Typically, I recommend joining cooking workshops at the beginning of your trip to gain a better understanding of the country’s cuisine and some tips on how to decipher local menus, which makes eating at restaurants all the more enjoyable. While eating at restaurants and local eateries is an experience, sometimes making your own food is even better. In a cooking workshop with a passionate native veteran restauranter, you get to create meals you typically don’t make.
Whether the only meal you can make is toast, or you’re a seasoned pro in the kitchen. Cooking workshops are a great way to get out of your comfort zone, learn new skills, meet new people, and spice up a couple’s vacation.
Although cooking workshops in general are great, I can understand why some people might avoid them… it is difficult to learn anything, some people don’t have time, not enough money or are simply uninterested. Well, I’m here to prove to you that cooking is worth your time and that there are plenty of benefits to joining my cooking workshops.Â
So, where do you go for cooking classes? Well, if you do a little looking (it won’t take long with an online search), there are many guides offering traditional Cyprus taste tours and local recipe cooking classes in probably pretty much every community. And guess what, yours truly is one of them!
So now let’s get into the why do it with Pambos!
9 reasons Why You Should Join a Cooking Workshop at the Tasting Room?
1. Cooking Workshops Are Fun
The best thing about cooking workshops is that they are a fun experience for anyone that gives it a chance. Especially the hands-on ones. There is as fun as being in a group of total strangers trying to acquaint themselves with recipes and kitchen utensils. This usually leads to chaos as everyone tries to figure out what does what and hilariously fails.
2. Cooking Without the Clean Up
When you attend a cooking workshop at the Tasting Room yours truly will make sure your workspace has been laid out with all the necessary ingredients and equipment when you arrive. Plus, you can make as much a mess as you want (but refrain from getting too wild) and yours truly will clean up after you have left. This means that cooking classes cancel one of the most annoying parts of cooking.
3. Meet New People
You’re definitely going to bump into some pretty like-minded individuals. I mean you’ll have one thing in common: you’re both at a cooking workshop at the tasting room! Cooking classes can help you expand your network and make new friends. Who knows? Your new best BBQ buddy might be at that Sheftalia Recipe workshop you’ve had your eye on.
4. Trying New Kinds of Dishes
Just like in any aspect of life in cooking it’s easy to fall into a pattern that works and the habit of using the same cheese, vegetables, and spices over and over again in the cooking that you do. Maybe you have no idea how to choose the right halloumi, or lighting the charcoal seems like a dangerous proposal. A cooking workshop is the perfect arena for trying new things, as the instructor is right there, guiding you through the process. And you may learn to love some new ingredients that you never even knew existed.
5. Learn about seasonal regional ingredients
This may not apply to all of my cooking classes and workshops, at the Tasting Room. As I imagine some will have you making delicious grilled meat cuts and cheesy main courses, but other classes will have you picking up seasonal fruits and vegetables from the orchards to create your dishes. Becoming more familiar with what’s planted available locally and in season means that you’ll be getting the freshest ingredients of the land to use in your own cooking.
6. Pick-up new skills in the kitchen
There are a lot of recipes that ask you to stuff, peel, chop, grate, julienne, mash, core, etc., and you can only Google or YouTube these things so many times before becoming disheartened. That’s why cooking workshops are so invaluable, because you learn how to use different utensils and prepare your food in different ways, so when you get back to your own kitchen, you feel like a pro, and can chop herbs with the best of them.
7. Increase Confidence in your Cooking
Gaining the knowledge to create a beautiful Halloumi pie will increase your confidence in the kitchen. Further on, imagine join The Souvla Experience to learn how to get that perfect woodfired spit roast going. So then you become the Souvla master. Because you know your stuff, everybody starts coming to you for advice. (This seriously happens.) MAJOR confidence booster! You’re the Souvla-Man because you have this *secret* tip you picked up at a cooking workshop at the Tasting Room.
8. Great for Couples
A cooking workshop is a great way to spice up your one-on-one time with your partner. You get to work together and collaborate to make a dish, try new things and learn new skills, and the outcome is something you can both enjoy and share. Maybe only one of you rules the kitchen at home, but in a cooking class, you’re a team, which is a great dynamic for any relationship.
9. Suitable for Corporate Groups
Cooking together is time to interactively engage. Build teamwork in your relationship and learn to rely on each other working together towards a common goal. You’ll have an opportunity not only to have a good time together, but to see how well you can problem solve.
Finally
Join me in my country home in Episkopi, Paphos if you are curious about local food and would like to learn some of my family recipes. The atmosphere is convivial and the experience a lot of fun. There is learning, laughter, sharing and always something new to try. You’ll be proud of what you made and surprised by how tasty it can be. Accompanied by premium local wines and the fascinating stories of your host, this will be the best meal ever.
Experience the benefits that I’ve talked about by taking one of my cooking workshops at the Tasting Room. To learn more, check out my schedule.
