Due to the COVID-19 stay-at-home order, many people including us tried to find something new to do at home. Chef Pat (my husband) likes to cook and I like to teach so we combined our passions and started offering free virtual Thai cooking classes. We called it a #QuarantineCooking class. On April 11, 2020, we taught our friends to make green curry. We only expected 5-6 people but surprisingly 30 friends tuned in and cooked along with us. The class went up to 80+ people on the following Saturday when we taught a Pad Thai class. It is a cook-along cooking class, which means Chef Pat is cooking along with the participants while I am facilitating the class. Participants join us from all over the world. We also encourage people to donate to the Akron-Canton Food Bank (or the local food bank/charity of their choice) as a way to #PayItForward.

The class was featured in the Akron Beacon Journal Sunday story on April 25, 2020 (Read the story HERE), WZIP FM (radio interview), Akron Life Magazine, and Medina Weekly News on January 21, 2021 (Read the story HERE).

Update: We have an Instagram page! Follow us on Instagram for the food and culture we explore in Northeast Ohio and around the world.

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Here are what we have been cooking so far.

2020

April 11 – Green curry

April 18 – Pad Thai

April 25 – Massaman curry

May 2 – Larb and fruit som tam (salad)

May 9 – Pad Kee Mao (Drunken noodle)

May 16 – Panang curry

May 23 – Pineapple fried rice

June 27 – Nam Prik Ong (Northern style pork & tomato meat sauce)

July 25 – Tom Kha Gai (Thai galangal chicken soup) (see Galangal Ale recipe below)

August 29 – Pad Kra Pao (Thai stir-fried basil with your choice of meat)

September 26 – Choo chee curry with salmon (or your choice of seafood)

October 17 (U of Akron Homecoming and Family Weekend) – Thai ginger chicken stir fry (Gai Pad Khing)

November 21 – Pad Prik Khing (Red curry stir fry)

December 19 – Vegetarian Pad Thai

2021

January 30 – Deep-fried ground pork toast & Deep fried banana.

February 27 – Pad See Ew (Thai fried rice noodle dish with soy sauce)

March 27 – Red curry.

April 24 – Sautéed shrimp with tamarind sauce

May 22 – Thai cashew chicken

July 31 – Lon – Fermented soybean dip

August 21 – Khao Soi (Thai coconut curry noodle)

October 23 – Green curry spaghetti

November 27 – Leftover Thanksgiving turkey spring rolls.

2022

January 29 – Thai breakfast (Indochina egg skillet).

February 26 – Shrimp with glass noodles.

March 19 – Crispy fried noodles with Chinese broccoli

April 30 – Return of the green curry (To celebrate the 2-year anniversary).

August 27 – Thai steamed curry (Hor-Mok)

September 17 – Exploding egg rice (kid friendly recipe)

October 22 – Pad Kee Mao (Drunken noodle). We taught this class on May 9,2020.

November 26 – Moo Sarong (Deep-fried noodle-wrapped meatballs).

2023

January 28 – Spicy tofu salad with roasted chili paste.

April 29 – Grilled pork with rice noodles.

*For questions about the cooking class or private group events, contact quarantinecookingclass@gmail.com

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Click HERE for the #QuarantineCooking class recipes

thanks to our generous cooking class community for sharing their notes

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Footnotes:

1. We would like to thank the University of Akron for Sydney’s WebEx account.
2. Chef Pat’s job is not a chef. In fact, he is a software engineer but I call him Chef Pat because he likes to cook.

Some interesting statistics (as of February 27, 2022)

• Number of recipes downloaded – 2,900
• Most downloaded recipe – Panang curry
• Average class size = 85 households