Instructor:
Sarah Boucher, chef and culinary instructor
Class Type: Demonstration Dinner
Price: $115 per person
Availability: Available
Class Description:
Menu
Pork Croquettes with Hot Sauce and Pickled Vegetables
Chilled Vegetable Curry
Liver Pâté Banh Mi
Indonesian Fish Collar Curry
Menus subject to change based on availability of ingredients.
Sometimes the most worthwhile things are the most difficult to promote. How are you supposed to encourage somebody to spend good money on something when much of what they're paying for must remain veiled until long after they've already committed?
As an attempt, we would ask you to consider your reasons for dining out. Perhaps feeling too lazy to cook can be a component, but if that's your only catalyst then what you're about to read won't sway you. Conceivably, most of you would be seeking a positive and memorable restaurant experience that you wouldn't be able to create in your own home. This would mean that in addition to an appealing atmosphere and personable service, you’d be anticipating a quality or style of food that you’re incapable of cooking yourself, surprising combinations of flavours that you wouldn't have thought of, or a diversity and breadth of appealing dishes that few people would be ambitious enough to assemble at one meal. A Venn diagram encompassing all of these might be the ideal.
Sadly, the pandemic has imposed immeasurable pressure on the already precarious restaurant industry. Our city has lost several destinations that were capable of fulfilling the above criteria, and many that remain open for business are playing it safe in order to perpetuate their existence. If they weren't already doing so, most chefs are creating menus that pursue the fickle and elusive goal of “giving people what they want”, even if many of them know that the key to a truly memorable experience is to provide diners with what they don't yet know that they want. There are restaurants in our city that are indisputably making excellent food, but only a few of them are pushing the kinds of boundaries that make for an exciting food scene. Considering the circumstances, we really can't blame them.
Enter Cookbook Company's Monday Club, an adventurous dinner series by Sarah Boucher. As alluded to, the inaugural dinner is much more difficult to promote than, say, a Thai cooking class or a Tuscan evening because the theme is inherently loose. The undisclosed menu depends upon the whims of Sarah herself, but this is exactly what makes it one of our most promising evenings of the season.
Sarah is not a lauded celebrity chef, nor has she been involved with internationally revered restaurant projects—she's just a Calgary girl with inordinate talent and a fearsome culinary intellect. Simply put, she’s in possession of one of the most thoughtful gastronomic minds that we've encountered in this city, and she weighs both cerebral and hedonistic facets of dining as if by second nature. Her background in restaurant kitchens, her ongoing experience with farming and her current immersion in the wine industry all inform her obsessive consideration of flavour.
Sarah is fascinated by the interplay of culture, tradition, seasonality, regionality and artisanality, but not to the exclusion of creativity and innovation. To her, a good meal couldn't be anything but an exploration of the nexus of all these things, and each installment of the Monday Club will be a showcase of the ingredients and bottles that inspire her on that particular week. Anecdotes of history, agriculture, technique, ingredients, winegrowing and beyond will ensue.
Monday Club is a celebration of what dining can be when considerations of business, stakeholders, landlords, dining trends and bottom line need not be heeded. Put yourself in Sarah’s hands, and let her cook you one of the most exciting meals that you'll have this year.