Kirk is off in Central America. Cathy's in San Diego. And ed (from Yuma) had a meal in Yuma he thought you might enjoy.
Getting a meal at a cooking school can be a great experience. Your feedback can help an aspiring chef hone her or his skills. At the same time, you often get an excellent meal at a bargain price. I still have fond memories of a duck breast in cherry sauce at some culinary Academy in Columbus, Ohio, 30 years ago.
Even before I moved to Yuma, I had heard about the culinary arts dinners at Arizona Western College. Every spring semester, the wannabe professional cooks prepare multicourse dinners for a few fortunate customers. These days, the events are not even advertised since the tiny dining room holds only 24 guests.
On a recent Tuesday evening, Tina and I and some other friends (including Ms. K, an old chum of Tina's, who was visiting from France) sat down expectantly for a meal. All that we knew was that cornish game hen would be the main course. Soon, each of us was served a charcuterie platter, featuring pâté, galantine, and homemade sausage:
The meats were accompanied by lightly dressed greens and a creamy mustard sauce. While not overly rich, the pâté and the galantine (which has a light bread crust) were subtle and mild, with complex porky flavors. K was very impressed that she was being served gallantine out here in the southwest corner of the Arizona desert. My favorite of the three was the sausage, the heartiest and most deeply flavorful. Altogether, this was a mighty impressive starter.
The celeriac and tart apple salad – not so much:
I appreciated its vegetably crunch, and the flavors of the root and the fruit complemented each other. The light dressing stayed nicely in the wings. But it was just too much unvaried crunch for my palate. Perhaps the celeriac could have been shredded finer, as K thought. Perhaps I am simply complaining about the size of the portion. The first quarter of the salad tasted pretty good actually.
Just before the soup course, the bread bowl showed up:
This was decent herbed bread. The crust had a light crunch and the moist crumb had a good wheaty and herby flavor. Good fresh bread.
And then came the cream of wild mushroom soup, which just blew me away:
For the only time in the evening, the portion seemed small. But it is truly unfair for me to complain because this was a mind boggling mushroom soup. The flavors of cream, dried thyme, and marsala wine worked in the background. In the foreground was the amazing flavor of puréed wild mushrooms. Unlike the mushroom soup at the Better Half, which was primarily portobello, or the soup at the Radisson in Yuma, which was dominated by porcinis, this one was redolent with mixed exotic mushrooms – criminis, shiitakes, oysters, and even morels. A bouquet of flavors.
The main course arrived looking beautiful. Three crispy tender green spears of asparagus lay on a large roasted game hen that had a nice browned breast. It lay on a bed of rice/wild rice stuffing, and the plate was color balanced by some beautiful ratatouille:
To my mind, the poultry was perfectly cooked, moist and tender. At least as well prepared as the half hen at the Better Half. The wild rice combo was very good, if not quite as rich and complex as at the Better Half. I kept thinking "what are the odds having these 3 same things in two meals . . . ?" I guess I shoulda played the lottery.
One of the highlights on the plate was the ratatouille, something not paralleled in the other meal. K thought that it was slightly underdone, but I actually appreciated the freshness and complexity of this mixed vegetable dish. While each vegetable had been cooked so that none was crunchy, none was soft either. It was also a very attractive side:
The meal finished with desert. The menu said it was going to be cheesecake with fresh berries, but sometimes locating truly fresh berries can be problematic in Yuma. So desert looked like this:
The lemon cheesecake broke no new ground, but it was rich and the touch of tangy lemon nicely highlighted the sweetness of the cake. The chocolate dipped strawberry was, well, a decent chocolate dipped strawberry. The raspberry coulis made the little plate pretty.
All in all, this was great dining. Not every dish was a home run, but for $25 (total, no tax and no tip), the meal touched all the bases. Nobody left hungry; in fact, most couples had about an entire game hen with sides leftover for future meals. The service, provided by the students, was professional. If only they let us bring in wine . . .
