Stories Vol 11: Cooking with New

 

Food is truly one of my passions in life. Many of you may know that I love to cook but I'm not sure many of you know why to be honest. I really didn't become passionate about it until the summer between my junior and senior years of high school. I was supposed to have a job at a Starbucks but at the last minute the hiring manager canceled the offer. I needed the extra spending money and with out time to find a job for just the summer, I proposed to my parents that I cook dinner for the family 6 nights a week. In return, my parents would give me a budget for groceries and a set payment for each meal.

 

I spent the entire summer learning how to cook and making meals for the family. I fell in love with it and I think it was because I used the family recipes. As the youngest in the extended family, I never really got to know my grandparents and the generation before them. That summer each day that I used their recipes or books with their notes and anecdotes written in the margins, the more it felt like I was getting to know them. Long after they had passed, they were inspiring me with inspiration and instilling confidence that I could execute each dish.

 

 Food is amazing in that sense in that it is cultural currency. It can cross cultural, time and language barriers and in the process unite people behind one thing. One of the things that I have loved about my travels to Eastern Europe, Morocco, Asia and so many other places is that the first thing that people feel they can share with out any explanation is food. Food is where the home is in my opinion. It's comfort, it's love. It is for this reason, that I always try to take a cooking class while traveling. In the process of sharing their food, locals open up a dialogue on culture. They share stories of learning how to cook from their parents and explain different cultural nuances that you would otherwise not get.

 

 

 meal with my host family in Rural Azmizmiz, Morocco 2009
 

Isabel, a hostel worker, teaching me Portuguese cooking, 2011

All of my greatest conversations have here have been had over a meal or a local drink and so when the two girls I met in Phuket/Phi Phi recommended an all day farm visit cooking class I jumped on the chance to do it with Sherry in Chiang Mai.

 

The class began with the Teacher, a small Thai woman with long black highlighted hair picking us up at my hostel. She smiled, said her name was "NEW"…. Like "Brand New" and then ushered us into the back of a car. Sherry and I were quite confused, both of us had been out to the bar the night before and were in need of water and food. We look at each other realizing that we should have gotten up earlier in the off chance we aren't fed until mid day.

 

Sherry realizing breakfast was not happening

 

 

About a ten minute ride through the city later, we arrive at a small local market on the other side of Chiang Mai's old city district. New hops out of the truck's cab and goes around back to drop the back door to let us out. She tells us that we are going to walk through the market and she is going to teach us about the different ingredients that go into Thai cooking. Sherry and I see the stands of food and it's clear we have the same thought…fooood! However, knowing we are on a time table we decide to be polite and ignore our hunger pains.

 

New pulls us through the market, introducing herself and asking inquisitive questions in order to obtain our back story. She makes jokes about how much she loves food, and in a blunt style of English points and says, "you like food?" If she only knew I was such a fat kid at heart.

 

She continues on through the market, greeting the vendors as we stroll along. She finally stops at one and begins grabbing herbs and produce. In great detail, she explains what each one is. She has us smell them and then shows us how to identify them from each other. Sherry and I frantically take picture after picture, trying to pair each one with the description in our memories. For those interested, I have the notes I can send you when I get back home. Just let me know.

 

After the market, we hop in the back of the truck and head to the train station. At this point it is clear that we were supposed to eat beforehand. Upon entering the station, Sherry takes her last chance and asks, "are we going to eat during the cooking?" New then quickly shows us to a snack cart area and we pick up some goodies to tide us over.

View from the back of the truck

 

On the train, we continue the get to know you lexicon of questions. New tells us about her upbringing and explains how Thai Culture is rapidly changing. She makes jokes about the old ways vs. new ways. Some she is excited for and others she notes are unfortunate. She explains that she loves that women and men are in balance now but it wasn't like that before. She goes on to note for us that courting rituals have also changed. Before, boy and girl did not live together unless married, now, boy and girl will live together while dating…" very bad" she says.

 

 

One of the highlights of the train ride, was when she mid conversation, took a pen and twisted her hair into a bun with it. Sherry was in awe, a look of puzzlement crossed her face. "I need to learn how to do that," she says. New looks at us and assertively states, "I teach you." She then goes through the entire process. Sherry watches attentively as I take pictures.

 

Upon getting to the farm town, New directs us off the train and into the conductors station. She explains how the worker changes the tracks, starts and stops the trains and reads when trains are coming. The workers inside the box laugh and smile at her zealous nature.

 

Our first sight of the farm, is absolutely fantastic. It is this quaint space much more like a pavilion/open air kitchen. The walls are stucco'd and the floors are concrete. There are long picnic benches and a sprawl of open cooking ranges. I'm in love with the scenery.

  

New hands us some aprons and quickly directs us out to the farm area. She begins showing us around, pointing out the different plants, herbs and produce we saw in the market in their natural garden state. She pulls us into a little hut, leaving the door cracked for air flow. The cottage is used to grow mushrooms as fungus is killed in the light. She warns though that people have died because they try to over populate these huts with too many fungi plants. The toxins from the grow process are deadly to humans if consumed into large of quantity.

