The Soul of a Chef

July 17th, 2008 - Railay, Krabi, Thailand

I'm writing this post retrospectively, as it were, sitting in a nice air conditioned internet cafe in Bangkok. I would have posted this before, closer to the date listed above (today's actual date is July 24th), but on Railay there was no way to get the pictures/movies off of my camera and onto a computer. There were at least 3 places that advertised this particular service, but all 3 were found wanting when it came to the meat and potatoes of the matter.

There is a good amount to do on Railay, and I'll be expanding on this in later posts. For now, I'm focusing on one of the most fun aspects of the island for me: cooking lessons. Although most people do cooking lessons in the north of Thailand, specifically Chiang Mai, I figured that cooking lessons were cooking lessons, so it didn't matter where I took them... and I wasn't going to be in Chiang Mai anyway.

As it turned out, this was a good decision. I saw a sign for cooking lessons right near the dock, and despite singularly unhelpful hotel staff members (an unfortunate theme in much of Railay's dining and hotel establishments), I eventually meandered my way to the beautiful open air kitchen that formed my canvas for this particular afternoon of cooking. For anyone visiting Railay in the future, its near the Rock and Stone Bar up on the hill behind the Diamond Cave Resort complex.

For 1000 Baht ($30), I got an afternoon of cooking lessons, use of the equipment and all of the food I cooked. I was told to come hungry, and that was great great advice. I was given a choice of dishes to cook, in the form of one appetizer, two entrees, a curry, and a desert. I chose to make 1) Spring Rolls, 2) Chicken in Coconut Milk, 3) Prawns in Tamarind Sauce, 4) Phanang Curry with Beef, 5) Pumpkin in Coconut Milk. So much good food!

The overall experience was great. Since it was the low season, I was cooking 1 on 1 with the instructor and her friends, and I had a lot of freedom to ask questions, move slower or faster, pause to eat or write and generally watch everything going on. I didn't do about 25% of the cooking, things like deep frying and preparation of some of the meet beforehand. But the instructor Oom was careful to explain it all for me, especially with some of the deep frying.

Now, I can't pretend to be a connoisseur of Thai cooking or anything like that, but at least for tourist fare, A LOT of the food that comes my way tends to be deep fried. I've noticed it in restaurants and on the street, and this cooking class didn't do much to dissuade me. Although not the healthiest thing I think i've experienced, its very cool to watch in a place like Oom's kitchen. You get a big big wok and fill it with LOTS of oil, probably much more than you'd ever thought you'd see outside of a high class massage parlor. Then you heat the oil up really really high, to the point where something like garlic should brown pretty much immediately. Then you toss in whatever, and watch it pop and sizzle in a satisfying way. Since I've been on this trip I've seen it done with everything from vegetables to meats to cockroaches and crickets, but I think my own spring rolls below turned out the best out of all of it ;).

As you can probably imagine, my rough and unwieldy cooking style was the source of a good deal of amusement in the kitchen, as it took me twice as long to do things like chop ingredients. However I plan on practicing and learning until I can do it well, dang it. The spring rolls above were the first thing we made, and I have to say it felt awesome to construct something like that from start to finish. At the end of this post check out a video of me actual rolling one up.

Here are the spring rolls post-massage parlor quantity of oil. Oom made up the presentation with the layout and cucumber/tomato garnish, and we magically have a presentable meal. Woohoo!

The next thing on the list was phanang curry with beef. Generally served with rice, and eaten with spoon and fork (surprisingly the spoon is the main instrument), the curry was the amazing, and the best thing i've eaten in a while. If people want stuff like ingredients or recipes, just email me or ask, since I don't want to clutter up this space by laying everything out here. I'll say that since I'm a guy who likes his food flavorfull and heavy, there is little else better than taking a dollop of flavorful sauce, some meat and veggies, and rice all on the some spoon. I think its the reason I like Indian food so much.

The curry above, without the rice that makes it so special. Let me emphasize... eat it with rice, its great.

The chicken in coconut milk was really the only dish I found wanting. From the picture below you can see that it looks appetizing enough, and it was promising based on the ingredients. I love tumeric for its color, and thats what you see on the top of the chicken in the picture below, and its what gives the broth that yellow color. I also like coconut, and it seemed like it would have some spice from the red pepper.

However at the end of the afternoon, it just didn't taste that great. Almost bland, with the chicken leaving something to be desired. Oh well, can't win em all, right?

The prawns with tamarind sauce, however, reassured me of my tremendous cooking ability. Thanks to the magic of the deep fry (once more), the prawns were really flavorful and the sauce was very sweet and sugary. I didn't really feel like eating the entire plate, drenched as it was in something more fat-heavy than chicago deep dish pizza (see picture below), so out of the entire plate you see you I ate 4 prawns and a bit of toppings.

At the end of my cooking experience, I'm ready to go home and do some real cooking. This was fun, it was great to eat food I cooked myself, and it was interesting to mess around with different flavors and ingredients. I only hope I have enough time in between work and everything else to get in some quality time with my wok!

Lastly, since this blog represents the latest and greatest in multimedia and 'blog' technology, I've decided to include a short video for all of the doubters out there that said my cooking skill 'wouldn't never amount to nothing', and who think this blog post is a just a big fabrication. I hope we can all take this as proof that I am a budding chef, and that my future years will contain many meals well-constructed and elegant.

Ok, here I am: rolling a spring roll!

All of this food is now part of my repertoire, and anyone visiting/living/dining with me should keep that in mind. I see a lot of good Thai food in our future.