January 12: Curried Chicken Day

Is “curried chicken” a thing? Or did they just mean “curry with chicken in it”? I took it to mean “curry with chicken in it”, because it gave me an excuse to order my favorite thing from our favorite Thai food place.

I love Thai food. Growing up Thai food wasn’t a “thing”, at least not in suburban Chicago (or maybe I’m wrong and it was a thing everywhere except my family). I remember going out for Thai food a few times in high school… we’d venture into Chicago on the El and I’d order Thai fried rice because it was the one thing that was remotely familiar to me, a Americanized Chinese food aficionado. In college, my life was filled with nachos and noodles (… some things never change?) but I can’t recall ever going out for Thai with my lovely roommates, or anyone else for that matter. It wasn’t until I got my first job post college that getting Thai became a regular thing for me. My boss would take us out for Thai on a sort of regular basis; I fell in love with Pad Kee Mao, and how the chilis made my upper lip sweaty. I was hooked.
 

 
I eventually branched out and stopped getting noodles constantly and started ordering curries. My all-time favorite is massaman curry… a wonderful combination of curry, spice, coconut milk, potatoes and peanuts. And that my friends, is what is pictured above. It’s a lot prettier than this photo might suggest. I should have used a non-orange bowl.

Tomorrow: National Peach Melba Day