At a recent pop-up, Nan Skinner stood in front of a gas burner, intently focused on the vegetable curry simmering in a pot. She was surrounded by her mise en place of vegetables, packages of sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves, samosas, skewered chicken (with what she describes as street market spices) and raw green papaya julienned into a salad with carrots and tomatoes. On a small table in front of her, along with the dishes being picked up by eager customers, is sweetened Thai iced tea and a menu of the day’s offerings. She regularly glances back over her shoulder with a warm smile that makes you feel welcome and conveys that she’s happy to see you.
Nan is passionate about her native country’s food and says that cooking it for others is one of her greatest joys. It’s no surprise that her pop-ups and catered events have developed a loyal following in West Marin.
Nan, her husband, Noah, and their 8-year-old son live in Bolinas, where Noah was raised and his family resides. Nan grew up in Bangkok in a family that cooked, and she began preparing rice when she was 8. A lover of desserts, she soon taught herself to bake, including an early favorite, banana poundcake. At 13, she learned to make curry. In high school she took an elective culinary class, but she has had no other formal training. She is a powerfully intuitive cook.
Nan is a purist when she cooks Thai food and she does not take shortcuts. She believes that time spent with the ingredients and each of a recipe’s steps are essential for a dish to be well balanced. It takes her a couple of days to make her pad thai sauce. She soaks the Thai red peppers overnight and then scrapes out the seeds. When cooking in Thailand she leaves the seeds in, but the final dish is much hotter—too hot for most of her local customers. Fresh tamarind can be arduous to work with, but Nan does the work, soaking and boiling it and then squeezing out as much juice as possible. It is a crucial ingredient in a dish, she explains.
Nan has a discerning palate and loves Thai food’s earthy flavors that wait in the vegetables, herbs and spices, which are released when cooked separately and then together. Her favorite and most-used kitchen tool is her mortar and pestle, ideal for getting in close and combining, for making pastes with just the right consistency. Nan often adds kaffir (or makrut) lime peel and fresh mint and basil (thinly sliced and sprinkled on top) for brightness against the spiciness.
When she visits family in Bangkok, she returns to one of the city’s many night markets for inspiration and ideas. Open from about 5 p.m. to 2 a.m., and some even later, most food vendors sell only one item, and often something noodle-based. These street markets are chaotic, packed with people and very lively. Growing up, Nan spent important time at them and in Chinatown with her friends.
It was at the night markets where Nan came to believe that curry and its intricate balance of sweet, sour, spicy and salty is magical. It can come out differently each time, depending on the peppers and other ingredients used. In addition to the traditional potatoes and carrots, you can add any other vegetable you like, as well as tofu, chicken or beef. For a vegetarian curry, she uses fermented bean paste, but otherwise it’s shrimp paste. In her encouraging way, Nan says once you learn a proper curry recipe, variations are endless depending on what vegetables and proteins you add. To make the paste is not a quick process, but she insists avoiding shortcuts is worth the effort. Once the paste is made, the rest of the recipe can be prepared quickly, though always with focus.
Nan appreciates the popularity of pad thai in the United States but feels many American Thai restaurants make it too sweet, using white sugar instead of the traditional palm sugar and omitting the shallots and tamarind. Nan also never uses the peanut butter common in many recipes. She purchases her Asian ingredients in San Francisco at Richmond New May Wah Supermarket, on Clement Street. When she isn’t cooking, two of her favorite Thai restaurants are San Francisco’s Saap Ver on Division Street and, in Los Angeles, Jitlada.
Part of the delicious mystery is knowing where Nan will turn up next. To learn more about her catering and be notified about her pop-ups, email her at [email protected]. Also, keep an eye on this newspaper’s calendar section and the Bolinas Hearsay News.