I carry no phone An aspiring Luddite In a wired world. Mastodon Verification Link	Jeff Berry is an early adopter of the Internet and the Web, a late adopter of Twitter, and declines to adopt Facebook. With the death of Google+, he migrated to the Fediverse. He admins a medievalist Mastodon instance. He hates cell-phones.

As ex-pats who are currently in a high-profile position in our re-enactment group,¹ other ex-pats, many of whom have been here longer than we have, sometimes like to look out for us. In January, one such person gave us a care package of things which are not commonly available in the UK in the form they are available in the US. This included a jar of American peanut butter. This was bemusing since, to a first approximation, I don't eat peanut butter. However, it turned out to be a remarkably fortuitous gift, since it caused me to investigate Thai peanut sauce.

There are lots of variations and modulations on such a sauce, of course, but most have a few things in common. Those commonalities are also things that I usually keep on hand, making this a useful addition to my bag of tricks. The sauce goes well with many substrates, and vegetarian options are many and varied, making it a splendid Lenten dish as well.

What follows is less a recipe than a heuristic, since this recipe, more than many, depends strongly on 'to taste.'

• about 1 cup peanut butter
• about 1/4 cup soy sauce
• about 1 tsp cayenne pepper
• some hot water
• a splash of lime juice
• some peanuts
• some carrots
• some cabbage or chard or some other vegetable
• some rice noodles

Put the peanut butter, soy sauce, and cayenne in a saucepan over low heat, and mix until smooth. Add the lime juice. Then mess around with all of the ingredients, as well as with hot water, until you get the flavour and texture you like. The quantities listed above are a good starting point. Remember that it will be going over the noodles and vegetables, so a good, strong flavour is to be desired. Then either remove from the heat or put it as low as you can and keep an eye on it.

You can serve the sauce over almost anything, but what we are enjoying a great deal are variations on this: carrots and greens. For the greens, we use anything which is both fairly sturdy and edible with minimal cooking. Cabbage works a treat, as does chard. We're going to try it soon with baby broccoli. In any case, cut the carrots and other veg into smallish chunks.

You can also use any sort of noodle you like, but rice noodles work very well indeed, and are almost required for this specific treatment. Heat some water; if you've got a kettle, that's a good way to do it. While it's heating, put your noodles and veg in a pot. Then pour the hot water over them and put it on a medium heat. Bring it up to a boil, by which time the noodles should be just about done - they take very little cooking. If they aren't done, let them cook a bit longer until they are. Then strain the whole thing, portion it out, top it with sauce and serve. If you'd like, top it with roasted peanuts, scallions, or whatever else takes your fancy.

By cooking the veg with the noodles, they get ever-so-slightly blanched while retaining their freshness and crunch. Peanuts on top add a bit more crunch to the bowl. The whole thing is so quick and easy that I'm a little embarrassed I didn't figure it out sooner.