When you don't know what to do...

you befriend the shopkeepers!
And today, my friends, that is exactly what I did. I went down near the river to a smoothie shop that Emma and I call the "chah yen place" because we don't know what else to call it. It's bright and cheerful. Yellow walls and white tables rise up from graffitied concrete floor that's speckled with green or yellow topped white stools. The woman in the kitchen area knows my name, and my normal order and when I try to test out thai that I've learned from a book and mispronounce horribly, she still knows what I'm trying to say.
This afternoon, she sat behind a mess of bowls and pans, bemusedly looking at a notebook. I asked her what she was making.
She smiled up at me, "I'm making a cake. Have you ever made a cake?"
"yes, I've made cakes. Can I help you?"
She laughed, "Really, You've made cakes in America? Did you give them to your boyfriend?"
"I don't have a boyfriend."
She's curious now. "Jing Lor?"
"Jing."
Jing is like really, but more fun to say. If you are surprised about something, you can even repeat it. "jing jing lor?"
And then the affirmative is, "jing jing."
I love the thai language. It's going to be a bad habit to break when I get back to the U.S. I'll start using thai phrases and people will look at me strangely. Jing Jing.
ANYWAY,
I asked if the woman had an oven and she pointed to a tiny toaster oven. She was so excited. This was her first cake.
Befriending shop keepers is the best, because eventually, you begin to get free things. Today, after I showed my enthusiasm in baking a cake, she brought out her experiments from the days before. Yesterday's brownies...Saturday's cheesecake. Tomorrow, she's making banana bread.
My baking gears are set in motion. I promised to bring in a chocolate cake recipe for tomorrow. She didn't like the chocolate cake from today (not sweet enough).

Befriending shop keepers also means that you can ask them to teach you how to make all the thai food. Today, I learned how to make a thai tea smoothie (chah yen ban). Granted, one or two of the ingredients is impossible to find in the U.S. but I think I'll make do.