Chiang Mai Cooking School

It was quite wonderful to be back in Chiang Mai again. Robert, Laurie, Glenn and I were there way back in 1990, my first big trip across the globe. We liked it, and it still has all the charm it did back then.

Many of you know that I read a wonderful book before I left called "First Trip Around the World" a Planning Guide to the Ultimate Adventure. It had all kinds of great advice, including taking only one carry-on sized bag - an excellent tip.

One of the many things it recommended was taking cooking classes as you travel. I took and enjoyed a class in Udaipur, India, plus we had an informal one in Kerala. When the opportunity came up for one in Chiang Mai, I jumped at it, as did 3 others in my GAP group.

We were joined by quite a few others from other guest houses, and a total of 20 of us took the course. They were well organized and had several instructors. We each got to cook 6 courses, with about 5 choices in each course - amazing.

We started at a local market, shopping for ingreadients, and being taught about the spices and vegetables we did not know about. We hopped into our tuk-tuks and headed for the school.

We each wore a name tag, with our name written phonetically in Thai for our instructor to understand. She in turn, wrote her name phonetically in English - Meow (like cat, as she said).

She was absolutely hilarious, and a good cooking teacher to boot. My second favourite line of the day (spoken in a high sing song Thai accent)... "you put lots of chilis in... very good, taste good, but next day your ass sore..." Best line of the day.... "wash your hands after touching chillis, don't touch your eyes... gentlemen, wash hands before going to the bathroom, otherwise you get chilli-willy". She had us in stiches most of the day.














I got a cookbook, and learned to make -

Breakfast chicken curry garnished with crispy noodles
Tom Yan Soup
Green Chicken Curry
Chicken Stir Fry with Cashews
Mango with Sticky Rice

And yes, I will have you all over for a fabulous Thai (and Indian) dinner when I return!