Cooking Class

Thai cooking classes are in abundance here in Pattaya and Bangkok. Cooking with Poo is a world renowned cook who started in the slums of Bangkok where she still currently lives and runs an extremely successful cooking school. I haven't made it there Yet (in May) but it's on the list. 

Since moving to Thailand I have A LIST. Things that I want to desperately do before we leave. A Thai cooking class is one and got to Cross it off the list today but now I've added Cooking with Poo in Bangkok. That's the trouble with this list it keeps getting things added. 

I have been to a few cooking classes but Happy Home Thai Cooking Class was different.  My favorite expression here sums it up beautifully, Same Same but Different. In the US the cooking classes I've been to you're in a sterile kitchen with all the appropriate measures for safety. You never cross contaminate (god forbid). Lol. Cookware is run through a giant industrial dishwasher. There is a certain plate for only meat and you never put veggies on the same plate. Measurements are accurate. The instructor would never grab a spoon and taste out of your bowl to see if your dish is perfect then add something over your shoulder if it wasn't. 

HH Thai cooking school was like cooking with grandma. We show up to this tiny house where the downstairs is turned into a room with 2 wooden tables with 7 gas burners with big gas tanks under the table ( okay maybe not that part is like cooking with grandma). A super sweet Thai woman, Sherie, greets us in the street. She speaks beautiful English which she later tells us was a necessary skill she taught herself when she realized she needed to be able to support herself in her own country. She is soooo happy to have us. She has just moved her business and is happy we found it. She has 2 tables set up for us to sit around and relax. The wooden tables with different chairs and thai table cloths. In the middle is big plastic pitchers full of water with a bunch of miss matched plastic cups. She hands us all aprons. Fans are all around because there is no air conditioner. 

We have brought Prosecco with us. Really can you do cooking class without it? 😉. 

She brings us over to the ingredient table where all the produce is displayed and she tells what everything is. So fresh!  

We each have a station set up with our own cutting board, knife, plate, bowl and of course gas burner with pan.   All the ingredients are aligned on a plate.  An soy sauce bottle, fish sauce bottle, oil, palm sugar, and fresh tamarind juice are in the middle for us to use how we want. She walks us through step by step.  We are all making individual servings. Our first course was Green Curry with Chicken/Kang Khiao Wan Gai. We start by making our green curry paste and then add in the rest of the ingredients.  It's like a soup that you eat over rice. After we are all done we pour it into bowls and head to the table to eat. Wow!  

But wait we are not done. After eating and relaxing we get up to do the entire thing over with 5 different dishes. We made Tom Kha Gai/Coconut chicken soup (my favorite), Larb Moo/Spicy Pork salad, Spicy Pork with basil leaves/Phad Krabi Paola Moo and Mango with sticky rice/Khao Neaw Mamoung (another favorite). I should not have eaten breakfast. We ate and relaxed after every dish we prepared. If we didn't finish or didn't want to eat everything it was put into a Baggie for us to take home.  I have never cooked such awesome Thai food. Lol 😜. 

There were 8 of us cooking together. It was such a great day of chatting and cooking, Plus a little bit of sipping. Sherie would walk around with her spoon and try what we were making and add something here or there. The place was not by any means fancy but everything looked so clean. Though I am not sure where the utensils were washed. And I don't think the knives were sterilized in between cutting chicken, pork or vegetables but I'm use to it after living here for some time now. 

A funny that you would never see in the US - she was missing a gas burner, we had 8 people and she had only counted on 7. She dragged out a large propane tank (like what we would hook up to our grills) and she turned the knob and lit it. The top was converted into a burner so you can place your pan right on it. You stood around the tank and cooked your food. Hilarious. Sadly I'm kind of use to this stuff so I barely give it a thought until just thinking about it now. Lol

Ok so safety might not be their first concern but boy the Thais know how to cook. 

The food was delicious. I came home with a few doggie bags but not as many as I thought I would. 

I survived all the cross contamination and sharing of utensils and learned how to make awesome Thai food. Now all I need is someone to buy it, prep it, and put it all on a little plate for me to throw in a pan. 😝. Oh and clean up after me!  Best cooking ever. 

