2 . If you enjoy eating Thai food in restaurants and at street-side stalls, go one step further and learn how to make it in this fun cooking class. You’ll start with a market visit, so you can pick the best ingredients and learn what you need to prepare the best food. Then, get to work in preparing your own multi-dish feast, with the help of your instructor. You’ll learn tips and tricks that you can replicate (复制) later at home.

See how Thai shops by visiting a local market first.

All equipment, ingredients, and refreshments (茶点) are included.

Receive printed recipes so you can make these dishes again later.

Enjoy hands-on experience of the small-group Thai cooking class. Visit the nearby local market to get some fresh ingredients. Learn how to prepare and cook traditional Thai food with our charming local Thai instructor.

Minimum age is 13 years old.

This tour/activity will have a maximum of 7 travelers.

Not recommended for participants with back/legs problems.

Please be advised that menu is decided by the instructor prior to the date of travel.

If capacity is full or limited staff, unannounced extra persons may be asked to leave.

Please wear closed-toe/heel shoes that you don’t mind getting dirty. The market is a little bit wet and muddy.

When making your booking, please inform us of any dietary requirements, such as vegetarian(素食者).

Arriving an hour late result in a no-show (失约) and the participant will not be able to participate in the rest of the class.

3 . Top cookbooks of 2023

The Wok’s appeal is not innovation; you can find many dishes like Kung Pao Shrimp and Cumin Lamb on many Chinese restaurant menus. But you don’t have to leave your home. As far as I’m concerned, it’s worth the sticker price to learn the techniques.

Chef Mason Hereford has put to paper some of the magic that draws locals and tourists alike to his popular New Orleans sandwich shop, Turkey and the Wolf. The cookbook is full of recipes accessible to home cooks. The meatloaf is my favorite.

With seven sections focused on different regions across the country, Rick Martinez guides you through some of the essential recipes for each. The recipes are lovely, but what I love most are the stories alongside each of them. Food is deeply personal and with Mi Cocina, Martinez is sharing his life in food and inviting you to come along.

Western India and the Southern U.S. share more culinary (烹饪的) similarities than you’d think, from rice varieties to fresh tomatoes. Here, these ingredients explode in a delicious combination of seasonings and essential cooking techniques.

8 . My mother used to say that when your mother was really good at something, you didn’t learn to do it. What she said was ________. My grandmother was skilled in baking and cooking, but my mother was a barely ________ cook for our family of seven. We didn’t ________; we had meat, potatoes and another vegetable at every meal out of a can.

Baking was not Mom’s ________, so on Saturday mornings, she would ________ us to the bakery for fresh cake. Mom did learn to make the ________ Dad loved — bacon and eggs, spare ribs (排骨) and, ________, potato salad. Potato salad was my mom’s major ________ to every summer, ________ eating such a dish on a hot July day wasn’t a good idea. Mayonnaise (蛋黄酱) in it could be difficult to ________ and you might have to go to the bathroom frequently.

Case in point: the time my uncle and aunt and their six kids ________ at the lake with us. The ________ included burgers, burnt or slightly raw, lots of pop, and Mom’s potato salad. We spent hours at the lake. Unfortunately, so did the salad.

________, I realize that polishing off Mom’s potato salad may have been the reason that Dad finally built us a second bathroom, which ________ that everything can have a bright side. My mother didn’t ________ in the kitchen, but I miss her cooking so much.

9 . Tomorrow’s menus could feature items prepared with complex cooking techniques and presentation — all at the push of a button. Columbia University mechanical engineers have designed a 3 - D printer that can produce and cook dishes at the same time with details at the millimeter scale.

The design combines a multiwavelength laser (激光) cooker, roughly the size of five smart phones piled together, with a microwave - oven - sized food printer. The system uses various light wavelengths to cook in different ways: a short - waved blue laser goes deep inside meat, for example, while infrared beams (红外线光束) brown the surface. As the device’s robotic arm places fine layers of chicken puree (酱, 糊), a high - powered beam moves over them and cooks the meat — with literally laser - focused precision. Thus, users can achieve perfect results — say, a machine - made burger that varies between rare and well done in a checkerboard pattern.

“It gives you a lot more control and customization,” says Jonathan Blutinger, lead author of the paper and a digital - cooking researcher at Columbia. The researchers tested only chicken for this study, but the system can work with other foods as well.

Beyond applying diverse materials and presentation patterns, this type of software - controlled setup could someday scan a QR code to automatically prepare dishes tailored to individual eating habits and dietary restrictions, Blutinger says.

The new technology is “astonishing”, says Megan Ross, a food scientist who studies 3 - D printing at Ireland’s University College Cork. Ross notes that the design is still at a beginning stage and that many technical challenges remain, such as preventing cross pollution between layers of raw and cooked meat. Still, Ross is impressed by the device’s ability to produce foods outside the field of conventional cooking. “Is this going to be sold in shops everywhere in the next few years? No,” she says. “But everyone has to start somewhere.”

10 . “Cook for yourself like you would for a guest.” This advice comes from Claire Lower in an article for Lifehacker. It seems to be good advice for people who live alone and can’t be bothered to cook delicious food when there’s no one else to enjoy it. Yes, they can gorge themselves on popcorn and call it a night without fear of judgment, but Lower argues that this “wears on the soul” over time.

Every meal is a chance to work on good table manners, including the art of dinner conversation, eating tidily, and using cutlery properly. You can try to use nice dishes and real glasses in order to create an appealing atmosphere that encourages everyone to take the meal more seriously.

At the same time, it is a parental duty to cook a range of interesting and delicious meals to help train children for the unavoidable day when they actually are at a fancy restaurant or a friend’s house and faced with a strange soup, an unusual salad, or an unrecognizable main course. That way, they’ll know what to do and how to do it politely.

Eating gives shape and meaning to our days, not to mention flavour, nutrition and energy. Just as boring, repetitive meals wear on the soul, delicious ones can bring happiness, hopefulness, and peace. So, don’t give up on cooking well, whether it’s just for you or for a group of children, even if it’s just a few times a week and the dishes are simple. It does get easier and better, and you’ll learn to look forward to it.