Winter Break Travels (Day 6)

 Chiang Mai

Our first full day in Chiang Mai we spent a leisurely morning hanging at our hotel (The Experience Walking Street Hotel).



We then spent the afternoon/evening at learning about a traditional Thai family's culture and cooking hosted by the Raunkaew-Yanon Family. 




We started with a tour of their home. The Raunkaew-Yanon family has lived in this same compound for 150-180 years.  We learned a little of their history, Lanna culture, Thai tea, and tooth hygiene.  We walked through the "garden", which was really a full farm with so many kinds of vegetables and herbs, I lost count.  They even had a fairly large rice paddy.  After the tour, we had our cooking lesson.  We made 6 different dishes and they were all amazing.








We started by making an offering to the spirits of the house. According to tradition, spirits need food. Homeowners place offerings of food, flowers and burn incense daily. All this is designed to please the spirits that live on the land where the building is.  The idea is "if you take care of the spirits, they will take care of you."




Our ingredients and prep tools

Our host talking us through what we will be using

Mortar and Pestle for making chili paste (lots of chili paste)

Teak wood cutting board

Ingredients for chili paste

Fresh ingredients for curries

Sliced eggplant

Making the paste







Prepping

Scraping out a coconut






Cooking

We split up to different stations and cooked different things. We all took turns making Pad Thai that we ate as an appetizer while we cooked the rest of the dishes. Dishes we made included:

Pad Thai
Dry Red Curry Chicken (Aou Kai)
Minced Pork with Tomato (Nam Prik Ong)
Hot and Sour Chicken Soup (Tom Som Kai)
Stir Fried Green Eggplant with Minced Pork (Phad Makauyaw Moo)
Banana in Coconut Milk 

Pad Thai








Enjoying our meal















Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Daily Life

Image
This year started off with a bang, so many activities and events after 3 years of restrictions.  First event of the year was the Booster Club Pancake Breakfast. Pancake Breakfast Checked out Chatachuk Market Spirit Night! We also experienced some pretty unusual Thai weather.  While rain and some flooding is normal, this was extreme by some accounts a 100 year event We even got to go in person for parent teacher conferences and they had a display of a "super hero" project. The kids were asked to pick their super hero trait and write about themselves.  I think they picked the perfect traits.
Read more

Back to School 2022

Image
Last year was a new school year in a new country in the middle of a pandemic.  This year was...normal.  Including the very begrudgingly given first day of school photos. So, while Braden and Gavin continue in Middle School (Grade 7), Jamie has moved on to High School (Grade 9). And, I even have a new role, ISB Booster Club President! Wish me luck, trying to resurrect all the activities after more than 3 years.
Read more

Family Photo Shoot

Image
 We were so fortunate to have a professional photographer as our neighbor here in Bangkok. It took a couple of tries (the weather didn't cooperate with us), but we managed to get some amazing photos. It was even more fun with friends. The Mougey family, our friends from Kuwait, moved to Bangkok this month and came out with us and got to do a shoot at the same time.
Read more