Cooking in Chiang Mai

I headed back to Chiang Mai from Pai only because it would be cheaper to get to Laos and I hadn't seen much of the city before I left for my trek.

I stayed within the city walls again and as soon as I arrived and settled in to my room I looked for a cooking class. I signed up for an organic farm cooking class for the next day, they can do vegetarian dishes and, most importantly, they teach you how to make both green papaya salad and pad thai, two of my favorite dishes!

I was picked up at 9:00 AM and it was then that I realized that I forgot to ask how large a group we would be. I am always more interested in the smaller, more intimate groups where you aren't overwhelmed with the number of people. Our instructer assured me that there were only 6 people total in the class for the day, thankfully! Oddly enough our group was comprised of 5 Americans and 1 Australian. This was the first time that I have been in the majority in any sort of tourist group that I was a part of. One of the Americans actually lives in Bangkok and she spoke enough Thai to be able to speak to the people at the farm, which was cool.

Our first stop was at the local market, outside of the city so you knew that only the locals were using it. Our instructor taught us about the different types of rice (there a lot more than I realized) and how to identify them. The rice used to make sticky rice (a staple here) is a solid white whereas the standard steamed rice is more translucent. She also explained all of the different types of sauces that are used, the kind of sauces that you can buy in a bottle fortunately. She also took us to where coconut milk and cream are produced. I never knew the difference before but the cream is made from the entire coconut ground up and then pressed through a special machine and the milk has water added to dilute it. I had fun wandering through the market before we left. I found a stall that sold fried bugs of all sizes and shapes. If you are wondering, no, I wasn't adventureous enough to actually eat any, I only took a photo!

From the market we were taken further out into the countryside to the organic farm where we were going to learn to cook for the day. There was already another group of people at the farm when we arrived involved in the preperations of their food. They were cooking in the one area and we headed to a covered area built over a small pond with 6 cooking stations for us. First our instructor took us around the farm and showed us all of the plants that were being grown organically, so we would know what they looked like. Having a love of plants made this very interesting to me. It was even more so because I was unfamiliar with most of the things that I had been eating since coming to S.E. Asia. Of all of the plants that I was shown the kafir lime plant and the small, round eggplant stand out in my mind.