Honey cake
This dessert was paired with the Helix Royal Slope 2021 Viogner for the June 2023 Lodgepole Chef Collab Dinner with Reininger, a phenomenal Walla Walla winery. I composed this dessert based off of tasting notes from the winery, tasting notes from Melissa & Alex Barham, & my own tasting notes for the Viogner. This dessert is simple and light, but it has incredible depth to it. The morning of this wine dinner, I went out to MaryJanesFarm and picked the elderflowers! Some day I would love to get more into the foraging scene! I have a from scratch mentality already, but picking the ingredients myself just makes the food feel even more special.
A lot of people are turned away from white chocolate, but when handled and executed properly, white chocolate is fantastic. I really loved the texture of the white chocolate mousse with the wine, it wasn’t the classic overwhelming feeling of white chocolate coating your mouth and overpowering every other flavour. People are also pretty on the fence about grapefruit, but I love it so much! The grapefruit used for this dessert was marinated in a mixture of reduced elderflower liqueur, grapefruit juice, sugar, sorrel, and of course, fresh elderflowers. I also really loved the addition of elderflower liqueur syrup and the way that the almond cakes soaked it up. The elderflower and grapefruit pairing feels almost holy to me now. This was a non traditional finish to a wine dinner, but if there’s one thing I love, it’s non-traditional takes.
I absolutely love working with wine pairings and concocting ideas with Melissa & Alex. Bouncing ideas around with others & being open & accepting & handling criticism in a positive manner is the key to creating elevated & refined dishes. I am also beyond fascinated by wine overall & wine pairings. Michael Lewis, the FOH manager & sommelier at Lodgepole, has really opened my eyes to the incredible world of wine over the years and I am forever grateful for everything he has taught me. My long term goal is to actually earn the title of a level one sommelier.
