Cookery lessons and cruise holidays for a great summer

If you and your partner both have careers then it can be easy to fall into a rut and end up eating the same food on a regular basis. To fix this, you could book some lessons with a top chef and learn how to make something tasty from simple ingredients. Not only would it be a useful exercise but if you both go together, it could be fun as well. If you both need a break from work then it might be possible to combine some culinary instruction with a sea voyage to somewhere exotic. Some companies arrange onboard classes in various subjects or failing this, you could always have a taster lesson in each country that the ship visits along the way.

This might not give you enough time to really develop your cooking skills but with a decent recipe book explaining the basics of each type of cuisine it would be possible to practise the dishes you were shown in your kitchen at home. Most good bookshops have a range of cookery guides on sale and there are many online retailers that sell specialist publications too. There is a lot more to a holiday at sea than learning how to cook of course and you will be equally interested in the countries the ship will visit as well as the shore excursions that are on offer. These will differ widely as will the duration of the trips on offer, so it is worth looking at exactly what cruise holidays are available for the dates you would like to travel. If it is not possible to find a trip that includes cooking lessons or one where they will be easy to book once you are ashore then it might be better to take the break first and then pay for some professional instruction in the UK on your return.

There are plenty of well-qualified chefs in Great Britain who run courses on a regular basis. If there is a particular type of cuisine that you or your partner would like to learn more about then making sure that the country of its origin is on the itinerary for your sea voyage is a good idea even if you will not be attending lessons whilst there. The chance to taste the food as cooked by local experts is not something to pass up and will stand you in good stead when you come to learn how to prepare the dishes yourself. It will also give you the opportunity to see whether there is any special equipment that native chefs use so you can buy some whilst on your break, in case it is not available in the UK. The list of countries that can be visited on a luxury liner is too long to fit into this article but suffice to say, if you can find it on a world map then it is likely that one company or another operates a ship that calls in at that country.