April 28th Chiang Mai Cooking School and Shooting Range

What a wonderful day! I felt liked I learned to cook some really good food! I left this morning at 8:30 to go to cooking@home thai culinary school and lucked out that there was only 1 other person in my class, a fellow from Hawaii, Larry, whose significant other was doing the thai massage course for a week. Coincidentaly it is at the same place we will be next week.  As Larry is signed up for the rest of the week at the cooking school, I thought maybe I could get David to come tomorrow.  After the excellent tour of the local market, where Noi showed us all the produce in the market including the lemon basil, holy basil (thai basil), sweet basil (regular basil), and the various kinds of ginger, mushrooms, eggplants etc.

The three ladies who taught the cooking during the course are Aor, Noi and Pom.  They have been in the culinary school business since 1993. Aor and Noi are very experienced teachers. Pom was for many years the office manager at the Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School.  Aor and Noi joined the CM Cookery school as cooking teachers in 2000. Noi moved down to Phuket and worked as the head teacher at the Phuket Thai Cookery School until 2009, while Aor remained teaching and improving her skills at the CM Thai Cookery School, where until 2009 she was the lead cooking instructor. In 2010 they banded together and opened their own school.  I was so impressed today that I went to Trip Advisor and posted a review of their school!

Below is all the food I cooked and ate today:

Steamed fish soufflé in banana leaves - Hor mok plaa (A mixture of fish and curry paste steamed in a banana cup that imparts a special aroma)

Thai red curry paste - Nam prik gaeng ped (The original and classic Thai paste that is used in a variety of curry soup dishes.)

Red curry with roasted duck - Gaeng ped ped yang (An unforgettably delicious curry soup that combines fresh fruit and roasted duck)

Fried chicken with cashew nuts - Gai phad med ma muang him ma pran (Stir-fried chicken with the fantastic nutty flavor of roasted cashews, cooked with dried chilies, onion, garlic, and sauces.)

Deep-fried fish cakes - Towd man plaa (Ground fish, deep-fried and spiced with curry paste, then served with a sweet chili sauce.)

Glutinous rice balls in coconut milk - Bau loi song krueng (This old-school Thai dessert is named for its appearance. Tiny colorful beads made of glutinous rice flour are served in a pond of sweetened coconut milk.)

I got home around 3pm with a full tummy and a doggie bag for David.  He had taken a tuk-tuk out of town to a shooting range and worked with a colt 45 pistol and a ruger 22 rifle to amuse himself while I was gone.  We then went to the gym that we had joined at the Centara Duangtawan hotel.  We managed to get there before the full load of people off work flooded the place which was nice.

We ate in for dinner and tomorrow I told David no breakfast because you start eating your first bit of cooked food around 10 am!  David is now learning about Facebook and I am doing the blog.