Smokin' up a career

"It's doing okay," Sae says modestly.

Laden with fillets of trout from the Royal Project in Doi Inthanon, the smoker exudes a pleasant wood-smoke aroma.

"We're still in experimental stages," Sae says. "I want to be sure that we get it just right, and I have to think about the packaging too."

Born in Bangkok 26 years ago, Sae grew up in the Philippines, attending the international School in Manila. When his family returned to Thailand, he attended the New International School of Bangkok and after graduation spent four years at Monash University in Australia, where he studied industrial design.

His international studies may have given him self-confidence, but they haven't given him a specific career.

"I'm looking for a path that suits the way I enjoy myself," he says.

His studies in industrial design have, however, enabled him to follow his present interests.

"I love inventing things," he says, "and design methods can apply to anything - from a new dish to a new song."

He could, if he wished, have it all, including a career in entertainment. Proficient in the guitar and the bass guitar, he can, he says softly, handle other musical instruments too. He doesn't mention his voice. With his control, he can sing a range of songs, from the "oldies but goodies" of the 1960s and '70s, to jazz, both easy listening and classical.

Bring up this subject, and he just laughs. There are aspects of his life that are private, or, perhaps, he can't quite put them into words.

Ask him what he considers his most significant experience, and he immediately points to the time he spent in the monkhood. From mid-2005 until February 2006, he lived in Wat Boonyawad, in Chon Buri, close to Rayong.

"There were no frills," he says, "and discipline was very rigid." For instance, he had to learn to estimate his food intake, accepting on his plate the minimum that his body required, no more, no less. He liked learning this control, he says, and he enjoyed acquiring only what he needed, no more, no less.

When he finally re-joined the outside world, Sae began considering what he wanted to do with himself. His industrial-design training kicked in, and after six months of planning, Jart's Smokehaus emerged, specialising in home-style gourmet meats and charcuterie items. Setting up his smoker in his parents' house on Phaholyothin Road, he began producing bacons and dried meats and putting his products for sale in a local supermarket or delivering out of his home.

Sae was surprised when his bacon developed a following among tenants of a nearby condominium, but one taste, and you can understand why.

Sae uses honey from the Royal Projects in the process, just enough to bring out the taste of the smoked meat.

His family and friends also act as tasters, and just recently, his mother's friends who are involved with the Royal Projects, asked him to look into setting up a smoker at Angkhang.

The idea attracted him immediately. "I love the idea of adding value to a Royal Project product," he says. The trout, shipped in from Doi Inthanon, are filleted first, then sent to Angkhang, which is about four hours north of Chiang Mai.

He's been allotted his own section of a wood-working area, where, along with the smoker, he's working on packaging, using wood harvested from the Royal Project.

Although the volume is quite small and the trout supply is seasonal, by the end of this month, the Royal Project's smoked trout should be available at all Doi Kham shops as well as Kalpapreuk Thai Restaurant (Silom).

Although he's busy expanding Jart's Smokehaus and upgrading his smokers in Bangkok, Sae also spends as much time as he can at Angkhang, refining the process of smoking trout and looking at other RoyalProject products to smoke, vegetables, for instance. With the Bangkok office of the Royal Projects, he's also working on another product, smoked-trout cream.

Sae's self-confidence doesn't extend to thinking that everything he does is correct.

One day, he shows up at Le Beaulieu French Restaurant to find out what Chef Herve Frerard thinks of his smoked trout.

Frerard takes one taste, smiles, says, "Beautiful!", then disappears into his kitchen. A few minutes later, out come two dishes, a salad incorporating Sae's smoked trout with lemon zest, olive oil and Parmesan cheese, and another, baguettes topped with smoked-trout cream and black olives.

Asked if he's proud that his products have been transformed into these lovely dishes, Sae shrugs. "I really don't feel that way," he says. "I'm just part of the process."

In the end, as long as it's good, he's happy.

Laurie Rosenthal

 The Nation