Ok, this is the last time I’ll be mentioning Orzo, I promise. But this wasn’t lunch – this was after his last day at our firm. You see, a year ago, I’d intended to take him for a cooking class for his birthday. He shared his love of comics with me; I shared my love of cooking with him. It was a fair trade, right? …right 😉
In any case, time flew by with us unable to pick a class at ICE. First we were being too picky over what we would actually learn. Then we threw caution to the wind, picked a Greek class, and… it was cancelled the day before class due to “low enrollment.” This happened twice, with two different types of classes. Argh.
A few months ago, we decided to forgo cooking and do cheese – Cheese 101, since both of us admitted to liking cheese but not knowing all that much about it. Where else- of course at Murray’s Cheeses, super famous cheesemonger. But the classes didn’t fit into our schedule… so two weeks before he was set to leave, I called him and panicked, “I have to give you your birthday present before you leave! Don’t you understand?! It’s over a year late, and I didn’t get you anything this year!”
You already know where this is going. Unless you haven’t been looking at the pictures, in which case I’ll enlighten you: I wound up Googling around and found a cheese class at Artisanal, the famous cheese restaurant, that sounded interesting. Entitled “Cheese & Wine 101”, we thought we would cover all of our bases in one shot.
Artisanal’s Cheese Center is not located at the restaurant; it is actually clear across town on 37th and 10th Avenue, where they actually conclude the aging process for many of their cheeses. I don’t know if I’d call them proprietary, but apparently many of the cheeses offered at Artisanal are only available at Artisanal throughout the country. The place is well appointed, brightly lit, and decorated with many photographs and descriptions of the various cheeses and cheese caves (that, for sanitary reasons, we are not allowed to enter unless you are an employee of Artisanal).
The event was said to start with a cheese, fondue and champagne reception; 30 minutes of mingling and eating fondue. We arrived literally 5 minutes after the start time, and most of the scrumptious looking cheese platter was already picked over and done. Walnuts, fruit preserves, honey, and various cheeses were nearly all killed before we got there.
The worst was the gougeres. I have wanted to try these for ages upon ages, having loved pao which is an Argentinian version of gougeres (and I say so in the post). I spotted the empty basket and looked extremely anguished. I’m about to reveal something about myself that you may have guessed from my very many posts, or perhaps not. I am a huge brat. I actually got so annoyed that we’d missed the gougeres, I fell into this deep funk… until they brought out more!!! Yay!!!
But I admit I was really disappointed with the “reception” portion of the night already. Cheese that was finished within 5 minutes of the event’s official start time; fondue that ran out quickly; gougeres that were absolutely scrumptious but they didn’t have enough; and overall, it was dismal. They couldn’t even keep up with how much champagne was being poured, so none of our party of 4 (Orzo brought his lovely gf, and I brought my darling bf) really drank that much at this point.
Then the class began.
At each of our places, we were greeted with the above. An assortment of 7 cheeses and 4 wines. The wines were provided by Best Cellars, who used to do Fresh Direct’s wine section (I just looked and I guess they no longer do; I stopped using FD about a year ago, which is why I didn’t know already). The woman there from Best Cellars (Karen Rozansky) was pleasant enough, and fairly knowledgeable. I had no issues with her.
Of course, the cheeses were provided by Artisanal, and the man who ran the class (Waldemar Albrecht) was from Artisanal.
The cheeses, clockwise from the 7’o’clock position (the wedge): Fog Lights, goat’s milk; Le Moulis, cow’s milk; Monte Enebro, goat’s milk; Epoisses, cow’s milk; Fiscalini Bandaged cheddar, cow’s milk; Pecorino Balze Voletranne, sheep’s milk; and Crater Lake Blue, cow’s milk.
The wines offered were, from left to right (pictured a couple pictures back): Sancerre, Domaine Michel Brock, France, 2006; Gruner Veltliner, Forstreiter, Austria, 2007; Rose, Shinn Estate Vineyards, Long Island, 2007; and Barbera, Marchesi de Barolo, Monferrato, Italy, 2006.
I could tell you what I thought of each cheese, since I took copious notes while we tasted, but to be honest, that’s not what the point of this particular type of post is. The point is what I thought of the class overall. Was it good? Was it worth it? Would I go back?
The wines were refilled but only after a few people raised a drunken fuss. The instructors weren’t good at keeping our attention and making us respectfully listen to other students’ questions. Understanding that it is difficult to command a classroom full of drunk adults, the class was still not very well conducted. Mr. Albrecht had the most trouble, shouting for us to pay attention but in a way that offended one of my companions.
We conducted the tastings of each wine, then each cheese, then each cheese and wine pairing possible (there was a chart for you to score upon), which seemed a bit clinical. Obviously people went out of order, and did their own thing, but there seemed to be just an order assigned and, well, it kind of ruined the fun for the tasting.
At the end of the class, they told us we were getting a surprise – a slice of their world famous cheesecake. (I’ve never heard of it, but have heard of their gougeres, so… okay?)
Instead of showing us the whole cheesecake, or handing out slices though, we had to figure out that the cheesecake was already sliced into tiny portions and sitting outside the classroom, in the lounge area where we’d had our reception. We didn’t even get real utensils, which seemed a bit insulting at best.
Yvo says: The overall class was alright, semi-informative, and fun if only because of the people with whom I went. Always a good time with good friends. But in the end, was this worth $85? Absolutely not. At best, maybe $50, if you have a real interest in Artisanal cheeses (the bandaged cheddar I mention above, my BF loved, and only Artisanal has this cheese). Otherwise… think about just pooling your money, buying a couple of random bottles of wine, and a bunch of different cheeses, and trying things that way (with your own charts that you can easily make). In fact, BF even suggested this. We weren’t really explained why she’d chosen these few wines to go with the few cheeses he’d chosen – just that she didn’t want “big” wines on a hot day, and that was it. For wine novices, this means nothing. (Well, it means heavy.)
not recommended
Lizz says
Oo, the best friend and I have always wanted to try those kinds of classes but yes $85 is a bit steep so thanks for your thoughts. I love, love, love Artisanal Cheese’s cheesecake! I bought a whole cake bc it was just that good.