Playing with Your Food

From the travel website Fathom, a lesson in how to make the most of your vacation in Thailand: once you tire of the delicious noodle dishes and curries, the exciting nightlife, or the luxury hotels, spend an afternoon learning kae sa luk, the Thai art of fruit cutting. At least that's what James Sturz did in this article about his trip to Thailand.

Using just a sharp blade, surgical gloves, and a lot of no-how, the author and his wife attempted to learn how to cut melons into flowers, cucumbers into leaves, and tomatoes into roses. Attemped being the key word!

But I felt as hapless as a preschooler and as ape-fingered as a chimp. Paeng smiled kindly. My dexterous wife chuckled. Soon my tomato was pulp. My melon flower looked like a broken gear. I twisted spring-onion shoots like ribbons around wrapping paper, never sure of the appropriateness of the gift. My cucumber was supposed to become a leaf, but it looked more like a slushy green giant walnut.

It's the effort that counts, right?

Under the Knife in Koh Samui - Fathom