Why I love the markets in Chiang Mai

Artificial coloring? You Bet! Candy treats at the market

Another great thing about this city are its out door markets. Normally when I travel I visit a market once and then try to avoid them for the rest of my stay. I usually dislike being herded around like cattle to move past each stall at the pace of the collective public shoppers, being told that I "had" to buy this or that, and seeing the same dull crappy trinkets one stall after another. The outdoor markets here cover many streets, main and side streets, with stalls along the sides and middle of the road. Yes, there are many vendors selling the same items, however I feel as though I can walk past about 20 different stalls before I start seeing the same objects show up. I have also been enjoying the many vivid colors of clothes, scarves, fruits, toys, candles, lanterns, snacks, etc.

And my number one favorite thing about these markets are that I can stand and look at something in someones stall and the vendor will almost always make eye contact, smile, and offer a price without pressing the matter to make me feel uncomfortable!

Now that we are discussing the market, I can share some very specific things I like.

 Do you happen to need a condiment for your fresh hot snack, possibly of very fancy cut deep fried potatoes, but you just can't manage to hold your food, shopping, and bottle of sauce? Struggle no more friends, the hanging bladder sauce bag is here!


If you enjoy eggs, especially those from small birds like quails, you can order a plate (or in most cases a styraphoam tray) of small fried eggs. To make these eggs is simple. Own an egg hotplate, place over a fire, crack an egg into each divet, cook until done, scoop out, and serve (with soy sauce).

A street market smoothie is easy to order. Just point to the cup of fruit displayed and moments later you will be handed a smoothie. If you desire a less healthy option, choose a Coke or Fanta.

 Bring an umbrella because it will either be blazing hot and you will want it to protect you from the sun,










Or it will be pouring sheets of rain and will protect your head from buckets being unloaded onto you (though the rest of you will be drenched). Pouring rain at a market is not all bad. The temperature usually drops a couple degrees and it usually scares the masses of tourists away.

Thai Cooking 102- a 2nd Day

Ava in the market with her basket

I had way too much fun in my first cooking class and had to take another. Ava, a friend from massage school, accompanied me this time. We were each picked up at our accomodation and taken to a spa which also hosts cooking classes. No one else was signed up and we had ourselves a private lesson! We were taken to a nearby market that smelled very strongly of dried shrimp paste (about the equivalant of week old wet cat food).
She showed us some different spices, noodles, curry pastes, and had to buy some vegetarian meat replacement for my dishes. I think it was freeze dried wheat gluten, however I am not sure and may never be. All I know is that it didn't have to soak very long before being ready to use.

Wheat Gluten chunks?

                                                                                     The first dish we each cooked was a soup. I chose to make Tom Kha Kai, a vegetable soup with shrimp. I am not sure I will be able to remember how to recreate this soup when I return home because I did not take as many photos, nor is the recipe in the "cook" book our teacher gave us. Ava made a chicken noodle soup which looked great, but I think she learned that she only needed to use about 2 chilies instead of 4 as her soup was just a bit too spicy for her!

We really enjoyed our day together at the cooking school. It was funny because we would be presented with the vegetables to be used in our meal and then just kind of left to our own means of creating what to do with it. When our teacher would see that we were ready, she would hand us some oils and sauces or just start pouring them herself into the pan. I found the other school to be far more structured as in they would tell me when to cut my eggplant, how many times, and then where to put it once I was ready to cut my next vegetable. I think I might have learnt and remembered more from the first school, but I think I had more fun just hanging out with Ava and eating on this day.

We each also made a stir fry dish. Mine was with the wheat gluten and basil. It tasted better than it looks, and I think I could figure out how to make this at home, however I would replace the wheat gluten with noodles, skip the eggplant, and add other vegetables. The sauce and flavor were great though!

The next portions to prepare were our side dishes! Ava made deep fried spring rolls, though she thought she was going to make them fresh or "live" as they appear on many menus.
I had no idea what deep fried pandamus leaves were, so I chose that dish. My teacher replaced chicken with tofu, made a simple marinade of oyster sauce with sesame seeds, covered the tofu in it, and then had me wrap the tofu oragami style in the leaves.

    

Unfortunatly this dish did taste exactly how it looks- like deep fried burnt tofu wrapped in leaves! Oh well, live and learn! And I think I have learned, when I return home I will attempt to make something similar to this- Either chicken or banana wrapped in banana leaves and then fried.

 Ava became pretty full sooner than she expected and decided to make a dessert rather than a main course. Loving curry as much as I do, I could not pass up making one even though I too was feeling a bit stuffed. I smashed myself up a curry paste and then cooked away!


 All in all, it was a great day of eating and though I cant really remember how exactly to cook what I made, I think I at least will go home with some great ideas!

