EVOO

EVOO, extra virgin olive oil, the name for a local gourmet store/kitchen/cooking school/dinner show. According to them, EVOO exists before it became a word Rachael Ray uses on her show. Nilenka arranged a dinner show for Tom and me at this place on Friday night. It is a wonderful find in the Cannon Beach city. Actually, this place is only 3 houses down the street from the vacation home.

We arrived just a bit before dinner show time. I looked around the store and found some nice gourmet cooking stuffs. If I had seen this place earlier in the week, I probably would have gotten some cheese and other goodies for dinner instead of the good old Mariner grocery across the street!!! The grocery didn’t even have ground pork!!! They have no butcher on site.

The menu consisted of 3 courses. Each is individually paired with a matching wine. The idea is to show the audience how to cook this. Most of the prep work has been done prior, save the final cooking to demonstrate to us. There were 8 of us that evening. Full capacity in the shop is 23. Now, I have a difficult time imagine how they can fit that many people in one setting, as the shop is not big!! For us that evening, I feel it is just right and enable a smaller intimate crowd. Not that we were doing much talking with the others since everyone was mostly concentrated on our own food, with a few uh and ah…

We had a very fun evening, not having to cook, but not a real sit down in the black box being served dinner either. Causal, yet welcoming and delicious, and very entertaining. Highly recommended for anyone. When we go back to CB in Dec for the Rudenko family gathering, I want to do this again for sure!!!

Here is the menu and wine pairing:

Herb crusted wild salmon with English watercress & warm fingerling potatoes
WINE: ROXYANN 2007 PINOT GRIS

Cocoa salt rubbed Basque pork, Piquillo pepper cornbread, & Avocado Tomatillo salsa WINE: CATHEDRAL RIDGE 2007 CABERNET-MERLOT

Smoked Tenderloin filet, Manchego dill pasta, & tomato jam
WINE: ZERBA Z BLEND 2005

Almond cake with warm rhubarb-strawberry compote, vanilla bean sour cream ice cream, and Warm chocolate ganache, salted roasted pistachio

And when we came out of EVOO, it was after 9:30 pm or so. The sky was almost completely dark, except for a bit of light on the beach horizon, blocked by the oceanfront homes. Very different composition in this last shot.