It’s barely 10 a.m. and Jane Langdon is pulling cold bottles of Riesling from the fridge. We had just finished whirring goat cheese, sundried tomatoes and olive oil in the food processor for a simple, tasty appetizer. Jane is founder of the Wine Country Cooking Class at Strewn Winery, in the beautiful Niagara-on-the-Lake (NOTL) region of Ontario, Canada. Over the next few hours, she shows us how to use fresh spring produce and other local ingredients to make a cheese soufflé, tender lamb chops, yellow pepper risotto and more.
NOTL is a favorite not-too-far-from-home getaway. It’s tucked along the Lake Ontario shoreline about a 20-minute drive from Niagara Falls. In the warmer months, horse-drawn carriages clomp along the streets of the historic downtown, bright flowers spilling from the lampposts. There’s always an interesting line-up of plays at The Shaw Festival, which features the works of George Bernard Shaw and other notable playwrights of his era.
But the big draw here is the wine. Nearly 40 wineries call NOTL home, producing a range of award-winning sips, including decadently sweet ice wine from vine-frozen grapes. A favorite memory is renting bikes and visiting the wine tasting rooms along the Niagara River Parkway, wobbling past farm stands jammed with ripe peaches, plums and of course, grapes.
The Wine Country class was my first experience combining a passion for cooking with a love of travel. Since then, I’ve taken recreational cooking classes in more than a dozen countries on five continents.
Wine Country comfortably accommodates up to 16 people, cooking in pairs, in a sparkling commercial kitchen. Jane demonstrates knife skills as we chop vegetables for homemade stock and gives pointers for making the perfect roux of flour and butter. Peelings and scraps are saved for goats and pigs at a nearby farm, while dirty dishes and utensils are whisked away as soon as you’re finished using them.
We’re thrilled when the risotto achieves its silky texture and the soufflé is pulled from the oven with its characteristic puff. As we sit down to eat, there’s one last lesson—an informal discussion on pairing wine with food. We raise our glasses and dig in!