About This Transcontinental Cooking Class

Travel the ancient Silk Road through the food of China, Central Asia, Persia and Türkiye. Our Silk Road Date Night Cooking Experience follows the legendary trade route west from Xi’an, exploring the dishes, ingredients and techniques that traveled alongside merchants, travelers and ideas for centuries.

You’ll stretch and pull your own hand-pulled Biang Biang noodles with chili oil and scallions, fold pumpkin dumplings (mantu) with garlic yogurt sauce, and bake Uyghur stuffed naan alongside flaky sesame-scallion flatbread. We’ll make a sweet-savory Uzbek carrot and raisin salad and Persian chicken with saffron and apricots, fragrant with warm spices and herbs. For dessert, we’ll finish the journey west with saffron-cardamom ice cream with honeyed figs and walnuts.

Along the way, we’ll talk about the places, people and traditions behind the food, and how ingredients and cooking techniques traveled and changed along the Silk Road. Bring a date, come hungry, and be ready to cook your way across a continent.