It was the
evening which I was most excited about in this trip. On 7/20 (Fri), I was invited to give a Donabe Cooking
and Wine Tasting Class at iga-mono shop in Ebisu, Tokyo.
It had been
about 3 months since I visited iga-mono shop last time and met Isako-san and
her tem there.
Every time I
come here, I feel like a kid in a candy store. All the donabe and other pottery items in the store are made
by Nagatani-en, which is a producer of authentic Iga-yaki pottery. There were some new release items,
which looked so gorgeous. Hope we
can start importing some of the new items in our shop, soon.
For this
event, staff of iga-mono worked so hard to do all the preparations. They set up everything so precisely and
beautifully.
The class
featured different donabe dishes which have been popular in my donabe cooking
classes in LA. I also served
different kinds of wines to pair with the donabe dishes.
Everything
went very smoothly. We cooked
donabe dishes one by one and tasted wines along with these dishes. The atmosphere was very warm and the
class guests were having fun relaxing time.
I had a
blast! I enjoyed the
interaction with the guests and talking about donabe dishes and wine.
The wines I
poured the evening were all natural wines. Three wines from Domaine de L’Arjolle from Languedoc (France), and
2008 Quivira Vineyards, Elusive (Dry Creek Valley). All wines showed very well.
Here’s the
menu of the donabe dishes we made the evening:
DONABE MENU
Steam-fry
potato with creamy yuzu-kosho dip
Steam-chicken
salad
Smoked BBQ
eel with cucumber and myoga (ginger bud)
Hijiki &
edamame rice
Cheese
soufflé
After the
successful class, we went out for dinner in the neighbor restaurant which
specializes in organic wines. I was quite impressed by 2010 Domaine de la Garance, Kaze, Pinot Noir. It's a unique winery from Languedoc by Pierre Quinonero. The wine had a very charming cherry/ candy nuance with the elegant Pinot smoothness. We
had another great time!
I want to
thank Isako-san and Nagatani-en/ iga-mono staff who made it happen and gave all
the help for my first donabe & wine tasting class back in Japan! THANK YOU SO MUCH.
Happy donabe
life.
