After a long, exhausting day of international travel from Pittsburgh to Heathrow to Larnaca to Nicosia, I finally got to sleep in a bed in our hotel— at 4:00 in the morning. I had thoroughly messed up my eating and sleeping patterns due to switching time zones and avoiding buying expensive food in the airports, so I woke up ravenous at 9:30. I went downstairs and ordered pancakes for breakfast, topped with my first Cypriot-style food of the day: anari cheese. This was a creamy, sweet cheese topped with cinnamon and pecans to dress my pancakes, and it was delicious. After an introductory meeting where we went over some of the basics for the week, we entered a cooking class! This was less of a lecture, rather it was a display and tasting of some of the common meze-style (the Mediterranean tradition of eating small amounts of many dishes instead of one) appetizers and entrées. I volunteered to put on my best chef impression by helping prepare and serving the dishes. This was a very cool experience for me, considering that cuisine is one of the most important and one of my favorite aspects of a regional culture. All the food was very tasty, and I look forward to eating so much more of it throughout the rest of my experience abroad.
Day 1: Culinary Introduction