Thai Massage School- a typical day

I have now been attending ITM (International Training Massage School) in Chiang Mai, Thailand for two and a half weeks and am loving it! The teachers are wonderful and the school has done an amazing job sharing a part of Thai culture with travelers from all over the world. Here we learn Nuad Bo-Rarn, Northern Style, which emphasizes more on stretching and less on pressure than the Southern Bangkok Style. Due to this style of yoga being very passive, it is often called "Lazy Yoga," (for the recipiant that is!) Whether you are already a body practitioner taking CE credits or want to have a hands on Thai experience, a try at Thai massage seems like a must while in this country.

A typical day at school is as follows:
(I make the 10 minute walk to school from my guesthouse, usually arriving sweaty and stinky as it is normally in the mid 80s and humid by 8am. Luckily the school is air conditioned)
The mornings begin Monday through Thursday promptly at 9am with Mantra and Thai Yoga/Qi Gong exercises, (so you best be early to wash your feet!)
9:30-9:45 time to integrate with a coffee/tea break
9:45-12:00 lessons, demonstrations, and sometimes time for practice
12:00-1:00 Lunch break (hurry to your favorite street vendor or restaurant and return promptly to wash your feet again!)

1:00-3:00 More demonstrations and time to practice
3:00-3:10 Daily Mantra with the entire school together
3:10-5:00 Optional opportunity to practice with faculty watching and assisting. (I am a good student and stay everyday!)

Fridays are "same same but different," when it does not rain, all students meet on the South West side of the Old City in a park at 8:30am for Thai Yoga/Qi Gong Exercise in the park. We are then all driven back through chaotic traffic by many Red Trucks and served fruits, sticky rice with mango, cakes, teas, and coffees! 

When you are finished eating, it is time for taking a test based on the weeks lessons! The skill assessments are based on: appearance, etiquette, time management, pressure, posture, attending the morning exercise, and then selected movements from the course. So far I have been fortunate with a great partner, teacher tester, and an understanding of the course and have receieved 100% on both my level I and II tests! (For those of you at home who are reluctant to let me practice Thai massage on you upon my return, maybe I have now won some of your confidence?)

Level I completed!

 Here I am practicing working on Energy Lines on the leg. Lydia from Greece is one of my classmates.

After a long day of learning, practicing, and walking around on a hot day, groups of us often venture to a local juice and smoothie house for drinks and discussions. It's fun to taste everyones drinks and compare the tastes. Because in Thailand sugar is added to everything, most of us request of smoothies to be without: added sugar, as well as ice, and water. A smoothie with 3-5 fruits will cost 35 Baht (about $1.05) and a smoothie with 3-5 fruits and yogurt will cost 55 Baht (almost $2).

The smoothies tend to quench my thirst and and boost my hunger. There are so many great places to eat that it can often be difficult to make a decision. I prefer dishes with noodles to rice and often chose a place for a good noodle dish. I'm not going to lie, before retiring for the night, a few of us love to get a Roti off the street. My two favorites are Roti with Banana and honey and Roti with strawberry jam and condensed milk. I usually am in bed before 11am as I can not seem to sleep past 7am!
Pictured above: Pad See Eww and a woman making Roti

Thai Cooking 101- A Full Day (and long read)

After a great nights sleep on a bed so hard that when I flipped from side to side I was awoken to what could have been a knock on the door, I was on my way to cook and eat Thai Food... All day long! There are so many cooking classes offered all over, inside and out of the city that I just chose the cheapest option and figured I would try a different school each weekend. For 800 Baht (roughly $27) I was picked up from my guesthouse, taken on a tour through a local market to learn about produce and herbs, given a cookbook, a certificate of completion, and learned to cook (and EAT!) 6 dishes over 6 hours. The dishes I chose were: -Pad Thai                               -fried spring rolls                 -Banana in coconut milk
-Tofu and Vegetable soup       - Red Curry paste               -Red Curry

After some refreshing tea and water and the arrival of the 11 other students we were off to the market! We viewed 5 types of pre-made Curry paste: Green, Yellow, Red, "Thai Spicy," and "Tourists don't even smell it spicy." Later I learned that there are few differences between these pastes. Green and Red have all the same ingrediants accept that in Green you use fresh chillies and basil. With Red you use dried red chillies and no basil. Red and Yellow curry paste are the same accept that yellow has Muchi curry powder added to it!

In the market are many stalls selling every item you could possibly need in a space that is maybe 5 x 5 feet. Noodles of all sorts- rice, mung bean, soya, wheat, "glass" (vermicelli), etc. hang from the ceiling while glass bottled sauces and oils are stacked against the walls and condiments and other essentials are everywhere else. This same stall also hosted barrels of Palm oil and Palm sugar, which tastes very much like honey. Unfortunately I have learned that palm oil is one of the least sustainable forms of oil, so when I return home I will use Sunflower oil instead.

