April in Bangkok is hot!
The hottest month of the year in Thailand is also an important one with schools out, people spending more time with family, and the celebration of the water festival Songkran. Before Bangkok sunk completely into the heat induced festivities, we gathered friends and volunteers for a celebration of our own. Since the launch of our cooking classes for visitors to Bangkok, we have been cooking and testing Thai recipes nonstop. We took the heat as our excuse to take a break and bring some American flavors to your plates, namely ribs, cornbread, and all the fixins’.
Delicious food aside, the occasion was also a special opportunity for a small group of our students. You may remember a large group of our kids recently had their first chance to bake, now a few months later we grabbed a few a let them experience the heat, excitement, and stress of a small commercial kitchen. This is a big deal for students from poor families who often have never even eaten in a real restaurant. They made the jump from learning recipes in our classes each weekend to serving customers who aren’t their parents or younger siblings.
You can bet there were hiccups and confusion, just like in a real restaurant! At Courageous Kitchen we don’t shy away from the madness of kitchen, and instead use things gone awry as an opportunity to give constructive feedback, and discuss ways to improve. We’re confident our guests made up of friends, volunteers, and interns were well fed and the evening gave our students a rare opportunity at real world application of the kitchen skills they’ve been working so hard to learn.
Thank you to everyone supporting us near and afar. We can’t believe the month is nearly up and we’ve got more exciting updates and challenges to come. See you in the kitchen!
PS – All photos are credited with thanks to wonderful volunteer photographer Alisa Suwanrumpha, find more of them on our Courageous Kitchen facebook page.
