Yellowknife (Sep 17/03) - At least two stores in Yellowknife are catering to the creative chef in the house.

Yellowknife winters call for a lot of home entertainment and at least three entrepreneurs in town are tapping in to the renewed tradition of dinner parties. But this time around, you'll find just as many men in the kitchen as women.

Le Stock Pot is the newest sister to Le Frolic and L'Heritage, says owner Julia Tate.

Tate and her partner Pierre Le Page have been talking about an upscale kitchenware store for the past four years.

Now, Le Stockpot is set to open sometime in October.

Currently under construction, the new store, located on 51st Avenue will cater to home-cooking gurus.

"There's a lot of good cooks in town and we wanted to give them a place to go to practise their trade," said Tate.

Some of the upscale items include peugeault (grinding) pepper mills, Henkel knives, a specialty high-quality line of knives and amongst many other items, a rack-lit stove.

"It's sort of like a fondue. It's great for parties," said Tate.

Other food items will include high-end olive oils from Spain, Italy and Greece, smoked salmon and almond stuffed olives and hazelnut stuffed olives as well as Boticelli chocolate.

Also on hand will be a Canadian line of jams, lavender peach and rose petal strawberry.

"There's a lot of dinner clubs in town and of course, we hear about them all here at L'Heritage," she said.

Tait also plans to ask the L'Heritage chefs to put on demonstrations at Le Stock Pot.

"We have a full service of guys who want to show their stuff and cooking lessons is the piece de resistance," said Tate.

Le Stock Pot also plans on offering gourmet gift baskets along with various fois gras -- pate -- and caribou jerky.