Can't wait for Cooking with Poo!

Cheers from the other side

😘 M

He is home!

My "world traveler" is home. After a long day of traveling Jack is back amongst us with lots of hugs. He was happy to get a warm shower something he says he hasn't had in a week. He came home with lots of Masala tea (new habit he developed) and lots of fun trinkets for us. I could barely get him to bed with all the stories he has to share. Poor guy had to compete with Erin and Andrew coming home from the valentines dance with their own stories and gossip. 

I am so thankful he had this opportunity to go to Nepal. He had a fantastic time and is already talking about next years trip. I will look at his pictures tomorrow and hope to upload a few to share.

Bonus - he had a different pair of underwear on from when he left so I know he changed it at least once. 😜. 

Cheers from the other side

😘 M

Next up Andrew leaves Sunday for Baan Melid this is the hill tribe in Northern Thailand. He is going for a week. It is a service project trip where they will live in the school and do various projects around the school such as painting and cleaning. They also will spend time teaching the children games and playing fun learning activities. 

Project Nepal - day 4 and 5

Jacks teacher is having difficulty uploading pictures so I just included the emails. When I get more pictures I will post. 

Namaste,

What a great day. Our children and the Nepalese children have really found their feet; we were able to hand over the activities to them to run with a good deal of independence today and the interaction is magical.

Mr Mulford organised a fantastic day of art activities: the children were drawing perspective drawings, our children taught them to use water colours and oil pastels, we even managed to conduct lessons outside in the playground today.

Our nursery children continued to make creatures with the play doh and spent the afternoon colouring cut outs of sea animals; their progress in mark making, use of colour and their concentration was a real joy to see.

We have enjoyed a steeper climb home today, rewarded by seeing where our classmates live (they are walking home with us which is lovely).  

We have taken about a billion photos as we are all filled with awe and wonder - leaving Nagarkot will be heart wrenching: the relationships we are forming within the school community are immensely fulfilling and here is still so much work to be done.

Your children are tired but in good spirits; Nat and I are really enjoying getting to know them better and seeing them blossom in terms of confidence in their leadership and independence in organising activities and evaluating when to move the learning on, they are stars.

Last day at school tomorrow, sob, sob.

Sorry, I have tried 4 times to upload photos but with no success. I will try again later.

Have a lovely evening, 

Maxine and Nat.

Namaste,

At the risk of sounding over the top you should know that I am typing this e-mail and struggling to keep the tears back: it has been such an emotional day.
The whole day has been characterised by positivity, energy and connections: our children knew the classes that they wanted to work with and the relationships they have forged over the previous three days have led to amazing participation by the Nepalese children in activities they have never experienced before.  It has been heart warming to see boys and girls participating in the games we have donated (boys tend to dominate and girls hold back in Nepalese culture).  Nat organised the juniors with art activities and a rotation of learning to play the games we donated whilst my early years group simply got on with drawing and  teaching the children to play twister, jenga and how to build Lego; this left me to chat with Kalyani about the maths and science curriculum and suggest new activities she can incorporate into the school's pedagogy.  It's only the beginning so I sincerely hope this trip receives the same level of support next year.
To close the day we were treated to a short presentation followed by singing and dancing; Sophie, Tyler, Shivangi and Claudia made exceptional, heart felt spontaneous speeches at the end - mums and dads, you would have been incredibly proud.
To summarise, our hosts have been supported in beginning to develop the education they deliver; the children have been given opportunities and resources that we would expect our children to experience as a bare minimum; some children have shown talent in art and desperately need the motivation, encouragement and opportunity to develop further; your children have grown as leaders, developed their ability to analyse situations and respond as necessary, made connections that transcend the language and cultural barriers and most importantly thrown themselves at the challenge whole heartedly. Nat and I have loved every minute of the service component of our trip, it has been magical and a real privilege.
Your children have already asked if they can come again next year and if Sanjeevani Primary School could be our international community partner: I think that speaks volumes.
Tomorrow we return to Kathmandu for sight seeing and souvenir shopping; I will do my best to guide them towards tasteful artefacts, that said, everything  nepalese is cool.

