The Pub or the Cooking Class?

There is a time in everyone's life when you begin to look for something a little different for your Friday night out. For some it may come naturally as part of a maturing process that includes drinking Earl Grey tea, watching documentaries, and wearing slippers. For others, it may come completely out of the blue. Either way, I am pretty sure it happens to everyone. Frankly, you get bored of the pub.  

You then work through the list of next best options, like going to the movies, eating out at your favourite restaurants, or taking in a show. (You occasionally may take in a gig, but they're so damn loud now aren't they?)   Eventually, you subconsciously become a little tired of these options too. So where do you go from there?


To a Friday night cooking class of course. Yes, you read that right, a cooking class. And I can't even blame my wife Alison, because it was shamefully all down to me. I had bought a Barilla Italian Food hamper at the Good Food & Wine show back in June. It was my second favourite purchase of the show, just behind the Soda Stream which was the runaway winner. Anyway, there were two tickets to a Cooking demonstration included in the hamper, and that's how we found ourselves in the ILVE Showrooms in Camberwell on a cold, dark and wet winter's night. And we weren't alone. It was packed to the rafters, mainly of women of course, but there were a few blokes there too. I am pretty sure everyone had come for the food tips, but may may have just come for the show, which was part cooking demo, part comedy, and part food education.
It was actually a really fun night out, and if anything the food was the biggest let down. There is only so much you can do with dried Barilla pasta and a jar of Barilla pesto sauce after all.