Feast in Five

I “graduated” from Thai cooking school today  – it was great!   Since “today” is Tuesday the 4th, I spent a lot of time thinking about the election.   I’m about to  go to bed, and most of you are still sleeping as I write.   The polls in the Pacific time zone still aren’t open for a few more hours.   I am going on a jungle trek starting tomorrow morning and won’t be  back for three days.   Part of me is bummed  to be missing the big day, but I suppose the results will be the same either way!

This morning, at 8:30, I got to pick the five Thai dishes I wanted to learn.   Two other participants in the class, Nicole and Tina (from Germany) picked Pad Thai, so I didn’t.   Instead I learned the local curry – delicious and thick, spicy glass noodle salad – YUM, spicy green papya salad – light and limey, egg rolls, and mango with sticky rice – excellent!

We headed to the market first to buy the ingredients that our instructor, Sut (rhymes with loot), didn’t already have.   Among the most interesting sights  were the dried shrimp, the many kinds of fruit, the live fish, the unripe jackfruit, and the coconut.

Fruit! In the center looking sort of  like a pineapple (or a porcupine!) is the unripe jackfruit – eaten like a vegetable in this stage. Directly under that are the enormous local grapefruits. In the right foreground and mangos and my beloved pinhas  behind them (the bumpy green ones). My favorite new fruit is the small, round, brown blobs in boxes on the floor in the foreground. They look dirty and icky on the outside, but you peel away a tangerine-like skin to reveal a yummy, clear, sweet globe of fruit. I’ll learn the name soon!

I should also take a few minutes to tell you about Sut, who has the classic chef attitude.   He is also straight out of a movie, as everything he says in English is practically chanted.   Every word in the same tone of voice, and very serious but also with a good sense of humor.   He was one of the best parts of the day!

First, we made our coconut milk and cream by hand.   At the market you go to the coconut grinder.   You tell him how much raw coconut you want ground, and he puts it through the shredding machine.   Then, when you get home, you  put it in a pot,  pour in a cup or so  of hot water, a few cups of cold water, and then knead  the coconut for about two minutes. Then you wring it out  a handful at a time.   This makes coconut cream.   You  repeat the whole  process a second time to make the coconut milk.

We prepared all our ingredients in advance, so that the cooking was just a matter of standing at the wok or pot and stirring and  dumping ingredients.   We made one dish at a time, stopping in between to sample our handy work (and package up the inevitable “take away” with so much food!).   After the three main  dishes, we had an hour break before we came back to make  “snack” and  dessert.

All the  snack foods were  fried, so I chose the option I’d  be most likely to make – the egg rolls (spring rolls?).   Then it was time to prepare the sticky rice.   A little slice of heaven!   The nutritionist in me grimaced at all the oil and sugar that went into every single dish.   I’ll  serve up my education to anyone who wants a taste of authentic Thai, but I don’t think I’ll be making myself sugar and oil dinners every night!

On an ending note – I just want to remind everyone (Mom.) that I’m going to be  incommunicado for a few days (and maybe several – am also thinking about doing a multi-day river trip into Laos).   I originally wasn’t going to do a trek here, as I was worried about the un-negated negative effects on the hill people at whose villages we will we spending the nights.   However, we found an agent who put part of the trek proceeds toward village projects that are designed and decided on through the village headman.   So – don’t worry and wish me luck in my jungle mosquito  battle!