Thai cooking

Hello friends, I'm very full right now. Not only did I do a lot of cooking today, but I got to eat everything I cooked! I was surprised at how simple to prepare the dishes are. For the most part, the food wasn't complicated to prepare. We cooked everything in a wok on extremely high heat. I think the key is understanding the key flavors and how they blend--fish sauce, keffir lime, ginger, basil, chili, tumeric, coriander (which is the same thing as cilantro--how was I unaware?), sugar, oyster sauce, coconut. I'm excited for day 2 tomorrow and to try out what I learned at home.
Today we made:
-spring rolls
-chicken in coconut milk soup
-papaya salad
-sweet and sour stir fry with chicken (secret ingredient: ketchup--this came as a surprise to me)
-green curry paste
-green curry
-banana in coconut milk
They post photos on their website of their cooking classes. You'll be able to seem me there:
www.chiangmaismartcook.com
Melissa, the lady here says she remembers you, but I'm not sure I believe her...not because you're not memorable, but because she sees 15 new foreigners a day, every day.
I'm making an effort to try new dishes here. It's not like the other countries I've been to, where there are 4 dishes and that's it. As some of you know, I have a tendency to get stuck in food ruts--I took the same thing to work for lunch for 2 and a half years, and ate one of 3 things for dinner when I cooked for myself at home. When I like something, I don't mind eating it over and over and over again. So I have to force myself to try new items. Last night I enjoyed a spicy fruit salad. The flavors were unexpected, but delicious. It was flavored in the same way as the green papaya salad, but had green beans, ripe papaya, banana, pear, strawberries, peanuts and garlic. I really liked it. I also enjoyed dessert: bananas in hot coconut milk. It was hard to pull myself away from the sticky rice with mango, but it was worth the effort. Moral of the story: take risks, friends.
TTFN,
Lauren