Papaya is one of my favourite restaurants in Warsaw so when the prospect of this interview arose, I  leaped at the chance to meet the chef. I was hoping, perhaps, that some of that exotic culinary prowess would rub off on me and I would learn to make a perfectly sour-and-spicy Tom Yum Gang soup. Little did I expect that the talent behind Papaya's great food is a slight, soft-spoken lovely young woman from the north of Thailand. I tried not to look dumbfounded as she exited the kitchen in her starched white uniform and sat down for a chat before getting things cooking in the kitchen. I soon got lost within the imagery of bustling outdoor markets filled with every treat under the sun and floating markets selling fruits, vegetables, meats, seafood and spices, pans hissing with the sound of cooking, enchanting tropical aromas rising into the air.
    Seeda Supattra comes from the city of Nakhonphanom but got her training in Bangkok alongside her brother who's also a chef. She worked in the kitchen of the White Elephant at the Marriott Hotel, by far considered the best restaurant in Bangkok. She's lived in Warsaw for two years, bringing the treasures of Thailand to Warsaw residents who crave the heat and spice of Asian cuisine. She's also a champion carver, capable of making anything from a radish to a watermelon into a blossoming work of art.
    “Food is very important in our culture,” she explains. “People eat all the time and still they stay so skinny.” She says she gets a lot of joy from cooking for others, carefully measuring and stirring the ingredients to create the perfect harmony of flavours and colours.
    Seeda's own faves are traditional papaya salad and the popular green curry, but at the top of her list is her hometown's chicken and vegetable soup stocked with herbs and greens. Still, almost every dish on the menu is based on the foundation of Thai cuisine: lemongrass, chillis, ginger, galangal, Thai basil, keffir limes and coriander. Ingredients like small eggplants, long beans, bok choy and kale. Seeda experiments with different variations of these themes with chicken, pork, seafood and vegetarian dishes, coming up with seasonal specialities for the rotating menu.
    In the winter, the spiciness of Thai cuisine provides warmth from within. Spicy food is even said to ward off illness and stimulate the immune system. For this wintery occasion, I watch as Seeda (who's incidentally come to be called Lisa by her staff at Papaya) prepares two ultra-spicy dishes: Tom Yum Gang soup and Long Bean Pork. She carefully combines the ingredients in small pots, adding a dash of this and a dash of that, adding the shrimp at the very end. The result is a marvellously smooth soup with chunks of firm shrimp, the bite of chili, the tartness of lemon and the refreshment of coriander. And this is the way she always does it – each dish on the menu is prepared as it is ordered – there are no vats of Tom Yum Gang standing around the kitchen.
    Most of the heat in Thai food comes from chilis. Seeda recommends a single hot chili per serving and up to two for those who really like a kick. The Pork with long bean is spicy in a whole different way – the flavour is heartier and deeper thanks to the special sauce infusing all the meat and veggies. This taste of Thailand fills me up with warmth and fantasies of an adventure in the city streets and jungles of a land half a world away.