Luang Prabang Cookery Class Results
Everyone else had an undeserved lie-in whilst I got up and went to a cookery course at the Tum Tum Cheng restaurant and cooking school. It started off with a shopping trip to a local market where we strolled amongst the fresh vegetable and rotting fishes, getting an understanding of the different ingredients (and swearing to avoid any more fish sauce*). We then headed back and met Linda, the chef, who took us through the preparation of ingredients as well as the spices and sauces used in the different regions.
* This is easier said than done – fish sauce goes into every dish in Laos and Vietnam. It’s made by filling a barrel with fish, forgetting where you left it for at least a month then coming back and strainng out any lumps. The resulting stock is fish sauce. Vintage fish sauce is the same, but just means you hadn’t found it before it had really, really gone off.
Following a lesson in creating table decorations and a lot of rapid chopping and cooking we then sat down to a beautiful meal. The girls finally emerged from bed and found me just as we were plating up the fruits of my labour. Suitably impressed we all headed off to the waterfalls for a swim and a look round the bear rescue center.
We skipped dinner in favour of a cake and some great coffee from the Joma bakery, owned by a lovely lady from California who now lives in Luang Prabang, then headed down the street and stole wi-fi from a fancy hotel whilst sitting in a bar next door.
