A Thai thank you

Saturday night we had the pleasure of being treated to a home made Thai dinner. It was such a fun, delicious experience that I wanted to share it with you. Of course, there's a story-behind-the-story that makes this tale even yummier.

Before Christmas, my mom asked me what I was going to do with my maternity clothes. My answer: I dunno. I was definitely not going to be using them again, but I wasn't quite prepared to give them away and I was too lazy to bother trying to sell them. She told me about a woman she worked with - her son and daughter-in-law had just moved back to Canada from Thailand, were expecting their second child and didn't have a lot of money. And voila, the perfect home for my loved but no-longer-needed maternity clothes. The woman was so happy with her new wardrobe that she knit me a beautiful purple wool muffler ... which Ella wore every day this winter.

Several months later I asked if they'd be interested in some baby stuff. Their answer: for sure! So off went the baby car seat, bouncy chair, breast feeding pillow, playmat, bathtub and a bag of receiving blankets and baby toys. Once again, it was the perfect transaction - she was thrilled to receive all this baby gear, and I was ecstatic to get the stuff out of the house. This time, as a thank you, she wanted to cook us a Thai dinner. Which brings us to 6:00 pm this past Saturday when two boxes of hot, steaming food arrived at my parent's house: coconut soup, spring rolls, garlic pork, red beef curry and lots of other yummy stuff. It looked, smelled and tasted delicious - a true feast for the senses that we all thoroughly enjoyed.

Some learnings and observations from our Thai feast:

• great food and great company is one of the best combinations in the world
• never eat a whole Thai chili - they are HOT (right mom?!)
• even flavours you may not usually like taste delicious when you know it's home made
• Ryan loves spring rolls, go figure
• we have no idea what we'd serve if the roles were reversed and we were cooking a traditional Canadian dinner for someone ... tourtiere? poutine? hamburgers?
• a thank you from the heart means so much more than something store bought

Kob kun mak kaa, Kwan!