Cooking with Rita and Anna

Not Aunt Dora's Kitchen

In Italy we arranged to have a cooking class through our excellent tour guide (and TV star, we discovered), Giovanni. If you have been following my posts you will have read about it in “Cooking With Aunt Dora”. We enjoyed this experience so much we decided to try it again here in Portugal. Ben found the Lisbon Cooking Academy online and they booked a class for everyone. It was going to be hard to beat “Cooking with Aunt Dora”, but it still would be an experience to add to our Portuguese adventure with the kids.

Like everything else here in Portugal, we couldn't get there easily and after many twists and turns and up and downs, our UBER driver dropped us off “close” to the location. Sure enough, it was not on a street and we had to go down more stairs to get to the address. once inside the academy, we were presented with a completely different setting than Aunt Dora's little Italian kitchen. This was a modern spacious cooking classroom. We were greeted by one of the bubbly friendly culinary teachers, Rita and she informed us that we were going to be joined by an

Preparing cod fish

additional four other tourists shortly, but not to worry they had a “Never empty glass” rule to wine, so the wait would not be a trial. Settling in with an excellent glass of Portuguese wine we did not have long to wait until our other participants arrived, four school friends from Germany here on a vacation. Not only were these Germans not the reserved stand-offish Germans we were used to from cruising, these four women were outgoing, friendly and educators, so we got along great. In fact we were told that our preconceived opinion of Germans was because they were from the other side of the country – who knew?

After washing up and getting fitted for aprons, we began the class with appetizers. The normal Portuguese cheese, bread and olives were kicked up a notch with chorizo roasted over an alcohol flame in a special roaster. “Alisha do I have room to bring one of these home in your suitcase?”.

We learned to make a green bean tempura, Portuguese “Punched” potatoes and cornbread crusted codfish, with cabbage on the side. As well, we were instructed in the making of the famous Portuguese egg tarts, pastel de nata, although we were warned that if we did a review on Trip Advisor not to mention this because it was not normally part of a class because they had a separate class just on this delicious traditional desert.

We chopped vegetables, crushed garlic, mixed batter, stirred sauce, pulled codfish bones, and generally got involved in all aspects of cooking this meal the Portuguese way. Then when everything was ready we sat down to enjoy the fruits of our labours, a delicious Portuguese meal.

28 Doors

That's us on the Second Floor

We have been staying in four Portuguese cities and have had a apartment in each city. We thought the place in Cascais was pretty good, but it was small and not that well equipped, but had a swimming pool on the thirteenth floor which Regis enjoyed. In Braga we had a really cute little place with the emphasis on little, but it was modern, clean and well supplied. The apartment in Porto was a modern renovated place in an old building overlooking the river with spectacular views. It could only be reached by either descending 135 stairs down or climbing 154 stairs up! It was on three floors connected by a circular staircase, and had a lovely usable veranda looking out on the river.

Then we got to Lisbon. . . . this place is completely different. It is in an old building on the second

One of Twenty Eight Doors

floor (But you go up three flights to get to it because the ground floor is “0”). This place has been renovated but not modernized, so it retains the charm of an old building. There are nine rooms in total, including a kitchen, a formal dining room, living room, two bathrooms and four bedrooms. There are also three hallways connecting all these rooms as well as a large outdoor terrace. There are a total of 28 doors, most of which are old fashioned double doors. There are 10 windows not counting the transom windows over every inside door. The living room alone has six doors as does one bedroom. All of the windows except those in the kitchen are double opening windows with shutters and five along the front are floor to ceiling with balcony railings. Most of the furnishings are antiques and scattered throughout the apartment are all sorts of interesting items. All in all it is quite the place.

A Collection of Antiques

Very Interesting Bed

Dining Room Light

Ceiling Detail

Old Copper Plate/Tray

Portuguese Dishes from Host's Grandmother's Restaurant

Large Wooden Tray Hanging in Kitchen

None of the doors line up anymore

I did not count these as doors . . .

Real Funky Light

Chairs in Dining Room Windows

Dining Room Side Board

Old Brass Lamp in Dining Room