Makifood Cooking School celebrated its 5th birthday last night. Congratulations! I was invited as a friend and partner (I supply their Fair Trade organic herbs and spices) with about 50 others to their new location near Dunaplaza. At first, the new home at Aquamart Bemutatóterem (1138 Budapest, Madarász Viktor u. 47-49) seems like an odd place to have a cooking school, but it is much lighter and more modern than their previous place in the basement of Alkotmany Ut 9-11. The Aquamart Showroom displays ultramodern bathroom sinks, tubs, showers and toilets. When I needed the toilet I felt a bit like an idiot having to ask where the actual wc was. Of course, even the wc itself is a showroom, complete with QR codes to scan information about what you are using. However, the sink was far too high-tech for me to figure out. The ultra high-tech sink brought back nightmares from my trip by train to Japan in 1997 with the Climate Train to lobby on the Kyoto Protocol. Over 50 activists were kindly hosted in a local temple, but the temple only had one toilet. Understanding the situation, the priest then let everyone use his private toilet as well. The toilet looked like the bridge from Star Trek, covered with buttons all in Japanese. The first and last time I used it, I did not know what button to press to flush. I pressed buttons as the seat heated up and vibrated, and a spigot came out in the bowl and then sprayed me in the face. Of course, I could not figure out how to turn off the spigot and finally just cowardly ran out and closed the door behind me as I ran to find help. I felt the same way with this black sink in the bathroom. I saw an ad recently in a Wired Magazine for a kitchen faucet that turns on if you touch it anywhere with any part of your body, with no knobs to turn. This is especially convenient if your hands are covered in dough or something. I would like to know if such a tap is available in Hungary. In any case, Aquamart is taking advantage of their space by interspersing not only the kitchen for the school, but conference spaces with projectors and screens among the displays as well. Makifood plans to take advantage of these areas as well for larger groups.

The meal started off with a crudité bagna cuda. Bagna cauda is Italian for hot bath and refers to pungent anchovy and olive oil dip. Since the solids in bagna cauda fall to the bottom, it is best set out in a shallow dish or a fondue pot. You can vary the vegetables for the crudités and also serve toasted bread chunks. Maki provided yellow and red cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, celery, red peppers and carrots with the dip. I think she said there was also black truffle in the dip. I can never get enough dip with fresh veggies.

The wine provider was El Hordo, a shop that sells quality wine out of the barrel. Either bring your own bottle or use one of their deposit-return plastic jugs. For example, you can get a liter of Vincze Merlot 2008 for 950 huf, or a liter of Meszaros Pal Cabernet Sauvignon-Cabernet Franc for 840 huf. Their main shop is in Szentendre, but they have a store in Budapest near Margit hid on the corner of Balzac u. I tried the Sabar Cabernet Sauvignon 2010 from Badacsony. This wine is from their first harvest, and it is a good first effort. I also tried the Cezar Cabernet Sauvignon-Shiraz Rose from Pecs which went down well, but was warm.

Maki showed us how to make füstölt lazac temarisushi (salmon sushi, or temarizushi, or temari sushi - thread balls). These small, ball-shaped Temari sushi are usually cooked on happy occasions. I believe I am a good cook, but I am crap at making rice. So, I paid attention when Maki took the rice out of the electric rice cooker and explained a bit about preparing the rice for sushi. She first sprinkled a flat wooden bowl with a salty vinegar, then dumped the rice in, and sprinkled more vinegar on top. She then cut the rice with a flat wooden spoon while an assistant cooled the rice with a paper fan. One should not stir rice, as it breaks it up. By cooling and cutting the rice, the rice becomes less sticky, more sparkly, and absorbs flavors better. She then placed a walnut-sized ball of rice on a slice of smoked salmon in a small piece of cling wrap. Twisting the plastic wrap tightly removes the air and compacts the fish and rice into a ball that stays together. Placed on young green banana leaves, the sushi looked beautiful. Many people then made their own. Since I do not like fish, I cannot attest to the taste, but the dish was popular. Maki said that sushi is not about the soya sauce or the fish or the ginger, but about the rice. You have to taste the rice. Nor did I try the shrimp (garnélarák tamarind gastriquekal). However, I sampled plenty of everything else on the menu. As the chefs were finalising the food preparation, Maki's husband Endre spoke about the success of the school and their plans for the future. Some of their most popular courses include knife technique, baby food, and traditional Jewish with "Miss Flodni," Rachel Raj. Flodni is one of Rachel's specialties, a traditional Jewish dessert consisting of layers of ground walnut paste, poppy seeds and apples spread between thin layers of pastry. New courses include macrobiotic cooking, and traditional french baking and pastries with Stefan. I will be attending the monthly Meatless Monday dinner party with special guest, actor Ervin Nagy in October.

There was a dangerous scrum in the kitchen for the food after the talk as hungry people having worked all day made grabs for the delicious smelling food before it had even cooled down and put on serving plates. But no one got hurt (electric, not gas stoves) and everyone got fed. There was plenty of vegetarian food on offer. The vegetarian spring rolls with apple sauce were good. The sobasushi, a sushi that uses organic buckwheat noodles instead of rice was one of the more interesting offerings. I love buckwheat kasha (porridge), but I did not taste much of anything in this dish except the algae wrapper. I must have heard the word kasha from my grandmother, but I never remember eating it until I began traveling to Ukraine and Russia. However, there was a favorite big tree on our street that we used to pass on our family bike rides and my brother and I named it Kasha-bumbum. I said "kasha," while my younger brother said "bumbum." This repeated itself when we named our beagle dog, and then a star (a programme at Wheaton College Observatory where you could officially name a star for 5 or 10 USD). The black rice oyaki patties were very good, wrapped in fresh lettuce leaves to keep them together as you eat. I was especially keen to try the fried green tomatoes (Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe is a great book and great movie). I tried to make these once on the organic goat farm, without much success. These came out well, but I found the caper sauce superfluous and after the first one, I just scraped it off and ate a few more. Another favorite was the coconut snowballs. I do not know what the dough was made from, but the filling was made from azuki bean paste. The night was topped off with a very fluffy, light and chocolatey vegan brownie.