Adventures in Thai Cooking & Travel

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S. F. Bay Guardian Best of the Bay Award, 1997

Best Alternative to a ticket to Bangkok (no longer online)

ONCE YOU'VE helped make and eaten the dishes in her first beginner's class – usually a green curry, a masaman curry, stir-fried hot and sour vegetables, and bananas in coconut milk – you'll be tempted to beg kasma Loha-Unchit, of Kasma's Cooking Classes, to allow you to come to her house once a week for the rest of your life. There just isn't a Thai restaurant in the Bay Area that serves food of such authenticity, complexity, and balance. The author of Julia Child Award-winning It Rains Fishes, Kasma teaches beginning, intermediate, and advanced Thai cooking classes in her Oakland home, gently ushering you from prep chores toward full responsibility for such dishes as spicy mussel salad, Panaeng beef curry, mee krob, and green papaya salad. She tutors you in shopping (with field trips), techniques, philosophy, and, above all, tasting.

(Click here for all listings of all S. F. Bay Guardian Best of the Bay Award, 1997 )

Diablo Magazine Article

She teaches as a guest chef at culinary institutions around the Bay Area, but I recommend learning from her in her own home. Students jockey for space at earth-toned tile countertops or work elbow to elbow around a folding table covered with a vinyl tablecloth, all of which makes the class feel like a laid-back dinner party at a graduate student's flat.

From Diablo Magazine.

Offsite Testimonial about Kasma

Student Testimonials about Kasma

I have taken a bunch of cooking classes in the past (culinary institute, JCC classes) and, Kasma's class is by far the best cooking class for a variety of reasons. Firstly, Kasma is a warm and, wonderful story teller. She teaches you about food, Thai culture, health and many other things. You get a blend of historical, nutrition, and anecdotal information along with immense knowledge of food, and cooking combined with lots of hands on learning.

But, the best part (besides Kasma) is the food! You will never eat as well in your life (unless you go to Thailand on one of Kasma's trips), and learn to make such a variety of Delicious items.

– Lousia Philipp, San Francisco. CA

I just thought I would drop you a note to tell you that I have moved to Thailand after retiring. I am cooking Thai food here for some Thai friends and they are amazed at the skills I learned from you. One friend accused me of buying at a restaurant when I made neung ghung.

– Richard, Advanced student, Pattaya, Thailand (formerly Vallejo, CA)

Kasma: Thanks so much for all the classes over the years. All the great recipes, and more importantly the love of cooking Thai, have greatly enhanced my life. I had a Thai dinner for friends last weekend (as I do every few months), and everyone agreed it was the best Thai food they'd ever had, lots of companionable eating, talking and appreciating the food. All thanks to your great teaching skills (and recipes)!

– Diane, Advanced student, Berkeley, CA

Thanks so much for a such wonderful experience! It's obvious that offering meticulously organized cooking classes in your home is not a just business for you, it's a personal mission. Besides providing amazing food and great company, you teach people to think carefully about the food that they put into their mouths. You also provide special insights into the beautiful, peaceful Thai culture. Your class fees are very reasonable for the amount of thought and preparation that goes into each class. It's obvious that you are driven from the heart; so rare to find in the United States.

– Peggy, Bay Area Intermediate Student

I've taken a lot of cooking courses – from the Beijing Culinary Academy to the Cordon Bleu in London – but nothing comes close to the learning experience of Kasma's classes. I learned more in one short week of cooking in her kitchen than I learned in all those classes combined. She is a dear, dear lady and her food is among the best food I have ever had in my life!

– Joanne Skowronski, Caterer, Carnelian Bay, CA

Just want to say thank you for your wonderful classes in Thai cooking. You have given me the confidence in cooking. Sure I have seen other Thai people cook but I always shy away. Now I am more interested and ask them what they are doing, what they use, etc. Your food is the best. You don't have to go to Thai restaurants to eat, you have the best Thai food in your kitchen!

– Peter Ganthavorn, a Thai residing in San Francisco, CA

After the first couple classes your friends who eat at your house will tell you to open a Thai restaurant.

– Ed Adams, Berkeley

By the way, my wife told me that she really loved Kasma's class. And I can confirm that she really did learn some wonderful skills – she has already made about six of the dishes she learned in the class (entrees and desserts) and every one was fantastic! I think this is the best present I ever gave her since I get to enjoy it, too.

– Steve, in Albany, who gave his wife the beginning Series as a present.

I take cooking classes regularly, but yours are far and away the best I've ever had, also the most fun and warm-spirited, and have certainly had the biggest effect on the food I serve at home – friends are now disappointed if I invite them for dinner and I'm not cooking Thai! And I ordered haw mok in a Thai restaurant a few weeks ago – one that often wins the Best of the Bay award – and they couldn't hold a candle to the haw mok we learned in your class. I find I'm completely spoiled for Thai restaurants now, but since I can cook so well at home, I don't mind at all!

– Cyd Harrel, San Francisco

Kasma Loha-unchit Clark's classes at Kasma's Cooking School are intimate and joyful. She not only provides instructions on how to prepare rich, complex, varied, and unfathomably exotic Thai dishes, but enables her students to understand the dynamics of the Thai palate. She trains her students to adjust the various (and often strange)flavors of Thai cuisine to emphasize hidden characteristics in a dish, and gives them guidelines in which to explore their own creativity. One of the most intimidating aspects of Thai cuisine is the often unusual and unfamiliar array of ingredients one must utilize. Kasma's classes include a field trip t."o Oakland's Chinatown to give her students the confidence to buy ingredients with foreign language labels and to demonstrate such important distinctions as the difference between holy and cinnamon basil. I went from barely being able to heat up a pot of chili to being able to glide gracefully from a cold mussel salad to a red curry duck. If Kasma's classes are not the best of the East Bay, I don't know what is!

– Magdalene L. Crowley, Berkeley, CA. Printed in "East Bay Bests:1993" of the Express

The intermediate cooking series was nothing less than enchanted for me: incredibly tasty and complex dishes and a truly delightful group of people with the bonus of a generous and gifted teacher. Kasma, I've told all sorts of people about how much I've enjoyed your classes. Thank you for every ounce of energy and information you've given us.

– Linda Carucci, owner/operator of Linda Carucci's Kitchen cooking school, culinary consultant, and former dean of the California Culinary Academy. Linda teaches hands-on fundamentals of cooking classes emphasizing techniques at her cooking school Linda Carucci's Kitchen

I have been taking Thai cooking classes for several years from Kasma and believe that she should be declared a living treasure, both for the quality of her classes and for the tastiness of the Thai food which she teaches me to cook. Her classes are joyous, social occasions providing intelligent instruction into the secrets of Thai cooking and the methods for preparing Thai food using the ingredients available in local markets It is the absolute best Thai food I've ever eaten and Kasma is a delightful, warm individual who puts her heart and soul into her classes. My own feeling is that if I was stranded on a deserted island and given one wish, it would be that Kasma could be flown in to prepare meals.

– Mark Torresan, formerly of A Taste of Paradise Catering.

Kasma's classes are like learning to cook from your mom. Kasma is warm and nurturing, making you feel comfortable learning something very new and different. The result is always exciting and delicious. It's given me a new appreciation for homemade Thai food and how much better it can be than the dishes served by Thai restaurants.

– Daryl Ansel, formerly of A Taste of Paradise Catering.

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Drawings Copyright © 1995 Margaret DeJong. All rights reserved.
All material on this website is Copyright © 1995 to 2008 Kasma Loha-unchit. All rights reserved.
For comments, feedback or questions, contact Kasma.
Last Updated 2 June 2007.