Scavenging and Cooking

We had two major activities planned for today.  In the morning we had a scavenger hunt in the vicinity of the hotel.  The ground rules were that the students could not use any kind of transportation, could not cross the streets except for the pedestrian overpasses, and they had to be respectful as they interacted with the Thais.  I gave the students a page of things they had to search for and photograph, and a few things for which they had to talk to Thai people who had limited or no English skills.  That was followed by an early lunch, after which we went to our cooking class.  The class lasted for most of the afternoon; we learned how to choose vegetables at the produce market and prepare 5 Thai dishes, including tom yum soup, green curry, phad Thai, larb, and the most delicious dessert known to humanity: sticky rice with mango.

Here I'm explaining the ground rules for the scavenger hunt to the students.  We divided them up into four groups.

In this group was Alexa, Alyssa, and Elliott.  Here they are determining if these cut orchids satisfy any of the scavenger hunt categories. 

Zoe, Kaylee, Rachael, and Sarah are scanning their scavenger hunt pages to see what else they need to find.  This group ended up winning the scavenger hunt.

In the hotel lobby after the scavenger hunt, we checked the teams' lists, validated some photographs, determined that nobody knows what a siamese cat is, and declared a winner.

After the scavenger hunt, we had lunch at a nearby sidewalk restaurant.  We all had khao pad grapow with some sort of protein or vegetables.

In preparation for the cooking class, the chefs took us to a local produce market to show us how to choose vegetables for our dishes.  Here is Chef Khung showing Brandon how Thai lemon grass smells.  Sydney, Alyssa, and Sera are waiting their turns.

Chef Jae letting Kaylee smell a ginger root with Elliott and Taylor looking on. 

We split the class into two groups of eight, each group with a different chef.  Here, Brandon and Elliott team up to squeeze the water through coconut shavings to make coconut milk.

Hli and Alyssa also working the coconut...

Chef Jae showing his group the varieties of rice that are used in Thai cooking.

For each of the five dishes, we prepared the vegetables and then cooked in woks on a series of gas stoves.  Chef Jae's group (right to left): Sydney, Sarah, Kaylee, Taylor, Ashley, Sera, Rachael, and Emily.

The other half was in Chef Khung's group; L-R: me, Zoe, Alexa, Alyssa, Hli, Elliott, Brandon, Ajarn Wayne.

Ajarn Wayne showing us his tom yum soup... made from scratch.

Zoe with her tom yum soup.

Ajarn Wayne said something humorous about not wanting to be a good wife.  Chef Khung set him up for that comment.

Sydney is proud of her green curry dish.

Alexa with her green curry.

And here's Taylor and her green curry.

I think the kids are more than capable of preparing some delicious Thai dishes for their parents.