by Karen Soo, Travel Director
Many of you may remember when we had those fun NSC weekend ski trips, taking a bus together and sharing great meals. Amy T. and I planned the weekend menus, with memorable Friday night hot dinners like lasagna, ground beef and peas over rice, butternut squash soup, Thai green chicken curry and tiramisu. Sunday night dinners from Amy T. included teriyaki chicken, lemon grass chicken sandwiches with daikon, peanut noodles and somen salads. Yum! All these dinners were a hit during our rides to and from Lake Tahoe.
Now that we are going through a pandemic, we are all sheltering in place and watching a lot of cooking shows and Netflix. I’ve been cooking every weekend because we are always home, and eating out at restaurants is out of the question.
When Sandy and Tina returned from their 2019 trip to Thailand, in which they learned some Thai cooking skills, they suggested that NSC offer a cooking demonstration. During this pandemic, Zoom has become the way to do everything–meetings, exercise classes, and working from home. Since the shutdown last March, I’ve taken several virtual cooking classes. Also, I’ve been taking Thai cooking classes for over 10 years from a teacher in Piedmont. Hence, I decided to take on this challenge and conduct a Thai cooking demonstration via Zoom.
Our cooking demo focused on three beginner level dishes: Easy Green Curry with Chicken, Shrimp Pad Thai, and Coconut-Flavored Sticky Rice with Mangoes. All the participants received the recipes in advance so they could prep for the hands-on instructions and gather the ingredients. On Saturday afternoon, December 5th, 35 cooks from NSC, Inskiers Ski Club, the Alameda Chinese Club, and some of my family and friends from Washington, Colorado, Arizona, Los Angeles and New York joined Zoom for the cooking demonstration.
Prior to the Zoom class, I had the ingredients measured out for each dish in order for the class to run smoothly. Thanks to my videographer Curtis O. for setting up two laptops and an I-pad for the Zoom
call. One camera was on my pot and the other one on me. People were able to ask questions as we went along. Over the 1 hour 15 minute class, three people cooked along with the class while others made the dishes later that evening. All reported good results evidenced by the great photos of their dishes!
After the class, a survey was sent out to the participants. We had many positive responses.
Here are the survey results:
1. What did you like about this event?
-Well prepared in advance, interactive, positive, and fun.
-I haven’t participated in a cooking class before, but this was fun.
-Everything was prepared and very organized. I appreciate that the recipes were e-mailed well in advance so we could read over the recipe and purchase all the ingredients.
2. What do you wish was different?
-Since I wasn’t that organized, a slower pace would have been nice.
-She needs a wok.
-I wish the chef would freeze and mail her audience samples to taste.
3. What would you like Chef Karen to teach at the next cooking session?
-Dim Sum
-Chef’s choice…
-Depending on season. Soups, hot pot/ shabu shabu in the colder months.
4. Any additional comments?
-Thank you!!! This is the funniest lockdown event I’ve done and it was such a nice change of pace
-Chef Karen, Thanks for doing the Thai cooking class & giving permission for Sandy to share w/ACC. When is the next ski trip? I hear u need to make reservations now. Stay healthy, safe, & warm. Curtis, great job as the camera man.
-Make ya a trade, I’ll wash your car for a meal
-Curtis should watch Guy Fieri on DDD to emulate his effusive appreciation of what he’s tasting!
Thank you to all who joined us. I hope to have another Zoom cooking experience in the spring. Stay tuned! As Martha Stewart would say. IT’S A GOOD THING.
