My mother, sister and I spent a few days in Budapest during a tour of East Central Europe and on one of those days, we booked the market tour and cooking lesson with Marti at Kitchen Pixie. Marti was very responsive over email during the process of figuring out logistics, and she sent me a photo of herself and of the market where we would be meeting in the morning, which was really helpful! At the market — which is a great place to visit, even if you’re not going to be cooking — not only did we purchase ingredients for the meal we were going to cook, but Marti also took us to a couple of places to try some tasty local delicacies — pickled baby watermelon and langos (what’s not to love about deep-fried dough?) — and taught us all kinds of interesting things about Hungarian culinary traditions (Hungarians really *do* use a ton of paprika, and it’s delicious!). After shopping, Marti took us to the beautiful flat that she has outfitted with a wonderful kitchen and dining space, treated us to homemade beverages and snacks, and then we started cooking. Marti is a very good teacher – patient, providing clear instructions and demonstrations, and sharing tips and tricks for things that someone new to Hungarian cooking would only learn the hard way. She is also very friendly and personable – she put us all at ease right away, and it was a delight to spend the day with her. And she’s spectacularly well-organized: she staged the food so that the timing was perfect – we were eating the soup while the cabbage rolls finished cooking, and the poppyseed bread pudding was baked and warming in the oven when it was time for dessert. Of course, everything was delicious! All three of us had such a great and memorable day.

– Margarita from Palo Alto, US