I was excited to be invited to Diane’s Market Kitchen to learn to make an olive oil cake and mingle with other food bloggers this week. I found her little kitchen, in the shadow of Pike Place Market. Her store front looks like an empty lunch counter. She says that many people make that mistake. Although you can’t order up lunch from her, she will teach you how to make a killer lunch for yourself.
The Universe was conspiring in Diane’s favor when she started the work to get her kitchen up and running. Friends stepped in to offer assistance, money was found, and donations were offered. She took the small storefront of an old kilt shop, tucked into the bottom of Post Alley, and gutted it herself, turning it into her Market Kitchen. “Everything in here is here for a reason,” she told us when we began to filter in last night. There is the miniature dishwasher, just the right size for clean up after a class, and the long granite counter top which she was given free reign to choose from the boneyard. Stacked like a culinary pyramid, dozens of canning jars line the back counter, filled with spices, salts, and sugars. So many flavorful and quality ingredients, presented in such a direct and unfussy fashion, seems a lot like Diane herself. As she got started on the cake batter, it struck me how at home she seemed, talking to her audience and stirring her batter. “Being a chef and being a teacher are two different skill sets,” she told us, and it is clear that she has both. Earlier in the day, I had wondered why someone who knows how to cook would go to a cooking class to make an olive oil cake. I could just read the recipe at home, right? As I listened to her talk about her ingredients, the chef who gave her the recipe, and the story of olive oil, I realized this is what you come to Diane’s Market Kitchen for. I felt foolish for thinking that it was as simple as reading through a recipe. “If you look at traditional Italian and Spanish recipes that call for good olive oil, you will notice that the recipe never includes pepper,” she explained, “because the pepper comes from the oil!” She passed around a little cup of oil, instructing us to pour a little on our spoon. She showed us how to inhale the oil, to aerate it, on its way to the back of your mouth. I was surprised by how pronounced the peppery quality of the oil was. Someone from the other end of the bar coughed as the oil hit her throat. Diane had us taste the same oil from the previous year, and the difference was noticeable. Although the peppery finish was still there, the grassy quality that could be tasted in the new oil was lost. “A really good quality olive oil will have the year printed on the label,” Diane explained, and after tasting the two oils side by side, it is obvious why.
After tasting olive oil that costs $50 a quart, and European pine nuts that demand $72 a pound, it’s clear that Diane is willing to spend the money for high quality ingredients. A dish, she says, “is no better than the worst thing that goes in it.” On the other hand, she encourages her students to taste and compare. Why spend the extra money if you can’t taste the difference? “It all depends on your individual palette.” We tasted two cakes, made from two different olive oils, and again the difference was noticeable. The more expensive olive oil, with its peppery bite, made the cake into a more savory dish, while the less expensive oil made a sweeter cake. It wasn’t that one oil made a better cake than the other, but rather, as Diane pointed out, when you know your ingredients, you can use the one that is best suited to your needs.
Now that I see what a good teacher can do with even a short two hour class, I would love to see what Diane does with her longer class series. Before we left, she mentioned that her door is open on “Cookie Fridays” for a bite of whatever she has coming out of the oven. You can bet I will be stopping by.