If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen...

First and foremost, a very happy birthday to some very special people: Poppy (aka Richard Johns, my grandfather), Cooper (with me here in Bangkok), and Samira! It's July 10 in Asia, just in case you are confused. Clearly, July 10 is a very special day since THREE of my nearest and dearest are born today!

Next on the agenda - I was extremely fortunate to have so many supportive friends and family members. Many of them even gave me a bit of money to help me out. I decided that certain particularly fun days, I would consider "sponsored" by such generous friends and family. You could call this the brick to my nonprofit organization... As yesterday was really a fun day, it is the first in my sponsorship series. So without further ado, today's post, and yesterday's good time is brought to you by... Grandmama and Poppy (happy birthday, again!)

After biting off a bit more than we could chew the day before, we decided to have a little chill time by the pool in the am. It was during that time that I blogged about the day before and read (currently reading "Bossypants" by Tina Fey). It feels slightly glutinous when traveling to take time like that, but it really is oh-so-necessary dor the psyche (or at least mine, and definitely in a city as hot, bustling, and completely foreign as this one). The pool here at the hotel is awesome - but I'll write more on that in a few days.



Reclining by the infinity pool... Life could be a lot worse...

When our batteries were all good and charged we set out for a Thai massage. There was a place we had passed a few times before that looked very nice and priced similarly to everything else so we went ahead and checked it out. SUCCESS! That place certainly earned this amateur spa critic's stamp of approval. in case you don't know, a Thai massage is very different from the Swedish massages we are all used to. Rather than stripping down, throwing on a towel, and laying on your stomach while your masseuse rubs you down with oils and kneads your knots, in a Thai massage you change into loose fitting Thai clothing, lay on your back (and later stomach) and are stretched and cracked and pulled and bent and sat on. It feels incredible. After an hour of that we were feeling refreshed and rejuvenated.



Alex posing in front of the spa.



Cheers! They gave us tea after.

Our next stop, and main attraction of the day was a Thai cooking class! We were finally going to get our thai food! We found our class - Silom Thai Cooking School - in our Lonely Planet guide book. It was one of three they recommended, and by quite a bit the cheapest. All we knew was that it was run out of a private home and that it got good reviews on trip advisor and our guide book. Alex emailed the school and we were quite impressed with the "motherly" emails we got back from the "woman" who runs the school.



This is said Thai woman - Nusi, henceforth to be known as the Thai "Mango" (remember Chris Kattan's flamboyant SNL character?) He was hysterical and kept us all entertained throughout class. He's been running the class now for 11 years and only teaches himself twice a week. We felt very fortunate to have the real deal - oh what fun! At one point, when we asked why how he started cooking and why he started the school, he told us that he grew up in the country (in a moment of extreme sharing he told us about his birth in the country too) and learned to cook at a very young age, but, unlike most people he couldn't help but talk, talk, talk whole he cooked! Another favorite Nusi moment was when, upon hearing that two of our classmates were in from Singapore, he launched into a story about the flight he missed recently to go to Singapore. He was very disappointed because he had tickets to see Justin Beiber while there. He loves the Biebs! Of course he does!

Nusi took us to the market where he showed us all the necessary ingredients for Thai food. Who knew how many kinds of basil are involved? Or how many different (and by different I mean wildly so) kinds of eggplant there are of all different shapes and sizes there are! I mean long thin ones and little ones that look like peas, just to name a few. We learned that some of the vegetables are necessary (the aromatic ones) and many are just filler (Nusi's favorite filler is asparagus, which is the most expensive in Thailand, but most Thai vendors will use lots cabbage because it is cheap and light and grows the more you cut it up). We then went back to his school, which was three small apartments upstairs from where he lives, and were handed some aprons, and got started washing and chopping the vegetables!



We three ready to learn all the tricks!


Our plentiful array of vegetables ready to be cooked!

We then went into a different room to prepare the coconut milk (don't worry mom and Natalie, this story does not have a sad ending). We learned about the two kinds of coconut: young and old, and how to use them to make the milk and cream (but you only use the cream, aka Thai butter, for baking).

And now we were officially ready to get cooking! Our first course - an Eisenberg family favorite - Tom Yum soup!



Prepped Ingredients for one serving of Tom Yum soup.



Busy making the soup.


And the final product!

Wow. That soup was delicious! Just like my favorite restaurants back home but so, so fresh! You'd think that was enough, but oh no, we had four more courses to come.



Nusi posing for me with one of the few store bought ingredients. What a guy!


Me working on the green curry. ("green curry made with green peppers, red chili made with red peppers, yellow curry made with yellow peppers," Nusi explained, as though he, himself, had just made the revelation.)


Pad Thai!
"what is the key ingredient to pad Thai?" Nusi asked.
Pause, silence...
"peanuts?" I asked, quietly.
"FLUNK!" exclaimed Nusi. "the key ingredient in pad Thai is noodles!"
Duh!


Lao chicken salad and sticky rice. Nusi told us the Thai only make a few Lao dishes. Only the good ones, the rest, he explained, are gross.


The green curry.


Dessert. Turnips boiled and then soaked in coconut milk, tossed in sugar and then boiled again in coconut milk. Probably not my favorite, but glad we tried it.

We finished the day at 6 pm stuffed, exhausted, and content. We also have cook books with recipes with everything we learned so we can cook Thai dinners when we get back home.

Thank you Grandmama and Poppy for sponsoring such a fun and full day!


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