Dana :)
In my favorite Thai cookbook (Night + Market), there's a section at the end of all the Thai ingredients to use - many of which I hadn't purchased before, specific Thai brands of more common items that are known. For example - Thai brands of light soy sauce, or Thai seasoning sauce by Golden Mountain or Healthy Boy for stirfrys, or "Black soy sauce" which is a thicker, sweeter soy sauce (you don't want the Chinese style, again - Thai style). Recipes may make this more accessible by calling for regular soy sauce and then adding more sugar, but it changes the flavor. There are also some other specialties that may be hard to find - coconut palm sugar has a distinct taste from granulated sugar, packaged fried garlic or shallots are much easier to sprinkle on top than make yourself, and also some herbs/aromatics like galangal or Culantro. Often, recipes will have other more common substitutes for those, but it does change the flavor. Hope that helps!
