Cooking Class in Chiang Mai

Richard and I have spent the last couple days in Chiang Mai. We took it easy two days ago, wandering around the artsy university neighborhood, reconnecting with some friends we made when we were taking our course, and checking out the Chiang Mai Museum of Insects and Natural Wonders, which was weird quirky and seemed to exist mostly to convince visitors that mosquitoes are wonderful, benevolent creatures. Yesterday, we took a cooking class, which was amazing. We got to spend the whole day with this guy:

He should have his own cooking show. He is endless entertainment, and taught us how to make some great stuff. We started off the class with a trip to the market where we learned about all the different vegetables and herbs that we would be using:


Then we chopped:


We massaged ground coconut with water to make coconut cream:


Then we cooked! We each chose five dishes, so we got to see at least 15 different dishes prepared throughout the day.


Some of Richard's and my handiwork:




We also learned how to make roses out of tomatoes, which was way too hard, but looked really cool:


One other student and I picked som-tam, the spicy papaya salad, so I finally got to try out a mortar and pestle:



Mmm, som-tam:


I was really impressed with the class. The food tasted great, and if I can recreate it at home, it will certainly help ease the transition back to American cuisine.