Some super Thai recipes - Chicken in the Straw

Our cook at the River Kwai Farm was a genius who had worked for various embassies in Bangkok. Using the fresh vegetables and the ducks and chickens we kept live on the farm, she invented some wonderful dishes. Stewed duck with red cabbage, shredded papaya fried in coconut batter, and our signature "chicken in the straw." Jars of Col. Sandler's hibiscus jam sold by the thousands.Chicken in the straw. This is a traditional Thai recipe making use of the rice straw that piles up after the rice harvest.

I have spent 40 years in Southeast Asia, mostly in the jungle. I developed eco-resorts in Thailand, starting with the River Kwai, then Khao Sok National Park, Krabi, and Phra Thong island, a beautiful and still pristine island north of over-developed Phuket (http://www.goldenbuddharesort.com ). In all of these, we raised the environmental awareness of both local people and tourists. I still run a few Khao Sok tours that will get you closer to nature and give an experience you will never forget. It works. At Phra Thong, we sponsored a 10-year turtle conservation project. Villagers told us they didn't eat turtle meat anymore because their kids told them it was a bad thing! At Krabi, villagers stopped shooting the gibbons because they saw how much the tourists loved them. I also had some great jobs as an eco-tourism consultant in other Asian countries. The best one found me going up the Sepik River in Papua New Guinea with four native bearers in a dugout canoe. The purpose was to advise them how to get some eco-tourism going in their incredible rainforest.

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