Summer is in full swing so let your cooking skills thrive, too.
Chef Janos Wilder is teaming up with the San Xavier Coop Farm for the “Cooking a Summer Bounty” online class from 10 a.m. – noon on Saturday, August 14.
It’s the fourth class in the “Summer Monsoon: Desert Senses Awake” series of workshops presented by the Desert Laboratory on Tumamoc Hill. Don’t worry if you’ve missed any of the past classes because there’s still time to dust off your skills and join the upcoming lesson.
In this particular class, chef Wilder will be demonstrating how to create some modern dishes consisting of wild and ancient ingredients, as well as the “bounty of Tucson’s summer gardens.”
In other words, you’ll learn about the diversity of cacti fruits including cholla buds, juice of the prickly pear, and bahidaj sitol — the rare syrup that’s made from saguaro fruit.
The dishes will also be based on flour that’s ground from mesquite beans and verdolagas that grow wild in Tucson washes once monsoon rains barrel through.
Tickets are $45 per person and that includes six months of access to the recording and other resources from the workshop.
During the online class, Wilder will be joined by Maryia Miles of San Xavier Coop Farms for a discussion about the cultural importance of desert food plants. To top it all off, you’ll also be able to join the live question and answer session along with a virtual tour of the farm fields of San Xavier Coop Farm and the Mission Gardens.
For more information, visit eventbrite.com.
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Article written by:
Matt Sterner
More about MattAt a very young age, Matt Sterner was gifted with the artistic ability to masterfully roll a burrito to the highest of standards, but the wrapped medley of delicious innards wasn’t his first love. Matt’s first true love was a combination of reading, writing, and creating. He grew up reading comics, the ingredients list of his shampoo and conditioner bottles, choose-your-own-adventure books, and the Scrabble dictionary — something he found useful when challenging his grandmother to a game.
He attended college at New Mexico State University and graduated with a degree in Digital Filmmaking. One of his favorite classes was screenwriting because he became responsible for the story’s birth before it came to life on-screen. After school, Matt took on numerous positions at a local television station in Tucson. From dealing out stories about heartbreak to producing “fluffier” content for a lifestyle broadcast, he learned what it takes to adapt to the many emotions the world of media can stir. Since 2017, Matt has dabbled in the culinary world of Tucson as well as San Diego, California from time to time.
If you’re in the mood for strange stories, head over to his pride and joy, wonkytimes.com. And in case you’re curious — yes, after all of this time, he still manages to roll a killer burrito.
