Pad Thai Cookery School and "Meow"

"Meow" came to pick us up at 930 am. Yes, her name is Meow, like the cat. In fact, she was even wearing a T-shirt with a cat on it, presumably to help us remember. We joined up with a British guy, Brazilian girl and 2 older couples from Holland. Meow let us choose the dishes we wanted to make on the ride to the market...

Once at the market, she compiled a grocery list and we went inside the local Thai grocery store...it was quite a place. She passed on her list to various vendors inside who got to work putting together her groceries (I think I'm going to suggest this to Superfresh when I get home), while she led us around and showed us various typical Thai ingredients...including fish pastes (yuck), oyster sauces, chilis, veggies, etc. About 30 minutes later the vendors had compiled all her ingredients and we packed back into the pick up for the 20 minute drive to the "Pad Thai Cookery School"...

It was a beautiful, open-air location. Aligned on the left side of the room were woks upon individual stove tops and a grated wooden window panel that stretched the length of the room. In the center was a wooden table with stools, and off to the right was a low-set table with cushions on the floor, affectionately called "The Party Room"...where we were to eat our creations...

We slipped off our shoes, as Meow is Buddhist, and got to work. First, she made name tags for all of us with our names written out in Thai. We each got an apron and a quick safety lesson and then it was to work!

First was Thai breakfast...I chose to make Pad Thai. Meow's boyfriend passed out trays with all our ingredients in it. She sat at the head of the table and instructed us on how to prepare the dish...cutting the veggies, shredding the spices, etc...(by the way, Meow's instruction was much more organized than the Resaurant School's "free for all" method)

Then she demonstrated the correct way to make Pad Thai...I took notes, it's complicated! How do the street vendors make it look so simple?! To my surprise, I did make my first Pad Thai and it was actually quite good :) could have been a bit spicier though...

Moving right along, I chose fresh noodle spring rolls as my appetizer. We cooked the veggies first, then learned the art of rolling the spring rolls (this section I failed). The rolled rolls then were placed in a huge steamer for 1o minutes and were pretty tasty even though mine were falling apart...

Instead of soup, I chose to make green papaya salad. Basically it's an unripe papaya (or mango for that matter), sliced cucumber, tomato, various spices, all mashed up and served as salad. Apparently you have to eat it ASAP or else the taste gets all bitter...I was getting pretty full by this point as you can imagine...

On to the curries. I learned how to make Red curry which ranks medium on the spicy scale...I turned mine up a notch with extra chili paste. Afterwards, I made stir-fried chicken with yellow curry. For this dish Meow showed us how to really set our woks on fire! It was quite a scene...but fortunately no one suffered any injuries! And the food was delicious...

Finally onto dessert. I learned how to make black sticky rice coconut pudding...yum! Other people made coconut milk banana or pumpkin, sticky rice w/banana, deep fried bananas...all delicious.

Needless to say we all felt like we were about to burst after eating so much food all day! It was great though. Meow gave us each a certificate of successful completion (despite my sorry excuse for spring rolls). Think Tamarind will hire me?? We also got a full recipe book with pictures! Next family dinner will be Thai-style, fyi ;)

Meow drove us back to our hotel where Hadas and I were excited to see all our friends from the previous day's trekking! They were all washed up and hanging out at the bar...ready for a night on the town...I decided to meet up with them later...I just needed a quick cat nap after the day with Meow. These Thais and their nicknames are hilarious...