Arnold Myint Wants to Help Spice Up Your Valentine’s Day

I’ve written on the online cooking videos that local chef Arnold Myint’s created while working to get the latest incarnation of International Market/blvd. off the ground. Since then, he's turned his attention to helping out with your Valentine’s Day plans, whether you're happily coupled or looking for love. 

Both classes — one for singles, one for couples — are available for registration at his chef website arnoldmyint.com, and they both look like a lot of fun. The first class is called Pad Thai for Lovers, costs $115 per couple, with 25% of the proceeds going to one of Myint’s favorite charities, Nashville Launchpad.

I’ve taken lots of these sorts of classes, and I’ve discovered that trying to cook along with a professional chef can be difficult at best — and disastrous at worst. So to lessen the stressin’ on Valentine’s Day, Myint will mail you a specially assembled pad thai kit in advance — it includes sweet preserved radish, tamarind concentrate, palm sugar, rice noodles and fish sauce, plus an equipment list and shopping list for a few other needed ingredients.

When the class goes live, you can either try to cook along, or just watch as he prepares an authentic Thai specialty along with his decadent Chocolate Soup Fondue for Two. After the class is over, Myint will email the recipes so that attendees can get to work in their own kitchens. As a bonus, if you register prior to Feb.3, he’ll provide the kit of pad thai specialty ingredients for free. (Any later than that, and you’re depending on delivery services getting everything to you on time — a dicey proposition when love is on the line!)

Pad Thai for Lovers starts at 6 p.m., and will run about an hour, so you’ll have plenty of time to prepare your own special Valentine’s dinner with your sweetheart.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with being alone on Valentine’s Day, but that’s no reason to go hungry! Myint has the singletons covered as well with a special dumplings class he’s cheekily titled Get Dump’d on Valentine’s Day  — but you can call it Singles Shu Mai Sunday, if that makes you feel better. This is a lunchtime class that starts at noon, and Myint promises to share some of the family secrets that he learned from his beloved late mother Patti. If you grew up on International Market shu mai like I did, you know those tidbits of knowledge will be well worth the $65 class fee. (Again, including 25% to Launch Pad.) He’s also promising to teach the techniques behind Patti’s savory Thai Toast, cucumber relish and dipping sauce. That Thai Toast probably cost be a few millimeters of plaque in my arteries over the years, but I regret nothing!

There’s nothing that says you can’t sign up for both classes. In fact, if you register for three or more classes at arnoldmyint.com, you save a total of $45 off all three. Beat the deadline and register today!