Huckleberry’s Gets Cooking On Tuesday

Another Tuesday evening rolls around, and you don’t know what to do for dinner?

For $8, you could probably pick up a pizza on sale somewhere and start wondering what to do for dinner all over again the next night.

Or you could spend the same sum to attend the Tuesday night cooking class at Huckleberry’s Fresh Market in the Spokane Valley and feed your face while learning recipes you can repeat time and again.

Since the classes started a couple of months ago, chef Jerry Toews has demonstrated such dishes as curried lamb, eggplant parmesan and Dijon scallops. Participants watch - and sometimes get called up to help - then sample the results.

“I try to make it kind of entertaining and not get too technical,” says Toews, who tries to use all natural and organic ingredients.

There’s also advice about what wines to pair with food, with wine available for sipping for an extra fee.

Classes start at 6:30 p.m. each week. To register, call 928-3687.

Benefit beverages

The next time you tip your wine glass - or your coffee cup - you could be helping the Spokane Food Bank, or the Cheney Cowles Museum.

The Hogue Cellars is donating a portion of its wine sales to the Food Bank through September. There’s also a special “Taking a Bite Out of Hunger” coffee blend to benefit the Food Bank, being sold by 4 Seasons Coffee Roasting Co. at its downtown store and at the Valley Huckleberry’s.

And another coffee blend, “From Earth & Sky” - using only organically grown beans - is being marketed by Craven’s Coffee Co. and Cheney Cowles to raise funds for the museum, which has an exhibition by that name starting Sept. 28. Craven’s Coffee is available in various supermarkets and specialty shops.

Gobbling gourmets

Do you make a righteous wrap, or a boffo bisque? Two winners will each receive $500 in Butterball’s “Most Creative Soup and Sandwich” recipe contest. (Turkey, of course, is a required ingredient.)

Entries are due Sept. 15. For complete rules, send a stamped, self-addressed envelope to Butterball’s Soup and Sandwich Official Contest Rules, P.O. Box 81830, Chicago, IL 60681-0830, or visit www.butterball.com.

Butter belle

Finally, fond wishes to that grand dame of culinary creativity, Julia Child, who turns 85 on Friday.

In 1994, Child told an interviewer:

“Whenever anyone asks me what I want for a birthday dinner, I always say, ‘Roast duck and a big, gooey cake.”’

Here’s hoping she gets it.

, DataTimes