Matthew Botos

Learning to cook some Thai dishes at Silom Thai Cooking School was a blast! The outdoor kitchen is tucked away down a side street across from a market that’s the first lesson. Owner and teacher Nusi explained the various ingredients and filled up our baskets with goodies. This would be the first of many effective uses of delegation…

Back at the school, we split into groups to prepare the ingredients. We washed vegatables, peeled ginger, and shelled & deveined shrimp. Next up was making coconut milk from freshly shredded cocounut mixed with water and hand-squeezed. While we got to know our classmates, Iron Chef Nusi provided motivation by good-naturedly cracking the whip, “chop faster - hurry, hurry!”; he’d be a great project manager!

To prepare the dishes, we circled around a big pile of ingredients on a straw mat on the floor, and chopped up vegatables for soup. All that went into woks on burners on the balcony, where we fine-tuned the gas “more heat! less heat!” until it was ready to serve - and eat! (As my chemistry teacher Mr. Schwartz used to say, “the best part about cooking class is you get to eat your homework!”) The more forward thinking students had actually skipped breakfast in anticipation.

The rest of the menu included classic pad thai, curries, and jellied water chestnuts in coconut milk for dessert. Our diverse class found plenty to talk about as we were all at the start, middle, or end of some kind of travel oddessy. Everyone left full, with a new appreciation for making Thai food completely from scratch, and ready with a recipe book for future dinner parties!