It's one thing to be able to enjoy watching Top Chef or the Food Network from the comforts of your own home, but it's a whole other experience to be able to eat breakfast with a celebrity chef. Over the summer, my friend Yushan invited me to meet with Monica Pope for breakfast, a tour of her restaurant T'afia and Farmer's Market, and snag front row seats at her complimentary cooking class.
On this very hot summer day, we gathered early at T'afia and enjoyed a delicious breakfast featuring locally grown foods. I had a savory breakfast enchilada with a piping hot cup of coffee. Monica shared with us her thoughts on good slow cooked food. She recalls her Czech grandmother teaching her how to cook and how she went to London to improve her culinary skills. She returned to the states, and started her career as a chef. She talked about the challenges of serving up new and different kinds of foods here in Houston especially to a town that was used to large servings of the standard meat and potatoes. She also spoke about the importance of slow food and eating locally. She challenged us to eat one meal a week with just food that was sold near our city.
We were also able to take in a tour of T'afia and the Midtown Farmer's Market. The best foods I sampled were the Texas Cheeses from the Houston Dairymaids, the chocolates from Brown Paper, and the ready-made paneer from Nisha's Quick and Ez Indian food. Monica told us how the concept grew from just a simple table at the farmer's market at Onion Creek to the Midtown Farmer's Market just outside of T'afia. I would advise you to bring plenty of cash because good food doesn't come cheap. Fortuantely for us, Monica gave each of us a bag of treats from each of the farmer's market booths. It was pretty awesome!
Afterwards, we went upstairs to the cooking class where she make crab claws and a pave. Watching Monica cook, teach, and entertain was very educational and fun. The visit was very inspiring and a good reminder that good food takes time. It makes me sad when I see people eating frozen entrees. What have we resorted to? I hope that I can incorporate more newness and adventure in the foods that I cook and taste.
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