Cooking in Thailand

I recently had a splendid time in Chiang Mai taking some cooking classes. They lasted from about 10:30 - 4 and we made 6 dishes each day. That is a huge amount of food to sample! The great thing was the way the groups bonded. We had plenty of time to chat with each other while sampling our dishes. One of the days involved going to the market and "purchasing" various ingredients to use in our cooking. The classes involved a demonstration by one of instructors--they switched off during the day--and then we each had our own cooking station to try our hand at what we had seen demonstrated. The instructors would check to make sure we were on track with the techniques we learned.

Fortunately, I live in an area where it is easy to buy virtually all of the ingredients, so I will be able to put what I learned to use.

If you are in a place where you have a day or half day and want to do something other than the usual tourist activities, I definitely recommend googling cooking schools/classes for the area.