I suspect that Licorice icecream is one of the dishes most strongly identified with Somerset. Its been on our menu, since the inception - and although in the early years we played around with the presentation and the sauces a little, we have got over the need to update it, and now just serve it in all its glory with freshly squeezed orange juice ( a combination that cropped up thru pure serendipity, when Rick happened to eat some licorice icecream having just had a glass of OJ, and commented on how well the 2 flavours melded, which when you think about it makes sense - remember the balls we used to get at the movies which were aniseed and orange,)and oranges that have been dehydrated and then dipped in dark chocolate.  Sometimes we have to talk people into trying it with the orange juice - they don't think the flavours are going to work, but the icecream needs that acidity becos its so rich.

The original recipe came from Des Britten, from his Coachman restaurant where both Rick and I worked - he used to serve it as part of a trio of homemade icecreams, but we found very early on at Somerset, that it had a fan club all of its own, which is why its served all by itself, and is why we also sell a serious number of pottles for people to eat at home. People pop in quite regularly to the restaurant to pick up some licorice - and we always notice a spike in sales just before long weekends.

We have used RJs Licorice to make it for years - that gets melted down and then added to the custard base, unlike some licorice icecreams we've tryed where they've used the licorice root, or as we've also seen occasionally, vanilla icecream to which some licorice allsorts have been added.

Its the type of flavour you either like or you don't, and we seldom put it on set menus for the reason that it tends to divide people. They are either fans or they are most definitly not!

We do however sell kilos and kilos of it in the week, and there are people who have been eating with us for years who will never be tempted by anything else for dessert. For that reason therefore, there has been a little consternation expressed over the change in its appearance over the last couple of months - its gone from being a somewhat greenish tinge, to looking more like chocolate chip, and I thought an explanation was in order.

We noticed it first a couple of months ago - the licorice we get from RJs looks the same, but once heated it took on a brownish hue, rather than the green tones we were used too. A few phone enquiries later, we were told that they had decided to stop adding a colourant to the licorice, hence the change. So now when I put it down in front of someone in the restaurant I explain that it isn't chocolate chip, but is licorice, and will taste exactly the same, which it in fact does.

I've just had a couple of spoonfuls from the bowl Craig dished me up so that I could take the photo below, and I can verify that there is  most definitly no difference in flavour - it still tastes distinctly and rather divinely of licorice.

We did a cookschool this morning and in the flurry of purchasing of product that was going on at the end, one of the participants nailed me becos she'd bought a copy of the cookbook and the licorice icecream recipe wasn't in it, and she wanted to know why. We've never done it in a class,  which is the main reason its not in the book, becos it contains recipes we've done in classes, and  somehow I don't think Rick ever will - but he's given out a number of other icecream recipes, which can be adapted if people so desire.

Much less hassle to buy it from us though!!

A good customer has just sent me this interesting link to a Radio NZ broadcast about umami - the timing of which was most fortuitous, becos we'd been discussing it in the kitchen the other day, when Matt mentioned that he and his mother had watched a programme about it on the Food Network.

I've read various articles about umami over the years - I think the first time I encountered it was on a wine course that we did at Mills Reef with Bob Campbell, when he started discussing flavours. For centuries the accepted version has been that there are 4 main flavours - all food can be broken down into salty, sweet, sour or bitter, but a Japanese chemist at the start of the 19th Century did some work that illuminated a 5th taste, umami, that he described as the flavour when food starts to break down. Glutamate. His theory was published and  resoundingly rubbished at the time, and has only really  gained credence over the last 10-20 years, particularly in the hands of chefs, who have grown to understand that certain foods have an intensity of flavour that adds to the overall deliciousness of food. Foodstuffs like parmesan cheese, overripe tomatoes, soy sauces that have fermented, meats that have been browned to the point of caramalisation... by incorporating these flavours into dishes, then the overall flavour impact goes up, and customers like that, so chefs have become increasingly aware of 'umami' flavours, and have started consciously doing, what good cooks in all the great cuisines of the world have known on a subconscious level for centuries.

Needless to say the number of magazine articles on the subject have increased significantly over the last few years. I got a book thru Amazon a couple of years back that describes in detail the concept of umami, and includes a number of recipes from top American chefs- 'The Fifth Taste- cooking with Umami" David and Anna Kasabian

Its an idea that I suspect there will be alot more hyperbole about in the years to come, as mainstream media catches on to it, so listen to this broadcast and you will be substantively ahead of the play! I liked the concept expressed that in the acceptance of this fifth taste, which took awhile to break thru scientific orthodoxy, it was the chefs as artists who trusted their tongues and sense of taste, who finally convinced the scientists. Artists lead the scientists.. for some reason that is an idea that has resonance with me. I like it!

http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/thiswayup - click onto Good Taste and you should be able to listen to the recording... sorry about the pyschedic imagery though!

