BBQ Cooking Workshops

One of the services that The Tasting Room offers is a summer cooking workshop, with the BBQ as the centrepiece. They are the best fun to do, as everyone is immediately put into good humour at the prospect, and that translates into a bubble of enthusiasm on the day!

One of them that I ran recently, one of the invited attendees had decided that she wouldnt attend, as she had an exam coming up that she needed to do some work to prepare for it. Her daughter, in whose house the workshop was being held (that's the way we run them - in people's homes) and the other participants were about 15 minutes into the 4 hour workshop when she stopped me in my tracks and said that she had to ring her Mom and persuade her to come along for the rest of the day.

I paused while she rang her to say that she would always regret it if she didnt drop everything and come over, as everything that I had said we would be doing were all things that her mother would love! Her mother said back to her (I could hear the conversation!) - 'but you know that I dont really like BBQd food' - to which her daughter said - 'but you'll absolutely love this food'.

So, the Mom came over and we restarted the session. And the daughter was right - her Mom loved everything! She explained to me that she isnt a big red meat eater and the usual BBQ stuff was too meat-oriented. What I teach at my workshops is more about the marinades using fresh herbs and citrus flavours, lots of interested salads to accompany the other meats, ways to do potato dishes that really work with BBQs - well, we Irish love our spuds! - and of course how to time everything so that you have a nice series of dishes that complement each other!

I ended up spending 5 hours with the small group, at the end of which they had rung some of their friends inviting them over to help eat the food, beer and wine were brought in, and I left them to it! They were really delighted with the whole day, and so was I!