Although we have been losing weight, we still love to eat. And the spicier the food, the better. So to improve the choice of cuisine when we return home, Fran took a one-day Thai cooking course. And the results were quite tasty
Baan Thai Cooking Course is held in a home on a quiet side street in Chang Mai. The dishes are prepared in cooking stations in an outdoor kitchen and tested while sitting around a large table in the living area. Each participant prepares (and eats) 6 dishes during the day.
The class started with a tour of the market to purchase the food for the course. If you have never been to a Thai outdoor market (as I imagine many of you haven't) it is quite an experience. First there is the meat section, with live eels escaping from their barrels onto the pavement...dried fish of every imaginable kind...forest grubs and beetles with their feet neatly tied with grass...the smell of fish and meat mingling in the air with the aroma of cooked foods. The colorful fruits, vegetables and greens neatly stacked in baskets. Vibrant flowers in bunches or strung into garlands to place on shrines are nearby. The sweets vendors...preparing pancakes filled with coconut custards...stacking the packets of sweets wrapped in banana leaves...displaying the sweet dried fruits. Endless rows of baskets filled with rice, nuts, seeds and spices occupy other corners.
Fran had been looking forward to being able to identify the nameless vegetables, fruits and sauces. She was not disappointed...she learned to identify three types of eggplant and two types of ginger and various greens and fruits. The class participants returned to the home with baskets filled with a sampling of sweets as well as ingredients for Pad Thai, spring rolls, sweet and sour vegetable soup and curry pastes...and the piece de resistance...deep fried bananas.
Fran happily spent the day chopping vegetables, grinding ingredients with mortar and pestle and cooking dishes in a wok. She did share some of the food with Rod when he met her at the end of the day. The bananas soon became one of his favorite foods. And she was so excited about what she saw at the market that she had to take Rod on a tour before they returned to the guesthouse.
