Cooking with David Mincey: The Locavore Dinner

Victoria, BC

The Advanced Home Cooking Series

This was an interesting class, as how often do you get to eat a 4-course dinner, cooked with ingredients that are entirely local to your region? For me, not very often, and it seemed that way for most of the other people in the class, too. David Mincey (formerly of Camille’s Restaurant, now with Preservation Chocolates and Circle Canning.) came to this class with a big box full of ingredients. He started the class with the box sitting on a bench next to him while he talked of what a bountiful island we live on. He explained that as each season is slightly different here and when the class started it was right at a transitional stage, that this has made it a fun class to teach. This also made tonight’s class more challenging because we were right in-between the winter season and the spring / summer season. While David talked, most of the class was staring intently at the box, wondering “What is in there that we get to eat!” David soon put us out of our misery, and unpacked the box. Then he made an extraordinary meal with, in his words, “limited” resources.

Here’s what David pulled out of the box (I know you’ve been waiting!):

Rhubarb – a backyard harvest

Strawberries – Vantreight Farms

Red Fife Wheat – a local mill

Ciabatta bread – Fol Epi

Hazelnuts – Butlers Farm

Asparagus – a local farm

Beefsteak Tomato – Sun Wing

Stinging nettle – a park!

Avalon Cream – Avalon Dairy

Hot smoked cured pork belly – The Whole Beast

Cherry tomatoes – Gladstone Greenhouse

Duck – The Village Butcher

Natural Pastures Bourikas Cheese – Natural Pastures Cheese Company

Duck Leg Confit – Choux Choux Charcuterie

Kale – a local farm

From this list, he started to make the dishes, beginning with dessert. Once that was in the oven, he was whipping, chopping, and stirring everything else into the various dishes. Each dish was so flavorful, imaginative, and complex in ingredients, I will let the pictures tell the story.

Till next class!

Cooking with David Mincey: The Pantry – Part 2

Building a Culinary Repertoire – Part 3

Party Snacks & Cooking with Chocolate – Parts 4 & 5

To register or for more information go here

You can also go into Cook Culture and talk with one of the staff about the classes at:

1317 Blanshard St, The Atrium Building
Victoria, BC. Ph: 250 590 8161

Store Hours

Mon to Fri: 10 am to 5:30 pm
Saturday: 10:30 am to 5:30 pm
Sun and Holidays: 11:30 am to 4:30 pm

Written By: Colin Hynes

Colin is the Assistant Editor at EAT. You can contact him via colin@eatmagazine.ca. Colin was born in Nova Scotia and spent his first five years there. His mother and father owned an inn and restaurant and Colin spent his time ...