Today we cashed in our Christmas gift from John and Diana—a cooking class for two at Europa Bistro. For those of you who don’t know (or didn’t remember), Europa is the restaurant where Tom and I had our first date, and where (almost three years later) Tom proposed. So, as you can imagine, the restaurant, and its owner Alfredo, has a special place in our hearts!
Basically the day was structured as a three course meal. We would go into the kitchen, watch Alfredo prepare the dish in an interactive lesson where we could ask questions, etc and then sit back down at the large table with all 13 students and share the course together.
We started off the lesson with a wonderful appetizer—Polenta with fresh shrimp, red peppers and a basil pesto sauce.
It was paired with a really light Cabernet – easy on the palate. Our server for the event said that if he has a “non-red wine drinker” at the table he is waiting, he will serve this wine and “they’re sold”. Well, I’m not a red wine drinker, and while I can’t say that “I’m sold”, I can say that it was much more pleasant on my taste buds than any other red wine I’ve tried.
And, if you’re like me before I took the class and are wondering what Polenta is, it’s a cornmeal base (kind of like tofu in consistency) that you can use to pair with meats and cheeses or in all sorts of dishes. I’m going to have to try it at home for sure! Here's our final product:
Next we had a Fettuccine dish with a white wine reduction with garlic, caramelized onions and fresh mushrooms. It was a little heavy on the butter side for tom and me as you can see (before you judge us for eating, remember this was for 13 people. Actually no, you can judge--that's WAY too much butter!):
But it really was delicious, comfort food. It was topped with fresh feta cheese and parsley. I’ve learned the secret to all these yummy sauces is all the fresh herbs, not dried!
It was paired with a nice Shiraz that I think my dad would love :)
Lastly, for our main dish we had a Pan seared salmon with artichokes, sun dried tomatoes and a Dijon mustard reduction. So delicious!
They paired it with a Tuscan wine, which was probably my least favorite of the three (too dry for me) but the salmon was so good, I was not complaining!
Thank you John and Diana for an AMAZING Christmas gift and very pleasant Saturday afternoon! We loved it!
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