Stacey: Home Tasting Room & Week Seven

Dan    Ask Dan     calgary, cooking, Kick The KD, learning, Stacey, thoughts

A couple of weekends ago we had a privileged behind the scenes look at Home Tasting Room with Chef Rogers, as well as a wine pairing lesson by sommelier Andrew Macleod from Red Water Grille.  Sadly I couldn’t stay for the majority of the lesson due to a prior commitment (little girls only turn 1 once!), but while I was there I learned some very interesting things.

For example, that sommelier’s began as a way to ensure the wine of nobility was not poisoned! I am glad the profession has come a long way!  Andrew wanted to impart upon us how to describe the different tastes of wine, food that pairs well with wine as well as to take the stigma out of drinking wine and encouraged us to take advantage of a restaurant’s sommelier (no longer just for the high brows!).

Chef Rogers prepared beautiful plates to match the lovely wine and I would highly recommend him and his restaurant (Home Tasting Room) to people looking for an intimate ambiance and the highest quality of local food.  The kitchen is in the middle of the restaurant allowing diners to observe the whole creative process! (Below is a picture of one of the courses we had there, a grilled tomato salad with home-made yogurt! Yum!)

After our week seven class, no homework was assigned (which I was secretly happy about since finals are quickly approaching us), but in class we learned how to make an easy and delicious hummus, lentil soup (dahl) and dolmades.

The best thing I learned from this class was that dolmades are not as exotic as I first perceived – they are in fact a lot like cabbage rolls.  I find it interesting how ideas (about food in this case) travelled around the world in a time before the Google, Twitter or even the radio existed.  From the north to the south of Europe the idea of rice, meat and other choice ingredients wrapped in a leaf was shared and interpreted.

- Stacey

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