Jan-Feb-2016_Final-1-4-16-attempt2

THAILAND

I didn’t have much experi- ence with Asian cooking before my recent trip to Thailand; at the Culinary In- stitute of America we focused more on French, Italian, and American regional cuisines. We had a short class that covered all

village. And we spent some time in Chiang Rai in the northern part of Thailand exploring the White Temple and the Black House. I found heaven. It’s located on the side of a mountain in Chiang Rai. I have never seen so many orchids growing wild.

“The traditional version of Pad Thai sold from food carts and food stalls is made with dried shrimp like we sell at Rouses. Our Gulf Coast fishermen learned shrimp drying techniques from the Chinese shrimpers who came to the coast in the mid 1800s.​”

of Asia in which I learned thatThai cooking uses lemongrass and limes, not lemons, but that was about it. But I love to eatThai food, so the main thing I wanted to do on my trip was take a cooking class. My boyfriend, Alton, joined me. Our first stop was Chiang Mai city where I signed up for a class at the Thai Farm Cooking School. The class started with a trip to a Wet Market, which is a term for a market that sells meats and produce. The produce was so fresh! I got to try several exotic fruits and vegetables that are too fragile to ship to the US. The fruit was so sweet and ripe it was like eating candy. From there we headed to the cooking school, about 30 minutes outside of Chiang Mai in an area referred to as the magical world of 1,000 trees. We began with a tour of the grounds, which include an organic farm and fishing ponds. They grew both kinds of rice on the farm, sticky and Jasmine. I learned that sticky rice grows on the mountain-sides and needs little water. It’s super starchy and has to be soaked in water overnight before you can cook it. Jasmine grows in patties, like we grow rice in areas like Crowley, Louisiana. The cooking experience was very hands on. I had my own cooking station, which was stocked with the three essential seasonings: fish sauce, oyster sauce, and palm sugar. We would prep our ingredients and our instructor, Pear (like the tree), would walk us through how to cook everything. My favorite part was pounding our own curries with a mortar and pestle. My arm was sore for days. Thailand is very much about communal eating, so we ate a lot of different food with a lot of different people. Meals included several courses — curries with rice, always multiple curries, never just one; salad, usually with glass noodles; spring rolls; a soup. The only pad Thai I had in Thailand I cooked myself at Thai Farm, but I did eat a lot of noodles — my favorite one came

from a cart at a the bus station in Chiang Mai. It was a red coconut curry with wheat noodles. It was chocked full of chicken and vegetables and plenty of spicy Thai chilies. In Chiang Mai we visited the nighttime bazaar, which was so crowded it felt like Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras. We touredWat Pho, which are temples, some as old as 2,000 years.Wat Phra Singh is one of the most visited and photographed temples in the world, but somehow I missed the fact that the famous monks inside were fake. I kept talking about how zen these monks were until finally Alton turned to me and gently explained: “Honey, they’re wax.” My favorite part of the trip was the Mae Sa Elephant Camp, about an hour from Chiang Mai. Nearly 80 elephants come work at the camp every day. At night they return to the forest with their guides (mahouts). Elephants and mahouts are bonded for life. It’s an amazing relationship, and elephants are beautiful creatures. I got an elephant hug, YEAH! We also watched an elephant named Suda paint a portrait of small herd walking into the sunset. Yes, an elephant painted a painting of other elephants. He held the brush with his trunk and his mahout would dip it in paint . Of course we bought a picture. We also traveled toMae Hong So,a long neck

We spent the rest of our trip in Bangkok.We went to the Chatuchak Weekend Market, one of the largest markets in the world.The market is as big as the French Quarter, with thousands of stalls all crowded together down tiny little alleyways selling anything you can possibly imagine. It’s crazy busy — over 200,000 visitors a day. It’s a must visit — plan on a whole day. Street food is the best food in Bangkok. Stir-fries. Curries. Noodles. Mango sticky rice. Sausages. Steamed crab. Grilled squid. It’s all cooked there in the open air. Small food entrepreneurship is a major part of the country’s food success. From street carts to the food stalls in the outdoor markets, food entrepreneurs (cooks and bakers) are all focused on one dish, one really, really good dish. At Rouses, we look for food entrepreneurs like that for our bakery. People who make that one great dish. We work with that baker in Alabama who makes a great banana loaf cake, that candymaker in New Orleans who makes a great praline — whether it’s Wink’s buttermilk drops, Gracious Bakery’s croissants, or Bellegarde’s breads, we are always looking for those products and those small food entrepreneurs to work with, for one store or for all of our stores.

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