INUVIK - Cooking a gourmet meal north of the Arctic Circle isn't the easiest thing to do, but 10 residents of Inuvik are getting a bit of help.

Aspiring kitchen whiz Cailin MacNeil cuts up a leek in preparation to make escargot at the French cooking class being offered in Inuvik this spring. - Andrew Livingstone/NNSL photo

Due to high demand, Aurora College is offering its second gourmet cooking class this year. The first course, held in January, proved so successful and had such a long wait list that the college decided to offer it again.

"Whenever we handed out surveys at the end of courses, gourmet cooking kept on coming up as a course students wanted," said Anne Church, the co-ordinator of continuing education at Aurora College. "The 10 spaces filled within a week and a half. People just seem to have an interest."

Every Tuesday night from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. the students gather in one of the trailers behind the Our Lady of Victory Church and learn from Patrick Gesret, a 22-year Inuvik resident and European-trained chef from the Brittany region of France.

Each class he has the students make an appetizer, main course, starch, vegetable and dessert, which they then get to enjoy.

Gesret said the most difficult part of cooking a gourmet meal in Inuvik is getting the ingredients.

"There's no use teaching them things if they can't get the ingredients in the community," Gesret said. "You might have a list of ingredients and oops, they're out of milk, or the road is closed and there's no cream, then you'll have to change your recipe on the spot or hope the road opens."

At the end of the six-week course, students will have learned to cook 30 recipes and have picked up a bit of knowledge about where to get certain ingredients in Inuvik. Recipes include duck a l'orange, seafood in puff pastry, crepes, potato pancakes, pork in prosciutto rolls and nutty berry filo napoleon.

The classes have a relaxed atmosphere, with students divided into two teams. Gesret demonstrates each meal step by step, but says the students generally already have an interest in cooking and feel confident in the kitchen.

"No one is afraid of a stove," he said. "The gourmet course gives them a chance to cook something that not everybody has on a regular basis. If they're having a big dinner at home or trying to impress a girlfriend or boyfriend, they will have some recipes."

With the class proving so popular, the college will likely offer a cooking class again in the fall, although the type of cooking is still up for debate.

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