Adventures of a Wandering Thirtysomething

Food is never far from my mind. In addition to travel, it’s one of my biggest passions and, quite honestly, obsessions these days. Every week I spend hours checking out new recipes, planning my grocery list, shopping at several markets, and preparing meals for Matt and I to enjoy. It is my peace and comfort at the end of a long day.

So, it was only fitting that we would end our time in Bangkok with food. But instead of great dining experiences, which we certainly had many of, it was all about rolling up our sleeves and getting dirty in the kitchen with our first ever Thai cooking class.

As we headed into the Silom Thai Cooking School in a far back alley, we were welcomed by funny and friendly staff. We slipped off our shoes at the door and headed up to our classroom, where we were soon joined by six other classmates – all from foreign exchange programs at their respective universities in France, Norway, The Netherlands and Brazil.

With a quick introduction to our chef, we headed into our prep room where we sat barefoot on the floor to start our dessert and our first course, Tom Yung Goong soup (hot and sour soup with prawns). We started by making our own coconut cream and coconut milk, a rather simple process if massaging and squeezing coconuts is your thing. It was arguably Matt’s strongest culinary skill of the day.

After milking the coconuts, we moved on to preparing the aromatics and veggies. Armed with tree trunk rounds for cutting boards, knives and a basket of ingredients, our chef explained each ingredient as she walked us through the preparation. Then it was on to cooking on the gas burners in the open air hallway, where we turned our chunks of this and leaves of that into a delicious soup, beautifully plated and garnished.

 

Each course followed in similar fashion: chop, cook, eat, repeat. We learned the key ingredients and noodle-spinning techniques of the perfect Pad Thai, how to use mortar and pestle to create the perfect paste for traditional Kaeng Khiao Wan (green curry), and how to make coconut sticky rice for my favorite dessert Khao Niaow Ma Muang (mango with sticky rice).

It was heaven. And, in addition to leaving with full bellies and a much better understanding of the country’s cuisine, I’m now armed with a booklet of traditional recipes and a resolve to get to the international market as soon as I get home so I can recreate the delicious dishes of Thailand. My taste buds are already excited.