Thai cooking

One of the very excellent things about Chiang Mai is the plethora of courses you can take. Anything from traditional Thai massage to meditation to my favorite: cooking! I took a day-long cooking course from the Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School. I had such a great time! I made quick friends with some of the other people in the class, and really enjoyed both the cooking, and the food. It was a very professional set-up. First, you get an introduction to Thai ingredients, and the master chef demonstrates the dish you will be preparing (there were 6 dishes over the course of the day). Then, you go outside to your own cooking station and cook the dish for yourself! They were very accommodating for my vegetarian diet, although I ended up using fish sauce in everything--you really can't avoid it in Thai food, and I'm not all that strict about diet when I travel--it would prevent me from eating so many delicious things!

Tom Yum soup--spicy, lemon grassy, absolutely delicious! The best part is that it only took a few minutes to prepare (plus veggie and stock prep, which our friendly assistants largely did for us.)

Preparing to make green curry.

Me! Making a chopped mushroom salad.

For desert, 'rubies:' water chestnuts coated in tapioca flour with syrup and coconut cream. These were actually really good. The water chestnuts had a nice crunch to them, and the tapioca had that gummy bubble tea consistency. The red color is from food coloring.