The day we stuffed our faces
Trip Start
Sep 17, 2007
1
159
272
Trip End
Oct 08, 2008
Chiang Mai,
Thailand
Sunday, April 13, 2008
We chose Baan Thai for a few very simple reasons: they were the least expensive. Even so, the price was significantly more than in Vietnam, so we were happy to find that with our education we would learn to cook 7 dishes, get a free cookbook, and eat lots of yummy snacks.
Our ride picked us up early, so we swallowed our breakfasts (completely unnecessary, as it happened) and hopped into her truck. I believe she was the non-English speaking mother of the family-owned business, and I found her terribly amusing because she was wearing a plastic pith helmet that had been painted an odd shade of green
Cooking class
. We didn't see much of her after our arrival at the school, however; our time was spent with our classmates and Boom, our instructor. Boom was way too cute, all tiny and saying the right thing at exactly the right time to make us all laugh. We always had to "keep smiling" and we would be famous for 6 months after we had our pictures put online. An example of her endearing statements: "There are two dragonfruits. The long one is white on the inside and the round one is purple. If you eat the purple one your tongue will turn purple and when you go to the toilet... If you choose to taste that one maybe you will go to the toilet tomorrow and think of me." Enchanting smile.
Our first errand was a market tour. Usually, because it was Sunday, we would have had a lesson in vegetable carving, but Boom informed us that we couldn't do that because the woman who usually bought the vegetables had gotten into a motorbike accident because of Songkran. We readily agreed to go to the market and soon all set off with baskets swinging in our hands. Travis, being the only male, decided he didn't like carrying baskets.
Once again at the market we were introduced to new and different food products and told how best to handle them and how they should look and smell
learning about vegetables
. I had no idea there were so many varieties of eggplant. Last we got to choose three fruits to try, and we went with the purple dragonfruit, rambutans, and wax apples (most delicious of fruits). We also got to taste an interesting Thai coconut, rice paste mouth morsel that came wrapped in a banana leaf (it was surprisingly tasty) and the Thai "welcome snack." This is a flavor explosion in your mouth and I might introduce it into my house sometime. After snacking it was time to get down to business. We started light and easy and progressed to the more challenging foods. Our first endeavor was the simple yet satisfying Sweet and Sour Vegetables. We all gathered around the preparation table in our matching aprons and tried to precisely match Boom as she swiftly and surely chopped her veggies. It looked so easy! Then we carried our preparation plates into the kitchen and stood by our woks as Boom told us what to do. I want a wok. Some of us did better than others, but I know everyone enjoyed eating what they ended up with. It's not always about how it looks, anyway.
As we sat on our cushions and tried to finish our food Boom bounced into the room and told us that it was time for more cooking. But we just ate! We trooped back to the preparation table
mmm, vegetables
. This time we prepared two dishes simultaneously. First we chopped more vegetables for Cashew Chicken. It was rather straightforward, except for the chilis. Those were fun because we just smashed them with the side of our knife and left them whole. Then we started on the soup. To prepare a Thai soup one prepares a bundle of flavor that really doesn't get eaten. It mostly involves stems and Thai ginger, which is pretty much the hardest thing in the world to chop. After the bundle we played with herbs and the bizarre elephant ear mushroom. This could be interesting.
Again we trooped into the kitchen and started with the Cashew Chicken. It was similar to the other dish, so we'd already practiced frying that stuff up. Except for some heat issues, everyone was more confident at this point. Then the soup. Oh no! The wok is gone, but a saucepan is familiar. Our Seafood in Coconut Milk soup was fun to make because Boom pretty much just told us when to throw stuff in the pan and we did. Stir, stir, stir, and soup! Then we all sat down and ate some more. It was really incredibly delicious, but having already eaten two meals and the welcome snack that morning, no one could finish everything. The other girls took a walk. Travis and I took a nap
little eggplants
. We resumed our study at 1:30, when Boom told us she would teach us to be a "good Thai wife" (of course, when we were smashing chilis she told us she was a bad Thai because her chili maximum was 6 and that's only medium). Being a good Thai wife involves making curry paste with a mortar and pestle. You should have seen Travis smash that ginger. It was quite impressive. My adoration of Thai ginger reached its height as I struggled to chop it at all. Forget making it teeny tiny. Travis and I were still working on our first assignement of Ginger while the other three students prepared all the other ingredients for the mortar. Finally Boom said we could stop and everything was thrown into the mortar, with Travis on the first smashing detail. After two minutes we rotated. While the smashing was happening we also had a pot of coconut milk being prepared, so one person was also doing a rotation squeezing a cloth full of coconut shavings in a pot of hot water. This was real physical work. Who knew cooking could be so labor intensive?
At last the curry paste was a satisfactory consistency. And so, using everything we learned in the morning we stood in front of our woks one last time and our curry chicken sizzled into a satisfying stew.
Meanwhile, because we couldn't all work on it, Boom was preparing the sticky rice for our dessert. This could be my new favorite food: Mango and Sticky Rice. I should mention that sticky rice isn't Japanese sticky rice, it's glutinous rice, and it's really, really sticky. Let the rice cook then soak in some coconut milk. Put mango on top and dribble sweetened condensed milk over the top. I don't care if it was 3:30, it was the best dinner ever. And I made it! Yay!
Erin
