer-free.

Lewisburg.

For those who've missed it, it's full-blown gardening season. Around here, at any rate. Gardening + work + bare minimum of effort required to keep dog sane and house from burning down = long days. But it all starts to feel fine once the harvesting begins. We've had a few odds and ends already - hop shoots, which are a bit like asparagus; dandelion and chicory greens; some rhubarb¹ - but we're starting to get strawberries:



Behind them are the radishes and turnips in the deck-protected planters:



They're tiny, but quick to grow. The downside of planters is that the soil in them is more subject to surrounding air temperature, so seeds here will germinate later than those directly in the earth. The upside, of course, is the ease of harvest and rather effective critter-proofing. If by next year I'm able to construct a set of cold frames, I'll actually be able to put out extra-early plantings of cold-tolerant vegetables to enjoy before the main crops kick off.

That said, I doubt anything can beat the hops out of the gate.



I noticed shoots emerging at the very start of April. Within a week, I'd managed to cobble together a support structure that now, six weeks later, isn't big enough to accommodate the most vigorous bines. Honestly, though, I was rather busy with the rest of the garden. After all, it's all now in here:



Though the wire mesh guard at the bottom isn't entirely finished - there's evidence of rabbits getting in and nibbling a bit - and we have yet to stain it², it's essentially complete. Fifty feet square, four and a half feet tall with deer-deterring cables three feet higher, enclosing eight distinct garden plots (each thirteen feet square) and a central picnic space. Seven of eight plots are currently tilled, with the last half-complete.³ This year's seedlings, beneath fluorescent lights in the basement, are doing better than they ever have before, looking in perfect shape to give us plenty to eat, despite this year's smaller garden.

And look:



Peas safe from deer browsing. So worth it.

* * * * *

¹Which, as this morning's breakfast can attest, makes for some fine scones. Chop into ¼-inch lengths, toss with sugar, and keep 'em raw. They hold their shape during cooking, but soften up nicely, with their sour flavor intact.

²Enough free time plus two days of rain-free, warm weather seems too much to ask for at the moment.

³In order to keep my head from exploding - it's best, when tackling a major project like a large fence, to maximize its enclosed area and minimize its bill of materials; square is both simple and efficient to construct - the garden is in a new location. So all that ground tilled before? Unused. (Bound for next year's orchard.) Our rototiller? Broken halfway through. Our neighbor's rototiller? Semi-functional, with frustrating carburetor trouble. So it's down to tiller number three to get the job done. Backs and shoulders, for those wondering, are rather sore these days.

Pictures from halfway around the world.

Lewisburg.

Sharon and I spent most of January in southeast Asia. It's a grand sort of a place for a vacation, especially if you consider that there were endless options for exploration. Some appealed greatly - and others not at all¹ - and while there might not be something for absolutely everyone, anyone who has the inkling of an idea that they'd like to see the region will be able to make it a worthwhile trip.

And the opportunities for photographs... oh my.

So here are a bundle, with minimal commentary. I'm not quite sure how else to do this.²

That Luang

Vientiane, Lao PDR
That Luang, the Golden Stupa, the major symbol of Laos. The top alone is covered in - quite literally - half a ton of gold leaf.

The Buddha and the Phayanyak

Vientiane, Lao PDR
The Phayanyak, the seven-headed king of the nagas and both benevolent and vengeful spirit of the river and of water, protects the Buddha from the rain and floods as he meditates.

That Dam

Vientiane, Lao PDR
That Dam, the Black Stupa. Once covered in gold, now black after foreign armies plundered Vientiane.

Naga at Wat Si Saket

Vientiane, Lao PDR
The mighty naga, river spirit. Laos, a country deeply connected to the Mekong River, adores these spirits unlike anywhere else.

Buddhas at Wat Si Saket

Vientiane, Lao PDR
The only major wat to survive the last sacking of Vientiane, Wat Si Saket is as worn as one would expect from more than 150 years of use. And it is ever so beautiful for it.

Flowers for Fa Ngum

Vientiane, Lao PDR
Fa Ngum, founder of the kingdom of Lan Xang, of the Million Elephants, still receives offerings, some six hundred years after his death. Take that, whoever happened to be ruling bits of Europe in the 14th century.

Haw Phra Kaeo

Vientiane, Lao PDR
The Phra Kaeo, the Emerald Buddha, hasn't been here since being taken to Siam as a prize more than two centuries ago. Memories here, it seems, are long.

Buddha at Haw Phra Kaeo

Vientiane, Lao PDR
"Calling the Earth to Witness" pose.

Talaat Khua Din

Vientiane, Lao PDR
Sticky rice baskets. The price is what you're willing to pay.

Plumeria

Vientiane, Lao PDR
Plumeria flowers. Naturalized, not native, but the national flower nonetheless.

Karst

North of Vang Vieng, Lao PDR
Karst formations as seen from the road. Stunning, but difficult to climb, both on foot and by bus.

Mekong River

Luang Prabang, Lao PDR
The mighty Mekong. Massive, powerful, and deceptively calm.

Stencil work at Wat Xieng Thong

Luang Prabang, Lao PDR
Intricate, elegant, and just one of the many impressive works of art in Luang Prabang's Wat Xieng Thong.

Buddhas at Wat Xieng Thong

Luang Prabang, Lao PDR
Statues of the Buddha, beside the funeral cart of the last Lao king. The last one to get a funeral, anyhow.

Phou Si

Luang Prabang, Lao PDR
Most folks, given a strategic location with a steep hill alongside a major river and a significant tributary, would built a fortress. Instead, there's a charming wat here.

Lao chillis at Talaat Phou Si

Luang Prabang, Lao PDR
Lao food, generally speaking, isn't spicy. They make up for it by eating these little firebombs directly, like a throat-catching palate cleanser.

Ridgeline view

Near Luang Prabang, Lao PDR
It's a long climb up here. That's the Mekong in the distance, far down in the valley.

Lotus flowers

Ban Long Lao Kao, Lao PDR
Still, stagnant, ugly water; clean, beautiful flowers. It's no wonder the lotus is such a powerful symbol for Buddhist enlightenment.

Tad Kuang Si

Near Luang Prabang, Lao PDR
A mighty waterfall, in the midst of the Lao jungle, surrounded by calm, turquoise blue pools.

Sala Kaew Koo

Nong Khai, Thailand
The jaws of life, the entrance to the Wheel of Life at the Sala Kaew Koo sculpture park. It is, in fact, even crazier in person.

Wat Pho

Bangkok, Thailand
Large, brightly colored, even flashy. But somehow, Wat Pho doesn't seem terribly busy, at least not by Bangkok standards.

Animal statues at Wat Pho

Bangkok, Thailand
I'm guessing that they're stylized lions.

Chedis at Wat Pho

Bangkok, Thailand
Massive, covered in brightly colored ceramic mosaics, and restored every half-century or so.

Buddhas at Wat Pho

Bangkok, Thailand
Serene, secluded, and a fine place for relaxing or meditating on one's own in the very center of Bangkok.

Grand Palace

Bangkok, Thailand
Grand, indeed. Photographs can't begin to capture the overwhelming experience that is a visit to Bangkok's Grand Palace. And that's not counting the hordes of tourists and devout Thais all angling to get a look at the Emerald Buddha.

* * * * *

¹One of our favorite games during the trip was "Which Family Member Would Hate This Most?" Try it yourself sometime!

²This is, of course, a tiny subset of the whole mess of photos - and just of mine. Combined with Sharon's, edited, trimmed, and all that to fit onto a single CD, it's about 300 photos. This selection is halfway to random, because developing an actual narrative would veer a lot closer to 300 than 25.