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Today we had our Thai cooking course, which although was more expensive than the Indian one was definitely a lot better. He picked us up from our guesthouse, and somehow managed to squeeze 12 of us into his vehicle that was kind of like a truck with a roof. He took us to a market and told us that to check if an egg is fresh, you shake it and if it is silent then it is good, if not it has water in it. He showed us 1000 year old eggs (I don't think they are actually that old, but they are just fermented for a long time and dyed pink. The literal translation of the Thai name for them is horse pee eggs). He had forgotten to pick up one of the people doing his course so me and Alice had a strawberry and yoghurt/ mango and banana smoothies while we waited for him to come back. He showed us the veggie stall, rice stall, coconut stall (the juice is the liquid when the coconut is young, cream is what you get from squeezing out old coconut flesh and milk is cream mixed with water) and the fish stall, where the fish are still alive swimming around in water. The guy obviously tells his jokes everyday but still laughed enthusiastically every time as if he had just thought of it.
We then drove to his garden and studio, and picked the rest of the things we needed. You can check which chillies are hot because they're the ones pointing upwards in front of the leaves (I think the more sun they get, the hotter they become).
We started off making soups, and me and Alice both made Tofu Tom Yum. Then he showed us how to cook rice, including sweet sticky rice, which we ate with mango. He also handed round the papaya salad and spring rolls we made (glued together using a banana). He also did a carving demonstration- making a rose out of a tomato and leaves out of a Chinese lettuce. Then we all had to help pestle and mortar the curry paste- I wouldn't fancy doing it all by myself! It must have been extra hot as the tablespoon he gave me was supposed to make my Thai red curry medium, but it was too spicy to eat. The pad Thai and chicken and cashew nuts were delicious.
He picked up our rucksacks and tried to find the new hostel we are staying in but he didn't know where it was so we walked to find it. The owners are very friendly and are artists and so display their art in the common room. They put on a barbeque and everyone sat around and munched on sweet corn, sweet potato, taro (a root vegetable that's a bit strange tasting), tofu, and tomato, onion and mushroom kebabs.
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