thai cooking school

another really popular activity in chiang mai other than trekking is to take a cooking course. since i am totally in love with thai food (and it is pretty much all gluten free) i signed up for a course taught by a woman and her husband in their home. they start off by taking you to the thai open food market to pick out your ingredients before you start cooking -- you get to choose your own (wide) menu so i chose the following: massaman curry, coconut soup, mushroom tofu spicy salad, green bean stir fry, pad see ew (wide noodle stirfry) and steamed banana cakes. i also got a cookbook i can keep.

the cooking (especially many ingredients) is pretty similar to indian food so i had a nice head start from the group -- especially when the instructor started yelling to the other students "stir faster! you too slow! fast! fast!" - quite entertaining.