Today I cooked my first Thai meal, Larb Na. The dish is one of Ann's favourites and the recipe came out of Cooking With Poo, a book I bought recently. Poo has a cooking school in the slum district of Bangkok.

For more than 5 years the school has been running in Klong Toey for tourists as well as local residents. Poo represents a remarkable model of success and positivity in an often difficult and complex landscape of poverty and hardship and has trained up a team of fellow residents.

So this was a book well worth buying as it is now well worth using. Ann was so proud of me and kept saying "David, you can cook Thai food!" as if I had opened a magic cave filled with gold and silver. Truth is, if you get organized, it's not that hard.

People often make jokes about the title, but this is a great book and well recommended.