Before I begin on today . . .
. . . here’s a photo from yesterday that I think turned out OK. Standing on a promontory in Thailand, you can easily see a peninsula belonging to Burma straight ahead, and Laos on the opposite shore of the Mekong, on the right.
Thursday, December 8, The best cooking class yet
We are met at 8:30 by Suwanee, a Lanna woman (She’s very proud of this) whose family has lived in this area for many generations. But unlike our class of a couple of days ago, which taught us Northern Thai dishes, she will teach us traditional Thai dishes.
We start the tour in Chiang Rai’s huge market, with a bit of tea and some deep-fried sweet potato and banana and a discussion of what we’ll be doing. We proceed through the market, looking at various dishes, and sampling some delicious snacks from the local vendors. The array of food here is amazing, and some of what we taste is available for only a few weeks every year. We wind up with a look at the local ‘coconut factory,’ about 8 people or so, starting with raw whole coconuts and processing them, finally turning them into beautiful confections, overseen by a 80-something lady. Just outside the ‘factory’ is a stand selling little taste-bombs, a special assortment of sweet and spicy ingredients wrapped in pepper-plant leaves. They’re about the size of the Atomic Bomb candies I remember as a kid, but these are powerful! I hiccup all the way back to Suwanee’s car.
Suwanee is not just a cooking teacher but a nutritionist of some renown. She alternates gigs here in Thailand with working with hospitals in the States to improve their food in terms of taste and nutritional value. So we get the full run-down on all the ingredients and techniques we are using. This is not at all dry or boring, at least to Mary and me, and the dishes she has us prepare are delicious.
We start by making our own green curry paste, then a green papaya salad, a prawn soup, and chicken curry. Our dessert is little colored rice-flour balls swimming in coconut cream. It’s all pretty as well as delicious.
Afternoon Touring
After lunch Oui takes us to Wat Rong Khun, known better as ‘The White Temple,’ the most visited site in Chiang Rai. It is a temple built by Chalermchai Kositpipat, a famous and very successful artist, to express his devotion to Buddhism. He began building it about 17 years ago, and the last, small portion, which is supposed to portray heaven, is still under construction.
I think he is simply brilliant. He is US-trained and you can see influences from Western religious art, pop-art, such as Giger’s, and Russian art as well as Thai influences. The photos on line may give you a better idea of some of the details, as it was crowded when we were there, but here is a panoramic view.
Next is a boat ride up the Kok River to a ‘cave monastery,’ a shallow cave with a temple in it which the monks visit for their retreats. The view on the way is strongly reminiscent of the Li River in China.
We convince Oui that we’re ‘pagoda’d out,’ as Mary puts it, and cut the tour short. Tomorrow is an early day. We start off at 6:00 AM to meet a cruise boat that will take us down the Mekong to Laos.
I doubt I’ll have Internet access for a couple of days, but I’ll try to give you an update from Luang Prabang.