• Blog
  • Recipes
  • About
  • Contact

burnt chef

Wine - and what I learned from the WSET 1 course

10/27/2016

8 Comments

 
“Don't worry - I’ve done it all: I’ve choked and coughed my wine out on the table, I’ve dribbled it onto my chin and drooled into my lap.”
Our instructor for the WSET Level 1 was now teaching us how to taste wine. Inhaling air through the mouth after taking a swig of wine (in other words, slurping like a maniac) aerates the pallette and in effect wakes it up to a myriad more flavours than one would accomplish by just sipping coyly. The girl sitting next to me, a bartender at a classy local restaurant, burst into a coughing fit. “That’s it, good!” Said the instructor. “You’re being aggressive. Great.”
At that point I was really wondering what I had signed up for.
Picture
Typical scene from the WSET Level 1 course: popping corks left right and centre.
This post is about my experiences learning about wine at the Wine & Spirits Education Trust’s Level 1 course held in St. John’s in October. In a nutshell: it was a blast. We tasted wine from 9am to 5pm on a Sunday. We were taught by Erin Turke, former sommelier at the beloved Raymonds, about why to pass up a Pinot Grigio and hail a Riesling,  about pairing a Sauternes with a jube-jube, about why you shouldn't eat spicey food with a Barolo. In fact learned so much about wine on that windy autumn Sunday in October that I find it genuinely hard to believe the attendance was so low: only seven people showed! So I’m going to share a thing or two about the secrets us lucky seven were let in on.

Read More
8 Comments

Cod - and what I've learned from the 'food fishery'

10/10/2016

4 Comments

 
“In Newfoundland, fish means codfish and nothing else.”

So goes a passage in The New Founde Lande, Farley Mowat’s loving memoir and history of Newfoundland. I had picked up the dusty hardcover from a used bookstore in Ottawa. Something to read on my trip back home to the island. But reading that passage got me thinking. I had never been jigging for codfish in my life. What kind of Newfoundlander was I? Later I found out that lots of Newfoundlanders these days have never been jigging, but at that moment I was struck with inspiration. “B'y jeezus,” I thought, “I need to go out and catch a fish.” And so that’s exactly what I did. This post is about the Atlantic Cod and what I learned from the Newfoundland food fishery. (Turns out, a lot.)

Picture
Heading out onto Conception Bay on Skipper's boat "Red Beard" from the Holyrood Marina
The Atlantic cod is at home in the icy banks of the North Atlantic Ocean. It’s got antifreeze in its blood. A beautiful fish: leopard spots and on olive green back, white belly and a long elegant stripe down its flank that streamlines it with the frigid water. Five fins that unfurl like the sails of schooners that used to fish for them on the Grand Banks. An idiosyncratic whisker-like barbel sticks off its chin. King of the whitefish, its flesh is the purest white you’ll ever see. From the Vikings and Basques right up to modern North American and European fishing fleets, cod has been fished off Newfoundland for over a thousand years. Cod trade with Europe is what lured the first inhabitants to Newfoundland’s rocky harbors. Which begs the question: is there any single animal more important to Newfoundland than the cod?

Read More
4 Comments

    Author

    I'm Erik, the Burnt Chef. I'm a Finnish-born Newfoundlander living in Norway. I have a passion for cooking and a deep fascination for the culinary history of the North.  Simplicity guides my cooking. Time, place, and history guide my storytelling. This is my personal blog about food. 

    Picture

    Archives

    November 2019
    September 2019
    May 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016

    Categories

    All
    Climbing
    DIY
    Drinks
    Fire
    Fish
    Game
    Grains
    Health
    Newfoundland
    Nordic
    Running
    Science
    Travel
    Wild

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Blog
  • Recipes
  • About
  • Contact