There's a real hullabaloo over my post about the condom-decorated figure of Tiger Woods at Cabbages & Condoms restaurant in Bangkok.
The story is circulating through sports and news blogs in the United States and also around the world, apparently. At least they're writing about it in Australia and India. Some reports are skewing the facts. They say that I created the figure. Not true. I just took the photo and wrote the story.
And shame on those bloggers and news sources that are lifting details from my post, including direct quotes, and using these and my photo without crediting my blog. It's disgustingly unprofessional to pass off another person's work as one's own.
As a follow-up to the first story, here are a few more photos of condom figures at Cabbages & Condoms, including another look at Tiger. And one where you can see me.
I'd like to give the recipe for the restaurant's famous condom salad, but I can't, because it's copyrighted. It's in "Cabbages & Condoms: The Beautiful Thai Cook Book," which you can buy there for about $10.
This is an excellent book, by the way, and includes other, less titillating, restaurant specialties such as pla sam lee daed deaw, which is fried whole fish with green mango sauce; gung obb mapraow on (steamed shrimp in a whole young coconut) and kai hor bai toey (deep fried chicken wrapped in pandanus leaves).
Sensing a need to tie in with its image, the restaurant gave the chicken another name in its brochure: "chicken in herb leaf bikini."
The cookbook is totally proper. Its editorial advisory board included Mechai Viravaidya, who is known in Thailand as the Condom King.
It was he who founded the Population and Community Development Association in order to promote family planning. That was in 1974, when the topic was too awkward for most Thais to discuss.
The PDA recruited villagers to talk up birth control in their communities and distribute condoms. Viravaidya was so linked to this campaign that his first name, Mechai, became Thai slang for condom.
A flagship of the campaign, the PDA-supported Cabbages & Condoms is a large place with an outdoor beer garden. It now has branches in other parts of Thailand.
The name was chosen to reflect Viravaidya's belief that birth control should be as affordable and available as vegetables in the marketplace.
Walking down the lane where C&C is located (Soi 12 off Sukhumvit Road), I used to pass a no-scalpel vasectomy clinic. I didn't spot the clinic this trip, but the Darling massage parlor is still doing business there.
And in my travel purse are two souvenirs of my latest meals at C&C. You can guess what they are.
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