Apr

Stacey: Scrapin’ it out in Week Eight

Dan

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

The past week’s lesson was a great segue into our week eight class with special guest Pierre Lamielle of Kitchen Scraps fame. Pierre is a worldly gentleman who is quite the story teller; I highly recommend his Kitchen Scraps cookbook, I have read it cover to cover and thoroughly enjoy the illustrations and hilarious stories that accompany each recipe. Pierre regaled us with the history of Roman feasts (accompanying the Roman chicken we made) and he even taught us the most efficient way to make whipped cream!… Additionally, in class we learned how to properly dress a salad (including the proper slicing of celery) and how to ‘pickle’ different toppings (i.e. Craisins, onions, garlic) using a brine solution which added a delightful salty (or sweet, depending on your preferences) taste. Finally we made a “brownie served out of a pot”…yum!

Inspired by our Kitchen Scraps class, Dan’s assignment for us was to recreate one of Pierre’s recipes that has a story along with it. The purpose is to determine if ‘food is more fun when it has a story’.

Keeping this in mind, I chose to make the Bolognese runs thick meat sauce for pasta (whilst watching Top Chef Canada of course!). I was a little perturbed that my favourite pasta sauce stems from its resemblance to the aftermath of a sword fight, but found the history lesson interesting none the less.

Additionally, I made the half-baked pot brownie (from class) using my personally autographed Kitchen Scraps cookbook! Based on my results, is cooking/food more fun when it has a story? Definitely! Though I struggled with an appropriate time to share the story with my dinner guests Perhaps I will choose a more appetizing story next time!

I think the real question will be … can food still be fun without Dan and KTKD? T-minus two classes… why do the fun classes have to pass so quickly? Why can’t my Chemical Process Equations go so fast? Million dollar questions. For now, I’ll stick to Kicking the KD!

- Stacey