No Res, Day 6: Secrets of my true identity, Revealed...

This was the last day of the course and I must say it ended with a bang! Not only because of the fabulous line up of activities for the day (wine tasting and laying a cheese platter), but also because of the explosion of spice in our mouths!

Starting with the Thai cuisine session, along with the usual suspects -- red and green curries which most of us have either eaten or made at least a few times before -- we also made some other interesting dishes like satay and corn cakes, stuff I’d eaten before but didn’t know was Thai.

Delicious Thai Green and Red curries with Lemongrass scented rice

Corncakes with Thai sweet chili sauce

After the fiery lunch came the part I was really excited about: Wine and cheese!

We had a wine expert come in with two whites, one rosé, and two reds. But when it came down to the actual tasting, Rushina issued a diktat: I was not allowed to drink the wine because I was a minor! I was exposed!!!

But then all my classmates -- and we’d become pretty good friends by the end of our six days together -- protested loudly on my behalf, and in the end it was decided that I could take one tiny sip from each glass, just to get an idea of the flavors. But I still had to spend the rest of the session having all kinds of fun poked at me… :(

My drinking wine was supposed to be kept on the down low, but little did i know they had taken photographic evidence... Haha

We did it all: learning how to pour wine correctly, determining the true colour of a wine by holding the glass against a white background, swiveling the wine around in the glass to open up its aromas, smelling it in short sniffs and appreciating the fragrances, and then finally taking a little sip and identifying the hints of various fruit, spices, flowers, etc… I suddenly felt so fancy and knowledgeable! One sees people do this in movies and wonders, what’s all the fuss about, just drink the wine already! But now I’ve learned that this is the actual path to enjoying a good wine, and it was quite an exciting one.

After wine came the cheese. And who doesn’t love cheese?! (Apparently there are people who don’t like cheese… WHAT??).

My father is a bit of a newbie cheese enthusiast, and he’s the kind of person who tries to learn practically everything there is to know about any subject he takes a fancy to; so I’d already learned a lot about cheese from him -- various milk types, categories of cheeses from soft to hard, the process of making cheese, and so on. So when we were discussing these aspects, not all of it was completely new to me.

But during this session we also learned how to lay a cheese platter. Apparently there is a specific way in which the cheese must be cut, and an order it should be placed in, and so on.

The cheese platter

What I loved most about the cheese session was tasting the various kinds of cheeses, especially the Gorgonzola (blue cheese), which I was brave enough to try for the first time, and absolutely loved right away! Oh, waiting to turn 18 and getting a chance to try pairing various cheeses with wines, beers, foods…

All in all, the World Cuisine Festival has been an absolutely amazing experience for me. Literally Around the World in 6 Days! And on a platter too (pun entirely intended)!!

Thank you so much, Rushina.