Experiencing Catalonia | Day 2 Cookery classes

By the time we all left La Boqueria market we were frozen to the bone. It was a cold morning in Barcelona and being in amongst all the fresh fish on ice really didn’t help! Teresa, our guide from Cook & Taste (the little place where we were going to get Catalonian cookery classes) led us out into the sunshine of Les Rambles and back to Plaça de Sant Jaume,, then up another shady alley – everything in Barcelona seems to be up a little alley of some sort.

Cook & Taste is a small, modern studio with a large kitchen inside. The walls are bare stone, the kitchen is clean and simple and the whole place felt earthy and WARM! We were there for a reason though and that reason was thus: To cook up a storm like never before! We had our local produce and next it was time to roll up our sleeves and get a cookery lesson Catalan style.

We were handed a glass of wine and a menu… I was thinking -
“This is my kind of cookery class…. I’ll have the beef”
But no, on closer inspection it was indeed not a menu but a recipe – three recipes in fact.
To start – Pumpkin cream with crispy leek and cream cheese quenelle.
For main – Noodle Paella.
Dessert – Crema Catalana…

It was such a cosy little place and all the bloggers huddled round the kitchen listening attentively to Teresa as she told us a little about herself and her 20 years of experience in the cooking world… I don’t know if it was just me reacting to the warmth after being so cold but Teresa seemed to glow with a motherly assertiveness, a calmness that seemed contagious almost… Down to business, she put an apron on Keith (Velvet Escape) and got him chopping up pumpkins and veg while also getting other people started on other parts of other dishes… I must stress now that I am useless in a kitchen – in the cooking sense, when I’m in a kitchen I become bewildered and confused … Literally nothing makes sense. Luckily I have Georgie to take a bullet for me and when she looked down our end of the table for a frying volunteer I lurched back and Georgie got her pinnie on – her task: Fry prawns and noodles.
Once they were fried the rest of the ingredients were added to finish the Paella, somehow Georgie managed to take her eye off it and the unmistakable smell of burning food filled the air… At this point I would have broken down but Teresa (with her motherly glow and super cooking powers) stepped in and fixed it. She even managed to bring the Crema Catalana (I’ll mention no names) back after it had been turned to scrambled eggs!

After a good stroll around the market looking at all the fresh produce I for one was getting hungry and the great thing about cookery classes is the food has to be eaten afterwards. It was served up with yet another glass of wine and silence fell in the kitchen as we all got stuck in… It was awesome, I’m sure if Teresa had cooked it herself it would’ve been divine but for a bunch of bloggers we did alright!

Like I said I’m no cook but something about Barcelona brings out the foodie in even me, I do always enjoy cookery classes when I’m in a country that has good food though and ones teamed with a local market visit can’t be beaten – it’s a top way to learn a lot about a place and see things you might otherwise miss.