Feeling a lull in my culinary learning, I decided to take a class at the Culinary Institute of America.  A few years ago, I took one of these CIA day classes every Saturday throughout the spring and fall semesters.After a while, I felt like I "capped out" and stopped.  They are great courses for lay-people that want to advance their skills and enjoy a culinary experience beyond that of their own kitchen.  As an attendee, I have found that you can get as much as you want out of these classes, based on the effort and focus you invest in them.



Upon arriving, our group is ushered into a lecture room where the instructor begins the day with a discussion of the course materials (in this case, Flavors of Southeast Asia).  Our instructor yesterday was an unlikely candidate to teach a course in Southeast Asian cooking.  However, Associate Professor Hinnerk von Bargen, CHE spent many years of his career working in China and Southeast Asia, where he immersed himself into the culture and cuisine. 

We then broke into teams.  For me, the success of the class can be made or broken based on the people one is paired up with on a team.  If I am paired with a group of family members, be they husband and wife, mother and daughter, etc., I always feel as though I am sharing someone else’s family experience.  If the chef pairs me with people that have no idea how to peel an onion, then I spend a lot of time “teaching” basic skills, rather than learning new techniques.  The most frustrating pairing, however, is with a nudnik – a know-it-all that doesn’t work.  You know the type.  They talk a lot about how to do everything but then do not actually do anything. 

The other risk in team-choosing is menus.  Each team is responsible for menu creation.  For me, I am taking the class to learn new technique and skills, so my team’s chosen menu can mean the difference between learning something new or not.  This is a critical factor.  Thankfully, while I have extensive experience in eating Asian foods, I have little experience in preparing them.

My team consisted of one very sweet woman that came with her mother and sister (mother and sister were broken into another group), a retired gentleman that had fairly good skills and one nudnik.  I’m sure you can imagine my gratitude when we decided to split the recipes in half.  The retired gentleman worked with the nudnik and I worked with the estranged sibling (who was a pleasure to work with).

The class as a whole prepared many fantastic dishes, including:

• Tom Ka Kai (chicken and coconut soup),
• Crispy spring rolls,
• Thai Beef Massman curry,
• Warm vegetables and cold noodles,
• Nua Nam Tok (Thai style beef salad);
• hai hot and sour soup;
• Clay pot chicken with dried plums;
• Spicy cucumber salad; 
• Pad Thai;
• Vietnamese cold spring rolls with peanut-hoisin dipping sauce;
• and a really interesting dish I never had before, Vietnamese grilled shrimp paste on sugar cane. 

This last dish was very cool.  Basically, you make a forcemeat out of the shrimp, pork and vegetable mixture (as if you are making seafood sausage), and then shape the ground meat mixture around a sugar cane stick like a lollipop.  You then steam the sticks (par cooking them), followed by a searing on the grill.  They were outstanding!

My team prepared the following menu:

• Shrimp in a Yellow Curry Sauce (which I made personally)
• Spicy Roasted Eggplant Salad
• Chicken Pho (Vietnamese rice noodle soup)
• Coconut Rice

So, after reading each recipe and learning that the broth for the pho had been prepared in advance (totally cheating), I started to plan out how much time each recipe would take to miese-out and cook.  As such, I suggested that the other two team members begin the eggplant, the lady working with me begin the prep for the Pho and I would start the curry. 

Finally, I had a chance to work with ingredients I didn’t know well, like birds eye chilies; lime leaves; fish sauce; curry pastes; galangal palm sugar, coconut milk.   .  Learning the characteristics of new ingredients is like dancing with a new partner.  I take my time, observing how each behaves and reacts to each maneuver – what does it smell, taste, feel like?  How does its texture change with heat?  How does it complement other flavors?

After finding (always a challenge in a kitchen you are not used to) and prepping everything needed for our recipes, I began to make the curry sauce. I slowly built flavor upon flavor until what developed was a rich, intense, spicy sauce.  I tasted it and something was off.  The flavors were too strong and the fish sauce was unbalanced.  I called the chef over to check.  Well, our recipe books accidentally cut the quantity of coconut milk by half!  So, after adding the additional coconut milk and leveling out the dish, I started on the shrimp. 

In a separate pan, I lightly sautéed the shrimp, cooking them until they just barely turned pink.  I purposefully left them slightly undercooked so I could add them into the sauce later, along with the basil and tomatoes.

While sautéing, the chef called everyone over to the other side of the kitchen, where he demonstrated how to re-constitute tamarind paste.  I couldn’t stop what I was doing right away.  I had to finish the batch of shrimp that I currently had on the heat.  Our team nudnick came by, explaining that she knew how to work with tamarind and that she would finish my shrimp so I could watch the demo. 

“Thank you, I am almost done,” I explained.  “ I’ll finish these and head over.”

“I’ll finish them for you,” she insisted.

“That is very kind of you, but really, I am finishing them now,” I insisted back.

“No, I’ll do it,” she pushed.

“Please don’t,” I said flatly, immediately feeling badly for my shortness.

She walked away.  I went to the other side of the kitchen to watch the chef’s demo, and then returned to finish the last batch of shrimp and apologize to the woman for my shortness with her.

I felt badly about the whole thing, really.  But I just spent nearly two hours working on this dish and I didn’t want her to over-cook the shrimp (which in my mind would ruin the whole dish by making them rubbery).  I know I am a perfectionist and sometimes that can be difficult for those around me.  However, I did try to politely decline several times.

She confirmed my fears when she then proceeded to scorch the bottom of the coconut rice.

We finished our cooking and sat down to enjoy the fruits of our labors. 





The class cleaned out my shrimp curry, finishing everything (I was proud).  This medium-heat (for me anyway) curry perfectly complemented the sweet, delicious coconut rice. 

The team that created the crispy spring rolls did a great job too.  They were perfect.  I also enjoyed to cold shrimp rolls, the shrimp and sugar cane skewers and the coconut chicken soup.  I would gladly make several of these dishes at home, now that I have a better understanding of how to work with the ingredients.

When we were finished, I rushed home to change and meet my brother in Manhattan, where we saw Les Liaisons Dangereuses, with Laura Linny, who was masterful!  It was a fantastic performance, worthy of a standing ovation (which we gave).

Today, I slept in, shared my experience with you, dear readers and will now go play in my garden… the Phlox need planting and the dogs need exercise. 

Here are my Azailas starting to bloom: