I got off work earlier than planned on Tuesday,
so I was excited to have a free evening to do whatever I wanted. I called a few
friends to see if anyone had plans. 'Babies,' was the answer. I guess those
little guys take up a fair amount of time. After a few rejections, I opened my
laptop and brought up the Events and Adventures calendar. I usually plan to go
on events at least a week in advance, but I thought maybe I could jump on
something last minute.
A gourmet cooking class was the event of the
day. I remembered reading about it earlier in the month, but when I went to
register, it was booked. It still showed full, but I put my name down on the
wait list just in case.
Around 4:30 my phone rang. Ambrea, the event
coordinator, explained that there had been a cancellation and asked if I still
wanted to join. "Of course," I replied. "Great!" she said.
"I'll see you at 6:45."
The venue was in South Burnaby, just off of
Marine Drive, so a bit of a drive from downtown. The company was called KitchenRiddles - their slogan: "Where Cooking Isn't a Mystery." Personally,
I think that tagline could use a tweak. Just saying...
I arrived about five minutes to the start time
and was immediately ushered upstairs by Ambrea. Our group had already convened
around a large table and I took a seat on the side. Ambrea was kind enough to
initiate introductions and everyone seemed super keen to start. Two members had
been to a similar event at the same location. They gave us a brief description
of how the night would work, which was nice.
After a few minutes we were brought down to the
main kitchen area in the back of the building.
The room had three large stainless steel table areas and a smaller table
at the front for demonstrations. Each of the tables was setup for two
participants on either side. Since I was a last minute entry, I was partnered
with Ambrea, who is always a ton of fun. The women vastly outnumbered the men
at this event, so each table group received one token male and three females.
Great odds. Just saying…
Along one side of the room was a row of
industrial fridges and open shelves full of kitchenware and basic ingredients.
Along the other side were, I believe, eight four-burner gas stoves, with a single
restaurant style fan for ventilation. The ceilings were two story’s high, which
gave the room a nice open feel.
We were introduced to the Head Chef, Ben Kiely,
and his two assistants, who were the owners and operators of the company. They
made us feel right at home and explained the menu for the night. We would start
with cutting up the ingredients for a simple sauce, then move on to homemade
raviolis and finish with a dessert of lava cakes.
We were instructed to go back to our stations
and start the prep for the sauce ingredients. We started with mushrooms, where
I learned my first culinary tip of the night. Apparently, you are supposed
to peel mushrooms before you cut them. Who knew? Well, I guess these guys did.
After the mushrooms we diced up some shallots
and garlic. My hands were still smelling of garlic three days after the
event.
As we worked, one of the assistants came around
and took drink orders, serving wine and other spirits to the group. This was
definitely a nice touch of sophistication.
After prepping our veggies, we gathered for a
quick demonstration on how to make homemade pasta 'dough' I guess it's
called. They went through the whole birds nest method, which seemed fairly
simple, yet strangely complex. Thankfully they had already made our portions
the night before.
Then we moved on to the pasta rollers, which
would be used to thinly roll out our pasta for ravioli sheets. Again, this
process looked simple enough, but back at our stations, it proved to be a
little more difficult. Our filling would be a mix of mushrooms and ricotta. We
were given a quick demo on how to make our own basic cheese from milk, but once
again they simplified this process with providing premade ricotta.
Once we had rolled out our pasta into two or
more long sheets, we portioned our filling and laid the top layer over our
portion layer. To give it an added glue, we thinly basted the top layer with
water. We were then given the option to use circular cutouts or pasta knives
for squared ravioli. With a fork, we gently sealed each of the pockets and
molded them to shape.
To keep the pasta from drying out, we dusted
them with flour. I don't know quite how it happened, but the young woman
working to my left, at the adjacent table, some how managed to pickup a
definite flour handprint on the backside of her black dress. This had us all
laughing and even brought a blush of pink to the face of our stoic Head Chef.
We blamed the wine.
Back at the demo table we were shown how to
make a simple sauce with cream and the ingredients we chopped earlier. Then we
were shown how to cook the ravioli and a quick lesson on creating a
salad/garnish of oil, balsamic and greens.
In our partner groups, we moved to the stoves
and within minutes had cooked, plated and sauced our homemade pockets. With our
dinner completed, we moved back upstairs with our wine to enjoy our labours. The
filling was dynamite.
As we ate and laughed in the dining area, our
hosts cleaned and prepared our stations for dessert. Amazing service!
After our meal, we returned to the cooking area
and received a quick lesson on lava cake creation. More flour - more laughs.
And chocolate…
We topped our cakes with chilled whip cream
that we applied with piping bags. Delicious!
One of the ladies at our station was celiac and
our chefs went out of their way to accommodate her. For the dinner round they
made her a special salad with ravioli ricotta filling on the side. For dessert,
they cut up a fresh mango and served it with cream.
At the end of the night, there were loads of
extra cakes and cream. These were boxed and given to us in takeaway containers.
Again…amazing!
We finished up with a big thank you to the
chefs. They promised to email each of us the recipes we used that night. As a
parting gift, they gave us two local foodie magazines and a simple flyer with
their contact info and a list of their upcoming classes.
I walked to my car completely satisfied.
It was so nice to experience such a
professional start up company.
An excellent business - An amazing evening.
Definitely worth the booking inquiry to Ambrea.
Now if only they could work on that tagline. My
suggestion: Kitchen Sleuths: "Taking the Mystery Out of Cooking."
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