Starter Kit. Idea 21 of 500. Cluster 2
Half-day cooking courses: two curries and rice
The mechanism, from the book
The craft cannot be copied and the object can. In Europe people queue to watch glass being blown and then buy the glass.
The first step
Cook two curries and rice for four visitors staying at a nearby guesthouse, at a trial price you agree with the owner in advance. At the end, ask each guest what they would pay next time and whether they would have booked it before arriving. Four paid places, and one guest asking for the recipe in writing, are your proof that the afternoon sells.
- Who pays first
- Guests at the nearest guesthouse or hotel looking for something to do on their second afternoon that they cannot do at home.
- What leaves today
- Visitors eat Sri Lankan food for a week and go home unable to cook it; a class sells the method, not only the meal.
Ask first
- the area Medical Officer of Health. Ask what hygiene standard a home kitchen needs to teach paying guests.
- Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority. Ask whether a home cooking class must register as a tourist service.
Check before you spend
That the kitchen meets the health officer's expectations, that the family agrees to guests in the home, and what insurance covers burns and allergies.
Find out these three numbers
- What do visitors pay elsewhere for a half-day cooking class?
- How many guests a week do nearby guesthouses send out?
- What do ingredients and gas cost for one class?
A comparison from the book
Sri Lanka. Chapter Five
"This is the one I would build first."
The book names cooking courses as the first thing it would build.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.