Klara and I joined two Dutch couples for the traditional Iranian cooking lesson carried out by the sister of a good friend of mine, Maryam at their parents' home. The nervous waiting (as we were both nervously excited) was spent in the home's open garden-like patio, which was uniquely well decorated in a subtle Iranian style.
None of us was expecting to spend around three hours getting to know the subtleties of the Iranian cooking, from the adequate cutting of the ingredients to the proper simmering. Maryam placed a cooker in the middle of the table as each of us was given the ingredients and strictly followed her orders as to the preparation of three courses and a dessert, as she "spiced" the whole preparatory process with stories she felt relevant for us to understand in regards to what Iranian cuisine is really about.
We soon realised that every course preparation took a lot of time and had its own secrets ... and we learnt them all, whether we will be able to reproduce them if we try to cook those back home is a completely different story, not only because we may not have access to all the necessary ingredients but also because despite having written the additional"tricks" to the written recipes she provided us with, it might be difficult.
The decoration of the plates was also interesting and despite having eaten the meal in what seemed a fairly short amount of time, when compared to the preparatory one we all enjoyed the evening immensely.
This is definitely an experience I strongly advise people who travel to Isfahan to try ... because of every possible reason.
