Once truly experienced, the aroma and flavour of this elusive, expensive and addictive fungus is never forgotten. Melbourne’s newly established à table cooking school is air-freighting a good supply of these black beauties over from Western Australia and shining the spotlight on them during their à table truffle experience workshops, to take place throughout August and into September 2012, in North Carlton.
Sara Hinchey, the woman behind à table cooking school, has spent time in various trufferies. She has accumulated an insider’s knowledge of the truffle, how they grow, the harvest, storage and most importantly, how to prepare them to maximise their impact. So her truffle experience workshops cover an introduction to all-you-need-to-know about truffles before the food preparation (and consumption!) start. The recipes are simple, including hand-made truffle butter and a truffled potato fettucine, as well as other treats that participants can reproduce at home and all receive a take-home truffle souvenir.
Truffles are available for purchase at the end of each class and anyone who can’t make a class can buy from the à table cooking school website throughout the season, which is expected to last until early September (www.a-table.com.au).
Sara is a barrister by (week) day, full-on foodie the rest of the time. She entered her first cake in the Ballarat Show at the age of 12 and has been cooking ever since. Luckily she met husband Tom, also a barrister, but the kind of guy who likes to buy whole wheat from the market, mill it into flour then make bread with it (using his own sourdough starter of course). Together they decided to share their love of simple yet delectable, ‘back to basics’ cooking through their food workshops and classes that cover the likes of bread and butter, pasta-making, preserving and cooking with herbs through spring/summer and truffles in winter. Classes take place in the beautifully appointed Princes Hill Secondary College Food Tech Lab in North Carlton.
Previous truffle experience participants had this to say: “What an unexpected surprise this truffle experience was. Memorable for the company, learning experience and ambience” and “relaxed presenter was confident and very well informed…”.
à table truffle experience workshops
SUNDAYS: August 19 and 26, 11am to 1pm
THURSDAY: August 23, 6.30pm to 8.30pm
Other dates available for groups
Cost: $115 per person per session
Bookings/truffle purchase: P 0412 250 624 E sara@a-table.com.au
T: @ATableCooking
Location: Princes Hill Secondary College Food Tech Lab, 318 Richardson Street, Carlton North (the Lab is just inside the gate, on the left)
