Before the curry comes the paste. Before the satay comes the sauce. Before any of it comes the understanding that Thai cooking is not complicated, it is just built differently than what most American kitchens grew up with. My mother never bought a jar of anything. She made her own curry pastes, her own chili sauces, her own roasted rice powder, the way her mother made them and her mother before that. She did not think of these things as extra steps. They were simply where the cooking began. This collection is everything I keep on hand, everything I reach for before I reach for anything else. The pastes that go into the curries. The sauces that go alongside the satay. The sticky rice that belongs on every table. The foundations that make everything else taste the way it is supposed to taste. Learn these and the rest follows. That is what my mother understood. That is what I am passing on.
