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Octave Day of The Holy Innocents
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from Inlander
By Eliza Billingham
I grew up in a Chicago suburb that is over 80% white. It's continually mocked by surrounding 'burbs for its lack of diversity, which is probably merited. But if you're looking for Burmese food, you won't find it anywhere in downtown Chicago. You won't find it in Aurora or Bolingbrook or any of the far more diverse neighborhoods in Chicagoland. The only Burmese restaurant in Illinois is in li'l ol' Wheaton, my hometown. Oh, and Yelp ranked it the second best restaurant in the entire Midwest, in case you're quick to assume it's not any good. Food can totally change our perception of a place. A single restaurant can help us see our neighbors better. With this in mind, I've created a new yearlong project here at the Inlander. My New Year's resolution is to find 80 food and drink items in the Inland Northwest that come from 80 different cities around the world. I'm calling the project "Around the World in 80 Plates."
By Eliza Billingham
In a small Asian market in the middle of Wisconsin, a young Thai girl wandered through the aisles. She couldn't read the signs because she didn't know any English, but she picked out a few familiar items and handed them to the white woman who was with her. They took the ingredients home, and the young girl tried to cook something with them. "Nothing is good when you're 13," laughs Suwanee Lennon, who was that girl who came to the Midwest from Thailand when she was barely a teenager. "I brought noodles home, and then I didn't have sauces, I didn't have oil. You learn as you go." Learn she did. Decades later, Lennon is the author of Simply Suwanee, a food blog dedicated to authentic Thai food, as well as a professional photographer, cooking demonstrator, public speaker and entrepreneur. The daughter of an American soldier and Thai mother, Lennon was raised by her aunt in a leprosy village in northeast Thailand until she was adopted by an American woman when she was 13. Lennon now lives in Spokane and celebrates both her cultures by teaching Thai cooking techniques to an American audience. Follow Suwanee Lennon's Thai cooking blog at simplysuwanee.com
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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington
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