Mediterranean Cooking School: Culinary & Cultural Learning V

Recommended by the New York times

"perhaps you're interested in a Granada-based cooking-and-wine vacation package"

For several weeks each year Casa Azahar in the historic quarter of Granada, Spain opens its doors home for personalized cooking classes to a small number of guests eager to share in the food, wine, and culture of one of Spain's most diverse and vibrant regions. Participants also have the option of taking morning Spanish language classes from neighboring Escuela Carmen de las Cuevas.

Guests cook with wild Mediterranean herbs gathered from behind the house, salad greens and vegetables from local markets, olives from the abudant groves, and prepare unique Mediterranean, Spehardic, and Mozarabic dishes. Guests will visit Europe's highest viticultural region, the up-and-coming Vinos de la tierra Norte de Granada and meet with wine makers.

1 and 3-day programs are available, as well as special 2-week courses on food culture as well as cookery.

The two-week English language program includes hands-on cooking and food culture sessions led by Vaughn Perret & Charles Leary, as well as guided visits to markets, vineyards, shops, and local restaurants. All cooking programs take place in the afternoons, allowing for morning Spanish classes if desired.

Each day’s program offers something different; the prepared menus shared while taking in views of the Alhambra Palace, the insider’s guide to the regional production of olives and oil, and cheese, and tastings from the rich selection of local and regional wines, including the famed Sherries from Jerez and Montilla. All instruction is in English. Recipes are geared to the home cook. Guests are supplied with aprons as well as detailed recipe booklets that are theirs to keep.

Each class is limited to 8 guests.

For the 2-week program, the week begins with dinner on Sunday night and ends after lunch on Friday. The fee is $2,990.00 and includes market visits, all tastings, transportation for local visits, lunches on Wednesdays & Saturdays, and dinners Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. The fee does not include lodging or transportation. (A list of recommended hotels and apartment rentals is sent to enrolled guests.)

1 and 3 day classes start at $40/hour/person.

The Teaching Kitchen at Casa Azahar

Hands-on Classes in Mediterranean Cookery

The City of Granada and its surroundings province make for an unsurpassed location. Gastronomy and language classes are held in the upper Albaycin neighborhood, part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site that also encompasses the Alhambra Palace. Granada Province is the most geophysically diverse in Spain, running from the Costa Tropical to the Sierra Nevada mountains. The area has a classic Mediterranean climate and food tradition, is home to expansive olive groves as well as the highest viticultural area in Europe.

Let us show you the beauty of this energetic and fairy-tale region of Spain.

The Mediterranea Cooking School also offers groups visiting Granada a combination of detailed cooking demonstrations and hands-on culinary instruction in a charming and well-equipped teaching kitchen. The School will customize programs for small groups and for corporate or group getaways and incentives, including wine tours.

"In fact Granada has everything to offer, from the Alhambra and the Albaicin to the intimate corners of nineteenth century Romanticism; from the enchatment of Oriental art to the dawn of the Gothic; from the flowering of the Renaissance to the exuberant brilliance of the Baroque. And if, from the point of view of the Arts, this rich diversity is overwhelming in its vitality without the dominance of one unilateral theme, Nature for her part provides analagous contrasts. In some places there is ruggedness, in other a delicacy full of half-tones; here is a city neither of the mountain no of the plain. The Sierra and the lowland intertwine in a stange arabesque and this gives the landscape both strenth and extraordinary variety. From the foot of the mountains to their summit there is an ascent of more than three thousand meters and from the region of perpetual snow it is possible to descend, in barely an hour, to a coast where every tropical fruit abounds. It would be difficult to find a land richer in variety and contrasts or one evoking emotions of greater depth and diversity."

Antonio Gallego y Burin, Granada: An Artistic and Historical Guide to the City

Museum of Olive Culture, Hacienda La Laguna

The Casa Cueva Apartment at Casa Azahar

Dining Room

The Granada Cooking

& Wine School

What sets us apart?

World-class instructors who know and love food, wine, and cooking
A proprietary location in historic Granada with its own elegant teaching kitchen
Hands-on classes combined with informative field trips
Advanced 2-week programs in Mediterranean Gastronomy
Optional Spanish language classes
Wine education

Innovative 2-week Cooking Vacations plus Daily Food and Wine Classes at Casa Azahar. Call +34 958 201 557, +1 902-482-8360, or e-mail to reserve.

Instruction in various culinary styles from master chefs experienced in culinary teaching . . .

The trio of Charles Leary, Vaughn Perret, & Daniel Abel has received critical praise for their culinary talents from Food & Wine, the New York Times, New Orleans Times-Picayune, and the TV Food Network, among many others. Their Trout Point Lodge Cookbook was published by Random House in late 2004. Abel, Perret, and Leary are currently the Chef/Proprietors of Nova Scotia´s Trout Point Lodge and the Inn at Coyote Mountain in Costa Rica. They have lived in Granada since 2002, and travelled, lived, and cooked extensively in France, Italy, Spain, and Turkey for well over twenty years. For more information on the unique backgrounds of these culinary wizards, please click here.

The School boasts a new marble & granite teaching kitchen including a traditional cave cellar and pastry area, numerous terraces including the vine-covered front terrace, all with views of the Alhambra Palace, a rooftop herb garden, and walking access to the wonderful food ingredients of the markets at Plaza Larga and San Augustin.

The beautiful property on Calle San Luis features broad vistas of the famed Alhambra Palace, the Generalife, and the Sierra Nevada mountains, yet remains within walking distance of shops and restaurants in the Albaycin and Granada´s historic center.

The Albaicin District