The title is a red herring. This book is not about what the waitress overhears at tables, but more about the process of becoming a professional  waiter at Per Se, the restaurant that Thomas Keller of The French Laundry fame, opened in the Time Warner Centre in New York in 2005, amidst huge hype and mind boggling extents of expenditure.

Thomas Keller is one of the worlds most pre- eminent chefs. The French Laundry in the Napa Valley is regularly lauded as one of the top restaurants in the world. We have never been, but people we know have, and it is most definitley on that list of things I want to do before I die, list.

The Time Warner centre in New York opened with the biggest concentration of top eateries in America, and the amount of money spent on the fit out of these places is simply boggling. One oven in the massive kitchen at Per Se was worth $250,000 - and that is in American dollars. She makes the comment that gossip had it that Thomas Keller himself put up $12 million, and he had financial backers as well. So what the total cost of the operation was, I can only marvel at.

But the money spent wasn't just on the capital fitout - staff were brought on board a month before opening, and trained for that time. Trained to absorb all the myriad detail that the food served at that level requires, to be able to be responsive to each and every request from customers, used to getting exactly what they want when they want it. The running costs of a restaurant  like that are something I can only marvel at - the waiting staff are given Mont Blanc pens to use to take orders; the tablecloths are ironed before being placed on the tables; there is an army of staff - each section has a maitr d', a captain, a backserver and a sommalier. There would also be restaurant managers and cashiers and phone staff - not to mention office staff on top of that. Boy would I like to sit down and analyse a Profit and Loss from that style of operation.

The French Laundry became famous partly becos Chef Keller instigated a style of eating that was relatively unknown back in the early 90s. He believed in the law of diminishing returns - that with eating more is in effect, less. The more you eat of a dish, no matter how delicious the first few mouth fulls may have been, you always reach a point where the taste buds become satiated and then bored. So he decided to titivate people with a series of tasting plates, each with a tiny portion of exquisite food, that would fire up the enthusiasm and leave people wanting more. We have tryed a similar philosophy at the magnificent restaurant Tetsuyas, in Sydney, who also serves dinner in the form of a succesion of delicate and exquisitely presented tiny courses. Its a wonderful way to eat for a special occasion, but as someone in the industry I just can't quite get my head around the logistics of serving up to 17 courses to a table - with different dishes going out to people. At Tetsuyas, as a table of 4, we all had the same food, but she says in this book that at Per Se, people are served different combinations at the same table, so as to keep things 'interesting'!

For me personally, the jury is still out on whether I like that idea, or find it overkill. I mean by that, that the human brain only really has the ability to absorb so much data within a dining period, especially when the effects of alcohol are added to the mix, and I wonder how many people actually get to fully appreciate each and every taste and combination thru to the very end of the menu. These are special occasion restaurants - I doubt they would have regulars who would come weekly - people organise world trips around when they can book into these restaurants, so in part these tasting menus have grown out of a need to impress those sorts of people. But what the book discusses in some detail is where that crosses the line between luxery and excess, and I thought she covered the point rather well, without actually being critical of the restaurant and its philosophy.

I struggle at Somerset sometimes with people who take themselves just that bit too much importantly, and who want to prattle on about each and every component part of the meal, and the philosophy behind it. While I am well versed in what we do and why - I can't help but feel like responding to some of these people ( and restaurant critics are absolutley the worst culprits of these type of behaviour - wanting to know the 'source' of the pork, or whether its this seasons spring lamb, or... a veritable bombardment of queries and questions), with the request that they chill out instead, sit back, relax, and just enjoy the flavours. They don't have to turn it into an intellectual, earnest experience - they can just be.

I have observed over the years that the wine industry tends to attract its share of pretenscious snobs, who like nothing better than beating you round the ears with whatever latest bit of escoteric knowledge they may have - and  its only recently that I've noticed a similar trend starting to dominant in food and restaurant discussions, and I found her comments on what she encounted in one of the top restaurants in America absolutely fascinating.

She blames it on the excesses of society - where the obsessive attention to dining is a reflection of the fact we have too much time and money, and live in a time that is status obsessed. If the papers say a restaurant is good - then we need to go becos it must be good.  We don't want to appear to be ignorant by not doing what everyone else is doing...

I kind of agree with her to a point, and then I don't. My belief is that what we are currently experiencing in the Western world is a resurgence of awareness of the importance of good food, after a couple of generations where we've been fed the line that we should be buying pre packaged food ( made and advertised by huge companies),  becos of the convenience of time. But slowly, slowly, we've been questioning the flavour, the health impacts and most recently the environmental impact of that style of eating - and theres an ever growing group of people who are making a point of going back to an oldfashioned notion of eating food that has come from sources we are comfortable with.

