| What
Can You Learn This Month?
Interterm 2007 continues
next week with courses on writing short short stories, math
and sound, cooking African and vegetarian dishes, Ashtanga
Yoga, and more.
Each January, the Interterm
Program, now in its ninth year, offers a series of non-credit
courses taught by Smith community members – students,
staff, faculty, alumnae and associates. This year’s
program, which runs through Friday, Jan. 26, offers nearly
three dozen weeklong courses and several workshops that might
entice the fringe curiosities of those still on campus.
News & Events will profile
a few of the Interterm Program’s courses as they approach.
This week:
January
16-19, 3:15-5:15 p.m., Lamont Kitchen
Instructor: Julie Goshe ’07
Julie Goshe
creating a Thai concoction |
The first time
she tasted Thai food, “I fell in love," remembers
Julie Goshe. "What I love about Thai dishes is their
attention to subtle flavor. Everything is well-balanced but
interesting.”
Growing up in
the Midwest, Goshe says she didn’t learn how to cook
until the summer after her sophomore year, when she lived
by herself in Washington, D.C., working at an internship.
“I was faced with feeding myself every day and I didn’t
even know how to cut a tomato,” she recalls. When her
Smith classmate, Rebecca Heeb ’07, who was also living
in the city, introduced her to Asian foods, Goshe “went
from clueless in the kitchen to an accomplished beginning
cook, because I started making Thai dishes and enjoyed it
so much.”
When she returned
to Smith that fall, she sharpened her Asian cooking skills
by hosting weekly dinner parties for her friends. “I
became known in my house for my green curry chicken,”
she says. A Praxis internship last summer in Thailand expanded
her knowledge of the country’s dishes.
Setting
the table for another dinner party |
Now she plans
to teach others how to prepare the food she’s come to
love.
Goshe’s
Thai cooking course marks the first time she has directed
a class, she says, and she will emphasize fun and overcoming
kitchen ambivalence. “I know from experience that cooking
can be intimidating -- I was so afraid to try something new
when I first started cooking,” she says. “I’m
going to spend a lot of time emphasizing to my class that
they shouldn’t be afraid and that anyone can learn to
cook.”
Goshe plans to teach her students popular Thai dishes, such
as pad Thai, som tum (green papaya salad), mango with sweet
sticky rice, and her specialty, green curry chicken/tofu.
But her main goal
is to inspire her students to take what they learn from her
and expand on it in their own
kitchens, with curiosity and confidence in their ability to
experiment.
“I really
hope that those who weren’t inclined to cook before,
or just don’t know how to do it, feel confident after
my course that they can do it,” she says. “Most
importantly, I want my fellow classmates to learn to love
cooking as much as I have as a result of my love of eating
and cooking Thai food.”
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