mom cooking, blue vw bus

momcookingbus
Originally uploaded by quesadillacraft

here is mom working on her curry paste, with the a lot of thai vw bus behind her. pounding the curry paste took forever!

the cooking class we took was "a lot of thai" - led by a wonderful couple - yui and kwan. all the recipes were amazing, but i was especially surprised by how good the pork-stuffed cucumber soup was. in order to keep track of the cucumbers we so carefully cut and stuffed, we had to carve a symbol into each cucumber. it added to the overall cultural comedy that one of our fellow students, an israeli, cut a star of david into his pork-filled cucumber. kosher? not so much, dee-lish? yes.

yui and kwan were the kind of people that make the world feel big and small at the same time - that they can be so proud and generous with their culture and experience, but also feel so relatable - like they would be great neighbors and friends anywhere.