22 January 2015 - Cooking with Poo in Bangkok

Annika and I have been really looking forward to cooking with Poo.  We first heard about Poo, the Helping Hands Project and the Khlong Toei slum a few years ago.  Ash and Ange Barker, who work for UNOH (Urban Neighbours of Hope) until recently lived in the Khlong Toei slum and had spoken of their work at our church in Blackburn.

Poo lives in the Khlong Toei slum with her extended family and used to cook meals for her community earning about 200 Baht per day ($8 AUD) and barely surviving on that income.  She cooked dinner for Ash and Ange regularly and Ange suggested that she start a cooking school.  From the sound of things, it took Poo quite a while to have the confidence to start the cooking school and she has a good grasp of English now.

We had to book a few weeks in advance as there are only 12 places per day in the cooking school and it is very well known now.  We were picked up at the meeting point near the poshest of posh emporiums (emporia?) which was in stark contrast to the market and slum we spent most of our time in!

First stop was the market, a wet market, with its live frogs, eels, turtles, poultry and catfish and fantastic array of vegetables and fruit.  It was quite slippery and we were glad that we did wear sandals!

Chickens with head intact.

Live frogs in bags.

Wriggling eels.

Edible water bugs.

Mushrooms and bamboo.

Curries of various mixes.

Turtles for soup.

Tamarinds

Market scene.

Tomatoes.

The two Helping Hands staff :Lai and Dai (I think) guided us through the market.  We would have got lost for sure without them.  There were only 9 of us on the tour so Annika and I went with Johnno and Georgia (from Norwich, UK) with Dai as our guide.  Oh, the smells!  From foul to amazing, the offal versus the Kafir Limes - an olfactory overload!  

Making sticky rice!

Crowded market.

Smile!

Their stall had finished, rest time I suppose!

Loads of limes!

After we had our supplies, including sticky rice, which we saw being made, we piled into the van again and went to Khlong Toei.

The slum, in the dry season, is not smelly as I imagined and being a morning week day, we didn't see children playing in the alley ways.  From what we saw, it was clean and neat but the alley ways were only big enough for a motor bike to squeeze through with us pressed against the walls.  A fire and health hazard!

Khlong Toei slum, Bangkok

Just wide enough for a motor bike.

More slum scenes

 .

Outside Poo's house.

Poo's original little street kitchen.

After a brief introduction and hand washing we went to Poo's kitchen where she was waiting to start the class.  We cooked Thai Beef Salad, Pad Thai with Prawns and Green Chicken Curry - Annika's curry was almost white because of the reduced curry!  And just when we felt we would burst, there was fruit to sample and my favourite of all: Sticky Rice with Mango!

Making  Thai Beef Salad

We cooked on one of 5 hotplates

Adding fish sauce...

Pad Thai with Prawns.

Working hard with the mortar and pestle.

Green chicken curry after mortar and pestling all the curry ingredients.

Served with red rice - sensational!

Dessert: Mango and sticky rice ( and dried mung beans for crunch) and fruit selection.

Poo in the middle of us!

Farewell Khlong Toie

It was a lovely morning and we were so glad to be able to go both to support Poo and her staff and also to learn the secrets of Thai cooking from an expert!

The Poo van

We took the Sky Train back to Chit Lom station after a quick look around the very classy emporium.

The very classy emporium - what a contrast!

Karl had taken Tim and Luke ice skating back at Centre World so they, too, had enjoyed their morning.

We spent the afternoon packing and getting ready for the next leg of our journey to New Delhi, India.  We are already sitting on our packs to zip them up and this is only our second flight for the year!  Karl is very strict about souvenirs we can take much as I would LOVE to collect a few things!