Cooking With Fire

Yesterday we got to see an old acquaintance, Permpoon Nabnian, who runs "the Best Thai Cookery School." I took his class last time I was in Chiang Mai and was excited to do it again, partly because I knew I ha forgotten some techniques and partly because of its general awesomeness.

First, we were delightedly surprised to find that our truck stopped in front of Clair and Siobhan's guesthouse (we knew they were doing a cooking class, too, but we thought they were going to a different one).

The truck was not designed for 17 people to ride, so these two had to hang onto the back.

After picking everyone up, we went to the local market to find fresh fruits and vegetables. We bought the ingredients for our dishes and then we were on our way to Permpoon's house. Also picked up a few tricks along the way: pick limes that are easy to squeeze, choose eggs that are very small (small eggs mean younger hens), and the pink eggs come from pink hens (just kidding, they were duck eggs that were dyed pink).

Throughout the day, we cooked lots of dishes. We made: curry paste, a curry of our choice (I did paneang), papaya salad (not what you're thinking), chicken with cashew nuts, sticky rice with mango, phad thai, and spring rolls. It was delicious =P

Showing off some papaya salad (made from very young, green papayas) with tomato, peanuts, chilis, lime juice, fish sauce, etc.)

Perm did some fruit and vegetable carving for us. He made a tomato flower and then a tomato butterfly on top