On Sunday, I took the train to Jackson Heights/Roosevelt Ave. to go to the Thai Buddhist temple in Queens. I don't go often, usually only to make merit for loved ones who have passed, or to check out Thai New Year festivities. My visit this weekend was twofold -- I wanted to pray for the people in Thailand and the rest of Southeast Asia who were affected by the earthquake and tsunamis, but I also wanted to make an offering to my grandparents, at my mom's request. When I need comfort, I feel fortunate to have the Buddhist rituals of my youth to turn to.
The temple was teeming with talkative people, as well as a camera crew who I guessed were there to interview people about the disaster in Thailand. I wrote my grandparents' names on a piece of paper and brought a ceremonial brass bowl and the accompanying small brass genie's bottle filled with water to a space on the hardwood floor in front of the officiating monk. I also had an envelope with my monetary donation and a basket filled with the saffron monk's robes, rice, soap, candles, and incense -- the traditional offerings for these ceremonies.
As the groups of black-clad temple visitors swarmed around us, I kneeled before the monk. I said the opening prayer three times and read the Pali script, transcribed in Thai, and then the Thai translation. I placed the basket and my envelope on the folded saffron fabric the monk used to receive my offering. The monk placed the paper with my grandparents' names in the brass bowl and, with a long-nosed campfire lighter, set the paper on fire. As I placed my hands together in the lotus shape and touched my fingers to my forehead, he chanted the prayer over the fire in musical Pali. The monk, who spoke to me benevolently in that way that only monks can, told me to take the brass bowl back and pour the water from the brass bottle over the ashes. He began to chant again as I thought of my grandparents and the people who lost their lives so tragically and suddenly. When we finished, I took the bowl of water and ash to the tree outside, pouring the water over the roots of the tree and making a wish to the spirits for release from suffering for the souls of my grandparents and the souls I didn't know.
When I returned inside, the ceremony complete, I lit incense from a candle flame and said a final prayer. As I headed towards the door with my burning incense, a man kindly said to me in Thai, "There's rice soup downstairs. Make sure you get some before you leave."
Rice soup is the ultimate comfort food for me. I have eaten it following tradition on many a New Year's Day, in the wee hours of the morning before heading home. I have eaten pots of it when I was ill and could keep nothing else in my system. My family ate it nearly every weekend for breakfast, sometimes with cubed salmon, sometimes with chicken. In troubled times, eating rice soup is, like going to temple, a ritual I can return to for reassurance. It is the ultimate sense memory trigger -- the familiar aroma as the food cooks, the steam bathing my face as it cools, the taste that takes me back to thousands of meals in my past. As I walked down the temple stairs towards the bowl of sand where my three stems of incense would burn down to their red tails, I realized that rice soup was just what I wanted -- and exactly what I needed.
Pork Sparerib Khao Thom
1 1/2 lbs. pork spareribs
12 cups Water
2 inch piece of ginger, sliced into 1/8" pieces
10 cloves Smashed Garlic
2 stalks Chinese celery, sliced, with the leaves
1 tbsp. Fish Sauce, plus more to taste
2 tsp. Chinese preserved vegetable (comes in a stout clay pot)
Rice, preferably day-old
Garnish:
Peeled and julienned ginger
Thinly sliced Scallions
Chinese preserved vegetable
Thinly sliced Chinese celery stalk
Ask your butcher to cut the spareribs into 1 inch pieces along the length of the bone. Bring the water to a rolling boil. Add the pork spareribs and return to a rolling boil. Add the ginger, garlic, celery, fish sauce, and preserved vegetable. Cook down over medium heat for several hours, skimming often, until the pork is very tender and falling off the bone. Add fish sauce to adjust the salt level.
Fill each bowl with day-old rice. Pour the soup over the rice, and allow each person to add their garnish to taste.
