Do you ever wish...

I wish I could had a holiday with my friends again.
I wish I always been positive.
I wish I could usually stayed with my parents.

A different job......

A better job......

  What do you wish you had only one day ?

• I wish I tried to visit my family and said goodbye to them. Betül 
• I wish I donated my whole money to charities. Harun
• I wish I enjoyed my remaining time by doing what ı want. Debra

What superpower do you wish you had??

He wish.......

Marco asks, "can you spot what is unusual about this menu?"

Mariella's Restaurant Suggestions

Many of you have asked for some restaurant suggestions in London. Here are mine!

 Brasserie Zedel 

French ££

Piccadilly Circus

 Namo

Vietnamese ££ 

Victoria Park, Hackney

Little Korea

Korean ££
Leicester Square

Veeraswamy 

Indian £££
(book for Sunday lunch! £26 for 3 course meal!!)

Regent Street

Franco Manca

Italian £

Tottenham Court Road/Broadway Market

Hummus Bros 

Mediterranean £

Holborn/Wardour Street + more

The Real Greek 

 Greek ££

Covent Garden + more

Byron Burgers

 American ££

Wardour Street + more

Cote

French  ££

Wardour Street + more

Wagamama

Japanese  ££

Southbank + more

Dub Jam 

Caribbean ££

Covent Garden

£££ - £30 +

££ - £13-25

£ - £6-15

(per person)

Farewell!

Goodbye to Kacper, Zuzana, Beyza, Marian and Laurent!!!! (and Mariella!)

Wonderful students! Keep practising and enjoy your next step. Good luck to all of you. Keep in touch and keep working hard. 

For those who haven't left, continue enjoying, working hard and remember to say HELLO to Mariella who will now be teaching afternoons!

Marco asks, "Have you ever tasted a real 'Spaghetti alla Carbonara'” ??????

A lot of people like “Italian Cooking” but what they really know about it ? 

The majority of strangers eat Italian food in their own countries, in restaurants  that seems Italian but aren’t, cooked by chefs came out of nowhere.I will just give you one example in order to show you how this could work. Let’s try to find the Carbonara Recipe on internet. I’ve typed on Google “ Carbonara Recipe” and I’ve found from bbcgoodfood the following recipe:

(http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2876/learn-to-make-spaghetti-carbonara)

Learn to make Spaghetti Carbonara:

Ingredients: 400 g spaghetti, 1 tbsp olive oil, 200 g smoked pancetta cubes or streaky bacon, chopped, 2 garlic cloves, crushed, 3 eggs, 75 ml double cream, 50 g Grana padano or parmesan, finely grated, plus extra to serve

Method:

1° Cook the spaghetti. Bring a large, deep pan of salted water to the boil. Plunge spaghetti into the water, stir well and cook, following pack instructions. Aim for 'al dente': cooked, but retaining some bite in the middle. Take a few strands out of the water with a spaghetti spoon or tongs 1-2 mins before the end of the cooking time and bite into it. Repeat until you think it is properly cooked. 

2° Fry the pancetta. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a frying pan. When hot, tip in the pancetta or streaky bacon. Fry over a medium heat until the fat in the meat has melted down into the pan and the meat has turned lightly golden. Be careful not to crisp the pancetta too much; it will be cooked a little bit more later on in the recipe. Remove from the heat and set aside.

3° Prepare the sauce. Crack 2 of the eggs into a mixing bowl. Separate the yolk from the third egg: gently crack the side of the shell and, using both hands, slowly open it into two halves over a separate bowl - you want to keep the yolk in one of the halves. Tip the yolk from one shell half to the other and repeat until all the egg white has fallen into the bowl below, taking care not to crack the yolk on any rough shell edges. Tip the yolk in with the other eggs and beat together, along with the cream, the cheese and some seasoning. 

4° Combine the dish. Add garlic to the pancetta and return frying pan to hob. Fry over high heat for 1 min or until garlic is cooked and pancetta warmed through. Meanwhile, drain spaghetti. Tip back into the hot saucepan off the heat. Pour egg mixture over pasta, followed by hot pancetta, garlic, any fat and oils. Toss quickly and thoroughly with spaghetti spoon or tongs. Mix until it has thickened to a smooth, creamy sauce. Serve with extra cheese and freshly ground pepper.

