Day 24 - Cooking up a Storm

15:30
I’m up at what feels like an incredibly early time for the past couple of weeks - 09:00. My cooking class doesn’t start till 11:00, but I’m not 100% sure exactly where it is. I head off at 10:00, stopping for the very briefest of conversations with my mole-esque wife, who declares something in fluent mumble, and goes back to sleep.

I decide to walk over to Palolem via the main road, while the sun’s not too hot. It’s a bit up hill and down dale in parts, but I’ve got plenty of time. Walking along the main road into Palolem, I find where I’m pretty sure the class is going to be. I stop at a nearby café for a coffee.

I pitch up at the cooking class a few minutes before 11:00. Jim and Milly from our extended party gang are here, as is Darron. Also a couple of young (early 20s?) French women who are currently studying in Singapore, and who have headed over to India over the Chinese New Year celebrations. Also Ash and her other half, whose name I probably hear but instantly forget.

For the next 3 hours, we’re treated to a masterclass of cuisine from India generally and Goa specifically. Rahul is our Jedi-Master, and he teaches us to make 6 different dishes, all using different techniques or styles of cookery. There’s a mushroom masala dish, similar to the okra one that I’ve enjoyed so much at Art Resort; a traditional Goan prawn curry; a butter chicken masala; a humble dhal; a concoction the name of which I’ve forgotten, but which is a kind of cabbage and prawn stir-fry, but with traditional Goan flavours; and finally, the method to cook roti properly at home.

All of the dishes are excellent. The standouts are the dhal and the cabbage stir-fry thingy. The dhal - I finally feel like I understand what it is that elevates this incredibly humble dish to such heights. This may not come as a huge surprise, but it involves quite a lot of butter…

Lunch is sensational - a thali of our dishes, with the chapatti we made earlier, which I’m pleasantly surprised to find are excellent.

Post lunch, I waddle down to Palolem High Street to grab some cash. We’re running a little short, and need a decent chunk for our cab back up to the North on Sunday. Soon enough, I’m in a tuk-tuk heading to Patnem Beach, and the promise of an ice-cold Bira Blonde. Vicki has had a suitably lazy morning/afternoon. Up around 12:00, and out for some fun with Andrex the dog, at Cow Corner. We’d planned to head over to Agonda this evening for a sunset beach party, but it’s been cancelled. As a result, we’ll reserve energy, and have a slow and lazy day…

21:45
The afternoon creeps by in a maelstrom of nothing. Around 16:30, I posit that we should probably get cleaned up, and Vicki concurs.

Refreshed, we pad down to the beach, and find DD in Round Cube. We stop for a sharpener, then head further down the beach to Namaste to watch the sunset. It’s not a classic. Any sunset here is worth taking the time to experience, but the haze at the horizon robs us of the majesty of some of the sunsets we’ve seen in recent days.

Around 19:00, we order some food. 90 minutes later, we are still waiting. Darron asks a couple of times if there’s any danger of our food actually arriving. There are a couple of big tables that arrived after us, but whose food is delivered first. We suspect subterfuge. Finally, FINALLY - some food emerges. I have a better than decent chicken seekh kebab, which is really very tasty. I just wish I had the roti I’d ordered to go with it. Vicks, Darron and Debs’ food arrives a little after mine, and is also very good. Darron treats himself to a proper 1970s style chicken Kiev, and has a broad smile plastered over his face as he eats it.

Tonight’s not a late one. With the cancellation of the Agonda sunset party, we’re on a lazy go-slow. Vicki and I head back to our room around 21:30. We’re a little surprised to find a small pool party in progress. There are maybe 10 Indian kids (20ish?) sat around the pool, with a speaker emitting some questionable Indian hip-hop, and bottles of cheap alcohol strewn around them. Fair play to them, but hopefully they’re not gonna be noisy for too long…Læs mere