amm1984

Hey I wanted to thank you guys for letting me know about the schools in Barcelona. I visited Escola Superior and Hofmann at the end of January and I fell in love with the Hofmann school, and I was planning on matriculating there in the fall in the 11 month program of Formacion Completa. I currently live in Granada, and I've been trying to work at several restaurants here, and finally one said that I could if I could get a contrato de practicas from my schoo I could start in a week. I called up Hofmann and unfortunately, they apparently do not give out these contracts, no matter which program you enroll in. The news has been disheartening because I wanted to work while I was studying but especially now in these tough times restaurants are more likely to be firing than hiring, so the easiest way into a restaurant seems to be doing a stage via these contracts which cover health insurance from the school. Tomorrow I have an interview at the Culinary school in Sevilla which seems to have a very strong program and a lot of connections with restaurants all over the world to do stages. We'll see how it goes and if anyone is interested on how it went or would like to know more about the 3 schools I saw please let me know I'd love to help.

I live in Granada, and I have always found an offering of vegetables, cooked well and in various ways, at restaurants. I think where they may be more likely dismissed is in tapas bars, but even there I have been served roasted pepper salads, pisto, and remojón (a delicious salad of bacalao/cod, tomato, and oranges). In the menú del dia, which is usually a 3 course meal in the middle of the day (lunch) ranging between 9-25 euros, I have always seen various options of vegetable dishes, even plates where they are the main focus- gazpacho, grilled vegetables, salmorejo, fried eggplant with honey or molasses, stuffed piquillo peppers, etc. From my experience and people I have spoken with, vegetables in Spain are highly regarded and there is a lot of respect and demand for fresh ingredients in both domestic and professional cooking.