Cooking With Kate

One of Nicola’s work colleagues had two tickets to a French cookery demonstration that she was unable to use, so she passed them to us. It gave us an opportunity to go to a new area of Wellington, Newtown, where most of the buildings are, predictably, old. But they must have been new once. We turned up early at the Mediterranean Food Warehouse http://www.medifoods.co.nz/, and decided to have a quick snack whilst we were waiting, as we weren’t sure what we would be getting to eat in the evening – the ticket said “wine and nibbles”.

At seven, we entered the warehouse and had a glass of wine; plates of pizza slices were passed around as well, so it looked like the snack beforehand had been unnecessary – there was plenty. The recipes to be demonstrated were duck liver pâté, bouillabaisse, and crème brûlée. The chef, Kate, cooked all of these whilst providing commentary and answering questions, all with the help of an overhead camera projection. Meanwhile, the two owners kept telling us how the products she was using were available in their store “at the bargain price of $xxx! I can’t believe we’re selling this so cheap! Our accountant will do his nut!” etc. Subtle it was not!

At the end of each course, the results (“here’s one I prepared earlier”) were passed around for tasting. So all in all, we were well fed throughout the evening. As with watching cookery shows on the tv, they generally tell you stuff you know already, but if you pick up one or two tips from it then it’s worth it, in my opinion…and I did.

So we returned “home” sated, with a definite plan to return with a car to stock up on ingredients from the warehouse, because they do seem to have a lot of good quality stuff there…I was drooling somewhat and had to be led away by Nicola!