The Littlest Fish (Part 2)

...Last week I found out an organization called Ecotrust was hosting a pairing and tasting event in Portland on Wednesday. The event, Wine-Pear-Cheese, matched a cheesemaker and a winemaker with a type of regional pear and a local chef.  There were five pairing teams.  Each team's chef had to bring all three pairing components together and create an appetizer using the pear, cheese and wine. The 120 attendees at the sold-out event were going to be divided into five groups, and each group would rotate between pairing teams for a tasting. For several logistical reasons, including my inability to drive a stick-shift, I was the only person available from Black Sheep to represent the cheese at the tasting.

Each chef was a well-known, established, food star on the local food scene. Each wine and cheese was being repped by the expert-artisan, a distributor, or someone with a lot of experience in the production. Everyone was kind of a big deal. Then, there was me. I only outranked the little kid who tagged along with his dad, one of the cheesemakers on the other team. Not only did I have to appear knowledgeable to a crowd of people who paid for this event, but I also had to try not to disappear in the shadows of folks who had years and years of credentials.

I arrived at our chef's cafe with my cooler full of cheese to catch a ride with the chef. One of the cooks came out front to greet me, I presumed.  I went to shake his hand and he asked if I was there to work. "Oh uhm, nuh, umm, no. I'm. Cheese. I'm just here with the cheese." Still confused, I followed him back to the kitchen, where I met the chef. Due to a clock malfunction, the kitchen was a bit behind on preparations. So I was immediately put to work helping prep the appetizers to take to the event. I did not expect to have first experience presenting at a tasting and working in a commercial kitchen that day. 

We loaded up and arrived at the event. Our team discussed our presentation flow and tried to figure out the best way to handle the groups. I had a few notes on the farm and its history, but soon realized I also needed to guide the attendees on the flavors they were picking up in the cheese. It was, after all, a tasting event. I went off to my corner and started tasting our cheese, a Spanish-style cheese that had recently won an award at ACS. Generally I could say it was modeled after an unsmoked Idiazabal cheese and that it had a mild, slightly-nutty quality. But I had to come up with something better than that. I immediately pulled from the catalog of knowledge they gave us in the sensory class at VIAC (I guess cheese school came in handy after-all). I noticed the initial notes of mellow citrus-fruitiness that paired well with the pears, followed by the earthy, meaty quality as you got closer to the rind that paired well with the Cabernet. I have no idea if that sounded reasonable, but people seemed to politely nod their head in agreement. 

After the first few groups passed through, we all got the hang of the presentations. At first, I did have to assert myself in trying to seem like somewhat of a big of a deal. The first couple of times my presentation was skipped until after the group had lined up for the samples. Such a set-up did not give the cheese a fair share of the spotlight, so I had to make sure I wasn't just the intern in the corner. No, I was an advocate for the cheese and I would be heard! After the first groups, I had established my role and felt much more comfortable. I realized I was pretty knowledgeable (or knowledgeable enough) about what people wanted to know.

The event turned out be quite exhilarating and fun. Meg arrived at the very end of the fifth presentation to pick me up. I'm glad she was there, not just as a warm familiar face, but also to tell me if anything I was saying was way off. She fully supported my presentation spiel. Getting the thumbs up from the boss is always a good feeling. 

The attendees also voted that our paring was the best of the five. That likely had much more to do with the flavors of the products than any of the presentations. But I think that gives me some cheese cred.