Catalonian Cooking

My cooking expereince in Barcelona

Hello Friends,

I returned to work this month and have completed seven days with my new students. The first two weeks of school are always the busiest, and this year, we end with Back to School Night. Yikes.

My next newsletter on the 30th of this month should be full of news and updates. For this newsletter, I want to share one of my highlights from Spain in June.

A childhood friend of mine posts pictures of her cooking classes in Paris everytime she joins her hubby on his work trip. This inspired me to seek out similar experiences even though I’m not a big fan of cooking. I mean, really, cooking is a chore I must do most nights to feed my family. But I have done a few cooking classes, mostly at the Viking Home Chef that closed in Walnut Creek a decade or so ago. If nothing else, I learned techniques to use in my everyday cooking.

Rick Steves recommends cooking classes in his guidebooks, so as soon as I decided on Barcelona as my destination for this cooking class, I searched his guidebook and found a class within six minutes of my hotel in the Barri Gotic area of Barcelona: Cook & Taste Barcelona Cooking Class: https://cookandtaste.net/en/

The 6-minute walk from El Jardi Hotel wound through narrow cobblestone streets, which was picturesque on the walk over. However, at 9 PM during the downpour that night, all the wet buildings and streets looked the same, and I wound up repeating the loop a decond time. As frustrating as this was, I remember the walk like it was yesterday.

Chef Carlos was energetic, encouraging, and funny. Check out my video from the class below. During one video I have proof that I’m the worst egg breaker in the history of egg breakers. In the second video, you will see I’m a bit squeamish when it comes to ripping off shrimp heads and legs. 

Not pictured or recorded: I sliced tomatoes and potatoes the way Chef Carlos showed us:  slice all the fruit and veggies in half, and then lay on the flat side to slice further. Safety first!

While the youngest member of our group, an eighteen year old recent high school graduate, was the most skilled of our group, her dad knew how to cut the watermelon for the gazpacho. (In other words, I now know how to slice up a big watermelon.)

Since returning home, I have attempted three out of the four recipes. I haven’t tried the main course, seafood paella, but here’s what I have attempted:

• gazpacho (twice) with lackluster results

• tortilla espanola (twice) with encouraging results both times 

• the Creme Catalana (once) was a winner!

• And (once) the pan de tomate (tomato bread), the simplest one, which was mostly unsuccessful

I highly recommend the experience, the school, and Chef Carlos at Cook & Taste in Barcelona.

Hasta la proxima Amigos!