The call came on a Tuesday. The Royal Thai Embassy wanted to know if I'd be interested in cooking a demonstration for Thailand's Prime Minister during her official UK visit. I said yes before I'd finished reading the sentence.
The fishmonger texts me at dawn. Not every morning, but often enough that I check my phone before I've had a coffee. Sometimes it's a load of British mackerel just landed. That's what working with suppliers who care actually looks like.
The first thing you learn about curry paste is that it takes longer than you think. The second thing is that your arm will hurt. The third is that it's worth it by a distance that makes every other shortcut in cooking feel trivial.
Green curry is the most misunderstood dish in Thai cooking, at least in this country. Most people in Britain have eaten it, or think they have. What they've eaten is a sweet, mild, pale green soup from a takeaway box. It is categorically not the same thing.
