Early, and I mean eaarrrrly, Friday morning the golfers - my dad, Uncle Mike and Haike - took off for one of Chiang Mai's best courses. I don't know too much about the trip except that it was Haike's first time golfing and at one point his caddy pointed at him and said, "more practice." I also know that he came back with a new nickname from my dad and Mike...Tiger Woods. AND that it was hot, hot, hot and they came back pink, pink, pink! Whoops! (I've mentioned in previous blogs that Chinese people will do anything to be whiter, not darker SO this golf trip led to a series of whitening face masks for Haike over the next day so that he wouldn't be too dark for the wedding!)
A few hours later 11 of us ladies (and Dietrich :) were gathering to get to our 1/2-day Thai cooking class when another van load of people pulled up. Haike's Chinese friends and co-workers had made it! I quickly welcomed Theresa, Amy, Dabi, Jingjing, Herbert, Chai and Wang Ying, apologizing to them that we had to leave and urging them to get settled and make themselves at home! Then, off to learn the specialties that we'd been feasting on all week!
Our first stop was at a local market where our guide showed us the differences between the most commonly used kinds of rice, a large assortment of vegetables and how to make coconut juice from a fresh coconut. She let us wander around the market for a while, a novelty to most of the Americans but just everyday life for Yiqi and I! I just prayed that some of them stayed away from the meat and fish area!!! :) Kristi had an unexpected surprise when she asked for a Pepsi and got handed a plastic bag full of Pepsi with a straw sticking out the top! Hahaha!
Our next stop was the cooking school. We got our aprons on, our individual cooking stations ready and glanced through our free cookbooks! We also learned that we would be making 4 dishes - Thai Hot and Sour Prawn Soup (with our without coconut cream), Green Curry with Chicken, Steamed Banana Cake and - what was it - some kind of Stir-Fried Chicken with Ginger?? I forget...
Preparing to cook...
For each dish that we made, we first went into an air-conditioned (heavenly air-conditioned!) room to learn how to make it. Our guides led us through each dish step-by-step while we watched in the helpfully placed mirror on the ceiling...see below. Then, we went back outside to our stations, each of us chanting little tunes in our heads to remember the order - "One spoon of this, half a spoon of that...chop, smash, cut, cook. What's the order again?" We cooked, ate and then prepared some more!
Lindsey and I with our soup...
Overall, the morning was great fun! We learned how to make some fancy dishes, if only they can be replicated back home! Our guides were fun, too, and the morning passed by extremely quickly.
The one last thing I should mention before the next post...when we got back to the resort, the golfers had also just arrived. Haike was getting some lunch and as he sat at the table, one of those little geckos decided to jump from the table to his stomach and crawl up his chest! Haha! I wish I could have seen it...I guess he just grabbed it and threw it off. I'm not sure I would have been so calm...
Part 2 of Friday - rehearsal!
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