Japanese cooking class

As referred from my friend, I joined a Japanese cooking class in Hida Kokufu in early May.  Hida Kokufu is a small town about 12 minutes train ride from Takayama.  It is a new class that we are the third group to learn the home cooking in the local family.  The teacher used to be a chef in prestigious restaurants in Osaka.  We are picked up from the station to the teacher’s home to have half day Japanese cooking class.  It is an interesting experience for us to visit local’s home and learn authentic Japanese cooking.  At the moment, the class is conducted in Japanese only.  Therefore, except learning, I am also an interpreter that day.

We were told that after cooking, we would have the meal together as our lunch.  Teacher picked the fresh wild vegetables, seafood and fish for our lessons.  During the class, we learnt the techniques to make crispy tempura of wild vegetables（山菜）, taste rice(炊き込みごはん), grill yellowtail (焼きぶり), miso soup etc.  The use of knife is also important in preparation.  We tried to cook by ourselves at some point.  Finally, we had a fruitful and delicious meal.  After the meal, we went to the farm of the teacher.  They are growing the vegetables in the farm near to their house and later the students of the cooking class can go to the farm to harvest too.  Let’s learn cooking together next time!