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To get out of the system to create their own resources by adding what each of them likes the most: for her, giving language classes and for him, gastronomy. This was the equation that Ruth Stadler and Javier Sanchez made to make a 180-degree turn in their lives. The result of this operation was Learning & Cooking, a space that was born in Rota (Cádiz) with the motivation of teaching Spanish while cooking. It is not a typical Spanish school. Here the students are beginners, intermediate or advanced, they take one-day, three-day or one-week programs and they all end up with an apron eating together what they have cooked.
“It’s a concept that, to this day, is still unique in Spain,” says Javier Sánchez, co-founder of the school. “There are language schools that teach you how to make a recipe, but something where learning Spanish and the gastronomic experience are at the same level, as in Learning & Cooking, doesn’t exist”.
The history and existence of Learning & Cooking revolves around Ruth and Javier. Ruth is from Munich and worked in the film industry. Javier is from Seville and his career was focused on the production of large international events for companies such as Acciona. They met some twenty-six years ago on the set of the German film “Am I pretty?”, where Ruth was a scriptwriter and Javier location manager, and they have been together ever since. “Nobody gave a dime for us because you can tell me what a guy from Seville and a German girl from Munich can do, but here we are”. Together and already in Madrid, each one continued with his profession, but the idea of getting out of that wheel appeared more frequently in their conversations.
“For as long as I can remember, I have been telling my closest friends and family that I would retire at 40. I come from a working-class family, so I understood retirement to mean getting out of the system we were in to create something else,” recalls Sánchez. “We lived in Madrid and during those many trips we made around the world, one day we looked at each other and said, ‘What are we going to do? And what they did was to analyze what made them happy. Ruth’s answer was to teach Spanish to foreigners. Javier’s answer was to organize meetings around gastronomy. “We had no connection with Rota, except that when we came to see some friends we found it an interesting town: on the one hand, an exquisite care of the town; on the other hand, that multiculturalism with the military base and an important community of Swedes living here.
One of these days in Madrid we came to the conclusion that it might be a good idea to create a school to teach Spanish through gastronomy”. Although at the beginning the presence of the American community made us think that this would be their target audience, over time they have realized that it is the British and German-speaking visitors who come to them most often to book some of their experiences.
In the five years that Learning & Cooking has been in operation, it has expanded its range of services: “We have specialized in three areas: Learn Spanish by cooking; gastronomic team buildings with companies and private celebrations, always with a gastronomic and language focus,” explains Javier. “But our entity is the ‘Learn Spanish while cooking'”. This experience begins with Ruth teaching a Spanish class in the classroom and includes visits to the fishermen’s cooperative, the Rota market and the cooking workshop with Javier. And, of course, the aperitif: at 12:00 the clock in Rota plays the Hymn to Joy. That is a good time to stop and toast with a glass of manzanilla, that’s why we are in the south.
Where? C/ Veracruz, 6. Rota (Cádiz)