We were taught about the basic "soup package," the main ingrediants used to build many Thai soups. Thanks to years of working at Whole Foods Market and doing a produce walk each day, I was able to identify nearly every item we were shown at the market! This soup package includes: Lemongrass, fresh Turmeric, Galangal (Thai Ginger), and fresh Kaffir Lime leaves. 

These are several eggplants to be used throughout the day. Green eggplant, "golfball" eggplant, baby Thai eggplant, and sadly there is an even smaller sized eggplant not shown in this photo that is the size of a small marble!

Our Chef holds up Galangal

Root called "Krachai" good for stomach aches

3 basils: Lemon, Holy or "hot basil," and Thai or "sweet basil"

Our chef talked about Chives, spring onions, and corriander (cilantro) which is above right and talked for awhile about different peppers. Red and Green chillies are the same chillies, except that the red ones are left to grow longer and have time to turn red. They call the red chillies "old" chillies. What we call "Thai" chillies at home, they call "Bust eye" chillies and prefer to cook with 10-20 per dish and recomend westerners use 6-8 at most for a very hot dish. The bust eye chillies are so spicy because they grow upside down.

Bust Eye chillis may be the size of a finger nail

There are many mushrooms to cook with. Our chef only showed us Oyster mushrooms and "elephant ear" mushrooms which is in the photo to the right. It has a squigy moist/poreous feel that I did not like.

Morning Glory- also amazing in Vietnamese soup- Pho

There are so many varieties of rice, however there was only one we spoke about, as in only 1 worth mentioning- sticky rice. Mango sticky rice is the most amazing dessert I have eaten since being in Thailand. To prepare the sticky rice you have to soak the rice in cold water for minimum 4 hours, but it really should be done over night. Then you drain the water 4 times and steam the rice for at least 15 minutes. Now the rice is ready to cook the way you want it- in coconut milk with lots of sugar and a pinch of sea salt.

Bamboo rice steamer. cost = 20 Baht ($0.75)

a basket of ready to use produce for the day

Once we all had our aprons on, we were ready to chop
on our individual cutting boards with some serious cutlery.                                                                              

              

This photo shows my cutting station with my plate of food ready to cook for the tofu vegetable soup: Napa cabbage, carrots, 'glass noodles,' spring onions, thai sweet garlic smashed with the skin unremoved, and the yellow disks are a type of tofu. The broth not shown was mushroom boullion. The final product tasted better than I had imagined. I was very pleased and will

cook this when I get home!

**DISCLAIMER** If you are getting hungry, maybe go eat something and then continue to read this later because you may feel as though you are about to suffer. If you are up for it, please continue reading about the other meals I cooked... and ate!





(sorry it is sideways) The ingrediants for Pad Thai
are: Tofu, bean sprouts, chives, sweet thai ginger crushed and still in the skin, glass noodles, egg, and dried shrimp (not shown). For the sauce you need: Oyster sauce, fish sauce, and sugar.

Heat your oil, cook the tofu, add vegetables and cook, add water, the noodles, cook, and push to the side. Crack the egg in, stir it up until it cooks, then add the sauce and let it cook a few more minutes.

Serve and enjoy your Pad Thai noodles!

Deep fried veggie Spring rolls

 The ingrediants used to make Red Curry paste are: corriander root, Kaffir Lime skin, Galangal, dried red chilies, lemon grass, shallots, and Thai sweet garlic. All of these should be chopped very finely. Once you think they are minced enough, cut for another minute.
The spices used are about 5 whole black pepercorns, corriander seeds, cumin seeds, and shrimp paste that smells like old cat food. "Bad smell means good taste," says our Chef.
In a mortar and pestle first smash the seeds, then vegetables shown on the plate, then shrimp paste.

Smash everything until it is a smooth paste consistancy. Only about a tablespoon is needed per serving, so if there is extra, put in an air tight jar, cover with oil, and store in the fridge for up to 2 months.

 The Ingrediants I put into my vegetarian red curry were: Kaffir lime leaves, Thai eggplant, baby corn, tofu and sweet basil. The fresh old chillies are to garnish.

Add oil to the wok, begin to heat, add the chilli paste,and stir until you smell your curry paste. Add your ingrediants without the basil and cook. Add coconut milk and cook until the desired taste. Then Enjoy. Or wait a day and enjoy the taste even more once it has settled into itself!

Thai Red Curry with coconut milk

The final dish I made was bananas in coconut milk