An exquisite evening awaits you at the Roblar Winery Cooking School for classes full of wonderful food and excellent wine. Guest Chef Saba Tewolde will start her class with a cooking demonstration and appetizers paired with Roblar wines. After the class, everyone is seated in the beautiful Roblar barrel room for a 4 to 5 course dinner paired with more Roblar wines. Each class is limited to 24 seats and reservations are required. Reserve your seat today.
Saba Tewolde, Ethiopian chef, shares the dishes of her homeland as a private chef, caterer and instructor. Her love of cooking began at an early age. Raised by her grandmother, Saba learned how to prepare traditional dishes as a young girl and loved cooking for her family. At the age of ten, Saba would bake bread in an outdoor wood-burning oven and sell it in the local village. With the proceeds, she would purchase ingredients to prepare traditional family meals.
Saba was born, at home in Ethiopia, the eighth of twelve children. The exact year and date of her birth are not known. She was approximately five years old during the drought of 1984-85, when a million Ethiopians died during what is referred to as “Ethiopia’s Holocaust”.
Saba moved to Saudi Arabia when she was 13 or 14 years old and worked 24 hours a day for a family as a maid before escaping the middle eastern country with a combination of bribes, a false French passport and travels through Romania, Italy and France. Upon her arrival in San Francisco, Saba immediately went to the American Embassy and was admitted to the United States under political asylum five years ago.
Since then, Saba has established herself as a much in demand private chef and caterer in Santa Barbara, preparing Ethiopian cuisine to enthusiastic reactions and rave reviews.
Saba plans to continue her private chef and catering business (she buys only the best organic ingredients; her mother sends spices from Ethiopia) so that she can help her family members financially; but her dream is to open an Ethiopian restaurant in Santa Barbara where she can share her food and culture with others.
“The most rewarding part about cooking is when you see hungry people full and satisfied,” says Saba, “You don’t see it in their tummy, you see it in their eyes!”