Happy New Year

Zack and I had a great Winter Break away from Sarajevo. We traveled to Budapest and stayed through Christmas day and then loaded up on the night train to Prague staying there through the New Year.

I have to back track a little. Before we left for our trip I always talk to one of our co-workers who have lived in Sarajevo for 13 years and has traveled to many places. He has given Zack and I some great ideas on what to see and do in cities we have traveled to in the past. So I asked him again for this trip. He told me that he and his wife and two daughters took a cooking class in Budapest they really enjoyed. So, Zack and I looked online for cooking classes in Budapest and found the Chef Parade Cooking school, signed up for a class which included a walking tour of the market in Budapest. When you register for the class you get to pick the menu you will be cooking. You don't have to cook Hungarian food, but we decided to go with Hungarian food.

We met our chef Marta in front of Burger King across from the Market in Budapest, crossed the street and went inside with her. She gave us a little history on the layout of the market, told us about the food, and answered our questions that we had.

Budapest Market



Marta told us that the main center aisle of the market is where the rich people would enter and buy their food and goods. The aisle to the left was for the middle class people and it was a little more narrow and  the aisle to the right was for the poor people. Their aisle was the narrowest and is still the narrowest but all stalls now sell the same quality and quantity for the same prices.

A look inside the market

Main aisle of the market



Many varieties of pickles, even small pickled watermelons.

 They were really good, believe it or not.



Woman selling her goods.





Look closely and you will see the pig noses for sale.



They sold every part of the animals.



After our tour of the market we took a taxi over to Chef Parade. The building had four kitchenettes inside and could hold up to thirty people for a cooking class. We found out later that the Chef Parade has two other schools in Budapest, one able to hold 100 people for classes, one school in Prague, and another school in Ljubljana. Marta told us that several companies hire them to do team building activities with their employees. Zack and I thought that would be a great PD day for our school. We have high hopes.

Chef Parade Cooking School



Todays Menu

Tejfolos gombapaprikas (creamy mushroom paprikash)

Krumplileves (creamy potato soup with sausage)

Palacsinta (Pancakes Hungarian style)

We had a lot of fun cooking with our Chef Marta and eating the delicious food we all made. Enjoy the pictures.

This was a great day. We even went back to our apartment with a ton of food to eat over the next couple of days. This was great with it being Christmas eve and Christmas day and many places closed.