Cooking Nok Style in Ko Lanta

› CHENGDU, 2014.......................

Mikel and I rented a house on sandy Klong Nin Beach on Ko Lanta in southern Thailand for the first two weeks of the year. I asked the homeowner if he knew of someone who might cook for us—or someone who might at least accompany me to a market. Though I wasn’t really interested in taking a formal cooking class, I was keen on watching a real Thai in the kitchen. He suggested I contact Nok Noi (“Little Bird”), who had recently opened her own restaurant on the main road of the laid-back beach village. “She’s a ladyboy,” he wrote. “I trust that’s alright.”