Foods from C'est Bon Cooking

Comments

2012 Jan 30
I had the opportunity this weekend to attend their Taste of Winterlude walking tour.

There was only 3 off use given the weather, wet, raining and the side walks slippery. But it was better with a smaller group since we got more samples.

The tour guide was friendly and new a lot of information.

I will probably attend another walking tour this summer but in another part of town I'm not familiar with, just to know what's in the area.

2011 Nov 17
Last September I had the pleasure of attending two walking tours with C’est Bon Cooking. The cooking school is run by Chef Andrée Riffou, a Cordon Bleu chef who has apprenticed in Ottawa and France, and the walking tours are lead by their tour leader Paola St. Georges.

The first tour I went on was an Edible Walking Tour of the Byward Market. We visited various establishments over the course of the morning and sampled products on our way. Even though I shop frequently at the Byward Market I enjoyed meeting the proprietors and listening to them talk about their products. I enjoyed watching pizza being made in a wood-fired oven at The Grand and discovered how much better a tomato sauce tastes using San Marzano tomatoes than the regular ones I have been using-;) We also learned about parmesan cheese at La Bottega, sampled some locally produced (from Perth) maple syrup, and sampled different cheeses at The House of Cheese.

The second tour I went on was an Edible Walking Tour of Preston Street. I really enjoyed this one because, even though Preston Street is so close to centretown (where I live), I do not know the neighbourhood very well and I look forward to getting acquainted with it better. Highlights of the tour included visiting the Preston Street farmers market, Pub Italia (most of the memorabilia has been collected from churches and antique shops), Lucianos (they make a number of sausages in-house), Sanguiccio’s (the owner has a bhut jolokia tree in the back of the resto and he uses the peppers in one of his sauces I believe) and Simply Biscotti (excellent biscottis).

Chef Andrée offers cooking classes and she often ties them in with a visit to the Byward Market first. Students will pick up ingredients in the market then head over to La Bottega to cook afterwards. I haven’t taken any of her cooking classes yet but I look forward to it.