Cooking Class - Chef Eric's report

We just returned from the Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School where we learned all about thai spices, veggies, and ingredients. We spent the day with master chef Sompon Nabnian and learned how to cook 6 thai dishes. Coincidentally, we also spent the entire day eating. :) This is something I was very much looking forward to and am very glad I got to do it. It was very fun and I really learned a lot. Well worth it. We leaned how to cook:

• Thai Hot And Sour Prawn Soup (Tom Yam Goong)
• Green Curry With Chicken (Gaeng Kheo Wan Gai)
• Thai Thai Style Fish Cakes (Tord Man Plaa)
• Fried Noodles (Phad Thai)
• Spicy Minced Chicken Salad (Larb Gai)
• Water Chestnuts With Sugar Syrup And Coconut Milk (Tab Tim Grob)

I am now a master thai chef. :) Not really, but I was very impressed with myself and the turnout of the dishes.

-Eric

Mmmmmmmmmm food.

Tasting chef's dish for comparison.

I cut you.

Julie looks cute in an apron.

Future Thai chef's.

Everyone smile for Tom Yam Goong!

Day 3 in Bangkok - Eric's report

Wow!! Where to begin? I guess, technically I just completed day 2 since we arrived at 12:20pm on 4/28 and it is now 3:oo pm on 4/30... anyway, who cares. Point is, in the short time I have been here it has already been an adventure of a lifetime and with 27 or so days to go, I can only imagine what the future will hold. In 48hours I've seen extreme poverty, extreme wealth, extreme weather, extreme driving, extreme architecture and temples, and a stray dog crapping on the sidewalk.. lol.

Let's start with the food... I'm a huge Thai food fan and am literally in heaven right now. The food is AMAZING and cheap... we had a full dinner, 4 entrees and 3 beers (haha, I ate two plates our first meal it was so good) for $10!! Every meal I have eaten so far I have said... "this is the best food I have ever had!". No joke. Now, perhaps I have consumed dog, porcupine, and god knows what else, but it was damn good!

Traffic and congestion is insane here.... it's the most polluted city I have ever seen. Driving in from the airport (which is 50km from the airport... ha!, I said "kilometer") there was literally a yellow/brown cloud/haze over the entire city... 100x's worse than Los Angeles. A lot of people wear face masks (the surgical mask types) to protect them from the pollution. It's cloudy/overcast the entire time so far due to the pollution. The only way to describe driving and the traffic here is chaotic. We took a 3-wheeled tuk-tuk last night in rush hour traffic and I thought we were going to die about 20x's during our 20km-ish trip... I don't know how those guys do it, or how accidents don't happen every 5 seconds, but these drivers just have an odd sense of what's going on and somehow avoid what seems to be sure disaster. It's organized chaos as it's finest.... so many people in such a small place, everyone just sort of moves and gets around but from an outside perspective it's mind warping.


We went yesterday to Wat Pho ("wat" = "temple") aka "reclining Buddha"... it was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Massive. A giant statue of Buddha, lying on it's side made of pure gold. Unbelievable.

As soon as I figure out how to get pictures off of my camera I will start posting pics. Tomorrow evening we leave Bangkok for Trang, 16hrs south.