As I’m sure you all have noticed by now: I love food, like, a lot. My ambition in life is to ultimately work in food publication (cook book editor, any job with a food magazine, etc.). Naturally, one of my ambitions for study abroad was to take a cooking class to learn how to make a local dish, and that’s exactly what I did in Barcelona.
My friends and I signed up for the class as an immersive way to learn a little more about Spanish (or I guess now Catalonian) culture and food. When we learned that this cooking class came with unlimited tapas, sangria, and homemade paella we were sold immediately.
When we first arrived at the class, we met our hilarious and knowledgable instructor who brought us to the cooking school. There, they presented us with authentic tapas. The plates we sampled were bread with oil, salt, and tomato (you rub the tomato on the bread and the juices are absorbed), grilled spicy and sweet green peppers, cured meat, olives, and sangria. 
The sangria was delicious; it was traditionally made with brandy, red wine, apples, oranges, and a splash of fanta. It put us in the mood to get to cooking our seafood paella. We first learned how to prepare the different seafood that went into the rice dish (prawns, calamari, mussels, clams, and squid). After all the seafood was prepared and cleaned, we began making the paella.
To make authentic paella, you begin with good quality olive oil (and a lot of it) and add the vegetables (onion, peppers, garlic). Then, once they are a little translucent, add the seafood. After the seafood is partially cooked, you add some wine and then the rice. It takes about twenty minutes for the rice and vegetables to finish cooking, and by the time it is done, you are left with a delicious rice dish that is crispy on the bottom and jam packed with deep flavors.
I would highly recommend any group of friends or foody do a cooking class as not only is it a fun way to immerse yourself into a new culture, it is also an awesome way to enjoy a home cooked authentic meal.
Conosco I Miei Polli 