Bon Appetit!

[FLASHBACK]

Monday, February 16^th

My first cooking class was this morning!  There is a woman named Kay Karuna, who makes her living exclusively teaching groups of ex-pats how to cook the local food.  The class was hosted in Woodlands, which is the American neighborhood located near 3M.  There was a bit of a problem finding the place – I had forgotten both the address and the phone number of the hostess.  Luckily it’s a pretty close-knit community, and David’s co-worker who lives in the same neighborhood knew exactly who was hosting and where it was.  I was the first one there, of course, which is just how I like it.  I know it’s not polite, but I enjoy the time chatting with whoever is having the get-together because I know they’ll be way too busy later.  And I’m usually a bit shy when I first meet people, so I like to find a job early, like helping put out the food, so I can keep busy and not be so terrified by all the strangers.

The class was fun, and everyone was very nice, of course.  I had kitchen-envy of Wendy, the hostess, as she had more than two square feet of free counter space.  I learned two major skills today:

1.)    How to use a wok properly, and…

2.)    How to take the heads off prawns all by myself.  It turns out it's fairly easy, but there’s quite a bit of unsightly goo if you don’t do it exactly right.

I didn’t instantly bond with any one single person, they all lived in the American neighborhood and had kids that all went to school together, so I’m still a little lacking in the friend department.  But it was a ton of fun and I’ll look forward to the next one.  I was also able to buy a real hand-made wok from Kay, and will finally be able to use the cool wok-burner thingy on the stove at home.  Now when we have guests I can start to cook up the local specialties... and I may not even make you take the heads off your own prawns.