Thai Cooking Class

I signed up for Thai cooking class in Chiang Mai. I had walked by the class 2 days before and got brochure, so I called them one day before the class started, and told them I would be there myself. No need to pick me up. It is only 3 minutes walking from my guest house. I paid when I got to the class. The whole process was so simple.

The class started with simple introduction of the rice, rice cooker. Then the teacher took us to the market. That was in fact my favorite part where I got to see fresh ingredients. Holding the thai ginger, lemon grass, etc, their smell linked with the thai food I had enjoyed before. The teacher also was very nice to tell us when and how they use it, not to eat some of the spices because they are for flavor only. It was very easy walk around the market, and of course I bought a big glass of thai iced tea.

We had a spice treat when I went back to the class. 4 or 5 spices were chopped very fine and we wrapped all spices in one leaf and added sauce on top. See, I have been lazy to write travel report, and cannot now remember too many details, and it just happened one month ago.

Cooking itself was not that hard. First of all, we had menus. Secondly, all the food was ready. We did not need to devein the shrimps, not to measure how much curry we need to put in the food. We turned on the stove, added oil, put garlic in, shrimps in, then fish sauce, curry power, and it was done. That was how we made the first dish. Another nice thing about it is that we don't have to do the dishes. Huge plus!

And of course I ate it all, considering I am such a good cook.

After that we made deep fried spring roles, papaya salad, deep fried bananas. The nice thing about the papaya salad is that we used mortar and pestle to make it, and the salad we made looked exactly the same as what I got in Thailand. We just made food and ate it, made food and ate it. At 1:30 when we were enjoying the last plate, it was hot outside, but breezy inside. With the fan on and the lazy atmosphere, I actually took a short nap.

I had good company. Though I cannot remember their names (no surprise), but still remember the couple standing behind are newlywed, from Holland. They shared their wedding picture, and that was a wow. The 3 girls in front are from San Francisco. The guy on the right is the teacher.

The class is a very good way to kill time for the morning through 2pm, and, for me, is very educating. After the class, it is good to sit in the coffee shop till 3:30 or 4 and then start to visit the temples when the temperature is not so hot, and then get ready for the night fun. But I had a flight to Bangkok later that evening, so I took the last batch of pictures, and headed for the airport.