Coooki(e)ng!

Following the start of yesterday's Food and Culture Colloquium, my food ventures continued as I grocery shopped and began preparations for the first multi-course group dinner of the academic year coming from my house on Mulberry. An annual dinner meeting for our Paving the Way Ambassadors, this year's menu included: mixed greens with berries, toasted walnuts and crumbled goat cheese; baked vegetables; Italian herb chicken with long grain and wild rice; mint lemonade granita; and dark chocolate salted caramel bacon brownies.

A Response to Wednesday's (and Thursday's) Warm Weather: Homemade Chicken Salad

As I sat in my office Wednesday afternoon, keeping cool from the warm weather, I began to think about barbecuing. It was certainly a good day for it, and it had certainly been a while since the threat of rain did not hamper our spirits. Yet, the thought of grilling outdoors eventually became unappealing. My response, then, was to think about typical picnic fare side dishes. And then it dawned on me: one of my favourites is chicken salad, the most memorable of which I can place at The Cove (Leland, MI). It has been a while since I had it, but the simple combination of dried cherries, juicy chicken, and fresh cantaloupe is one that transports me to the water and speaks volumes of what summer eating is all about. With all of this in mind, I clocked out and headed to the grocery store, purchased my ingredients (including stuff for today’s cooking), and returned to the apartment apparently salivating for flavours to be expected. However, as has been the case for most of these posts at this point, I have never made chicken salad nor have ever read about it. Armed with what I could remember of the best chicken salads I have had in the past and guided by suggestions by my colleagues, I turned on “Top Chef Masters” and continued my weekly tradition (it seems) of cooking with the chefs.

An Early Afternoon at The North Market & "A French Menu"

After months of waiting, the time had finally come for me to attend my first cooking demo at The Columbus Dispatch Kitchen in The North Market, one of my favourite weekend locations in the Columbus area. A centralised collection of specialty tastes--from a wide array of cheeses to fresh poultry, breads baked daily to freshly squeezed juice, soul food to Indian flare--The North Market is my go-to locale for a taste of the international...in Ohio. 

As for the cooking demo itself, today's instructor was Columbus Dispatch food editor Robin Davis. Alongside more than a dozen folks, we gathered on the second floor of The North Market to join Robin in her studio kitchen as she harnessed northern and central French flavours using "grocery store" ingredients.