Eat, greet and learn how to cook

You know from our drunken conversation that we love Beth of Eat & Greet Blog, and we have written many times about our love for La Boca Loca too, so when Beth invited me along to one of the Eat&Greet cooking classes, this time taught by Will from La Boca, it was an instant yes, even though it meant getting out of bed.

Yes, the Eat&Greet classes happen on Sunday mornings, right amidst the hustle and bustle of The City Market. And I mean literally right in it – classes are taught at the Gaggenau Kitchen right by the doors to the harbour, and shoppers will swarm all around you trying to sneak a peak at what you’re doing. I found that vaguely disturbing for about a minute or two, and then I loved it. Everyone likes to feel like they’re getting something a little bit special and exclusive, right? And it was class-goers who got to touch and sniff the chilies, seeds, masa and all the other eleventy billion ingredients that go into a mole sauce.

Knowing that Beth sends out the recipes after the class meant that we could relax instead of scrambling to take notes. First we watched as Will talked us through the process of making the mole, then we all got stuck in making our own tortillas, which is a pretty simple process (you just need masa, conveniently sold at La Boca Loca) and water, and while you can buy tortilla presses, you could also do them at home between books or chopping boards. Then once we had our tortillas stacked up, Beth poured us a Parrot Dog while Will shredded some chickens that had been roasting gloriously behind us, and it was time to dig in. Delicious!

So was what I learnt repeatable? Definitely – although I might not recreate the mole with all its three different kinds of dried chillies and all the other things totally authentically every day, I do feel like Will’s talk while we were cooking gave me plenty of ideas for ways that I could adapt it. And I am totally making my own tortillas too, because those things were simple and beautiful.

What I love about the Eat&Greet cooking classes is the variety – each class is taught by a different chef with a different area of expertise, be it Boning with Bosley, the Dough Mama pie lesson or the upcoming Tommy Millions pizza class. With small class sizes, you definitely get a good chance to ask all the questions you need, and learn heaps from the chef. And to learn right in amongst all the good fresh produce at the market is particularly brilliant because if you wanna replicate the experience at home, you can grab many of the ingredients right there. Eat&Greet is currently running an All Stars series, and I definitely recommend that if you’re into cooking – or think you might be, you check out at least one of the classes.