A Culinary Adventure

Wendy, ever the optimist, had made dinner reservations some weeks ago at the Lady Dunn Dining Room. Based on her earlier chemo schedule, this should have been the Thursday a week before chemo, not the Thursday a week after chemo. Since we had enlisted Jack and Suzanne to drive and Wendy was feeling better (that means we could actually talk about food without her turning green) she insisted we go. Jack and Suzanne pulled up promptly at the appointed hour and we were on our way to St Andrews.

For those not in the know, the Lady Dunn Dining Room is the service area for those taking the Culinary Arts course at the New Brunswick Community College in St. Andrews. It’s one thing to know how to cook and to serve, but it’s a completely different kettle of fish having to do those things in real life. (Read Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential for an insider’s view of life in a busy restaurant kitchen.) Like the course at Red Deer College, the students put on a darned good meal with attentive service for a reasonable price.

This meal was buffet style which gives the students the opportunity to prepare some things ahead of time, to do some fancy presentations and to make a ton of fabulous desserts. The buffet was set up in the kitchen and we got to tour the facility and talk with the students and their instructors. The student bus person took us on a quick tour, pointing out the various stations and what was available. She dropped us off at the soup station where Jack and I had rock crab soup and Wendy had mushroom soup. Before leaving, we stopped by the bread station where a variety of interesting artisanal breads were being offered by a man who obviously loved bread making. Soup was good! The bread was to die for.

The cold table had wonderful salads, a beautiful gravlax (delicious too) and capers the size of olives. I think Suzanne and I could have made a meal out of the gravlax alone. It was nearly perfect. Next up I sampled a pepper and onion stir fry with couscous and chili sauce, mussels with curry and mussels in the French style. Yum.

Around a corner we found roast beef (a small slice) and turkey, pommes Dauphin, potato puffs, and freshly prepared scallops in a cream sauce.

For dessert I tried a couple of chocolate based squares, but was far too full by then to truly appreciate them. Wendy forced me to finish off her dessert choices too. Tough luck for me! Jack was into the chocolate fountain, a chocolate fondue with fresh fruit. He did not test the carrot cake, which may be a first for him. Wendy had more bread. In fact, the baker offered to give Wendy and Jack a bread selection for breakfast, which they surreptiously slipped out in a plastic bag under their coats.

The students as well as the diners seemed to enjoy their evening. When Wendy requested herbal tea, it appeared that our resourceful waiter dipped into the students’ own supply to bring her some. The three young ladies who created all the cheesecakes made a tour of our tables as the dessert course wound down. We left satisfied and very happy with our experience. On the way out, Wendy decided that the baker was the “Bread Whisperer” .

I really enjoyed the enthusiastic young people working to establish themselves in a demanding and unforgiving career. Fortunately for them, their chef is not like Gordon Ramsay at all. (To tell the truth, I had a moment of longing seeing the young people working in the kitchen.) We now have the email address for reservations as well as the schedule for lunches and dinners next term, so we certainly plan to return.

Whenever the four of us go to St. Andrews, it’s either raining or snowing for some part of the trip. This time it rained a bit, but the full moon appeared on the way home and we had a great conversation about how much we like New Brunswick and the wonderful friends we’ve made here.

Harvey