Do you think an Italian cooks “Spaghetti alla Carbonara” in this manner ???  

None, only between the ingredients there are 5 errors.

Here's the Italian recipe.

Spaghetti alla Carbonara

Ingredients: 350 g spaghetti, 150 jowl bacon chopped into cubes, 4 eggs, 100 g of Pecorino

Method:

1° Cook the spaghetti. Bring a large, deep pan of water to the boil, then add salt, not as usual, because jowl bacon and pecorino are salty. Plunge spaghetti into the water, stir well and cook, following pack instructions. Aim for 'al dente': cooked, but retaining some bite in the middle. Take a few strands out of the water with a spaghetti spoon or tongs 1-2 mins before the end of the cooking time and bite into it. Repeat until you think it is properly cooked. 

2° Fry jowl bacon chopped without oil in a frying pan. Fry over a medium heat until the fat in the meat has melted down into the pan and the meat has turned lightly golden. Be careful not to crisp the pancetta too much. Remove from the heat and set aside until it will become lukewarm. 

3° Prepare the sauce. Crack 4 of the eggs into a mixing bowl and beat together, along with the cheese and some black pepper.

4° Combine the dish. Add to the sauce to jowl bacon in the bowl. Meanwhile, drain spaghetti. Put the drained spaghetti into the bowl. Toss quickly and thoroughly with spaghetti spoon or tongs. Mix until it has created to a smooth, creamy sauce. Serve with pepper.

Tips for people travelling to Turkey!

Beyza and Betul want to make sure you have a smooth trip to Turkey so they offer the following advice:

1. Not wearing a headscarf in mosques can cause offense
2. Kissing on both cheeks is common
3. Helping people is common in Turkey
4. Eating breakfast can take a long time because theTurkish breakfast is huge
5. Giving seats to pregnant women and disabled people or even women is polite.
6. People are open to personal questions, it is not a taboo
7. Visiting the Bosphorus in İstanbul is a great idea
8. Trying Baklava and the Turkish Kebab is recommended
9. Travelling to Capadocia and watching the hot air balloons is recommended, especially at sunrise
10. Drinking Turkish coffee, which is special for Turkey, is recommended
11. There are a lot of historical buildings and all of them are worth seeing.

Tips for people travelling to Italy!

Marco offer some helpful hints about social codes in  Italy:

1. Using the phone on the bus, talking loudly, could be annoying
2. Not respecting queues could be rude, but a lot of people do it
3. Smelling bad on the bus will be considered a lack of respect
4. Blasheming in public places wil not be accepted.
5. Making racist remarks is against the law
6. Not helping people in trouble will lose you many friends
7. Not leaving tips for waiters will make you appear as cheap
8.  If you’re invited to dinner by an Italian taking a small present, for example flowers,  will be considered a kind gesture, but pay attention you should never take “Chrysanthemums”, Italians use them for dead people in cemeteries
9. Having a business appointment with an Italian could be surprising: being five or ten minutes late for him is normal even if he expects you to be on time.
10. As sometimes Italians judge people by their dress, appropriate dressing for different occasions will give you an opportunity to not be considered shameless or without self respect.

Tips for people travelling to Venezuela!

Marian, Oscar and Luis suggest the following if you decide to take a trip to Venezuela:

1. Responding hello, good morning, good bye, etc. is very important
2. Talking about politics might cause offence
3. Accepting invitations is very important
4. Talking with strangers is very common
5. Giving tips is customary
6. Giving up your seat to women, pregnant women and elderly people is an unwritten rule
7. Bringing a dessert or alcohol to a party is always welcome
8. Sleeping outside is very common
9. Hearing compliments in the street is common
10. Greeting with kisses and hugs is well received

Studying Hard!

We <3 English!

Class trip to Borough Market

  

Last month, our class took a trip to the iconic Borough Market.

To prepare, the students had to create 20 tasks for other students to do at the market.They included speaking to the stall-holders, finding stalls which sold different delicacies. Everyone enjoyed breakfast and a coffee at the market AND got to practise the indirect questions they had been studying about!

Upper Int 2 goes to Borough Market! 

Oscar and Marina asking about cheese production. And getting samples!

Ayumi and Ruby successfully searching for things on their list.

Carolina, Vera and Lee speak to a knowledgeable fruiterer. He gave them flat peaches and strawberries to taste!