 

After a brief visit to the mushroom hut, we continue on our way through the garden. New has us identify the different leafy herbs she taught us about earlier that morning in the market. Sherry and I fail. She then has us help uproot some Thai Ginger. Sherry takes the first pass at doing it, only to be teased by the women at this Thai Farm. They hand the hoe to me and I take a go at it. I get a very small piece of the root not sure how much we need. New looks at me and shakes her head. "You take too long, we not going to eat if you do it." She frankly states. With a quick motion, she grabs the hoe from me and swiftly hacks away at the dirt and uproots a 5" wide piece of Ginger. Neither Sherry and I can contain our embarrassment and we start to laugh at our failed attempt.

 

As we continue through the farm we take pictures and play. The other farm workers are prepping the kitchen for our class. Sherry and I had chosen 6 different dishes each to make and so they needed to make sure all of the ingredients were accounted for.

 

As we entered the Kitchen, New sat us down on a ledge with some mats and a sprawl of ingredients. She told us we would need to prep everything so that we could cook. As we sat down, she detailed out what belonged to what dish.

 

First we began with a dipping sauce.Then the Appetizer of Steamed Fish:

 

 

During this one, New kept pointing at my plating of the ingredients on the steaming dish and stating. "PRESENTAAAATION!" Apparently, mine wasn't up to par with aesthetics. I'll take that, was kind of confused what we would be doing with the plate. Had I known we were going to steam and eat it off the same plate, I probably would have done it differently. Sherry's looked pretty good.

 

For our first course, Sherry choose, Chicken and Fried Basil, I chose Cashew Stir Friend Chicken:

 

              

 

 

We did two soups: I did a Chicken Coconut soup and Sherry did a chili and prawn one:

 

 

After our first three dishes, New had us take a break and took us for a bike ride through the local village. She explained that the river could not be fished due to a repopulation effort the government had made. She showed us the temple and taught us a gambling game at the local convenient store. Glued on a tag board are a bunch of different prizes with a random number above them. For ten baht, you select a random tag off of a different board, unfold it and see if your number matches any of the prizes. It was fun and different.

 

As we road, out of the village area and into the farm area, New told us stories of her youth growing up in a farm village. She confessed stories of stealing fruit and vegetables from older farmers and running rapidly/playfully through the fields to get away. She was clearly a playful trouble maker as young girl. One of my favorite stories, was her detailing out how the kids would earn money from a local shop by sitting down as a group of friends in front of the owners TV and peel garlic. They would then use the money to go by sweets from the same shop. She laughed at the oddity of this story as she recounting her childhood.

 

By the time, we got back to the kitchen, the farm workers had cleaned up the dishes and laid out the ingredients for our curry and dessert courses. Before jumping in, New had us sit down on the ledge and eat a snack of young bamboo dipped in this spicy bean and shrimp paste. It was like a salty spicy fishy black gel. Super good, but very alien to my normal diet. After a couple jokes and a bit of over eating we headed back to the cooking prep station.

 

New set out all of the different ingredients and told us how all Thai Curries have very similar ingredients. She went through about 8 of them covering and removing different spices and herbs from the spread laid out. Sherry and I like most of the day, struggled to capture each and every difference with our photos. I'll have to have New identify each one based on the pictures at a later date.

  

After the quick walk through, New had us begin prepping our curry ingredients. She broke out a pestle and mortar and had us pulverize the mixtures until they were a paste, no longer resembling the original state of the ingredients.

 

I made the Green Chicken Curry and Sherry made the Pannang Curry:

 

 

 

 

 

For dessert, I chose the fried bananas and Sherry did the Mango Sticky rice.

 

 

The batter for the bananas was freaking delicious. In the process of making it, New had me add extra coconut and palm sugar. Having never had palm sugar, I was directed to take a taste. Palm sugar is like freaking crack to me. Its sooooo good. I kept taking little spoonful's, sneaking a sweet treat each time the teacher and farm workers weren't looking. Finally one caught me, like a fat kid with their hand in the cookie jar. They pointed and made some jokes in Thai. I'm such a chub at heart.

 

The day cooking with New passed so quickly! By the time we sat down to eat our desserts and curry, we were already late heading back into Chiang Mai. We ate quickly and upon finishing we exchanged info. Sherry dated my certificate of completion for New and I did hers. I had to do three versions of it because I kept messing up the calligraphy.

 

On the ride back, Sherry and I barely talked. It was clear we had over eaten and were full. All we wanted to do was knap and prepare for the following days venture to Pai. We were exhausted. After Sherry was dropped off at her hostel, I spent the rest of the ride tweaking out over how amazing the day had been. I was eager to get back to the hostel and upload photos for my friends back home to see. That day was a fucking phenomenal day.