December 9, 2006
Rest Day in Kanchanaburi: Thai Cooking Class
Today, breakfast at Apple's around 8 am where Rachel will have her Thai Cooking class. Patrick has plans for the day like cleaning the bikes.
Around 9:20, Rachel returns to the restaurant and is shown a place to sit at a long table. A German couple finally joins her, they are medical students, and eventually there were a total of 12 around the table. We are given red aprons and the instructor begins the class with introducing herself.
The class will not be going to the market because there are some in the group that have to be done by 1400 to return to Bangkok. After this group leaves, she will show us more dishes to prepare. We are shown to the back of the kitchen where there are large stainless steel tables with 4 workstations with woks. The instructor demonstrates making the stock for Tom Yam and then one version. The next dish is a coconut based soup before moving on to a spicy beef Thai salad. We tasted each dish with either the fork or spoon we were each given at the beginning of the class. Following this is a demonstration of pad Thai and in groups of 2 we each have a go. The rice noodles are to be soaked in Cold water for about 5 minutes before stir frying.
The next dishes are masaman curry, red curry and green curry. The basic spices for a Thai kitchen include: fish sauce, soy sauce, sugar, lime juice and some kind of curry paste. The rest depends upon what is at hand. The group that was returning to Bangkok left to eat the dishes just prepared. The instructor repeated the dishes this time with us...trying...to make them. She makes it look so easy and added an additional bamboo shoot vegetable dish. These dishes Rachel didn't stay to try, she was full from the Pad Thai, returning to the bungalows by 2:15.
We took a walk to the War Museum and Research Center. This is very nicely done, and we both realized that Thailand had signed an agreement with Japan which was new to us. Walking through the cemetery is also very sobering. We bought some flowers from the museum to place on the grave of an unknown Dutch soldier.
Dinner at our hotel, we visit with an older Australian couple that was on yesterday's tour and then turn in early. We move on tomorrow.
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