Cooking tour in Chiang Mai

With my birthday coming up I decided to commemorate my 33rd year on the planet with my favourite activity (no...not trekking). Northern Thailand is fairly well known for its plethora of cooking classes so I made a beeline there on arriving in Thailand, not even stopping overnight in Bangkok.

Chiang Mai was such a contrast from Mumbai, India. I was expecting some of the chaos - traffic, horns, rubbish, stray dogs, the like - but the city was immaculate and, well, boring. Bargaining in markets? Done that to death. Tuk tuks? Doesn't have quite the living-on-the-edge feel of a cycle rickshaw. Should my drinks have ice in them? Please! All hail my invincible stomach of steel.

Am I sounding like a travel w*anker yet?

But there were some very charming and lovely aspects about the place from the orchids that decorated my pillows at the guest house, the lady boy that clapped with glee when I complemented the foam flower in the latte he served me, and, of course, there was the food fun that awaited me!

I had done a detailed search of the various cooking options (yeah, ok, I made a spreadsheet to analyse the best way to use my time) and decided to start with the Chiang Mai Cookery School. What I really wanted to do were the master classes, however they required a minimum of 2 people and, alas, there is just one of me. On signing up for the first class, however, I found out that they were holding a master class I could join in on that Friday night.

Day Class

Worked out quickly that this school was a machine of day classes for the non-foodie backpacker that finds cooking spring rolls interesting. Having said that, I am now versed in the ways of carving tomato lotuses (not well versed, mind you). The classes zoomed through the 5 dishes "Any questions? No? Good" style, which led me to throw a minor tantrum to myself at one stage (that information may come as a shock to you).

I was a touch disappointed with the whole day, really, and was planning on how to change cooking schools for the next few days...

...until the master class started!

Now we're talking

4 mortar/pestles full of various combinations of spices, lemongrass, coriander root, chili, and the like later...I was in heaven. We pounded the life out of the curry paste ingredients for a good 30 minutes trying to avoid getting chili in the eye (trust me, that HURTS).

Chef Sompon is quite well known - Neil Perry did a show with him, he used to have a restaurant in London & TV show on the BBC- so to have his nearly undivided attention on my technique (especially my knife skills, which are abysmal) was a great treat. I was actually learning something, it was fantastic!

In the class was Asa and Julia, a honeymooning couple from the US - fellow food appreciators - and a girl, Soo-yuan, from South Korea. Soo-yuan was keen to do the other master courses so we made arrangements to take all 5 of them over the course of the next few nights. As the 4 of us talked (and pounded our pestles) it became apparent that Soo-yuan's personality could pose a challenge for me over the coming nights. To call her flighty would be a serious understatement. She was grilling Asa, Julia & I on ways that she could make money without working.

And she didn't know the difference between ginger and garlic, which would be forgivable if her profession wasn't restaurateur in Seoul.

Later she revealed that she wanted to go to the CIA (culinary institute of america, a 4 year $100K degree) for cooking school. Oh, do you want to be a chef? "No I just want my staff to respect me". Um, perhaps then that's like going to Harvard Business School to manage a McDonald's, and your money would be better spent acquiring common bl*oody sense.

Silly women, man. I cannot deal with them.

Turns out I didn't have to, because she flaked out on the last 2 nights of our 5 nights of classes, including the one on my birthday! As you know, I hold a grudge...

Regardless...

The classes were magnificent, I learned a lot about not just Thai food - specifically seasoning appropriately - but more general near-professional kitchen skills. Though, Sompon still cringed when he saw me thinly slicing garlic 4 nights later conceding I "had improved". The fruits (and vegetables) of my labour can be seen on the corresponding photos.