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Thai Cooking Class: Old School
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thai basil chicken
As any quote-ready intellectual will tell you, education is a lifelong pursuit. Realizing the knowledge I was absorbing from the copious amounts of TV I watch may be limited, I decided to turn my focus to community education classes. I was surprised to find the breadth of classes available; Oahu has seven community schools offering over 100 classes ranging from Coconut Weaving to Karaoke Magic (which I might have took if I weren’t already a master of the mic). My love of food and encouragement from my girlfriend narrowed my selection to Beginning Thai Cooking at the Wahiawa Community School.
I was a little nervous; my cooking skills had only slightly evolved from shaping and eating lumps of Playdoh in Kindergarten. My specialties included dishes like white rice seasoned lightly with salt and ramen sans accoutrements. Despite my limitations, I was ready to sharpen my culinary skills. The classes were held at Mililani High School in a room clearly used for the Home Economics class I should have been forced to take. The class size was small with about twelve students. Our fearless instructor was a Thai woman with the equal parts energy and sass that all great chefs seem to possess.
Each week we made two dishes from a recipe packet of Thai favorites. The dishes often had names as exciting as they tasted; Mee Krob Noodles, Evil Jungle Prince Chicken, Crying Tiger. We formed small groups and split up the ingredients to bring each week. This was no small task as some of these ingredients were harder to find than the Holy Grail. If you’re unaccustomed to cooking with something like “ong choi” then your first question might be which of the five food groups it falls under.
The class is a shining example of using different learning styles. First we would read the recipe and stare blankly at the ingredients unsure what to do next. Then the instructor would orally explain what to do and we would stare blankly at the ingredients unsure what to do next. Finally, she would demonstrate how to prepare the dish and we would emulate her movements with the mimicking skills of a third-rate Elvis impersonator.
Amazingly my slapdash attempts to turn ingredients I couldn’t pronounce into edible dishes were actually working. We made Thai Spring Rolls with crispy golden exteriors and curries that balanced the sweetness of coconut milk with the spicy zip of Thai chili peppers. My mastery was put in perspective by my instructor, who once remarked that I “make easy things look difficult” while I picked the leaves off a basil plant in a slow and Simian fashion, but who needs an ego when you have good food.
Even more remarkable was my ability to reproduce these recipes outside of the classroom. On more than one occasion I was able to con friends into believing I had any culinary talent. (this nifty little parlor trick alone is reason for taking the class) The experience was a success and I left ready to sign up for the next round of classes. It’s been about two months now and I still plan to sign-up, just as soon as I’m done watching TV.
Cost: $30 plus ingredients
Distance from Honolulu: varies
For More Info:
http://165.248.6.166/data/schoollist_csa.asp
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