I will keep trying to upload the photos.

Have a good evening.

Maxine and Nat. 

Cheers from the other side

😘 M

Project Nepal Email day #3

This email is from day #3. Sounds like a really fantastic experience for all the kids. I am finding this fascinating. Pictures are below. 

Dear parents,

Namaste.

Yet another fabulous day up in the Himalayas, if you haven't made it up here do think about coming; the scenery is amazing and the hospitality here at The Farmhouse is brilliant.

So today we awoke to a temperature of 5 degrees; being seasoned veterans the children arrived up in the restaurant dressed to impress in woollen hats and gloves bought from the lady on site who knits lovely things.  The breakfasts are fabulous, our children are tending to favour the pancakes washed down by gallons of masala chai.

We walked to the school arriving about 10 o clock and the kids were waiting for us, even the little ones who desperately wanted the play doh again. We asked them to make spots for ladybirds so they could practise their numbers and also to make numbers out of play doh; they all learned something new, it was evident that the rote learning taught them their numbers but they had no idea what 5 actually meant.

With our older children we demonstrated how the teachers could use dominoes to practise addition, connect 4 to practise times tables facts, number bonds with multiples of ten and five (finding partners who had the matching pair) and using number cards so children could show answers to addition sums.  Again the staff were incredibly grateful and inspired to adapt their teaching methods.

To give you a little background, teachers in Nepal don't receive any training and those paid by the government don't always turn up for work.  Two of the teachers at Sanjeevani Primary School are sponsored by a company in Singapore; they are keen to innovate practise but it is only their salaries that are paid ($35 USD per month) there is no funding for resources, not even basics such as pencils or paper.  Incidentally, the government paid staff receive $200USD per month.  Everything that we are doing here is new to the children and the teachers; you cannot underestimate the impact your children are making- the challenge is for us to find a way to sustain the training and resourcing for the school.

Tomorrow will be an art based day, Mr Mulford and I will chat about that over our fortieth cup of masala chai.

I will send a few photos later this evening.

Have a good evening.

Bidai.

Maxine and Nat.

Jack in the school teaching numbers. 

The views are quite stunning. 

Obviously someone else was also taking a picture since no one is looking this way. 

Jack again rocking the Eagles sweatshirt. I did send him with 3 other sweatshirts. I wonder if we will see them in any pics along the way. 😜

In the school grounds playing a game. 

This is Jacks best bud Tyler. 

I really need to work on Jacks picture taking skills. Lol

A nice warm fire at night. The Farmhouse has no heat or air and only certain hours of electricity. Lots of cards and book reading. No technology at all hope Jack hasn't gone into withdrawal. Lol

Jack hanging with the group at night. 

Cheers from the other side

😘 M

*** Congratulations to my cousins new baby boy. May the next several months go smoothly and he grow big and strong and is able to come home to his brothers and sister. 

Project Nepal

Update on Jack in Nepal

A little background on the Nepal trip and how it was formed. 

The school where my kids attend have various fund raising projects going on. Project Nepal is one of them. One of the boarders at Regents is a student from Nepal on a scholarship and tries to raise awareness and funds for his hometown. The primary Round Square Week developed because of Project Nepal. Only 10 children were chosen for this trip last year before Jack came to school. 1 child backed out right at the end of the school year so one spot was open. Jack came to the school at the start of the term in August and was hearing talk about this trip, he expressed interest. Coming home after school he would tell me about it. Talking about going to Nepal and what they were going to be doing there. Now mind you if you know my Jack this is not normal. Typically if it's not sport centered he doesn't have interest but with so much talk of this trip and 2 of his buddies (always helps when you have a friend to travel with) going he really wanted to go. 

Walter and I just let him talk and thought the interest would fade. When he went away in November for a week I thought for sure he would come home saying how homesick he was (missing me 😜 ) and the interest in Nepal would fade fast. How wrong I was. Actually it was the opposite after spending 2 days at the Hill tribe he wanted to spend more time doing service projects. He hounded me about going to Nepal telling me the window was closing for his ability to go. Now mind you he had not been asked to go but he was SO sure if I told school he was interested they would want him to come plus they had room for one more person. Gotta love a self confident kid. 

