What we did: Thai cooking class, blogged, planned
Budget: 1800B/$60; Spent: 2744B/$91
We were picked up for our cooking class around 9:15am this morning. Pretty early by our standards but we made it! We didn't eat breakfast beforehand because we were told to come hungry. I love to hear those words.
We were the last people to be picked up, so there were seven people already in the truck who we would be doing the class with. We said a brief hello to everyone, and then remained in a tired stupor until we arrived at a local market, where our guide would be showing us some of the vegetables and herbs we would be cooking with.
Our guide is extremely charismatic. His name is Sim, and he took about 30 minutes showing us some of the food most often used in Thai cooking. He is a real character and made it a really fun experience. He then gave us 15 minutes or so to walk around the market on our own before leaving.
Another 20 minute ride later and we were at the cooking school. What a difference compared to India! We were cooking outside under some large tents. There was a table for eating, a food preparation area, and cooking stations, with a gas stove and wok for each person. There was also free water and coffee.
He started off by explaining how the class would work, and he got us to choose the dishes we would like to cook from a menu of choices. Patty and I chose to do the half day, so we got to choose a soup, noodle, and curry dish. For soups we made Tom Yum and Coconut Chicken; for noodles we made Pad Thai and Drunken Noodles; and for the curry dish we made Green Curry and Red Curry.
Once we had all decided on the food we wanted to make we were led to the food preparation area to cut up semi-prepared vegetables. First up were the soups. We were given a wooden cutting board, an intimidating looking knife, and a cloth to wipe stuff down with. Everything was very neat and clean. It was a nice surprise!
I sat at the table next to a man named Eric. He is originally from the US but is now living in Beijing with his family. They were on vacation in Thailand for a couple weeks, but I guess he was the only one with any interest in cooking. He was an extremely nice guy and I got along with him very well. He is maybe in his mid-forties. I talked to him a lot about where we have been on our trip so far. He's also done quite a bit of traveling. We also ended up standing next to each other at the food preparation table, and that was a good time. He seemed to know quite a bit about cooking, especially all the Asian spices and vegetables that I've never seen back home.
Once we were done preparing our food, we moved over to the cooking station. Sim flawlessly managed to direct all nine of us in cooking different soups. He is an excellent teacher and loves to joke around. His English is quite good and he was pretty hilarious.
Once we were done mixing everything together, we tried our soups. I wasn't crazy about mine, but I should have known that because I'm just not a fan of the coconut soups. Patty enjoyed hers. We then set our soups aside on the dining table and then started on our noodle dishes. Once again, we chopped up our ingredients, which weren't so radically different from our first dish, and headed over to the cooking area.
I was cooking a dish called Drunken Noodles, and the beginning of the dish is pretty spectacular. Sim told the three of us that were cooking this dish to stand back while we threw our chicken into the wok. Immediately, a huge flame leaped upward from the wok. It was really hot and we had to continuously stir while it was flaming. That was the extent of the excitement, though, and after that we all got down to the serious business of making our noodle dishes.
Once we were done we headed back to the dining table, except to eat our first two dishes. While we sat and ate we learned a little more about the other people we were with. Beside Eric, there was a German couple and an Australian couple, whose names we have forgotten, and also a couple from Singapore, Jerry and Yvonne. Everyone was extremely friendly and many asked about where we had been and where we were going. Everyone else was on a much shorter trip than us, so they were all interested in our experiences so far and where we were planning to go. It was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed the Drunken Noodles, but not so much the Coconut chicken soup Patty really liked the Tom Yum and thought the Pad Thai was good.
After about 30 minutes, it was time to move onto our curry dishes. I was cooking the Green Curry and Patty was cooking the Red Curry. Interestingly, we ended up chopping up very similar vegetables. It's too bad we chose such similar dishes!
Once again, the cooking was fun with Sim telling everyone what to do and when. The Australian lady next to me was cooking Jungle Curry and I think it made everyone jealous. It's a very different kind of curry that includes pineapple. It looked amazing.
We weren't even remotely hungry by the time we started eating our curries, but they, too, were very tasty. We ate them with some white rice that had been prepared for us. Everything was very nice. They were even selling beer for us to buy, so we bought one to share. Amazingly, the beer wasn't even overpriced! What a great place we found.
We had signed up for only the half day class, so we left with Eric, who was leaving Chiang Mai today with his family. It turned out that there was another class going on at the same time as ours and we were driven back to our hotel with the other 'half-dayers'. The other group seems to have been made up of mostly young people. It would have been a very different dynamic being in that group I think. We got lucky!
When we got back to our hotel, it was around 2pm. We bought some coffees at our hotel and blogged and did some research. We’re looking for a place to stay in Spain to learn Spanish and salsa. It turns out that there are many schools that actually offer both, simultaneously! Hopefully we can find something that’s in our price range.
For dinner, we headed to an interesting restaurant that’s on the roof of a three story building. Dinner was OK, nothing special. Oddly, the restaurant was playing some Thai music that I think was putting people to sleep. I can’t imagine that’s good for business…
After dinner, we returned once again to our hotel to blog and research. We’re finding we’re spending way too much time sitting around on the internet, but we really have to catch up on our blog!
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