Benny and the Jets

Friday was cooking school day.  We were picked up in the morning by our chef, a young woman named Benny (Thais often have English nicknames - the hotel manager's nickname is Pepsi).  Benny loves to joke and her theme song is "Benny and the Jets."  We will find she uses humor and fun all day to keep us going. 

Our fellow students are girls from California, Canada and Germany.  First stop is a large food market to buy ingedients.  Benny makes sure we SMILE at all times when meeting vendors.  It is important to smile and greet and thank everyone you meet in Thailand.  We have learned to say "thank you" (Corp-Coon-Kah.. to ladies) and to bow slightly over our prayer fingertips.

A few of our group happen on a butcher dispatching frogs.  I survey the BBQ section and discover intestines on a skewer among other delicacies.  Only 35 cents.  Gulp.

We ride in the back of a pick up truck to the organic farm and wave to rice farmers and a water buffalo on the way.  The cooking school has three immaculate cooking pavilions and our group of 10 is encouraged by Benny to become a family for the day ( to emphasize this she breaks into the Sister Sledge tune, " We are Family..."). 

Ingredients are neatly prepared for us for our first soup lesson.

 Benny lines us up at our individual work stations and we will all make our own curry paste.  We will make 5 more dishes over the day, each making individual servings so we learn to make each dish by doing.  

We take a break to see the fruits and vegetables they grow.  This jack fruit is quite delicious.  We bought some to snack on in Bsngkok.  The flesh is pale yellow and vanilla scented.

The resident kitty soon finds Lisa and they are instant pals.

We sit down to taste our cooking products.  The dishes are basic.  I would make the yellow curry and Tom Yam Kung soup (upper left) again, but Ben honestly makes better Thai food at home.  Still, the cooking school is a lot of fun.

We leave stuffed.  None of us want dinner after all this and we all go back to the hotel and slump into a food coma.  We have to rest up for our elephant day tomorrow.