Taiwanese Cooking Demonstration in Taipei using Family Recipes

What your day looks like

Host Bio: Catherine learned to cook by watching her mother, who is a wonderful cook. Since she was a child, Catherine enjoyed helping her mother in the kitchen and later studied at Les Roches Hotel Management School in Switzerland. Catherine continues to experiment in the kitchen, and takes great pride in cooking home-made meals for her family every day. She calls herself a foodie and says that eating and cooking are the ultimate joys of life! “By hosting travelers in my home, I would like to share more about my culture, my food and my country.” Meal Description: Catherine lives in a modest, cozy apartment in a residential Taiwanese suburban neighborhood. Her apartment is decorated with souvenirs from her travels, family photos and lovely plants - giving it a homely and welcoming feel! Catherine has a huge repertoire of traditional Taiwanese dishes, and she takes the trouble to select the dishes to cook based on what’s fresh in the market that day and her guests' food preferences. A few dishes that you might share with Catherine at her dining table are marinated smashed cucumbers, vermicelli with clams and luffa soup (a traditional Taiwanese home-cooked meal, often served in the summer), xiansuji (a Taiwanese night-market favorite – crispy salty chicken bites) or poached squid with spicy tomato sauce (a dish that is served at traditional wedding banquets), pork fried rice and stir-fried white water snowflakes with fresh shiitake mushrooms (white water snowflake is a crunchy local vegetable). Cooking Description: After a warm welcome into her apartment, Catherine will take you to her kitchen to begin your cooking demonstration. As is typical in most Taipei homes, Catherine’s kitchen is very small, so she will be doing most of the cooking, but you will help her whenever possible. Due to space constraints, this will be more of a cooking demonstration. Catherine will introduce you to the dishes that you will be eating and during this one-hour demonstration, you will watch as she prepares 2-3 authentic Taiwanese dishes from scratch. Catherine will walk you through the entire cooking process, giving you very clear instructions, and sharing many useful tips along the way. You will then enjoy your meal with Catherine at her dining table. Market Tour Description: Meet your host at the Wende Metro station and together walk to the local, Taipei street market near Catherine's home. She will take you to the vendor shops from where she usually buys her ingredients and explain the local produce available and how it is used in the cooking process. After buying a few ingredients at the market, walk five minutes to Catherine's home. Along the way, she will show you some of her favorite spots and you might even meet her friendly neighbors.