I don’t know about you but I am completely getting cabin fever and wanting to travel everywhere. Lucky for me, I was perusing my email one day and came across an email from Airbnb, introducing their online experiences. Immediately I was intrigued so I started exploring my options. Making pastries in Sweden, concerts in Iceland, say what?! I got so excited I started saving them all. Within a day I had 4 experiences booked within a week.
The great thing about these new online offerings is that the hosts are already experienced Airbnb hosts. They have hosted their classes with Airbnb in their own home before, so they are just adapting to host it online. Also, these classes are fairly affordable as well, with most classes being between $10-$20 and lasting about 1.5 to 2 hours long. The best thing after is staying connected as the host will share the recipes and how to keep in contact with them! Now read on below to see how my experiences went!
Mexican Salsas from Mexico City
On Thursday afternoon, I stepped in Natalia’s kitchen in Mexico City to learn how to make 3 different salsas. It was a perfect small group, with other joiners from the UK and Tenessee, all in the kitchen to cook! Natalia was wonderful and had a bright, spunky helper with her to assist with camera views, etc.
With quarantine, I was unable to find some of the ingredients on the list, but nonetheless, Natalia was able to use what I had on hand! We started with a roasted salsa (typically a green salsa, but I only had red tomatoes to use), proceeded to a red creamy salsa (the secret ingredient is using some type of nut!), and then finished with a fresh mango pico de gallo.
Cost: $11
Icelandic Concert in Reykavik
Eric and I had the opportunity to Join Hanna Mia (her stage name is Mill) for a beautiful concert and storytelling in the comfort of our living room. I connected with people from all OVER the world! There were listeners from Italy, UK, India, Bulgaria, and Canada! Hanna was great in engaging all of us so it was definitely interactive. She sang 1 song in Icelandic that she wrote for her mother, then continued to sing her songs in English while telling us stories from her life in Iceland and family in Sweden. It was one of my favorite experiences.
Cost: $10
Colorful Pasta in Italy
On a Friday morning, I joined my friend Brie online with Chiara in her Italian kitchen! I will say it was fun to do it with a friend too because I may or may not have texted Brie a few questions along the way, hehe. We made healthy colorful pasta and I think this was the hardest one I did! However, it was nice she taught us how to color the pasta naturally using vegetables and fruits. I was able to make green colored tortellini (colored from spinach) filled with ricotta and parmigiano. Secondly, I made fettuccine noodles from purple-ish pasta that was dyed with blueberries! I dressed each pasta in a browned butter and sage sauce it was absolutely delicious! Chiara was so friendly, bright and helpful during this whole time and knew how to tweak the recipe as we went!
Cost: $29
Colorful Pasta with Grandma and Chiara
Traditional Swedish Pastries in Stockholm
My final class thus far was baking Swedish Pastries with professional Baker Lhea from Stockholm! I gathered together with people from the US, Holland, and Brazil as we all baked with love with Lhea. We made a typical Swedish Cinnamon and Cardamom pastry and even made time for fika. It means making time for friends and colleagues to share a cup of coffee (or tea) and a little something to eat. The pastries were wonderful, fresh out of the oven and fairly simple to make. She even tweaked the recipe so we didn’t need to use yeast, which is quite an adventure to find right now! Lhea made it a point to have everyone on gallery view so we can all cook together and she took the time to check in on each of us individually to see how our dough and pastries were coming along.
Cost: $12
Make Swedish Pastries with a Pro Baker
Overall each experience was unique but so amazing. I highly recommend taking one while you are staying at home! Since I have booked my experiences, the options have doubled already! I’m looking into Sangria and Secrets with Drag queens and meditation with a Japanese Buddhist Monk. I’ve love to know if you decide to take one!
This is the coolest! I had no idea you could dot us sort of stuff through AirBnB!
I’ll definitely be checking it out, the food all looks delish! Nice work 😊