As at home, while travelling I am obsessed by food, and as one meal finishes I am already planning the next. So on this trip we included a cooking class, and some research on good old Trip Advisor led us to Sonia's cooking class in Galle.
After the fruit and veg market we bought our super fresh fish from a roadside stall at the fishng village.
Sonia collected us from our villa with a couple of tuk tuks to take us to the market to purchase our ingredients. I was slightly confused by the fact that Sonia was actually called Caruna (phonetic Australian spelling - but more on names later), and although it took Tom and Terry sometime to stop calling her Sonia, she was unperturbed and took a shine to both of them. Cathy, Julia and I only were only ever referred to as "sister", whereas Caruna called the boys by name, and quickly adopted the pet name "Tommy" for her favourite. Caruna was loud and bouncy, and quite tactile as Terry and "Tommy" discovered, and a mountain of fun.
Our party was joined by French back-packer Ebony who seemed happy enough to join a group of raucous Australians: having spent a year in Australia at last she knew what to expect.
After the fruit and veg market we bought our super fresh fish from a roadside stall at the fishng village.
Then onto Caruna's outdoor kitchen and the class began.
Caruna had us all chopping, dicing, pounding, mixing and finally cooking. From all the photos it seems I did not do that much work, I seem to be only taking notes.
"Tommy" was forgiven for not counting the curry leaves exactly, and for the cardinal sin of adding the spices to the mix higgledy-piggledy, rather than neatly in separate piles - although she did deal him a mighty whack to the chest, followed by a huge forgiving hug.
It goes without saying lunch of fish, pumpkin, beetroot and dhal curries with bringal pickle and coconut sambal were all magnificent.
I have touched above on our struggle with remembering and pronouncing Sri Lankan names. Our driver, Sandamal has been called variously, Sandiman, Sadimal, Salmon; leading Terry to quip we could Australianise it to "Sando". So we have resorted to nmeumonics to help remember names; so Ashanka became "Shanksy" , and Tolana is remembered by the similarly sounding St Kilda restaurant Tolarno. Julia summed up the dilemma with her perhaps not well thought through question "have they thought of shortening their names". I am sure Julia was not seriously suggesting they throw out thousands of years of tradition so that the tourists can cope... But then again.
Caruna had us all chopping, dicing, pounding, mixing and finally cooking. From all the photos it seems I did not do that much work, I seem to be only taking notes.
"Tommy" was forgiven for not counting the curry leaves exactly, and for the cardinal sin of adding the spices to the mix higgledy-piggledy, rather than neatly in separate piles - although she did deal him a mighty whack to the chest, followed by a huge forgiving hug.
It goes without saying lunch of fish, pumpkin, beetroot and dhal curries with bringal pickle and coconut sambal were all magnificent.
I have touched above on our struggle with remembering and pronouncing Sri Lankan names. Our driver, Sandamal has been called variously, Sandiman, Sadimal, Salmon; leading Terry to quip we could Australianise it to "Sando". So we have resorted to nmeumonics to help remember names; so Ashanka became "Shanksy" , and Tolana is remembered by the similarly sounding St Kilda restaurant Tolarno. Julia summed up the dilemma with her perhaps not well thought through question "have they thought of shortening their names". I am sure Julia was not seriously suggesting they throw out thousands of years of tradition so that the tourists can cope... But then again.
Comments
Post a Comment