Iron Chef Thailand

Yesterday we decided to try our hand at Thai cooking. We booked a full-day course at the Siam Rice Thai Cookery School. Our guide/instructor/Iron Chef Thailand picked us up in the morning and took us to a local market where he attempted to get us to understand the differences between local Thai vegetables, spices, and roots. I was not very good at this game, but a Brazilian in our group who was a chef in his country did quite well at this game. Pot (our instructor) showed us all of the ingredients we would need to cook with, all things that we hope we will be able to find in our local supermarkets although it remains to be seen just how well stocked Trader Joe's really is. With ingredients in hand, we went back to his school where there was a grid of cooking stations set up for our use. Over the course of the day, Pot instructed us to each cook 7 dishes (14 dishes between the two of us). My courses: chicken in coconut milk soup, pad thai, spicy glass noodles salad, fried cashew nut with chicken, green curry paste, green curry with chicken and vegetables, and sweet sticky rice with mango. Vanessa's courses: hot and sour soup, pad see ew, papaya salad, sweet basil stir fry, red curry paste, red curry with chicken and vegetables, and banana in coconut milk.

We ate each of our dishes over the course of several hours, which was not nearly enough time to digest before we had our next dish. Also, since it was Vanessa's birthday, Pot cooked a special dessert, Thai custard served in a hollowed out taro root. It wasn't as good as a Carvel cake, but it was close.

After the full day of gorging, we made our way to a local yoga class taught by a British ex-pat living in the city with his Thai wife and 22-day old baby. For a man of inner peace, he seemed a bit frazzled by the new addition. Nonetheless, it felt good to move, stretch, and move the 12 pounds of food we had eaten through our systems. We were exhausted at the end of the day and were asleep by 10.