Gotucook Cooking Class

2 sisters came to our class to learn how to bake pineapple bread and traditional egg cake. They runs a bubble tea shop in Seoul and like to put those sweets into their menu. We are glad to know they do the business well back home and knowing Koreans love Taiwanese drinks and sweet flavours!

This lovely lady from Poland was taking a cooking class only focused on stir-fried dishes. She did very well in the class and after the class she told us she had gained lots of knowledge about Taiwanese cookery, also knows the flavours of local sauces and how to use them to create the flavours she likes. Well done!

On our trip in Europe, class will reopen on 20th Aug.
Sorry for the inconvenience.

Last week I received a phone call from a previous student that I had taught 4 years ago in high school. He told me he and his brother planned on opening a fried chicken shop and he was wondering if I could customize a fried chicken class for him.
When he told me his name on the phone, I immediately had his face in my head. This was unusual for me, as I taught more than 300 students each year. But for some reason I remembered him immediately.
His bubbly personality has not changed and he has become more mature. He can easily hold the conversation and was as fun to cook with as I remember.
We started by making Cajun spice mix and soaking chicken pieces in a buttermilk substitute, then double coating them before deep frying. We were all happy about the end product, a crunchy crust, tender and juicy fried chicken with a hot spice kick.
I am so glad he grew up as a fine young man, still has passion in the food industry, and is working hard to making his dreams come true. He makes his teacher proud!

A couple from Tokyo took a market tour and cooking course a few days ago.
The wife visited Taiwan in 2016 and came back with her husband this time.
They tasted and enjoyed some in-season ingredients like green mango and mulberry from the market. They also found it interesting to see how pork floss was made.
After the tour, they told us that they loved the unique humanistic and vibrant sounds from the traditional market and had a deeper understanding of the local ingredients and people's daily life here.
She runs a cafe in Tokyo with her business partner. They offer delicious and healthy dishes with multi-national flavors on their menu.
She said she will add rice parcels and Taiwan meatball soup to her menu. The two dishes are more complicated, but they cooked harmoniously together and finished those dishes nicely and with patience.
We are looking forward to seeing Taiwanese cuisine on their menu soon and have faith that their customers will love Taiwanese flavors just like they do.

In our generation, attending food parties organized by family members, friends, or even school teachers are common memories from when we grew up.
Nowadays, people’s interaction is more virtual than actual, we eat out more than cooking together, it's a sad change.
We often give a suggestion to our students to hold a food party after the cooking course. That is the best way to share the memories and tastes of their trip in Taiwan with the people they love.
Recently, we are very glad to have received photos from the Netherlands and Japan from previous students who were cooking the dishes they learned about in our class for their family and friends.
Through food, we can communicate love and a sense of unity. So let’s spend less time texting and more time cooking! We will all find the joy of the good old days!

This is our good friend from Thailand's third time visiting us.
As usual, she brought us many gifts from Thailand. It felt like Christmas.
She even brought some Thai chili and basil seeds for my father to use on his vegetable farm. How very thoughtful of her!
We thought it would be fun to learn and cook Thai food together, so she prepared some fresh lemongrass, Thai lime, garlic, galangal and kaffir lime and leaves, for making us some Tom Yum Goong (spicy shrimp soup), Gaeng Keow Wan Kai (green chicken curry) and Yam Nua (spicy beef salad), all famous Thai dishes.
The two-day course was full of laughter. It went so fast, it felt like just a two hour class.
This time we made a few new dishes, such as siu mai, beef noodles soup, pepper meat pies, lo mei and rice parcels.
We greatly appreciate her warm friendship, surprising us and giving us such wonderful visits each time.
Also we are so glad to see that her siu mai course in Bangkok is popular with local students.
We sincerely thank her for the invitation and cannot wait to visit her and her team in Bangkok soon.

We always get very excited when we have previous students come back to visit us again.
This kind and friendly Japanese lady attended our cooking class just a short while ago. We were very surprised that she visited us again so soon.
She said she really loved her time and experience from the last trip here, so she just couldn't wait to come back for more.
Like last time, she specially prepared a beautiful gift for us, a Japanese Matcha tea set and some delicious refreshments to go with it.
We sat down and enjoyed watching her demonstration of a Matcha ceremony before the course started. We really admired the beauty and finesse of Japanese culture, the way they take things to the next level and put soul into it.
The time with her is always pleasant. Just a few days after she returned home, she sent us some photos of the dishes she duplicated at home. We are glad to see how well she made those dishes and her family also enjoyed the flavors.
We already look forward to the next time she visits us.

Recently three catering professional from New York came to visit us.
We were in contact with one of the restaurant owners, he has a Taiwanese background. We previously came into contact to discuss and exchange views and knowledge about soy sauce making processes with his business partners. They run a restaurant in Brooklyn, New York, named Win Son.
Their expertise is in Westernized Taiwanese cuisine, using Taiwanese cuisine flavor as a base, then fusing it with western cuisine techniques. They present a popular new style of creative cuisine.
He traveled with his two chefs who have never visited Taiwan, in order to experience the authentic flavors of Taiwan.
They visited us on the last day of their trip and learned to bake polo bread and pineapple cake. Those two kinds of sweets are deeply loved by locals.
We thank them for sharing the experience of promoting Taiwanese food in New York with us.
Hopefully we will visit their restaurant and taste their delicious dishes in the near future.

The fate between people is always full of surprises.
These two good friends are both from Germany. They came to Taiwan at a similar time for their advanced studies. They met each other through the university course and very soon they were bonding as good friends.
As her studies were nearing the end, he specially booked this cooking course for her as one of the gifts before leaving Taiwan.
He thought that because they met in Taiwan and built this lifelong memory with each other, it would be a fun experience to learn and cook Taiwanese cuisine together.
He also hopes she can bring back Taiwanese flavors to home and share it with family and friends.
From how they helped each other in the class and always made playful fun of each other, we can see how close they are and the true friendship between them.
We sincerely wish them all the best to and hope the friendship will last forever.

We met a very lovely South African couple last winter. They have lived in Asia for over a decade with their children.
It is rare for them to take a short break away from their kids to travel as just a couple. Therefore this cooking course was not just learning Taiwanese cuisine, for them it also was a couple bonding activity.
As they have been living in Asia for so long, they are very familiar with the flavors of Asian cuisine, and also completely open to try different ingredients. Through the local food and communication with local people, they told us they have had a taste and feeling of living in Taiwan.
We had such fun and wonderful cooking time with them, both sharing the experiences of living away from their original countries and culture.
Big thanks to them for their openness and this glorious experience.