Greeting the Thai New Year

Temperatures in the high 90s in Los Angeles weren’t so different from temperatures in Thailand. And they certainly didn’t stop hundreds of people from strolling along the booths at the Thai New Year Festival on Sunday in Hollywood.

The festival celebrates the holiday Songkran, when it’s traditional to douse people with water to clear away the bad from the previous year.

Songkran takes place in mid-April, the hottest time of the year in Thailand, which may also explain this watery custom.  I only got squirted once, and that cool shower was a godsend in the heat.

Food booths selling sate, pad thai, papaya salad, mangoes with sticky rice and much more did such good business that the food ran short before sundown. An outdoor Singha beer café provided liquid first aid to sweltering festival goers.

Proud of their culture, Thais strung flowers into pretty garlands, carved fruits into intricate designs and displayed delicately molded Thai sweets. Booths sold carved wooden elephants, Thai parasols, Thai CDs and many other things.

Thai kick boxing occupied one stage, and a curry cooking contest drew onlookers avid for tastes of panang curry, green curry and even Indian curries. A couple of Indian restaurants, Nawab of India and Bombay Café, had entered the competition and wound up among the finalists. The winner was a curry submitted by the Thai Community Development Center.

The demand for samples was overwhelming. I was lucky to get a taste of one entry, a delicious, creamy chicken panang  prepared by Thai chef Jet Tila. It was smooth, rich, spicy and wonderful.

As soon as I get the recipe from Chef Tila, I’ll let you in on how it’s made. But for now, I  can report that  the key ingredients are panang curry paste, coconut cream, fish sauce, tamarind, kaffir lime leaves, Thai basil and chicken or any other meaty ingredient, even tofu.

Panang curry is easy to make, at least it looked that way as Chef Tila poured ingredients into the biggest pan that I have ever seen.

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