Phat Khi Mao Kai
I walked to the Bengali grocery on Parliament Street on a cool and overcast Sunday afternoon. I had seen stacks and stacks of pots and pans in plastic piled up in the front window, which gave me the impression that they might sell a mortar and pestle, which I was urgently in the market for.
I had a mortar and pestle when I was a kid. I used it for a science fair project. It was a big part of the project, and I felt very adult and special getting to use it, though I now forget what the project even was. All I have left is a sense that mortars and pestles belong to me. So when I came across a recipe that asked me to use one, it made sense that I would make it.
The recipe was for Phat Khi Mao Kai, and it came from a cookbook called The Elegant Taste of Thailand that I found on the street a few years ago. It seemed to be something of a larb-style situation:
Walking into the store was like walking into Narnia. I stood and stared vacantly at the wall of pots and pans. I selected a large pan with “$20” written on it. I walked around the shop carrying the pan. I walked down an aisle filled with incense, assorted household wares and vintage clothing. It led me to a small kitchen area, which functioned as a halal butcher. I considered cutting through the halal butcher to get to the other side of the store, but I saw an open can of Coca-Cola sitting out on a butcher’s block— this detail struck me as being so intimate, so personal, that the can of Coke briefly became human itself—and I felt it would be intrusive to cross through. So I walked back around, and on the other side of the shop I found a gorgeous neon urn that I understood was meant to be mine.
ABOVE: the urn on a kelly green end table I miraculously thrifted for $11 the next day
A guy who worked at the shop started following me around and I asked him if they had a mortar and pestle. There was a language barrier, so I tried to be a mime, pretending to grind with an imaginary pestle in my hand. This action rang no bells. I Googled “mortar and pestle” and showed him the picture on my phone. His face lit up. He led me to the mortar and pestle section. There was an entire section.
I wanted to go to H-Mart. I had walked past an H-Mart the other day and wanted to check it out, so I put H-Mart into my Apple Maps and walked to H-Mart. I walked up Gerrard Street, and as I was walking past Allen Gardens my friend texted me something implying he was watching me walk, and I turned around to look for him, but I couldn’t see him. Are you watching me? I texted back, and he replied I’m always watching plus the looky-loo eyes emoji. I thought that was well-handled.
The Apple Maps led me to the wrong H-Mart, though really there’s no such thing as the wrong H-Mart. It was just not the H-Mart I was expecting.
I refused to go inside. I went back into my Apple Maps and found a different H-Mart, which seemed like it would probably be the right H-Mart, but then I walked to that H-Mart, and it was also the wrong H-Mart! At that point I was over walking around with a giant heavy satchel of mortar and pestle and urns and stuff that was breaking my shoulder off my body so I sucked it up and made the best of my time at the wrong H-Mart. I still don’t understand where the right H-Mart could possibly be.
ABOVE: it’s not a selfie it’s a self portrait
In my new neighbourhood, I’m Mrs. Dalloway deciding to buy the flowers herself. I’m Betty Draper serving Heineken at a dinner party. I’m a hausfrau doing the marketing, going to the butcher shop to buy a brisket. I go to one store to buy one thing and another store to buy another. I go to the fruit shop to buy fruit and the cute deli to buy overpriced dill pickles and the health food store to buy strawberry peach Lacroix and Thai Mart to buy tom yum sticky rice crackers and H-Mart to buy anchovy and peanuts banchan.
I went to Freshco to buy ground chicken. It was the first time I had ever bought plain ground meat, and also the first time I had ever cooked meat from raw period. I chose a ground chicken-driven recipe, even though I don’t really like ground meat, because it seemed like it would be easier for me to not fuck it up and die of salmonella poisoning.
Freshco is generally a lower-end grocery store but a new one opened up near me that is obviously trying to compete with higher-end Canadian grocery chains that are obviously trying to compete with some botched fantasy version of Trader Joe’s or Erewhon that exists in the mind of some twenty-seven-year-old Ivey MBA who works in the Loblaw’s marketing department. It is a fun and tidy space, but they did not have Thai basil. Nobody did.
I came home and put on the end of the basketball game. Detroit were playing Orlando in Game 7 of the first round of the NBA playoffs and Orlando were losing in the kind of way that would put a Magic fan in an unbeatably glum mood for a full five days. Later that night, Toronto— the team I love, of course—would play Cleveland in an equally high stakes game, and Toronto would lose badly. But I didn’t know it at the time. I was full of hope.
I opened a bottle of Gruner Veltliner that my dad bought me in Montreal. It was sprightly and tropical. I rinsed out my mortar and pestle in the sink and filled it up with garlic and chilli and cilantro roots. I mashed them up good and drank my wine and listened to the sound of sneakers squeaking in the background. The screen door was open a crack and the sky was cool and the grey air snuck into the room. It was fresh as a lime.
I was so happy in that moment, half-assedly watching the basketball game while mashing up my garlic and cilantro stems. Using a mortar and pestle makes me feel like a cave girl.
Arthur was doing this thing he does where he rips off one of the furry pads affixed to his cat tree with velcro, then trots down the cat tree holding the furry pad in hs mouth, pretends to kill it, and presents me with what he believes to be its carcass. I affix the furry pad back on the velcro strips so he can complete the ritual again in time.
Domestic ritual has never been highly-prized in my life, neither in my house growing up nor in any scrappy apartment I’ve lived in since. Living spaces have mostly functioned as holding docks, places where I bathe and sleep and store up energy for real life, which happens in sexy dark restaurants, outside of the home.
This has changed for me recently. I have recently accepted that I am, in fact, not a failure for not having actualized the fantasy life I longed for as a delusional teenager, and that this, now, what I have, is what it is.
My Phat Khi Mao Kai was entirely serviceable. I ate it for days, eventually turning it into a soy-heavy fried rice situation with pickled daikon diced on top for added lift and brightness. It was a dish with the soul of a 6/8/10 restaurant staff meal— it satisfied and nourished rather than providing me with any real joy.
I did a surprisingly okay job of cooking jasmine rice and ate a bowl of Phat Khi Mao Kai while not paying particularly close attention to the end of the basketball game. The score was bloated in Detroit’s favour and the fans were already celebrating. My bowl of food was an ode to cilantro, which tastes like waking up in a good mood, and although the chicken tasted a little too “chickeny” for me, it gave the wine a suntan. I thought of a mashed up guava and of one solitary passionfruit seed. Arthur bunny-kicked a stuffed cow to death. In the end, domestic bliss comes for us all.