Our last
day in Koh Chhang. We were picked
up after breakfast in an actual minivan with seatbelts (looking promising),
though we are now getting used to bouncing in the back of a pickup. The drive to the Blue Lagoon was only
about 10 minutes and we were pleased to find the school was an actual outdoor
cooking classroom, set up just for the purpose of teaching.
Yaa spoke impeccable English and interspersed cultural and historical tidbits with her culinary tips. She had us give some suggestions for what we wanted to make, and finally came up with a vey ambitious menu. That included the ever popular spring rolls ( fried and raw), pad thai, chicken with cashews, ginger chicken, jungle curry, and green curry.
In order to test our dexterity with a knife,, before cutting anything important, Yaa had us carve roses out of tomatoes. They actually were pretty easy, and didn’t look half bad. Now I know what I can do when I retire.
The first
order of business, though, was rice.
Rice is a staple for nearly ½ of the world’s population. Thai people eat rice at every meal and
because of this, they revere rice
“as much as their mother”.
Yaa explained the differences between sticky rice, and regular
rice. This had to do with the
coating left on the sticky rice that allows it to clump. Preparation of sticky rice starts with
soaking it in water for at least 5 hours (the water can be colored as with the
pea flower to produce blue rice). Then steamed 20 minutes in a basket over hot
water.
Coconut is the other major staple for Thai cooking. But you don't get shredded coconut in a bag, you DIY with a handy coconut horse. Yaa demonstrated its use, then we all had a try. I, of course, wound up slicing my hand on the horse's sharp teeth.
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| Mini Phil |
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| Ouch! |
spices,
and the use of a granite mortar and pestle to make curry paste.
One of the
more interesting side bars had to do with the dish, pad thai. Up until the end of WW II, noodles were
not a part of a Thai diet. But after the war, the British demanded reparations
from Thailand for their involvement with Japanese (think, “Bridge on the River
Quai”). This came in the form of
huge rice shipments to Great Britain at the expense of the people of Thailand. Poor quality rice that was left in
Thailand was converted to rice noodles and hence, the staple of American Thai
restaurants was born. The pad thai
that we made was the best we’d had in Thailand (and the U.S. as well).
By around
4:30, we had finished our all day lunch with not a drop of room for dessert,
fried bananas in spring roll wrappers.
Yaa packed up our desserts as a doggy bag for later consumption.
We had been
asking her questions about the royal family, which she answered by reading us a
Thai children’s book about the king and all the wonderful things he’s done for
the people of Thailand. It was
very moving, listening to her speak with such reverence for their leader (I don’t think most
U.S. citizens have similar feelings toward our president).We continued to talk
with her until about 5 when we decided to excuse ourselves. I think she enjoyed having a very
interested group. We decided to
walk back to our hotel along the beach (about the same or shorter as the car
ride over). We said our goodbyes
to Yaa and left the Blue Lagoon by way of
a floating bridge.
We passed a
couple of pretty primitive “resorts” definitely sans a/c. They were more like the standard Thai
house, up on stilts.
When we
reached Panviman, our friendly waiter, Baa, seated us at our usual beach side
table. We explained that dinner
wasn’t going to happen tonight.
We were stuffed. He did convince us to have a couple of drinks (happy hour 2 for 1) and watch the sunset. We were glad we did. It was the most spectacular sunset so far this trip.
We were stuffed. He did convince us to have a couple of drinks (happy hour 2 for 1) and watch the sunset. We were glad we did. It was the most spectacular sunset so far this trip.
After
drinks and the first 3 stars, we returned to our rooms to pack for our return
to Bangkok.
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