Menu

  • Home
  • About
  • My favourites
Skip to content

thefidgetyfoodie

not your average food & travel blog

cooking class

My celebrity cooking class in Brazil

Posted on January 20, 2018 by thefidgetyfoodie

the fidgety foodie_celebrity cooking class in Paraty Brazil

Yara teaches me how to make the iconic Brazilian fish stew, moqueca

One of my favourite experiences in Brazil last year was a cooking class with the Brazilian version of Nigella, Yara Castro Roberts. I was wandering the cobbled streets of Paraty and happened to see the sign for Yara’s school, The Academy of Cooking & Other Pleasures (what a name!) and lucky for me they had a space for that night.

Yara used to have her own Emmy-nominated Brazilian cooking show, and hails from the gastronomic heart of Brazil, Minas Gerais. Along with her American/French husband Richard they operate cooking classes out of their very chic terrace home. But cooking class is really not the right description as we did very little cooking – instead they took us on a historical and cultural journey through the history of Brazil told through food – with plenty of edible reference material along the way. And when I finally left at 1am I had the distinct feeling I’d been dining with friends all evening.

the fidgety foodie_celebrity cooking class in Paraty Brazil

Richard muddles fresh limes for a round of caipirinhas

The night started as many do in Brazil – with caipirinhas. Richard whipped them up on a smart drinks trolley as he started offering background info on Brazilian food. Today’s cuisine is built on three very distinct legs – Indigenous, Portuguese and African. Over time the indigenous ingredients which sustained the native Brazilians have been appropriated by the Portuguese who came to conquer and influenced by the Africans they brought with them to work as slaves.

the fidgety foodie_celebrity cooking class in Paraty Brazil

I didn’t drink all of these caipirinhas, but it was tempting

The key indigenous staple that virtually props up every Brazilian dish is the starchy root manioc – also known as cassava, yucca or tapioca. It’s native to Brazil and has always been essential to the diet. It’s incredibly versatile and can be boiled, baked, steamed, grilled, fried and mashed plus ground into flour and used as a thickening agent. Other popular indigenous ingredients hailing from the Amazon are the superfruit açaí and berry guaraná, used to make energy drinks.

the fidgety foodie_celebrity cooking class in Paraty Brazil

Our entree of farofa-stuffed tomatoes with haloumi

The second leg of Brazilian food comes from the Portuguese, who came to the country looking for gold and never left. They were the first to plant corn which was used to make polenta and introduced a bean concoction which has become the country’s signature dish, feijoada. Not to mention eggy breads and salt cod or bacalao.

the fidgety foodie_celebrity cooking class in Paraty Brazil

Dende is derived from palm trees and used extensively in Brazilian dishes

Yara also talked us through ingredients that came to Brazil via the African slaves, like coconut milk, dende (an extract from the palm tree), palm hearts and okra. These ingredients infiltrate much of the African food that’s still very distinctive in Brazil, especially around Salvador where dishes like acarajé, a fritter made with beans and fried in palm oil, are very popular. Read More

-23.220054 -44.720476

From a Russian cooking class with love

Posted on January 19, 2017 by thefidgetyfoodie

the-fidgety-foodie_russian-cooking-class-in-moscow-9

Carefully hand making each and every pelmeni – a Russian staple

I did lots of cool things when I went to Russia last year – like staring in awe from the front row of the Bolshoi ballet and being battered (in a good way) with birch leaves during a traditional banya.

But my favourite experience was the Taste of Russia cooking class I took in Moscow. Not just because I got to cook (which I love) and eat (which I love even more), but because I spent the day with real Muscovites who let me drill them about their lives, their diets, their family and their future.

The day didn’t start well. Ever tried to take the Moscow subway? It’s ridiculously intense. I’m no stranger to large rail systems – I can navigate the tube with my eyes closed and have never had any issues in cities like New York and Paris (except when my sister and I went through two at a time and were almost arrested by French police but that’s another story).

