Of Food and Wine and Grades, Oh My!

Of food - last week we had practice for our final cooking test, today was the final cooking test. Part of our mark was for how well we listened and implemented the points from our critique. We spent a lot of time thinking about food (I even dreamed about it), cooking food, examining food.

Of wine - last night I went to the restaurant where I will work this summer for a wine tasting. They are having a gala dinner in August and were choosing the wines before creating the menu. That was fun! I learned a little bit about wine, had some nice food (bbq lamb & ribs, mmmmm), and met some nice people. The evening also reinforced something I'd noticed when Rowena brought good wine to Niko's birthday dinner - I thought I didn't really like wine but no, I do like wine but only good wine. We sampled Zanatta's Taglio Rosso - very, very nice! From the website "this very deep red sparkler is done in the the traditional method of champagne. Using Cabernet Sauvignon and Castel grapes, Taglio Rosso is aged on the lees for 12 months to maintain it's youthful fruitiness." We also tried (just for fun) Merridale's Winter Apple. Holy Cow! Sweet and tart and cold and mmmm mmmm. I only had a sip or two of each wine (8 or 9), except the Taglio (I had the whole ounce) but I noticed this morning that I was pretty tired when I got home - I left my keys in the ignition. Hmm.

Of grades - Today after the test we got another critique and got our test scores. I got 95%!! We still have our final written exam on Friday so I'm off to eat the duck and sweet potatoes from my test while I study. (I got raves from Chef about the sweet potatoes, so I will add the recipe later.)