PowellsBooks.Blog
Authors, readers, critics, media − and booksellers.

Pok Pok Noodles: Recipes From Thailand and Beyond is the final book in a trilogy of works that started off with Pok Pok: Food and Stories From the Streets, Homes, and Roadside Restaurants of Thailand and followed by Pok Pok: The Drinking Food of Thailand. Each book was roughly based on a restaurant, Pok Pok, Whiskey Soda Lounge, and Sen Yai, respectively. Sadly, Sen Yai (the restaurant this book was supposed to be based on) no longer exists, but my love for the dishes we chose for the noodle book remains unabated. Noodles have always been a huge part of my diet whether traveling or at home in Thailand or Portland. I can’t get enough! 

Quick to dish up, easy to stage from a small cart on the street or simple shophouse, inexpensive for locals, delicious and filling, noodles are part of the fabric of life in Thailand, and all over Southeast Asia for that matter...

I'm a bit old — raised by hippies in the '70s, I missed the whole punk scene when it was in its prime. I went straight from the Beatles/Stones/Dylan/Hendrix/folk rock/folk music my family raised me on to reggae (my stepdad took me to see Bob Marley on his second to last tour and that was it). During my travels in my early 20s, I learned about a bunch of new things, including Thai food, but the time I spent at a college radio station in New Zealand is what really informed my musical tastes. It was there that I first heard Television, Richard Hell, and Sonic Youth, among others. It was on these travels that I really cut my teeth as a journeyman cook, so the music of that time will always be intertwined with food for me...