Thailand: Thai Cooking Class

Yesterday was an extremely lazy day...I slept until about 10:00 am (which was not late enough, considering my late night on Monday) before eventually making my way by tuk-tuk to the Chiang Mai mall. I wandered around for a bit before settling in for the film I have been anticipating for months: Memoirs of a Geisha. I have just finished the book, but was deeply disappointed by the movie.

This morning my friend Erin arrived. Originally we had talked of traveling Southeast Asia together, but an unfortunate series of events caused it not to happen. However, about a month back she let me know that she was making the effort to come join me, and now she is here!

I had been wanting to take a Thai cooking class since I got here, so I decided to wait until Erin came, as I knew she would enjoy it as well. Therefore, around 4:30 pm this afternoon, Erin and I were picked up and taken to "Smart Cook" cooking school. We were pleasantly surprised that we were the evening's only students, so we were pampered in every way by our instructor, Mac.

We first chose the meals we wanted to prepare, then Mac accompanied us to the outdoor market, where we learned about various Thai herbs and vegetables before choosing our ingredients. Finally, we took our goodies back to the school and the cooking began!

First, we made chicken phad thai, followed by papaya salad. Then, we made Tom Yam soup and green curry. We also fried up yummy spring rolls. We ate everything we cooked, so by this point I felt like I was going to explode. Of course, I was saving room for dessert, mango sticky rice. Upon receiving our very own cookbook, we bade Mac farewell and waddled back to our guesthouse.