Pad thai

quick, one of the highlights of my young adult life was landing in Bangkok at, I don't know, 1 o'clock in the morning.

Going to the hotel where he did most of his work and sitting down eating Pad Thai, like right adjacent to it.

They still had his table marked off.

It was super cool.

Am I being jealous or sensible? I told myself it was harmless, the cost of marriage to a man with more friends than shirts.

That evening, as we closed laptops and started prepping for Friday take-out, our tradition, always pad Thai from the hole-in-the-wall place six blocks away, I glanced at the mail basket, noticed a RSVP card for Jamie and Lewis's engagement party.

I picked it up, laughing.

You said you'd reply to this, remember? He blinked, face blank for a moment.

I went through the motions that night, calling in our regular order, eating alone at the table.

He texted at the last minute, editing deadlines, eat without me.

His untouched plate sat across from me, Pad Thai growing cold, as I scrolled through emails pretending not to care.

In bed that night, him already snoring gently, I lay awake, eyes open to the shadowed ceiling, rehearsing conversations I'd never have.

So it was like-

We found Pad Thai crisp in there

...

it was just the p- and they need it 'cause if you look at the category, the, if you go to the shelves and you look at it-

And I've realized that really each of them has its own distinctive culture, its own distinctive landscape, mountainscape, or food is another thing that really is so hyperlocal and there's so much food.

You think of Thai food as Pad Thai, you know, soups that have coconut milk and it's like the breadth of the food is stunning.

And so I've realized I really only scratch the surface and I do go as often as I can, but I still have so many places that I'd like to see.

There's a lot of my sort of Thailand bucket list still, even going somewhat regularly.

But yeah, that was surprising.

Maybe people don't really know.

People want you to know that there's more than Pad Thai.

There's more than the beaches.

A little bit of Thai action in there, kind of those flavors.

That's pretty much what it reminded me of, like almost sort of like a pad Thai.

Honestly, I thought it would not work at all, but it definitely did.

Please give it a shot.

We're

stretching.

When we're talking about Pad Thai and we're talking about peanut butter, one, no peanut butter in Pad Thai.

You know, there's some crushed peanuts on top, you know, 100%.