Sam has a Cooking Certificate!

---

We were collected by pickup & driven to the local market. Our teachers for the day were Noki, Ma & Meow & they set about showing us all the Thai herbs & vegetables we would be using. We had all piled round one market stall & no one else had a chance to buy anything from it, so I'm sure the stallholder was pleased when we moved onto the curry pastes. Having got what we needed for the day we headed out into the countryside to the Pad Thai Cookery School.
At the school we sat down on floor cushions at a long low table & were given our recipe books, aprons, tea towels & stickers with our names in Thai. We split into two groups, seven doing course A with Noki & Sam & I doing course C with Ma. We started out with Glass Noodle Salad & ate it for breakfast. The next course was Tofu with Cashew Nuts & this was followed by a vegetable carving lesson where we carved a series of ever-increasing roses on a watermelon, but not nearly as well as Ma. It was then back to the cooking, in total we cooked seven dishes, including Tom Yum Kung & Thai Red Curry. Whilst preparing the Tom Yum Kung our teacher Ma who is very demure explained that if you want it hot use three chillies or only one if not so hot. I used three, Sam used one & Ma said "I use ten, it burns your ass". The final dish involved getting an oiled wok so hot that when a sliced onion was thrown in it burst into flames. Sam went first & most of the onions ended up at the back of the hob, I managed to keep even less of my onions in the pan. When it was the other groups turn to singe their eyebrows, one girl who when faced with a flaming wok & the instruction to add the chicken, managed to throw the plastic dish in as well. It was rescued, although a little deformed.
Having cooked & eaten seven dishes we moved onto tasting fruits such as mangosteen & dragonfruit & when we thought we could eat no more it was time for pudding & schnapps & the presentation of our Thai Cookery Course certificates. With melon in tow we headed home, well & truly stuffed.
In the night bazaar that evening we met Michael & Julie, a couple from Brisbane who were waiting for food at an open air restaurant. We asked them if they hadn't already had enough to eat but they assured us they had only ordered a snack. A whole fish turned up - snapper not whitebait.

---