Saturday, April 17

Today, Roman and I went to a Thai cooking class! Oh, he is being such a sport, doing all the touristy things I want to do.

Such a sport

I am mostly going to rely on pictures to tell this story, because it's late in the afternoon as I write this, and I find I don't have many words. Anyway, the school is located just off Silom Road, and is pretty adorable. Everything is so carefully thought out—the painted ceramic plates, the traditional Thai fabrics, the flowers and plants.

Roman at the long table where we did our cooking prep (the stoves are to the left)

The adjoining room (which they've converted to a restaurant, since so few tourists are coming to take cooking classes during the pandemic)

Even the sinks in the bathroom are cute.

Roman and I were the only ones taking the class—which wasn't surprising, given the dearth of tourists in Bangkok right now. When we first arrived, they brought us still-warm coconut and pandan custards (and hot coffee for Roman) and told us to make ourselves at home.

So excited for the class

Coconut custards

Our cooking instructor—whose name, I'm sorry to say, I instantly forgot—was lovely; funny and affable and full of knowledge. She encouraged us to ask questions and to take lots of pictures, and she went out of her way to make sure we had a good experience.

After the coffee, our instructor led us on a short walk to the local market, where she told us all about buying fresh coconut, spices and dried shrimps, and chilies and vegetables. She also patiently answered all my questions about the different kinds of produce (so many green leafy vegetables!) and how they're used.

At the market with our instructor

Walking back to the classroom

And then we began to cook. We started out by steaming some sticky rice and pandan in a bamboo steamer for our dessert (mango sticky rice).

Next, we made red curry paste from scratch, pounding all the ingredients to death in a stone mortar and pestle.

All the curry paste ingredients, before we got to work chopping and mincing

Roman literally and figuratively crushing it

Next we made a Thai omelet salad, which maybe sounds strange? Really, it was a larb made with shredded omelet instead of chicken or pork. We cooked two beaten eggs over high heat in a wok, then shredded it in a bowl and added all the herbs, fish sauce, chili powder, lime juice, and toasted rice powder.

Omelet larb ingredients

Our instructor then showed us how to make a rose from a tomato peel, which is a neat trick I will probably never attempt again.

Omelet larb with basil, mint, and tomato-rose garnish. Delicious.

Next, we used the curry paste to make a pineapple red curry with shrimp.

Pineapple red curry ingredients

The teacher showing us how to cook the shrimp (she had really specific instructions about letting the shrimp
cook just until the tails turn pink and then stirring the curry, or else--she said--the whole curry would taste fishy)

The finished curries

Then we made Roman's favorite meal from q-tine, pad krapow gai, or stir-fried chicken with holy basil. Which I apparently didn't get any preparation pictures of. I guess we were busy? Somewhere in there we also made coconut cream, and mixed it with the sticky rice for our dessert, and then made more coconut cream for the topping. Someone else working at the cooking school prepped the mango behind the scenes. And then we sat down to a feast.

Pineapple red curry with shrimp, rice, spicy chicken with basil, mango sticky rice (the omelet larb we ate earlier)

It was all delicious. We didn't come close to finishing anything, and we were still so full.

It's a touristy thing to do, but I'm so glad we took the class. I mean, there's not much spontaneity to it—everything from the market visit to the amount of fish sauce we used had been pre-planned to make things easy for us. But you learn so much about food when you actually prepare it—and I think you learn something about a culture by learning about its food. The cooking techniques were not as fussy as the ones I learned in France (is anyone fussier in the kitchen than French professionals?) but technique and, particularly, making things look beautiful is still key. Most important though, I think, is the balance of flavors—if a dish is supposed to be sweet and spicy (red curry) or salty and sour (omelet larb) or sweet and salty (mango sticky rice) that those flavors are meant to be pronounced and to be in harmony.

And actually, we were free to add a little more fish sauce, if we wanted to (and we did want to).

After the class, we took the BTS to a mall that's known for having a vast array of affordable shops. Roman needed to pick up some throwaway clothes, and I got some yoga pants, a reusable water bottle, and a vegetable peeler with an embossed image of a cat.