Cooking Class, Silom Style

Back from my epic adventures with Chuck and ready to report on them... here's a start, with my photos.  I may update these posts when Chuck gets her photos up online (ahem, Chuck.)
UPDATE: Chuck's pics added!

First order of business when she got off the plane: Soi Polo for fried chicken and fish with garlic crispies, super spicy chili sauces, other deliciousness and a Thai-style massage to get the kinks out. 

 
A trip to the neighborhood market, then jet lag set in and Chuck was toast:

Our second day: Thai cooking class!  

We took a course with the Silom Thai Cooking School, not too far from my apartment.  Before getting started with the cooking, we hit up the market for ingredients.  I love a good market tour!

Here's our cute cooking instuctor, Goong, showing us how to pick shrimp (comically, the word "goong" means shrimp in Thai.  Har har.):

Here's the guy who uses an industrial strength grater to grind up the coconut for making coconut milk (have I mentioned how much I love the auto-GIFing that Picasa/Google+ does?):

Fish lady:

Chicken dude:

Cooking class attendees (Team America, Team Singapore and Team Korea, as Goong called us), picking up some veggies and herbs:

Pretty flags on the market's street:

 The cooking class itself was pretty great, too.  Down a couple of sois, in an open air kitchen, great instructor and detailed recipe book (complete with photos of the ingredients and potential substitutes)... good stuff!

Here's me and Chuck squeezing the coconut shreds (plus water) to make the coconut milk:

Here's our food prep set-up... veggies and spices and big knives:

Cooking in the open air kitchen:

Here's us in our fancy aprons with our finished products:

Mid-cooking selfie:

The whole class, cooking up the green curry:

Just some of the dishes we made... green curry with chicken, tom yum goong, pad thai, and tub tim grob (aka "rubies in coconut milk"):

 Mmmmmmmmmm...