THAILAND - Chiang Mai - Part 2

We both woke up early to get going on on daily activities. Moni had massage school and I had cooking school! So she left in a taxi and I walked to my cooking class at 9. My cooking class was called Gap's Thai Culinary School and was supposedly the most popular class in the city. I followed my directions to the school, which was also a guesthouse. It was very pretty and almost looked like a rainforest retreat. I sat down and waited for the others in the school to arrive and the teacher. The teacher was the second to come and he introduced himself as Joe. He was a very interesting man indeed. He was interested in my cooking skills and that I was form California. A big black Labrador retriever dog came and sat next to him which he loved up and scratched. I think this was either his or the houses dog but he was very pretty. Once the others showed up we all introduced each other and followed Joe to the red truck taxi. There was three other couples in this class, one mixed from Germany and the UK, another France, and one mixed from Australia and Indonesia. The young couple from Germany spoke english very well and seemed to be arguing about relationship issues. It was kind of awkward at first in the car since I could understand everything they were speaking about. The French couple didn't speak much and the Australia guy kept thinking he knew everything and talking down to his Indonesian wife. I finally interrupted the fighting couple to ask them where they were form and other simple questions just so they would stop fighting. The girl turned out to be very nice and was a nurse studying abroad in Germany where she met her current boyfriend. After talking a bit we finally arrive in the truck to the local fresh food market where we would buy a few more ingredients and look around at the local life. Inside this tiny door emerged a huge market full of all sorts of food groups. Joe insisted on taking pictures of all the food and produce we saw, like we were tourists or something... He showed us the difference and names of all the vegetables laid out on the vendors tables. Next aisle was the meats, then the fruits, and lastly all the dried fruits. The sausage was all coiled up like snakes and Joe was silently making fun of all the "sissy" vegetarians who don't eat meat. But once I told him that I ate fish it made up for my sissyness. We bought some groceries and some chicken heads.. which I had to carry. Before we left we saw a local carrying a dolly full of Chang and Singha, the local beers, and Joe mentioned a lot of people ask which is better to him, he told us you will will know the morning after. Good to have a teacher with a sense of humor. Back in the truck we were going to head back to the kitchen and start cooking. Joe yelled at me to make sure not to step on his precious chicken heads, which smelled horribly. Once we got back to the kitchen we all were handed a cooking book which we could keep! We all sat down around a table surrounding Joe. There were about 3 other women in the kitchen as helpers that chopped the ingredients for us, which to me was nice because that meant we could spend more time actually cooking more meals. The plate in front of Joe featured some important ingredients used to make a lot of the base of Thai foods, mostly spices. He took out his huge cleaver knife and showed us how to cut the spices accordingly. This is where I noticed Joe would grunt when he chopped and it was kind of funny, sometimes he would even get mad at the food and tell it that it was no good. Next we were all given a bowl of chopped ingredients and a mortar and pistol. First thing on the agenda was to make a red curry paste by hand, and we could customize it any way we wanted. I got my own bowl but all the couples had to share... perks of being a loner! Joe picked up my camera and started taking multiple pictures of me while I was grinding away. After making the curry paste we walked over to the line of woks on stoves and watched Joe make a Thai curry soup with our fresh curry paste. After we watched it was our turn to make it. Under our wok station was the ingredients necessary and then we started cooking! To be honest I felt like a total bad ass cooking on a wok, got to get me one of these. I felt like the bad ass mama cook on Koh Phayam island. Once my curry was done we all set it aside on the lunch table and went back to the drawing board to make some more deliciousness. Next up was steamed fish soufflés and cashew stir fry. The fish soufflé was really weird to make since the smell of minced fish was revolting, but the cashew stir fry was one of my favorite, it had a sweet and sour sauce. In order to steam our soufflés we had to make bowls out of banana leafs which was fun. After we filled the bowls it was time to put them all in the steamer and wait an hour. One last thing to make before we could devour our lunch was fish cakes, which was minced fish and spices deep fried served with a sweet, fresh cucumber sauce. I basically drank the sauce it was so good, but the fish cakes itself weren't my favorite. We made one last soup called Tom Yum, which was very simple broth with tomatoes and fresh veggies. After that was all done the fish soufflés were ready it was time for lunch! Everyone put their dishes on the table under fly nets and sat done. Everyone's dishes looked different shapes and sizes but all the same ingredients! We snapped a few pictures and then it was time to feast! I started with the soups and worked my way to the fish cakes and soufflés. I absolutely hated the fish soufflé, it tasted like a foot. So after one little nibble I put it to the side. The fish cakes tasted like pure oil since they were fried, but the cucumber sauce was amazing. I saved the best dish, in my opinion, for last which was the cashew stir fry. I just love myself some good cashew nuts. It turns out none of the others liked the fish soufflés either. It was so much food that I gave the bits and pieces leftover to the big Australian guy who gobbled up everyone else dishes as well. Once lunch was finished up we went back to the drawing board to make the last 3 dishes. First up was a pumpkin coconut sugar custard cake. This I thought was the coolest plate so far since it was made of just eggs, coconut sugar, and coconut milk. All heated together and placed in a carved out pumpkin, then put in a steamer to sit for an hour until it set up. While we waited we made fried spring rolls and a traditional pad tai dish to take home for dinner. By the end of this course I learned a lot of the process of cooking. Being a baker, I never even tried to fiddle with savory dishes, but now I am more confident. Throughout the whole day tiny puppies that lived in the kitchen would be cleaning up the food scraps, they were so cute. Cutting into the pumpkin custard was so cool! Never thought you could cook a custard in a whole pumpkin. We also practiced making tomato roses, which I won at most beautiful rose... not to brag or anything. At the end of the day we all took a pictures and put our food into togo boxes to take back for dinner. I texted Moni to see if she was done with her class yet and she said yes and was headed back to the hotel, but she would get there before me and I had the key. So I basically ran in the heat of the day 40 minutes to get to her so she wouldn't have to wait so long because I felt bad. Once I got back she was in the lobby excited to go into the room and have a nice nap. I gave her some of my food to snack on and she indulged and was so grateful. We both devoured the pumpkin custard. We took a little nap and rested before heading out that night to the Bazaar. We stretched a little then got ready for a night out.  We told ourselves to not buy anything quiet yet because we would wait till the last minute to get stuff. We decided to take an uber to the market and not wait for the free bus ride with random people. We ended up separating and buying things and then got some food and smoothies. Moni got some cool crystals and I almost bought some expensive bedding but would wait for another night to do that. I might have bought a little necklace pendant. We took an uber back home and then went to bed.