Cookery Classes

OFFICIAL:            Hello, Tourist Information Centre, Mike speaking, how can I help you?

WOMAN:             Oh, hi. I wanted to find out about cookery classes. I believe there are some one-day classes for tourists?

OFFICIAL:            Well, they’re open to everyone, but tourists are always welcome. OK, let me give you some details of what’s available. There are several classes. One very popular one is at the Food Studio. (Example)

WOMAN:             OK

OFFICIAL:            They focus on seasonal products, and as well as teaching you how to cook them, they also show you how to choose (Q1) them.

WOMAN:             Right, that sounds good. How big are the classes?

OFFICIAL:            I’m not sure exactly, but they’ll be quite small.

WOMAN:             And could I get a private (Q2) lesson there?

OFFICIAL:            I think so … let me check, yes, they do offer those. Though in fact most of the people who attend the classes find it’s a nice way of getting to know one another.

WOMAN:             I suppose it must be, yes.

OFFICIAL:            And this company has a special deal for clients where they offer a discount of 20 percent (Q3) if you return for a further class.

WOMAN:             OK. But you said there were several classes?

OFFICIAL:            That’s right. Another one you might be interested in is Bond’s Cookery School. They’re quite new, they just opened six months ago, but I’ve heard good things about them. They concentrate on teaching you to prepare healthy (Q4) food, and they have quite a lot of specialist staff.

WOMAN:             So is that food for people on a diet and things like that? I don’t know if I’d be interested in that.

OFFICIAL:            Well, I don’t think they particularly focus on low calorie diets or weight loss. It’s more to do with recipes that look at specific needs, like including ingredients that will help build up your bones (Q5) and make them stronger, that sort of thing.

WOMAN:             I see. Well, I might be interested, I’m not sure. Do they have a website I could check?

OFFICIAL:            Yes, just key in the name of the school – it’ll come up. And if you want to know more about them, every Thursday evening they have a lecture (Q6) at the school. It’s free and you don’t need to book or anything, just turn up at 7.30. And that might give you an idea of whether you want to go to an actual class.

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OFFICIAL:            OK, there’s one more place you might be interested in. That’s got a rather strange name, it’s called The Arretsa (Q7) Centre – that’s spelled A-R-R-E-T-S-A.

WOMAN:             OK.

OFFICIAL:            They’ve got a very good reputation. They do a bit of meat and fish cookery but they mostly specialise in vegetarian (Q8) dishes.

WOMAN:             Right. That’s certainly an area I’d like to learn more about. I’ve got lots of friends who don’t eat meat. In fact, I think I might have seen that school today. Is it just by the market? (Q9)

OFFICIAL:            That’s right. So they don’t have any problem getting their ingredients. They’re right next door. And they also offer a special two-hour course in how to use a knife (Q10). They cover all the different skills – buying them, sharpening, chopping techniques. It gets booked up quickly though so you’d need to check it was available.

WOMAN:             Right, well thank you very much. I’ll go and …