A restaurant like Per Se, takes that notion to an extreme, and trains their front staff to know about every drop of barrel aged vinegar, and the heirloom duck, and what type of cows and from what farm the milk for a particular cheese comes .  Does that type of approach run into the danger of sounding  too self important?  Possibly - but I guess your interpretation of that will depend where on the spectrum you sit in terms of the importance of the quality of food that you are eating.  I'm pretty passionate about food - but I don't think I'm obsessive.  I would find dining at a restaurant that takes food that importantly a wonderful experience and one that would become one of those special memory imprints. ( I can still recall most of the 14 courses we had at Tetsuyas, and that was about 10 years ago, but the food was so memorable.) But even for someone like me, its not the style of eating that I'd want to do every week. It would be too intense for that kind of frequency.

I think its great that we are starting to care about where our food comes from again- how its been farmed and treated. I see all of that as a positive. And if theres enough people out there prepared to pay a premium to source artisanally grown foodstuffs, which allows the producer to eschew cost cutting methods, then even better. But can that process move  along the spectrum into excessive self importance and focus, on the where and the hows - and forget that in the end it really is all about food and the table and company and enjoying yourself ? Yes , I think it can. And yes I think some people do become fixated, but that is human nature - there will always be extremes.

Some of her wittiest comments relate to customers, and their foibles. What she defines as 'high maintenance adults" .I chortled, known exactly what she was eluding too, and exactly how irritating those kinds of people can be. And how you have to very literally remind yourself that it is their problem, and not actually a reflection on you. They carry that dysfunctional approach to food and life in general everywhere - but you don't have too.

She gives a series of tips on how to behave in a restaurant - most of which I thought were iminently practical.

And then she finishes with a description of the 17 course meal that she and her partner had at the restaurant, after she'd finished working there - 17 courses over 6 hours. (You see, the accountant in me, kicks in straight away, becos I know from reading books by top New York chefs, that they work hard to turn tables, twice sometimes 3 times in an evening so as to maximise the possible return they can get from each chair in the restaurant, becos they have too, becos of the costs of keeping the whole operation afloat. And I wonder how Chef Keller can therefore afford to serve a style of food that means that people occupy the same seat for 6 hours, when he has the kind of overheads that he must have. I think I better go and do a google search and see if I can track down a menu and have a look at the prices.)

Its all fascinating. I love reading it becos its gist for the mill for me to chew over and discuss with Rick. We are comfortable at the moment with our positioning on the spectrum - we question it periodically, ie do we want to get more exclusive or move in the other direction so as to attract bigger numbers? But I think thats a healthy sign of a business that doesn't feel its arrived at its end point yet. There is always room for improvement and change, and reading what happens in other restaurants always provides some interesting points to ponder.

This book certainly provided that for me.

PS Just found this link http://www.observer.com/2007/thomas-keller

Robin Feron is someone we have known since our earliest days in Tauranga. It was Robins vision that saw a number of new eateries open up in this town, and we were always impressed with how he managed to touch the prevailing zeitgast in just the right way, by providing the town with a new and different eating out option. Eastcoasters was his first venture I think, and he went on to opening Harbourside ( with me expressing concern thats its proximity to the railway track would mean it wouldn't work! I've learnt not to pontificate on such subjects anymore..), and the Med. Plus others. For the last few years he kind of disappeared of the radar as he managed the food at a local club, so we were intrigued to see his name associated with the new restaurant and bar thats opened up over at the Mount - Kina Bar and Cafe, round the road from Astrolabe in the old Bardellis site.

Rick and I had had a huge cookschool on Sunday, and were relieved to have staff cover for the night, meaning that we didn't have to front and work. There were a couple of movies I was keen to see, but we missed the starting times for them, and instead drove over to the Mount with a view to having a drink, and a mooch and a wind down. Ended up at Robins, and got taken on a conducted tour of the new facilities, and stayed on to have a pizza and glass of wine, as you do. Great pizzas - skinny dough, and lots of semolina flour on the base which for some reason especially appeals to me. Guessed that Roger Farrell from Bay Wine Distributors was doing the wine list - cos a good range of interesting wines, with a number available by the glass. Find that a very civilised notion, to be able to have a glass of a good wine, with a pizza, when you're just in the mood for quick and easy, and to walk away spending $60.00 or so for 2. Great value, and I am sure the concept  is going to appeal.