After discussing it with Walter, I approached Jack and told him he had to come up with 5 facts about Nepal, watch a movie that was recommended by school about the Dalia Lama and write a small paragraph about why he wanted to go. This was my last ditch effort to truly be certain he wanted to go and for the right reasons not because he and Tyler would have a 5 night sleepover together in a cool country. I didn't think it was necessary for Walter and I to spend our good money unless he truly was vested in this trip. He did it all!

Contact with school was made, they were more than happy to have Jack, deposits were made, visas were obtained and now he is in Nepal. 

We receive a daily email from his teachers/chaperones. 

Here are the first 2 emails with a few pictures. It kind of gets me choked up when I read them. 

What a lucky boy he is!

Dear parents,

I am happy to tell you that we have arrived in Nagarkot and the power has just come back on!
The journey from Kathmandu was incredible and the children were awestruck by the scenery: mountains, everyday life, winding roads and goats, yes goats.

Our rooms are very comfortable and the children are either sharing in pairs or threes.  We have had a lovely snack of vegetable pakora and chips and are looking forward to some supper; masala tea is a hit!

As the sun has gone down the temperature is dropping, cold by Thai standards but for us tough Northern Europeans, just like a summers day! Our children are enjoying monopoly and each others' company, long may it continue.

I will update you tomorrow as soon as we have power and internet access.

Photos are taking a while to upload so I will try and send some more later.

Regards,

Maxine and Nat 

Dear parents,

Your children are amazing! I wish you could have been here to share everything we have done.  Here are a few selected highlights:

Our hosts have been playing the guitar and the children have enjoyed singing and dancing with them, I have a lovely video of this which I will try to upload separately. They have been great company for us and each other.

Many experienced 'hot water bottles' for the first time last night.  " What do you do with them Miss Watkinson? Can we put them under our pillow?" Eventually we got the children sorted.

It has been very amusing watching the children trying to eat their meals with gloves on; for some reason they were reluctant to take their warm clothes off even at the dinner table! I think the novelty of big jackets, hats and gloves is wearing off now.

We walked 3 km downhill to the school, in the cold, warm jackets on and definitely needed.

Our children were shocked when they saw the size of the classrooms and the lack of facilities but they excelled themselves in leading activities.  With the younger children Jules, Shivangi and Bryce demonstrated how the children could work with play doh to make animals.  The children had never seen play doh before and initially had no idea what to do, two hours later, yes two hours of sustained interest they were using their own imaginations to make animals and flowers.  Prabin said he had never seen this amount of energy from the children before. A magic moment.
The rest of the group, Tyler, Claudia, Callum, Jack, Sophie, Coben and Leon all led activities in separate classrooms where they drew their families and talked about names and ages, encouraging the nepalese children to do the same.  They demonstrated games such as duck, duck, goose and bungalow which really helped to break the ice.
They loved the leadership and are busy writing about it in their Global Citizenship diaries as we speak. 
We survived the 3km walk home, climbing 800m; the school children do this everyday, having eaten nothing since breakfast time, which put our discomforts into a very different perspective.
Your children's attitudes and enthusiasm are incredible, I doubt many others would tackle the differences in culture and overcome the lack of shared experiences so well and with such success, you should be very proud of them indeed.
Once supper is over we will plan for tomorrow.
I will do my best to upload some photos and videos but can't promise as the internet connection is quite slow. Please bear with me on that one.

Have a lovely evening and we will send another update tomorrow.

Regards, 
Maxine and Nat. 

Jack and his buds. 

Eagles are well represented in Nepal. Whatever Jack! on that sweatshirt. 

He may be a great kid but his choice in team favoritism is awful. Lol

Their facilities where they are staying. 

Walking to school

At the school playing duck duck Goose

Funny thing - though we moved from MI I had to borrow and hats and gloves and buy him pants because I brought no cold weather clothes with us. Pathetic I know 😉

Cheers from the other side

😘 M