The First of the Lasts

I spent my last weekend in Chiang Mai this past weekend and surprisingly, it was filled with a lot of firsts: ate at two new restaurants that I wish I'd discovered earlier, learned muay thai which I'd been meaning to do since before I arrived in Thailand and took a cooking class which many people have recommended but I've resisted because I prefer eating over cooking.

We've all been making our lists of things we'll miss (and won't miss) in Thailand. Recently I've been thinking I'm going to miss the food so I can at least learn to cook it for myself. So I gave in and signed up for a cooking class with some friends and now it's on my list of recommendations too!

First, our instructor showed us the ingredients we'd be using from the garden.

I guess I'm not a very good student because I forget what this is - turmeric?

Then we went on a short field trip to the market.

All different kinds of rice

Also on my miss list: so many different kinds of fruit!
When I was in the U.S. I thought a banana was a banana.
Who knew there were so many different types?

Then back to the school to start cooking!

Our workspace

A Thai welcome snack that, ironically, I ate for the first time.
It includes all the flavors: spicy (chili),  salty (roasted peanuts), sweet (roasted coconut), sour (lime), bitter (lettuce)

We chose a dish from three different categories: stir-fried, dessert, and curry. Mine were:

1. Pad gra pao (chicken and holy basil)
2. Sweet sticky rice with mango
3. Massaman curry

The sticky rice was easy and mostly required waiting. It had been soaked in water overnight and we let it steam while we worked on the other dishes.

The curry paste was probably the hardest to make from scratch.

Ingredients for massaman

Mortar and pestling them into curry paste turned out to be quite a workout.
I let this 10-year-old French girl do the work while I took a break.

 As you can see, I'm a natural. ;)

Pad gra pao

Massaman curry

Sweet sticky rice with mango

Bon appetit!