Thailand day 5, cookery school and artisan market
Day 5: 23 Jan. 2011 - Cookery school, also day 5
It wasn't any easier waking up this morning. The alarm went off at 08:30 but I don't think I was out of bed until 08:50, and Matt even later. Downstairs, we found Nog in the kitchen, prepping for kitchen. We met her yesterday when she brought in our cleaned laundry. Nog is from Myanmar, and she seems very sweet, but her English is limited to "coffee? Tea?" and "good morning."
We went out to the breakfast area, but this morning it was mostly English breakfast, fried tomatoes, bacon, sausage, toast and fried egg, followed by strawberries in creamy yoghurt with a sweet black sauce that Jennifer identified as maple syrup, but which seems different. Then fruit plate. Papaya, oranges, dragon fruit, ummm. Yum.
There was a little time before the other students showed up, so I wandered the gardens a bit. Then we all sat down in the class dining area to learn to carve vegetables. We made roses and lotus flowers from tomatoes, and leaves from carrots.
Then it was time to cook. We made:
1. Tom jued: clear soup with minced pork
Eat.
2. Paw pia tord: fried spring rolls
Eat
3. Gaeng phed ped yang: red curry with roast duck
4. Gai phad king: chicken with ginger
Eat
5. Gai hor bai toey: chicken in pandanus leaves (fave today)
6. Khao neow mamuang: mango with sticky rice
Eat.
It's 15:30 now and Pon will take us into town at 17:00, so I'm finally getting some time to blog. Apparently the market tonight is more a local artisan's market, which I am greatly looking forward to.
Side note: it is REALLY hard not to put 2 spaces after a period. I was taught to do that in typing class in junior high. On a typewriter. Yes, really.
Note from later:
The Sunday night artisan market WAS great. When we got there it was pretty early, so uncrowded. There was a puppeteer near the entrance by the 3 kings monument, and a group of young people promoting AIDS prevention. One of them was dressed as a giant green condom, and was distributing free condoms. :) All the young men in the group looked just slightly embarrassed.
The 4 of us meandered down the first stretch in order to determine a meeting place for later. On the way, I stopped and ordered an iced drink/dessert made with strong tea, canned milk, and cubes of a jelly made from some kind of herb. It was black. Tasty. After we split up, Matt and I wandered up and down, turning here and there. At one point, a song began over the loudspeakers and everyone was suddenly standing still at attention. It must have been the national anthem. I was very glad I noticed right away, as I saw many other groups of tourists taking much longer to figure it out. A little girl near us was energetically singing along, which was carrying well in the relative silence.
We bought a few things, a couple of pairs of pants and a bedspread. We tried various foods. I took pictures of some of the prettier foods. We also found more of the bamboo sticky rice, which we bought in order to also share with Don and Paola. One of my favorite things was a cold drink which was served in a bamboo "cup." I couldn't bear to throw the cup away when finished, so we went back to the man's stall and gave it back.
There were musicians and performers. Quite memorably, one group of young men who had seated themselves in the middle of the walkway, in a line on the ground, playing pop cover songs. The singer was completely off-key. I'm not sure he even knew the songs, either!
We also passed a wat. Matt has been wondering that he doesn't see religion as part of daily life visibly here, strangely, with all the monks and free-ranging monks around. (yes, that's a joke. The mag on the plane referred to Chiang Mai's "freely roaming monks," and it sounded like free-range chickens to me... Should they be chained to the wat? :) ). I saw numerous people stop to bow and clasp their hands at the Buddha statues around the wat or two.
Did I mention that although there were certainly tourists here, it was mostly packed with locals? Lots of locals. By 7:30 or so, you could barely move.
At 8:30, we met Don and Paola again, and they'd run into Mads and Julie, a Danish couple who'd left Sompon's a day or so before we got there. We all went to a bar near where we'd arranged to meet Pon at 10. At the bar, the waitress tried to lure us into the small indoor space with n offer of 2 for 1 drinks, but the seating inside wasn't great for 6 together, and we preferred outside. None of us really cared about the 2 for 1 offer anyway. I was toasted off just one zombie. Local rum is hardcore.
