Learning to cook in Chiang Mai

Nobody who knows me well would accuse me of being a budding Jamie Oliver. I am to kitchens what Genghis Khan was to medieval nation states. A defiler. An intruder. A spiller of blood (mostly my own). So when Nicole suggested we sign up for Baan Thai’s cooking class it was with some trepidation that I allowed myself to be talked into it. I can barely cook most Western food and now I’m supposed to try my hand at Thai food? I don’t think I’d experienced such acutely nervous anticipation since the days of sitting exams in uni. It kind of felt like an exam. I would be tested. People would be watching. And I would suck.

Upon arrival, we were divided into two groups of six-or-so and we were each told to select four Thai dishes to prepare. Nicole and I selected Pad Thai, spring rolls, Tom Yum, and Chiang Mai Noodle (Kao Soy). We were briefly introduced to the others, then we were taken on a whirlwind tour of the local food market so we could see and learn a little about some of the ingredients we would be using. Then it was back to Baan Thai to prepare our first dish.

First up was Pad Thai. Those of us who’d selected this dish were shown to work stations where all of the ingredients had been prepared and arranged in little bowls to one side of our own giant wok set atop a gas burner. Our instruction consisted of our instructor cooking the dish in front of us (faster than I would have thought humanly possible) and then rattling off a blitzkrieg of instructions, with no repetitions, for us to osmotically absorb and carry out flawlessly.

In my rapidly mounting panic I absorbed next to nothing and formed the profound impression that everything had to be hurled into the wok as rapidly as possible, with some water poured on it, followed by a few artful flourishes of the spatula and ta-da – you’ve got Pad Thai. I was wrong. My Pad Thai fortunately looked like everyone else’s so I was spared some embarrassment, but I have no idea what it tasted like. Not Pad Thai, that’s for sure.