Cindy Fan

By Cindy Fan

BANGKOK—May Kaidee is dressed to the nines, her regal Thai costume and golden bangles perfectly in place on her petite frame as she flits around her restaurant kitchen giving instruction. She’s as brilliantly colourful and quick as a hummingbird, her expressive hands constantly in motion. Sweaty students squeal when the chili paste hits the scorching woks like napalm, sending a fiery burst of cough-inducing spice into the air. It’s absolute pandemonium when May breaks out into her signature cooking song, calling for all to join in.

“Sap sap sap sap sap,” she sings over the chaos and clatter. Yummy, yummy, yummy. . .

[This article was published in The Toronto Star. View it on their site here.]

May Kaidee is not her real name. It’s an auspicious nickname she adopted as her first restaurant burgeoned (kaidee means “sells well” in Thai). May Kaidee’s story in fact begins as Sommay Jaijong, a scared 15-year old stepping off a train into the glitzy, glaring capital city Bangkok, worlds away from her home in rural northeastern Thailand. One phone call from her aunt changed her life — from a life labouring in the family’s rice paddies to working in her aunt’s restaurant — and set a course to what she is today: eccentric vegetarian cooking class instructor, savvy entrepreneur and successful businesswoman.

“Easy cooking, happy, healthy,” she chirps, a mantra she peppers the class with throughout the day.

Kaffir lime leaves, galangal, lemongrass, red chili, fried tofu and plenty of fresh vegetables. A squirt of lime, a lashing of rich coconut milk, a hit of fragrant coriander — you’d barely notice there’s no meat in the heavenly tom yam soup, one of ten dishes students learn to prepare.

Yet the cooking class is as much about May as it is about vegetarian Thai food. Call it the May Kaidee show. At the end of the class (celebrated with a bowl of coconut milk sticky rice topped with mango for dessert), no one is surprised when she puts on an elaborate, towering headdress and performs a traditional dance in the middle of the restaurant. Students, diners, staff and a random Rastafarian all clap, then join in, mimicking her moves to the jaunty music. She relishes the spotlight.

Gimmicky? Perhaps. But the theatrics works. Cooking classes for tourists have sprung up all over the city yet here she is, owner of three restaurants — including one in Chiang Mai — twirling and singing to a packed house. May attributes some of the success to her colourful approach.

“You know, elsewhere, they’re cooking — only cooking. But me, I like to make people enjoy cooking, make happy with dancing or singing a song, doing something together.”

The bio on her website reads like a classic tale of the self-made woman (and maybe with hints of the fantastic). She’s been honoured by a Belgian Prince, taught master chefs from Russia and made television appearances worldwide. By changing her name and her diet, she changed her life.

For five years May worked at her aunt’s vegetarian restaurant near Bangkok’s famous Khao San Road, but she still ate meat and gorged on the city’s tempting treats until problems with weight and digestion led her to try a meatless diet.

“I was fat,” she says bluntly. It’s hard to imagine that her slender figure was once 65 kilos. She became a vegetarian and one by one the pounds fell away.

When she finally struck out on her own and opened her first restaurant in 1993 — a place with no name and only two tables — May experimented with recipes, taking Thai classics like green curry and pad thai and adapting them sans-meat, without compromising on taste and flavour.

Slowly, through word of mouth, tourists sought out her little no-name vegetarian place. She knew she was a success when the restaurant started getting listed in popular guidebooks, including traveller bible Lonely Planet.

Today, the cooking class attracts a wide range of people, from diehard herbivores to those who simply want to learn how to make their favorite Thai dishes, regardless of the fact that it doesn’t have meat.

Her business is a family affair. Brothers, sisters and cousins have joined her in running the show, and she’s invited people from her village to work for her, giving them the same life-changing phone call that her aunt did. To her village, she’s a model of success.

“They are really proud of me. They say, ‘Oh, you’re a really strong woman — a strong woman in Thailand. You’re only one but you can be a success like that.’”

It’s 1 p.m. The morning class lingers, licking spoons and contentedly patting their swollen bellies. There’s a lineup at the register to buy her cookbook. May is outside, costume still perfectly in place, greeting the next class and selling passersby on joining, living up to the name she made for herself.

“Easy cooking, happy, healthy,” she sings.

Cindy Fan is a Canadian travel writer and photographer based in Laos. www.cindyfan.com

JUST THE FACTS

ATTENDING May Kaidee Vegetarian Restaurant & Cooking School (33 Sam Sen, between Soi 1 and 2, Banglampu area, a few blocks from Khao San Road). Mains, $2. Morning cooking class runs from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and includes 10 dishes and plenty of song and dance. 1200 baht ($40). 089 137 3173. maykaidee.com

SLEEPING Once known for its cringeworthy backpacker flophouses, the Khao San Road area is now home to several boutique hotels. Nouvo City Hotel is a modern 4-star with a rooftop pool located one block from May Kaidee and within walking distance of Khao San Road. Rooms start at $66 (U.S) per night. nouvocityhotel.com