Chiang Mai

I had the MOST fabulous day today!! I spent the day at the Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School - we cooked 6 different thai dishes and ate ALL DAY!! I'll post the pictures but it was VERY well done.

I was picked up at my hotel in the morning (about 9:30am) - taken to the office to pay. Then all of the students were carted out of town about 30 minutes into this suburb area (where the chef's house was and) where we had our own cooking stations.

The class was organized so that we would have a demonstration in a small classroom (with a cooktop and one of those angled mirrors so you could see what went on in the pots/pans) - then we'd go off and cook the dish ourselves and then eat it. YUM!!! Most everything was already portioned out into single servings and placed at your workstation while you were either eating or in the demonstration room. All the students had to do was cut some veggies, pick up our pre-portioned meats and measure out our seasonings...and then cook!

In between each course, all of our dirty dishes were carted away and our stations cleaned up if needed. It was the MOST fun I've had cooking in a long time. I mean, how nice is it when you don't have to deal with the clean up and most of the food is already pre-prepped? All you have to do is the fun stuff...COOK! The facility was basically a bunch of cooking stations under a roofed pavilion. It was clean and very well organized...and the demos were witty and enjoyable. I would HIGHLY recommend this day long course to anyone! The place does 5 different courses - 6 dishes for each course. It's the best $30 USD that I've spent so far in Thailand...and perhaps since the beginning of my trip!

Here's a breakdown of how the day went (foodwise) - the actually cooking class ran from about 11ish to 4ish. I was back at my hotel by a little after 5pm.

1. Vegetable carving class - tomato skin roses, tomato lotus flowers and carrot palm leaves
   
2. Demo - Clear Soup with Glass Noodles and Pork
3. Make soup
4. Eat soup
5. Demo - Veggie Spring Rolls
6. Make spring rolls - bring it to the chef to fry them for you
7. Eat spring rolls
8. Demo - Red Curry with Roast Duck
9. Make curry
10. Demo - Ginger Chicken (stir fry)
11. Make Ginger Chicken
12. Eat lunch (oh man - I so was NOT hungry by this time...but the food was pretty damn good so I ate AGAIN) - rice, curry and ginger chicken
13. Waddle back to Demo - Sticky Rice with Mango (making sticky rice) and Chicken wrapped in Pandanus Leaves
14. Make Chicken wrapped in Pandanus Leaves
15. Go back to demo room to watch the last part of the Sticky Rice with Mango - mixing it in coconut milk and sugar, top with mangoes, making salty coconut sauce and then plating the dessert. While we were in the demo room, our chicken got deep fried.
16. Eat chicken with some sweet chili sauce
17. Eat (thankfully small portions) of mango with sticky rice - it was the BEST that I've ever had...I have to admit. I'll have to make some for the folks at home...maybe we'll top it with something else since mangoes aren't in season now.

Then we all waddled to the vans to get dropped back off at our hotels or at the office. =) Such a great day!!

I spent an hour on the expensive hotel internet (100B/hour - $3/hour) had a small ham sandwich for dinner and then another hour on the internet...then off to bed. Tomorrow I've got a half day city tour starting at 9am. =)