Ti’s gotten me on a Thai kick lately, as far as food goes. Which makes it hard, since most of my cooking utensils (and a lot of my spices) are boxed up for the move to Inglewood.
A wok, for instance. Mine is in a box. So’s my cookbook from the Thai Chocolate Cooking School, of Chiang Mai. It’s authentic, so I refuse to buy any other.
Chiang Mai is in the far north of Thailand, and it I was there in my third week of a 24 day tour. Cooking schools are a bit of an industry in that town, with at least eighteen of theml. They’re all set up for tourists. Just like me.
About 800 or 900 baht ($20ish CDN) buys you a four hour course, during which you prepare six dishes. It all begins with a trip to the market.
Unlike North American life, Asians (and a lot of Europeans as well) shop for thei food on a daily basis. Dropping by the market to pick up the staples is as much a daily affair as walking to the superbox to pick up your mail.
Or the corner store to buy your 649.
But markets in Asia are very unlike what we have here.
First off, they open up pretty early in the morning and are closed by noon. Some reopen in the late afternoon, and meld into the night market timeframe.
Secondly, standards of cleanliness are somewhat different than we’re used to. Not a plastic glove to be seen. Or refrigeration, which might be disconcerting if you were searching for, say, pork. Heads.
Our market shopping experience was largely concerned with herbs and vegetables, though. Luckily, at that.
There are a great many things available there that we’ll never find back home. Like three sizes of red chillies (corresponding to their heat values). They’re called Thai chocolates over there, and we only get one size (the smallest) over here. Or Thai basil, which I’ve yet to find at all.
And then back to the classroom. Six gals and me. I hear women like guys who cook.
To be honest, the digs of the “school” weren’t all that impressive. An outdoor setting, with a corrugated metal roof. But it’s a family run outfit, the English was very well spoken, and my fellow students an absolute hoot to cook with.
Some of the things we cooked include green papaya salad (which I haven’t yet repreoduced here at home):
Nad Pad Thai, the only Thai dish that you eat with chop sticks.Take that to your Asian trivia class and pierce your ear with it.
We also fried up some spring rolls, and even bananas for desert, which I liked (and which is weird, since I only seem to like almost green, raw ones).
The upshot of this all is that last weekend, for Ti and Adrienne, I went shopping to the NW T&T Market (which itself is worth a posting), bought myself some supplies (and a new wok) and stirred up some pad Thai. An Tom Yum soup.
It was good.
(So it was too, according to the girls.)