Laos: cooking up a storm!

To market we go... to check out where all the produce comes from.


This is a banana flower and all the baby bananas ready to grow.
Nom nom!
Back at the cooking school.
I made a garnish. Yep, thats right. I'm pretty talented.
The Big Sissa in the middle of cooking a delicious tofu yellow curry.
Learning the art of folding banana leaf parcels. I have ALWAYS wanted to cook with banana leaves but never known how. Now I do.



Stuffed bamboo shoots and stuffed lemon grass.
Chicken Laab - a lao speciality.
Sticky black rice and mango - delic!
The fruits of our labour.

I was chatting to the group about my suspected leeching the previous day when one of the men doing the cooking course mentioned he was a physician and that perhaps I should be concerned as we are meant to have the natural blood clotting process as it stops infection. Additionally, his wife piped up and said a friend of hers was recently bitten by a leech and was very ill as a result. He offered to have a look at the bite to check it was ok. So, in a corner back room of the cooking school, a leading NSW cardiologist gave me a free consultation and looked at the leech bite on my bum! haha. He said I'd definitely been bitten, but its fine and I won't die. Phew!