Villa Market stirs it up with a new studio that brings style to your kitchen

Is your kitchen fashionable? If you're still boiling up basics in a shoddy little back room, you are, like, so out of style.

Cooking is no longer mere drudge work, for starters. It's supposed to be as trendy as wearing a pair of Jimmy Choo shoes.

And the utensils they come out with these days deserve a starring role on television.

The Villa Market chain, acclaimed for the variety of imported foods on its shelves, is right in the thick of things with fashionable cooking.

Villa Market JP Co executive director Sopit Poosanakhom wants you to have a good look at his customers' shopping carts brimming with trendy treats from Italy, France, India, Japan and South Korea, no to mention the globally hip entrees of Thai cuisine.

Now Villa has opened its own cooking studio.

"Customers often ask us to recommend dishes they can make with ingredients they see here that are new to them," says Sopit.

Celebrity chefs

The Gastro cooking studio was introduced last week by celebrity chef and cookbook author Ob-oom "Mini C" Chutrakul, who's the project's executive consultant chef.

"She's the perfect choice, as a very knowledgeable and experienced chef, and it's a plus that she's a long-time Villa customer," says Sopit.

Rather than being a strict cooking school, the Gastro is intended to encourage social gatherings for food lovers. Groups of friends can enjoy a class together or have a food-and-wine-pairing party.

But if you're keen to cook, says Ob-oom, you can "learn to cook four dishes in three hours, and I dare say that if you're not successful, you can ask for your money back!"

Ob-oom often conducts classes at S Cuisine, where she's a chef and dietaryconsultant, and before returning to Thailand in 2007 was a celebrity chef in London, running a Thai restaurant.

 GUEST CHEFS

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>> Jutaporn "Yui" Tejapaibul, the owner of Tessa, will show off European cuisine.

>> Mrs Balbir, owner of the popular Indian restaurant, will cook the dishes of her homeland.

 >> On the Web:|www.The-Gastro.com