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Cooking up some food for thought
Courses put on by Aurora College a tasty way to spend an eveningKatherine Hudson Northern News Services Published Thursday, March 15, 2012
These are the words of wisdom from participants in Tuesday night's Mediterranean cooking class. The continuing education department at Aurora College has been offering general interest courses as well as personal and professional, non-credit courses for a number of years. The first gourmet cooking course was delivered in February 2011 and there was so much interest that two sessions were organized, one on Tuesday and the other Thursday evenings, said Anne Church, co-ordinator of continuing education at the college. "In view of the popularity of the courses, it was decided to organize one for the fall but with a specific theme and so Mediterranean cooking (was created)," said Church. Patrick Gesret, a chef by trade, has taken on the cooking classes since last year. He has cooked all over the world, from France to Montreal, Toronto, Calgary and Victoria. He has been in and out of Inuvik for the past 24 years. Every week, Gesret oversees two teams of four as they prepare a four-course meal consisting of an appetizer, a main course, a starch and a dessert. He says a lot of research and eating go into creating the right dishes for the course, but he doesn't mind. "For six weeks, we try to go all over the Mediterranean, countries around the Mediterranean. We are using a lot of spices that (participants) don't usually use, a lot of ingredients they don't know, a lot of concoctions like the shrimp with the chocolate and ginger. You don't find that everyday, right?" Last week, the class fried up an appetizer from Spain of shrimp with an orange-chocolate sauce and crushed chilies, garlic and ginger to add a kick. The main course was a chicken and beef couscous from Algeria and the group finished off the evening with a dessert: an orange torte from France. Gesret, wearing an apron decorated with images of salt and pepper shakers, timers, and wine bottles, moved fluidly from Gary Lewis stirring up the shrimp and sauce to Lori MacKay cutting up squash for the couscous. All the while, Gesret drops little golden cooking hints: how to cook ginger, how to cut an onion properly and about where to find certain spices in town. All ingredients in his cooking course can be found in Inuvik. The reasons for taking the course span from something to do as a couple, to getting more familiar with different recipes and cooking styles, to getting out one weeknight a week in the cold winter months. "It's very relaxed, very social – for some people it's just to be out," said Gesret. "The people who are going to take the course, you can see they want to be here. They want to learn something, they want to be out and I think they come out with some techniques and some recipes that they probably would not be using otherwise." The course takes about two-and-a-half hours. Gesret ensures most of the prep work is already done so the crew can jump right into the cooking. MacKay decided to take the course for the experience of cooking in a Mediterranean style – something she hasn't done before. She found it quite challenging to choose her favourite dish out of those the class has made so far. "The chocolate baklava was excellence. The chicken soup from Lima, it was fantastic. And the fish cakes with garlic aioli sauce, the rack of lamb, I don't know, they were all good," she said. Lewis has been cooking for the past 10 years and has already made one of the meals for his family at home. The class not only gets to create and eat the weekly culinary masterpieces, but are able to take home the recipe for each course. On some recipes, Gesret includes "the easy way" and "the better way" to prepare the food. "The first week here we made three dishes and about two weeks ago, I made them all one Saturday afternoon," said Lewis. The next cooking course put on by the college will most likely be in the fall, according to Gesret.
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