Dear Family and Friends,

Today I had some of the best Thai food of my life – and I cooked it. Months ago I did some research into Thai cooking classes and settled on the mid-range Baipai school (http://www.baipai.com/). It looks nice, doesn’t it? Oh, and it was. At just after 9 am, a labeled, air-conditioned van pulled up at my guesthouse with several students already in tow. We rode to school silently although we exchanged raised eyebrows at one point when our driver got upset enough to actually climb out of the van to scold another driver. We went up and down and around and through a myriad of streets and back streets and alleys until we arrived at a small, open-air two story building. We were lead upstairs, fed sweet, cold, lemongrass tea and sweetly instructed to stow our belongings and don a “professional” apron. We were then lead downstairs by the interpreter “A” to our teacher “Noi” and instructed while seated around a large workbench with a gas burner and plenty of work space. The class was composed of 5 Japanese friends/family, 1 Taiwanese woman currently employed in Bangkok analyzing markets, 2 Australians, myself and a Thailandese-American character by the name of Rick. All the prep work had been done and continued to be done for us by at least 5 background kitchen helpers. We all agreed that cooking is more fun when there are some ones to do the prep work and 100% of the clean-up!

Our first lesson was on how to make a tomato rose. I was quickly established as the comedic light relief at my end of the work benchbecause I had to be given a second tomato and Rick started to tease me. I responded by telling him that there was always someone in the crowd who makes everyone else look good and that today that person was going to be me. He could thank me later, if he liked. (Actually he did thank me as he got out at his hotel – but in teasing vein as I wasn't that bad.). After the rose we carved a cucumber leaf and then got down to the meat by making a “Pandanus Chicken” (Gai Hor Bai Toey) – marinated chicken wrapped in a fragrant pandanus leaf, fried in vegetable oil, and dipped in sweet soy sauce. The chicken packets were fried for us (splattering oil too much for school’s insurance) while we students prepared the popular and delicious “Green Papaya Salad” (Som Tam). We then had “tasting” time where we actually sat down at a long table to eat what we had prepared. Next we fried prawns (this time we fried them ourselves) and made a mouth-watering tamarind sauce for a “Prawn in Tamarind Sauce” (Goong Sauce Ma Kham). Again, we ate. Finally, we prepared “Roasted Duck in Red Curry” (Gang Phed Ped Yang) – and ate that back upstairs while happily chatting and browsing the items for sale. With our tummies filled to the max, our new recipe books in hand, and quite pleased with ourselves, we were returned to our respective hotels.

A few cooking class items of note: The tomato skin rose & cucumber leaf were to decorate the papaya salad. Peeling a tomato in one long skin is much tougher than a teacher makes it look.

• Pandanus leaves are scented, edible, delicious, and apparently found in Asian supermarkets despite short shelf-life.


• Papayas are orange when ripe. Ripe papaya with squeezed lime is delicious.
• The Papaya “Som Tam” salad is made with unripened green papayas.
• Tamarind flavoring is wonderful. To make a fresh tamarind paste, Baipai peeled the tamarinds, kneaded & squeezed them together with water, and then strained out the fibers. Sour but delicious.
• Palm sugar is used all the time in Thai cooking. This sugar is quite complex, especially when compared with regular sugar. The combo of tamarind sauce, a fish or oyster sauce, palm sugar, and a fresh chili is fantastic and practically symbolizes good Thai cooking.
• The roast duck came from “a Chinese place around the corner.” Can you believe it???
• Our interpreter kindly informed us that we tourists are pretty wimpy when it comes to spice and that we should be fine if we order food “tourist hot.”

So the Baipai class was fun and I might have to do another one or two. The camaraderie was good and the pestle and mortars were killer (they had the nice heavy ones that I have been coveting as well as a clay & wood ones for salads). I must have one at some point – and I am trying not to think about how many books I’ll have to cast away in order to take one with me. I would, if I could, bring all of my cooking friends a “baby” mortar and pestle – the pestle of which could be utilized for a decent weight lifting routine.

Sadly, this class highlighted a fundamental weakness in my current life: a deficient of good Thai food. I know that sounds crazy, as I’m IN Thailand, but the best Thai dish I’d had up ‘til yesterday was the prawn salad with lemon grass that I could barely eat at the Davis on the night of my arrival. Out of necessity, I keep gravitating towards Japanese food and that just won’t do while in Bangkok. Stay tuned for the search for an excellent Thai restaurant… or three.

At dinner time, I discover a posh bookstore with plenty of English books (hooray!) and contemplate buying a dining guide but decide to actually read my Lonely Planet (which was spot-on re: accommodation) and take it from there. I found myself wandering around the Thai area of Siam Square looking for something more “authentic” when I ran across an older Thai lady with white threaded through her hair who told me that I was very pale and asked what I was looking for. She works at the local university bookstore... we had a pleasant conversation and she sent me towards the “MBK Center” – which is half way between my Wendy House and Siam Square. I duly went that direction and ended up at a food court/restaurant where you can order practically anything (I end up with dim sum + a local specialty of mango sticky rice that I had been told about at by one of the Australians in my cooking class). I also figured out how to walk from Siam Square to Wendy House without using the Sky Train. You would think that walking from Point A to Point B using pedestrian sidewalks should be direct and easy but it just isn’t as one needs to walk through shopping areas and over sky bridges. In the MBK Center, I also find another humungous amount of clothing/accessories/jewelry shopping and a less exciting grocery store that I shall have to later explore.

I have leftover mango in my fridge and every day is an adventure.

Fond regards,

Laura