This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Community Corner

Farmers' Market Vendor to Appear on Thai Food Network

Segment with Chol Koerojna of Thai Greenhouse filmed Sunday; she grows Thai spice plants.

Cholthanee “Chol” Koerojna snipped a few leaves of lemon grass from her potted lemon grass plant at Sunday’s farmers’ market at , cut and crushed them and dropped them into a pan of what would become Tom Yum, a hot and sour Thai soup that she was cooking.

As she added ingredients to the pan, a producer and videographer for the Thai Food Network recorded her every move.

Chol and her husband, Mana Sanguansook, operate Thai Greenhouse, a collection of “rare and tropical plants,” some used in Thai cooking, at their home greenhouse in Burlington. They also cook and sell Thai food at the farmers’ market here.

Find out what's happening in Woburnwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Chol became the subjects of one segment of Waravoot (“Pong”) Sangritt’s show after Pong ate at a Thai restaurant in Boston and learned that many of the restaurant’s seasonings came from Thai Greenhouse. He is traveling around the country filming farmers’ markets, festivals and other venues that serve Thai food for the second episode of a new TV show for the Thai Food Network. He also produces another show, “Best of the Block," for Thai Food Network, he told Woburn Patch before Sunday’s cooking demonstration started, about Thai entrepreneurs all over the United States.

At noon, Chol began to demonstrate how to make Tom Yum. Two friends helped her: Suwanna Curry, who has operated a Thai restaurant, , in Hingham for eight years and Thim Lam. Muang means city, Chol explained to woburnpatch.

Find out what's happening in Woburnwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The women wore traditional Thai clothing, Chol told the audience, with no cooking aprons. Instead, Thai cooks traditionally use a long scarf-like piece of their attire to wipe their hands and faces while they cook.

Traditional Thai food would be cooked in a charcoal stove, displayed by Lam, Chol explained.

Chol used to walk to the farmers’ market “to buy things here.” She started to grow flowers at home. Then, she said, she decided, “Let’s do something we can eat.” Not many people grow Thai spice plants, she said.

Besides cooking and selling Thai food at the farmers’ market since the third week the market started, she and Mana cook every year, she said, for several charities.

Pong’s new TV show project started three months ago, he said; it will take three more months to put this episode together. He expects it to air in six months. The first episode focused on Thai food in Lebanon, CT, he said, at the state fair. Pong filmed Sunday’s whole 40-minute demonstration here. He’ll edit it down, he said, to a several-minute-long segment.

The audience at Sunday’s event warmed quickly to the Tom Yum and basil-fried rice. Chol handed out recipes after the demonstration.

The fried rice is “very good, spicy,” said farmers’ market shopper Sarkis Chinian. “I like spicy.”

Chinian and his family, including his daughter, Shaeleigh, who also sampled the rice and also gave it a thumbs up, have come to the farmers’ market every week, he said, since it opened.

“Very good,” added farmers’ market volunteer Julie Smith.

The audience for the cooking demonstration lingered after the taping ended to finish their samples of Chol’s spicy rice.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?