We met up with Pon, who drove us home. Long day, and tomorrow we have day and night courses!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
It wasn't any easier waking up this morning. The alarm went off at 08:30 but I don't think I was out of bed until 08:50, and Matt even later. Downstairs, we found Nog in the kitchen, prepping for kitchen. We met her yesterday when she brought in our cleaned laundry. Nog is from Myanmar, and she seems very sweet, but her English is limited to "coffee? Tea?" and "good morning."
We went out to the breakfast area, but this morning it was mostly English breakfast, fried tomatoes, bacon, sausage, toast and fried egg, followed by strawberries in creamy yoghurt with a sweet black sauce that Jennifer identified as maple syrup, but which seems different. Then fruit plate. Papaya, oranges, dragon fruit, ummm. Yum.
There was a little time before the other students showed up, so I wandered the gardens a bit. Then we all sat down in the class dining area to learn to carve vegetables. We made roses and lotus flowers from tomatoes, and leaves from carrots.
Then it was time to cook. We made:
1. Tom jued: clear soup with minced pork
Eat.
2. Paw pia tord: fried spring rolls
Eat
3. Gaeng phed ped yang: red curry with roast duck
4. Gai phad king: chicken with ginger
Eat
5. Gai hor bai toey: chicken in pandanus leaves (fave today)
6. Khao neow mamuang: mango with sticky rice
Eat.
It's 15:30 now and Pon will take us into town at 17:00, so I'm finally getting some time to blog. Apparently the market tonight is more a local artisan's market, which I am greatly looking forward to.
Side note: it is REALLY hard not to put 2 spaces after a period. I was taught to do that in typing class in junior high. On a typewriter. Yes, really.
Note from later:
The Sunday night artisan market WAS great. When we got there it was pretty early, so uncrowded. There was a puppeteer near the entrance by the 3 kings monument, and a group of young people promoting AIDS prevention. One of them was dressed as a giant green condom, and was distributing free condoms. :) All the young men in the group looked just slightly embarrassed.
The 4 of us meandered down the first stretch in order to determine a meeting place for later. On the way, I stopped and ordered an iced drink/dessert made with strong tea, canned milk, and cubes of a jelly made from some kind of herb. It was black. Tasty. After we split up, Matt and I wandered up and down, turning here and there. At one point, a song began over the loudspeakers and everyone was suddenly standing still at attention. It must have been the national anthem. I was very glad I noticed right away, as I saw many other groups of tourists taking much longer to figure it out. A little girl near us was energetically singing along, which was carrying well in the relative silence.
We bought a few things, a couple of pairs of pants and a bedspread. We tried various foods. I took pictures of some of the prettier foods. We also found more of the bamboo sticky rice, which we bought in order to also share with Don and Paola. One of my favorite things was a cold drink which was served in a bamboo "cup." I couldn't bear to throw the cup away when finished, so we went back to the man's stall and gave it back.
There were musicians and performers. Quite memorably, one group of young men who had seated themselves in the middle of the walkway, in a line on the ground, playing pop cover songs. The singer was completely off-key. I'm not sure he even knew the songs, either!
We also passed a wat. Matt has been wondering that he doesn't see religion as part of daily life visibly here, strangely, with all the monks and free-ranging monks around. (yes, that's a joke. The mag on the plane referred to Chiang Mai's "freely roaming monks," and it sounded like free-range chickens to me... Should they be chained to the wat? :) ). I saw numerous people stop to bow and clasp their hands at the Buddha statues around the wat or two.
Did I mention that although there were certainly tourists here, it was mostly packed with locals? Lots of locals. By 7:30 or so, you could barely move.
At 8:30, we met Don and Paola again, and they'd run into Mads and Julie, a Danish couple who'd left Sompon's a day or so before we got there. We all went to a bar near where we'd arranged to meet Pon at 10. At the bar, the waitress tried to lure us into the small indoor space with n offer of 2 for 1 drinks, but the seating inside wasn't great for 6 together, and we preferred outside. None of us really cared about the 2 for 1 offer anyway. I was toasted off just one zombie. Local rum is hardcore.
We met up with Pon, who drove us home. Long day, and tomorrow we have day and night courses!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad