I was invited to the Essencia Demo Kitchen and Cooking School Tuesday night. The school was established in 2006, and is now branching out to offer Hungarian cooking courses to foreigners in English, Italian, French and Finnish. Maybe because I had just attended a Makifood course (who use Treehugger Dan's Fair Trade organic spices and herbs!), or maybe I just misunderstood, but I had it in mind that we would be cooking Hungarian food. In fact, all we had to do is eat and drink! I was also drawn to the evening because there was to be a Sauska wine (Villany) tasting, one of my favorite vineyards. Surprisingly, Mrs. Sauska runs the school, and her husband and daughter, as well as the head winemaker Laszlo Latorczai and Andras the sales manager kept the wine flowing.

On offer were:

• paprika pogacsa
• sheep cheese pogacsa
• white garlic pogacsa

I thought at first that the salt had not been mixed in properly, but as it turns out, a few slivers of delicious Maldon organic sea salt (UK) were put on top of each pogacsa. In my opinion, and I think everyone's, the white garlic pogacsa were the hit of the evening. In Hungarian "medve hagyma", or "bear garlic" is only found in the Mecsek hills around Pecs and comes up low to the ground in spear shaped leaves around Easter for a few short weeks. One eats the leaves. A great addition to any salad or any number of dishes.
We also ate nice rye bread with a variety of spreads:

• sheep's cheese with garlic
• korozott
• zakusa

They also made a fusion dish involving barley and Sauska Tokaj Furmint wine and topped with deliciously smelly Hungarian Lajta cheese. A wide range of Sauska wines were on offer, including:

• Cuvee 7 2006 Villany, Rose
• Kekfrankos 2008
• Cuvee 11
• Pinot Noir
• Merlot 2006 silver label

As always, I loved the Villany Cuvee 7 2006, and the Rose, but was greatly impressed with the excellent Kekfrankos - my new favorite. The Merlot was weak and watery at first, but with a little time it got much better.
While we were getting squiffed on awesone wine, a Mexican cooking course was in progress next door.
The event was hosted by cooking instructors Zsofia Karetka and Eszter Varady. For more information, please contact http://www.essencia.hu, info@essencia.hu