Chiang Mai - cooking class

First off - I was informed this evening by Professor Kennedy that there is a link to this blog on the Thayer website under the foreign study information. So, a shout out to anyone who actually explored the Thayer website enough to find it!

In recent news, this evening Charnice, Vincent, Geraud, Professor Kennedy and I had dinner with the director of ISE as a farewell party. We went to a lovely seafood restaurant and talked about the differences between Chula, Dartmouth, and the French universities, and about the political situation. Good company, good food, good times.

Finals start next week. The schedule has gone crazy, but basically - it's become as stressful as Dartmouth. I don't think I will sleep for the next week - I'll just set up a caffeine IV drip.

Despite the looming dark clouds, I feel a duty to at least begin posting about Chiang Mai. So here is the first installment of that adventure (picking up, naturally, from where I left off while up there): Cooking Classes!


On Saturday of our trip, Charnice and I took a class at The Greatest Thai Cookery School. I don't know if it lives up to its name, having nothing else to compare it to, but it was quite an experience. It began with Perm, the teacher, taking us to the market near our guesthouse. He showed us the produce used most in Thai cooking, how to tell if you should buy a lime (it should be soft), when to buy a pineapple (the top should be able to twist), and how to make coconut cream (you shred the white bits inside, then squeeze them. To make coconut milk, you add water). We also saw eggplants that are ACTUALLY shaped like eggs. Remarkable.

Then, we were driven to the school itself, which was about thirty minutes outside of the city center. Cooking stations were set up in a square, each of us getting our own burner, chopping block, apron, and wicked looking knife.

We began with soups. For each course we had a choice of what to make. First course was either Tom Yum or Chicken in Coconut Milk. Charnice took the former, I took the latter. We had actually learned to make Tom Yum from our friend Salilla, but there we had been mainly in charge of chopping things. Here, we got to cook the whole dish ourselves. Both soups have the same three ingredients for flavor - ginger, lemongrass, and kaffir lime leaves. The difference is the base - Tom Yum in water based, the other is obviously coconut milk based. I'll spare you all the details - mainly because for many of you, I shall cook this when I next see you - but it was delicious.

Next, we took part in cooperative cooking. Papaya salad, mango sticky, and deep fried spring rolls - the entire class of 15 all did different parts of this, which was a little disappointing, but still fun. We ate as we cooked, and quite enjoyed all three dishes (though the papaya salad was excruciatingly spicy).

After that, we moved on to the last three dishes, of which we again had a choice. I made green curry, pad thai, and sweet and sour chicken. The last was especially fun, because we did it in such a way that the vegetables flamed up as we tossed them in the oil. Charnice has a wonderful picture of me leaping away from the fountain of flame in my wok, but I haven't gotten it from her yet. But this picture is the immediate aftermath.






After we finished those three dishes, we took them out front and ate as a group. We got to talking with two Californians who were working in the finance industry, got tired of "taking it in the chin for two years," quit their jobs and left on a vision quest in Southeast Asia. Very cool guys.

Then, it was time to go home. We got loaded onto the trucks and driven back to Chiang Mai. Along the way, the first of the water throwing had begun. We got doused by buckets thrown in the open sides of the pick up, and then it started pouring down rain. Definitely a sign of what was to come - it was impossible to stay dry after that.