Anyone Can Cook!

Editors note: I didn't take pictures in class because the school took pictures for us and is going to put them online. Unfortunately they are no available yet.

My last day in Chang Mai was my birthday. I was turning 26, which I don't think of as a very auspicious number, so I wasn't planning to do anything too adventurous. This was good, since I came down with a mild cold/fever that day, which gave me the sniffles and a persistent whole body ache.

Still, what I wound up doing was quite fun.

When I'd arrived in Chang Mai, I'd walked through part of the town center and, in the process, picked up a brochure from a cooking school. Thai cooking courses are quite popular there, and there are perhaps a dozen schools scattered throughout town that are well known.

I did a little research later, and decided Baan Thai--the place from which I'd originally picked up a brochure, was probably my best choice--it had the menu I wanted to learn, and it was recommended by Lonely Planet.

The cost was 900 Baht (about $26 US) for 8 hours. They picked you up from your hotel at 0900, took you on a market tour to explain many of the ingredients, and then taught you to make six dishes, and cut you loose around 1600. They even promised to take me to the airport after, since I had a flight out to Bangkok at 1935.

The class turned out to be wonderful. Our first instructor, Thom, was a very nice guy with no mean skill both as cook and teacher, and he took us through the market first and explained how to choose good Mangosteens (the number of sections in the bottom stem correspond to the number of segments of fruit inside, more==better) and other fruits and vegetables.

There were two classes, meeting in a sprawling Thai house that had been converted to low tables for eating and resting, and cooking and food prep spaces for the lessons, and the way it worked was there were 18 choices devided into 6 categories, and you chose one for each category. The categories were appetizer, curry paste, curry dish, stir fried dish, soup, dessert.

I chose to make Papaya Salad (a dish fiercely loved by the Thai, who will eat it with most meals given the opportunity), Green Curry paste, Green Curry with Chicken and Mushrooms, Thai style noodles (Pad Thai), Coconut Milk and Seafood soup, and Mango with Sticky Rice (another Thai staple that they love, and I grew quite fond of during my time there).

Here's a brief rundown:

The salad was actually very easy to make, but it requires a mortar and pestle to do well, which is a challenge of course.

Thai Style noodles were incredibly straightforward, but to do them well I need a different kind of wok from the one I currently own--and a gas burner.

Coconut Milk and Seafood soup has fully five ingredients that you're not supposed to eat (including that thing I ate when I was visiting Kavi's family), and it's a challenge to find your food inside all the seasons and herbs that are only there for flavour.

Green curry paste is a bitch and a half to make, taking perhaps an hour at a mortar and pestle to get it right, but the result is absolutely incredible--so much better than any pre-made paste you'll ever find.

Mango and Sticky rice is remarkably unhealthy, but mind-blowingly good, the coconut milk used to sweeten the sticky rice leaves it with a subtle, buttery sweet flavour.

We finished up the class around 1530, and they drove me out to the Chang Mai airport to catch my flight back to Bangkok. On the ride back, I had a chance to talk to a couple of the people in my class--all of whom were fascinating. One in particular though, (an investment banker from Singapore), gave me some encouraging news--apparently in Europe and Australia it's become the norm for most young professionals to take a year off for travel or walkabout at some point early in their careers, and so it is not frowned upon in those circles to have a largish gap in your resume here or there.

I can't speak highly enough about Bangkok air, the company that transported me from Chang Mai back to the city--they had a lounge in the Chang Mai airport for all of their passengers which included light snacks, juices and coffee, and they fed us and generally pampered us on the 90 minute flight.

I'm not sure how they do it, since my online ticket was only about $45 US, but they could teach Delta a thing or two, that's for sure.

After that I caught the red eye flight to Manila, and now it is 0530 and I'm sitting in the Manila airport, writing this before I try to catch a taxi into town and find my hostel.