Taste of La Tasca: A Spanish Club Cooking Event

Taste of La Tasca: A Spanish Club Cooking Event

Matthew Gross

On Friday, March 5, 2021, I had the pleasure of attending a cooking class hosted by Crystal Lake South’s own Spanish Club. With Mrs. Christensen as a sponsor, and Karina Bueno and Andjela Maksimovic as the lead chefs, the event went very smoothly. The dishes on the menu were from La Tasca, a restaurant that has been an annual tradition for Spanish Club. These dishes were Patatas Bravas and Platanos Al Caramelo. Both are considered tapas: a Spanish appetizer, for lack of a better term. Laura Meyer, a participant in this event said that her dishes “both turned out delicious” and that she had tried the dishes at “La Tasca before, and it was neat to be able to make them” herself.
Karina Bueno, the president of Spanish Club also commented on the event stating that she “had a ton of fun leading the cooking class” and that it was “a learning experience” for her as well. From what I have gathered, everyone’s dishes turned out wonderful, and everyone had a ton of fun cooking these popular dishes. I also had a substantial amount of fun cooking these dishes, and it was–to put it in Ms. Buenos’s words– a learning experience. I am not a master chef, but I found that these dishes weren’t all that hard to prepare and make. The sauce for the Patatas Bravas consisted of onions, garlic, some spices, and roasted tomatoes, and all that was left to do with it was blend it all up! The patatas themselves were all that difficult to make either. All you had to do was chop them up into cubes, cook them on the stove for some color and crispness, and then pop them into the oven.
The Plátanos Al Caramelo were even simpler to make! All you had to do was cook some butter and brown sugar into caramel, then cut your plantains or bananas into halves, and place them in the caramel sauce. Little by little, you add some water to steam the plantains and rotate them in the sauce to give them that crispy, caramelly outside. After you have done that, you serve it with some vanilla ice cream and call it a day!
Overall, this event, like many other Spanish Events, doesn’t require an expansive knowledge of the Spanish language. It grants the participant an opportunity to meet “so many wonderful people,” in the words of Karina Bueno, and it hosts a variety of “different events to go to such as parades, field trips, or trivia nights,” in the words of Laura Meyer. In addition, it is an “inclusive group that provides so many wonderful and interactive experiences with Spanish Culture”.
If you have even the slightest of interest in Spanish culture–whether that be food, movies, or dances– I recommend that you check it out! If you are interested in joining Spanish Club, you can go to https://d155.instructure.com/enroll/N9WLC6 and join their Canvas. Moreover, if you want to see pictures of past events you can follow them on instagram at @cls.spanishclub19.