JKL

How Watt Sriboonruang moved to NYC and fell in love with her home country's national sport.

 

Published in Bon Appetit Healthyish

Photos by Alex Lau

 

“I brought you a coconut water,” says Watt Sriboonruang handing me a metal water bottle. “I cracked it this morning.” We’re sitting on the edge of a boxing ring at Kings Thai Boxing in Midtown NYC, unwrapping our hands after a Muay Thai class. We sit in silence drinking, waiting for the coconut water to provide relief from the thirst and heat in our sweaty bodies. Her expression is calm—the sweat on her face and on her white tank top are the only signs of exertion. If she’s tired, she has a really good game face.

Sriboonruang is an amateur Muay Thai fighter in New York City and the founder of Rawsome Treats, a raw, vegan dessert business. Her first fight was in Philadelphia in 2010, when she was 33-years-old, the age when most fighters are retiring because the sport is so physically brutal on the body. It is literally young man’s game, with Thai Buddhist tradition dictating that women should not stand in the ring. It is only in recent history that women have started competing in the national stadiums. Sriboonruang has had 10 fights so far, a formible accomplishment.

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"Gregory here at 42nd West 36th Street in New York City. Hey there. I'm glad you called. I was just walking through Herald Square on my way to the hotel..."

PLAY The Gregory Hotel

Celebrated cake creator Margaret Braun ponders art and permanence.

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2,000 Sugar Cups is the title and goal of Margaret Braun’s installation at New York’s Museum of Art and Design. Since June, she has been an  artist-in-residence there, handcrafting drinking cups, made exclusively of edible sugar materials like pastillage and royal icing. MAD’s Artist Studios program allows the public to see her work up close. Every Tuesday, people visit the sweet-smelling, glass-walled space with curiosity and questions.

Are they edible? Yes. Can you use them? They have a negotiable functionality. Why 2,000? “It’s a number I know. I made 2,000 cakes for the royal wedding in the middle east,” says Margaret. “It’s a balance of a big intimidating number that’s just about human scale.”

A Voce Restaurant serves about 100 pounds of fresh pasta each week. But as with most Italian restaurants in New York City, the penne, spaghetti, and ravioli are not made by Italian grandmothers or celebrity chefs. They are made by a little-known force of dishwashers and porters turned pastamasters.

At A Voce, the much-lauded pasta is made in-house by Jose Guermos, a prep cook who has become an expert in handmade pasta under the watchful eye of chef Andrew Carmellini. "There are prepguy dynasties in the city," Mr. Carmellini said, while sipping an espresso on the terrace of A Voce. He recalled the Vargas dynasty in the 1980s and '90s, when 10 family members worked at Lespinasse, Le Cirque, and Aureole. "Chefs keep them a secret, because you don't want someone to find out about them and steal them."

In 1999, Mr. Guermos was dishwasher at Café Boulud, where Mr. Carmellini was chef de cuisine. Pasta became increasingly popular on the menu, and Mr. Carmellini asked if Mr. Guermos wanted to learn to make it. "I had no cooking experience before," Mr. Guermos said. "But I said ‘I'll try.'"

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