Date night at Loblaw’s

The other night GC and I went to a free cooking class at Loblaw’s. Neither one of us had ever been to a cooking class, and it was kind of trippy. You sit at long tables, like in science lab, and watch the chef cook.

He’s got a mirror over his entire workspace so you can see inside all the bowls and pans and stuff. He’s also got a helper chef who is almost invisible and who prepares everything for him and cleans up everything after him as he works. I could really use one of those helper chefs.

The chief chef was Michael Dunn and for sixteen years he was a senior chef at Buckingham Palace.

“Now,” he said with a wry smile, “I work at Loblaw’s, mixing pasta with bottled PC salad dressing.”

I would have liked to have learned more about how he ended up here from there. Maybe he burnt the scones and was sent away from the Palace in disgrace, banished to the Canadian wilds. Or maybe he fell in love with a visiting scullery maid from Canada, and followed her home to Ottawa.

But, instead of telling us about his love life, the Chef told us about the Queen and her kitchen. For example:

• Every day the Queen is presented with three choices for each of the following day’s meals.
• The Queen is not a picky eater.
• The biggest meal of the day at Buckingham Palace is lunch for the 350 palace staff.

The Queen has a lot of chefs, but they’re not all tripping over each other because some of them are frequently traveling with the Queen or other royalty. One time the Queen visited US President Ronald Reagan, and the Queen’s chef was preparing a meal for Elizabeth and Ronald. The Secret Service entered the kitchen and demanded to inspect all the food. The chef said “If it’s good enough for the Queen of England, I’m quite sure it’s good enough for your President,” and shooed them out of his kitchen.

It’s important for a Loblaw’s chef to be able to tell stories, because otherwise it might be a little bit boring watching him make a kid-friendly pasta salad mixed with bottled PC salad dressing.

After he was finished cooking it, we all ate a small bowl and it was pretty good. Then we had dessert: parfait glasses filled with layers of vanilla yogurt and berries and pecans and coconut. (I claimed a nut allergy so he made a special nut-free one just for me.) (I don’t think I’m actually allergic to nuts: I just gag when I eat them because I hate them so much.) (Except pistachios and cashews: I like them.) (And slivered almonds.)