Moscow is a different beast. The subway is HUGE and there isn’t a single direction in English, nor did anyone I ask for help speak English. I can read a decent amount of Cyrillic thanks to its likeness to the Greek alphabet but on my first full day in Russia, pre-coffee, I struggled. I’m not usually one to give up but I did and left the metro thinking a cab had to be an easier option.

the-fidgety-foodie_russian-cooking-class-in-moscow-6

Flipping syrniki – Russian cottage cheese pancakes

Wrong. The traffic in Moscow is a disaster. It’s all one way so the layout forces cars to go in unnecessary directions. Plus I couldn’t see a cab rank or a single cab for that matter and I had no wifi to book an uber. So it was a deep breath and back down to the metro for me, where I finally worked out where to go and made it to the cooking class meeting point with just a minute to spare. Phew!

I arrived to find I was the only person there. Was everyone else late too?

No, it transpired that I was the only person in the class. That was music to my ears. A private market tour and cooking class to myself, what a score!

the-fidgety-foodie_russian-cooking-class-in-moscow-7

My foodie dream team of Nadia, Milena and Zhukova

Firstly I was escorted to the Dorogomilovo market, one of Moscow’s largest, with ‘the chief’ Zhukova, her daughter Milena and daughter-in-law Nadia. A family affair!

The market was so fabulous it deserves a post of its own but essentially we picked up all the ingredients for lunch and I got to try tastings of whatever I pointed to. Which was a lot. Quite often I’d point to something and request identification; if Milena, whose English was excellent, didn’t know the word in English she’d whip out her iphone and google translate it for me.

the-fidgety-foodie_russian-cooking-class-in-moscow-5

Zhukova ‘the chief’ runs the kitchen

From the market we drove 20 minutes away to the kitchen, a modest size room filled with a big table and cooking accoutrements. Our menu for the day included Siberian pelmeni (dumplings with a beef filling), borsch and syrniki (cottage cheese pancakes) with apricot ‘jam’. Zhukova put me straight to work – chopping onions, working dough and stewing apricots while I quizzed her on the provenance of the dishes and life in Russia.

the-fidgety-foodie_russian-cooking-class-in-moscow-8

Zhukova shows me how the dough for pelmeni is rolled out

I learnt that pelmeni are the backbone of Russian home cooking and women are scrutinised on their pelmeni style and output. There’s the proper way to make them and the shortcut route but I got the impression that serious Russian cooks knew exactly which path they should follow. Read More

55.755826 37.617300

Enter your email address to receive notifications of new posts by email.

Categories

  • Asian foodie adventures
  • Best of Australia
  • Boozy travel tales
  • Cheesy tales
  • Cuba
  • Delicious London
  • Estonia
  • European foodie adventures
  • Family foodie tales
  • Food in the Americas
  • Food-themed parties
  • Foodie collections
  • Greek foodie traditions
  • Marvellous markets
  • Sweet stories
  • Sydney (and surrounds) food adventures
  • Travel like a foodie
  • Uncategorized

Recent Posts

  • Bienvenidos a Miami
  • The 4 food groups of Christmas
  • Tassie’s Top 5
  • Pondering Palermo
  • 14 food rules of Colombia

Recent Posts

  • Bienvenidos a Miami
  • The 4 food groups of Christmas
  • Tassie’s Top 5
  • Pondering Palermo
  • 14 food rules of Colombia

Recent Comments

Bienvenidos a Miami… on My foodie adventures in C…
Gary Avila on Pondering Palermo
thefidgetyfoodie on The 4 food groups of Chri…
Katia Sanfilippo on The 4 food groups of Chri…
thefidgetyfoodie on Tassie’s Top 5

Archives

  • November 2022
  • December 2021
  • June 2021
  • October 2020
  • March 2020
  • November 2019
  • August 2019
  • March 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • August 2018
  • June 2018
  • April 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • October 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • March 2017
  • January 2017
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • May 2016
  • March 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014

Categories

  • Asian foodie adventures
  • Best of Australia
  • Boozy travel tales
  • Cheesy tales
  • Cuba
  • Delicious London
  • Estonia
  • European foodie adventures
  • Family foodie tales
  • Food in the Americas
  • Food-themed parties
  • Foodie collections
  • Greek foodie traditions
  • Marvellous markets
  • Sweet stories
  • Sydney (and surrounds) food adventures
  • Travel like a foodie
  • Uncategorized

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Blog at WordPress.com.
  • Follow Following
    • thefidgetyfoodie
    • Join 150 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • thefidgetyfoodie
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...