Up at 5 a.m. this morning and out on the balcony to work offline...but the wifi is is occasionally reaching me. Doesn't stay long. : ) There is a street light, so I can see across our little street and down a bit to a sign for laundry...B40 per kilo...so a little more than a dollar. I will take my laundry to them this morning and pick it up tomorrow afternoon.
Here it Thailand, It is already December 21, which of course, is the first day of Winter, but more importantly to me, is Cyrus’ birthday! Happy Birthday, dear one from around the world. What a time I had carrying you...so sick--pregnant nausea-- most of the pregnancy...and finally getting you to decide to make your appearance...the drive to Stanford...the waiting...and finally meeting you. Your coming at Christmastime made the celebration unusually tender. Such a blessing! Hope you feel that love in spite of all of my parenting foibles! And watching you be a Papa is an almost deeper joy! Micah and Alice are so blessed to have you. God’s blessings are abundant! 
We celebrated Cyrus’ birthday as the dessert part of our Family Christmas...three layer Chocolate Buttermilk Cake with dark chocolate for one filling, a fresh raspberry for the other and a fluffy marshmallow icing on top. Yum!
And now, back in Thailand…Simeon, this post is totally for you, my cooking fish sauce son!
What a wonderful day yesterday--Tuesday--was! I never dreamed I’d have the opportunity to have a Thai cooking class actually in Thailand!! A fabulous experience!
A van picked us up right at our Guest House just after 8:30 a.m. We had been up and had breakfast, where to my great joy there were plain, regular, familiar warm hard boiled eggs. (Discovering that joy is coming in very small and odd packages!) Hard boiled eggs, toast, a slice of ham...glad for the comfort of the taste of home.
There were already folks in the van. A couple from San Diego...a little younger than me, I think. She does computer type stuff from home for a large company who has other large companies as their accounts. He keeps the home fires burning and has done a variety of jobs over the years. Likes the variety and being the main cook for the family. Another young couple were Russians who are in the UK on an education visa...he is getting his doctorate in Computer Science...data analysis (can’t remember if she was also in school). Another couple were from New Zealand...he works in the music industry and she is starting a new job at a gender equality non profit. We picked up another couple at a rather posh hotel. They were from NYC. She works for Facebook and he works in finance...something about buying debt on commercial properties. So add in Indira, farmer, and myself, teacher, and you have Joyzaa’s Team! Joyzaa was our guide and teacher for the day.
Our first stop was at a market where Joyzaa let us through explaining about the ingredients for what we would be cooking. Our first lesson was all about rice--sticky rice and long grained. That’s Joyzaa on the right.
The importance of coconut in Thai food. Did you know you can IV infuse green coconut milk to a person if they need fluids? This machine is a shredder and she is showing how much coconut milk can be squeezed out of freshly shredded coconut.
This little cutie was playing peek-a-boo with her parents who were vendors. You could tell that as she wanders just a bit, that she knew right where her boundaries were.
And everywhere bananas. They are smaller that what we get in the states and more yellow, but totally simply bananas. Fun to see them at all stages growing everywhere.
From the market we went out to the organic farm where the cooking school takes place. This is a papaya tree...sorry the papayas are a bit blurry there toward the top of the tree. The farm grows all the vegetables, and even more importantly, the herbs & spices, used in the cooking class.
Our class (of 10 students) was in an open air shelter, with each person having their own cooking station...prep area and stove. In addition to the teacher, there were two support staff who were kept busy prepping and cleaning up. Really well done! It was a delightfully warm, but not hot day with periodic breezes.
My individual work station.
A tour through the gardens showing the various things we would be using. Hats for sun shade.
Sticky rice is soaked at least 4 hours then steamed, not boiled. Here it is in the bamboo basket over the “pan” filled with water and will later be placed directly on the stove for 30 minutes.
When she discussed Long Grain rice prep, I was so pleased that while she gave the 2 cups of water per cup of rice ratio, she also shared the “finger joint” method of adding water to a pot with unmeasured rice. I learned about that method from CO folks who had been in Asia during the Vietnam War and shared this simple measureless method of cooking rice. I use it all the time without failures. Made me feel like quite the insider while she explained it!
The couple from NYC--his parents were born in Taiwan, but have most all of their lives in the US. She’s a native New Yorker. BTW she’s not on her phone...she’s taking a picture. This is a good view of the prep area...a long row of sinks/drain boards...then off to the right are several prepping work tables.
The first order of business is making the curry paste. These are the ingredients.
This is how you make it…
...and this is what it looks like when you’re done. It would just sit for the rest of the morning until we actually made the curry in the early afternoon. I made green, but you could also make red or yellow, which is what Indira made.
Next up was a choice of making either Tom Yam Soup or Tom Kha Soup (Coconut Milk Soup) either with either chicken, shrimp or tofu. I made the Tom Kha---it was amazing!! This was my ingredients plate after I had done the chopping (except the meat came ready to go). Notice the separated piles...those are the grouping for adding. Loved the organization of this process!
Cooking in the coconut milk…notice the two bottles at the top of the photo. One is fish sauce...a staple in Thai cooking and used very liberally and soya sauce...a little different than the soy sauce I buy. Not sure how….will have to ask Martha.
And our finished soup. We all adjourned to the tables to enjoy! The couple from San Diego in the background.
Back to the teaching table where the prep folks have made the flow of the class so smooth. Here are the trays of ingredients for Pad Thai. Joyzaa then showed how we needed to further prep each item.
Here’s my tray of prepped ingredients ready for the wok!
And my finished product. So yummy! I’ve always done my eggs separately and then added them into any of my stirfried dishes, but I learned how to do them perfectly insitu. Once again we adjourned to the tables and ate the results of our labors. It was cook to be cooking for one--me--which mean I could adjust the chilies and fish sauce to suit me. I think it’s odd that I like a light flavoring of fish sauce but don’t like fish. Indira who likes fish just doesn’t care for the heavy fish sauce flavor.
Curry, stir fry with Basil and Chicken and dessert yet to come!!
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