Today’s Newsletter Includes:
Why one crispy pork salad tells the story of modern Thai cooking.
The delicious collision of Chinese roasting and Isan seasoning traditions.
A recipe that’s loud, bright and worth getting your hands messy for.
Just a few reasons you should join me on my trips to Africa and Oaxaca.
If you’ve ever wanted to experience a destination through its food, culture and the people who bring it to life, I’d love for you to join me. Every trip is carefully curated with trusted partners and built around experiences you simply can’t create on your own. I’ve loved every one of these journeys, and I think you will too.
Oaxaca is one of the world’s great culinary destinations, and this journey goes far beyond the usual highlights. We’ll wander bustling markets, meet talented artisans and homegrown culinary legends, explore the rich traditions of mezcal and gather around unforgettable meals that reveal the soul of the region. Thoughtfully curated from start to finish, this is an immersive adventure filled with incredible food, meaningful connections and plenty of fun.
South Africa is the kind of destination that stays with you long after you return home. Together, we’ll experience extraordinary restaurants, exceptional wines and unforgettable safari encounters while exploring one of the world’s most breathtaking landscapes. Every moment has been thoughtfully planned, blending adventure, culinary discovery and warm hospitality into one remarkable journey.
Moo Krob Zaab might be the defining dish of modern Thai food culture, and maybe ours too. It's proof that some of the best dishes aren't ancient recipes. They're the result of great ideas colliding at exactly the right moment.
If there's one word that captures the modern Thai obsession with food that is bright, loud and impossible to stop eating, it's zaab. You'll see it spelled many ways depending on the transliteration, from saap to sab. The word comes from the Lao language, where it simply means "delicious," although in practice it carries a much narrower meaning. It describes food that crackles with acidity, fresh herbs, toasted rice powder, chilies, fish sauce and lime. Food that literally wakes you up. Food that can make you sweat a little and still leave you reaching for another bite.
You have to remember that cuisine from that region, on both sides of what is now a border, was extremely fluid and generically of one style. The border between the two countries simply represents a line on the map, placed there during colonial times. My point is simple: food is fluid and doesn’t respect lines on the map. Which is why you’ll see dishes like this one cooked throughout the region that now stretches across two countries.
Isan cuisine developed in one of the country’s poorest agricultural landscapes, where cooks relied on preservation, fermentation, herbs gathered from the countryside and aggressive seasoning to make simple ingredients extraordinary. Sticky rice, grilled meats, fermented fish, lime, mint, sawtooth coriander, roasted chilies and ground rice powder became the defining pantry of the entire region.
The famous dishes tell the story: larb, nam tok, som tam and gai yang, along with every imaginable variation of spicy salad built around whatever protein happened to be available that day. Pork has always been central to that tradition.
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