Cooking! And Eating! (and eating and eating…)

This morning we had breakfast at my new favorite little restaurant. It was called Angel’s Secrets, and I had some fab French toast and tea. Mom had some coffee with a jasmine tea chaser (which apparently is customary in this part of the world) and a delicious fruit parfait. Yum! It was a cute little place, and I recommend it to anybody traveling through Chiang Mai. (They have free WiFi, too.)

After breakfast, we walked to a massage place that we saw advertised on a bulletin board at the restaurant. We opted for one hour coconut oil massages this time – a little more relaxing than traditional Thai massages!

Feeling good, we walked back to our hotel to be picked up by the cooking school we booked a class with. Turns out, we had Tak and Cooking at Home to ourselves! We drove first to a market out of the center/tourist area of town. In a rice shop, she explained to us about how the rice is harvested and how to best use the variations for for cooking.

We also went to a coconut shop, where we watched a guy make coconut cream.

She pointed out various other fruits and vegs to us, then gathered some ingredients for our class and headed to the school, which was in the backyard of the house where she lived with her sisters family.

We hung out on the back patio while everything was set up.

Tak would demonstrate a dish while we watched, and then we would replicate it at our own station. The exception was dessert – we made sticky rice and coconut topping together as a group, since you only need a little and there were three of us.

The menu:

Pad Thai with prawns
Green chicken curry
Tom Yum soup with prawns
Sticky rice with mango (my fav!)

After we cooked each course, we would eat!

I handled myself quite well, thank you (only had problems with a tomato rose garnish). One of my favorite things we’ve done so far, but sooo much food! Tak brought us back to our hotel, overly full and satisfied.