Always Stirring, Always Smiley…

People in Thailand are generally accommodating and cheerful, but I may have met the happiest man in all of Thailand. Mariana and I obviously love to cook, so we jumped on the opportunity to take a Thai cooking class that prepared a number of traditional dishes using organically farmed ingredients. I assumed that the highlight of my experience would be the preparation of my all-time favorite (Pad See Ew), but boy was I wrong. We had the funniest, happiest, and as he put it, smiliest teaching Chef in the World. Aside from the incredibly fresh, homegrown ingredients that we were using to produce culinary masterpieces, our teacher emphasized that the key to creating any good meal was smiling. So now, when I am cooking in the privacy of my own kitchen, I will remember to “always be stirring and always be smiley”.