Then today we wandered down to Palmers on the corner with our daughters who are both on study leave, to have lunch. Hadn't been in the new shop yet, but had met the operator at a Restaurant Assn meeting, and admired the passion  that she aticulated for what she was doing. We went not at all sure what to expect, and came away impressed. Coffees good ( a crucial necessity these days becos everyones so coffee aware), but they're also trying to do something a little different with the food, and I like that its made on site and is therefore individual, and different from the run of the mill. Curious also that the site, which I had once again pontificated about ( becos of its proximity to the busy road), did in fact work really well. The cafe is tucked around the side, looks down almost on the end of our property, and is much quieter than I expected. The moral of the story being, yet once again, you shouldn't judge till you try!

The French Cafe is one of New Zealands top restaurants, and we've been going for years, thru 3 changes of owners.  We've always liked it - always found that it pushes the barrow just enough to make it interesting and provocative, and certainly under the current owners, Simon Wright and Creghan Molloy, it has developed into a world class restaurant.  Very, very serious about what they do, and incredibly clever, but somehow still managing to have a New Zealand feel.

The chef, Simon Wright has written a beautiful cookbook, showcasing the intricate food he serves in the restaurant. One of our staff brought in Gordon Ramseys latest cookbook 'Chef' today, and flicking thru it briefly just now, Rick and I have commented on the distinct similarities between the exquisite attention paid to the food and its presentation.

He describes his journey to getting to the point they are now with the restaurant. We have heard various things over the years as you do when you work in the industry, but I hadn't realised that he knew Gordon in London and had actually worked with him at Marco Pierre Whites trialblazing restaurant  'Harvey's".

He spoke about the evolution of the restaurant - how as they have been able too afford too, they have made changes, and improved the overall ambience, in line with where they want to be. We haven't been since the latest changes that they made earlier this year, but I was intrigued to read about his need to improve work flows in the kitchen, because its something that we have incorporated in the plans we hope to do here next year, when we finally get the land next door rezoned.

We have a huge range of eateries in New Zealand now - and I think its a real growing up sign, when we can have establishments with the level of sophistication of The French Cafe, that may be inspired by what happens in France,( his description of a weeks experience in Guy Savoys restaurant in Paris, was fascinating), but which have the confidence to be grounded right here.  Given their level of commitment as articulated in the book, it is my sincere hope that we will get to have alot more meals there over the years.

( I got my copy of the book from Books a Plenty in Grey St, becos they are a wonderful bookshop- and you can also order it direct from the restaurant via their website.)

After we have done a cookschool at Somerset, we sit down in the restaurant with the attendees and eat for lunch what it is that Rick has prepared, together with a wine  that I've chosen . I usually make an effort in sourcing that wine to come up with something a little less common, so that people get the opportunity to try something that maybe they wouldn't have done so in the ordinary course of events.

Because we have been here awhile, and because we have profile as a business, we've built up an extensive number of contacts in the liquor industry, all of which means I sweep with a wide broom when I go looking for a particular wine. We even have an account with Lion Nathan, a behemoth of a company, who's credit application forms required that I signed over all our assets, our childrens inheritance and possibly our grandchildrens inheritance, by way of personal guarantees!We do however also deal with alot of small wineries who don't have a a retail presence - relying on restaurants to get their brand out into the public domain.

When we opened Somerset back in 86, we were BYO only, as were most of the restaurants in town. The 1989 Sale of Liquor Act finally brought a grown up attitude to dining out in New Zealand ( with one of two regretable anomalies..),  and helped create the profusion of licensed cafes and bars that we now quite naturally take as part of our normal landscape. They simply weren't there 25 years ago, becos the licensing laws were so archiac and rigid.

We got our on license in the early 90s - fuelled in part by the comment made by a number of our business clientele, that they felt it looked naff to bring important overseas customers to a restaurant, along with the wine in a brown paper bag. Its a concept that is virtually nonexistant overseas, and these guys worried that it made them look cheap in the eyes of people they were trying to impress.  So for that reason, and for the very obvious one that it was a needed and natural extension to the business, we got the license ( after putting in seperate loos, and getting permission from neighbours, and increasing the number of carparks, and...)

The first wine list had 8 wines on it: a bubbly, 3 whites, 3 reds and 1 dessert. Last nite I counted the wines on our current list out of interest and got:

 8 Bubbly

9 Riesling

4 Gewurztraminer

6 Pinot Gris

4 Rose/Chenin Blanc

7 Sauvignon Blanc

14 Chardonnay

17 Bordeaux style red

4 Grenache/Temporanillo

9 Shiraz

15 Pinot Noir

9 Dessert

Its grown just  a titch. And will continue to do so, so my storage capacity increases.

The license we have is an 'on' license, meaning that we are legally allowed to sell alcohol for consumption on the premises, but not anywhere else. ( As an aside, that means technically, that if you had a bottle of wine over dinner at Somerset, and decided to err on the side of caution and not drink it all before the drive home, but asked instead for us to cork it and give it to you to take home, I would be legally required to deny you that reasonable request. Bollocks I say - I'd far rather customers drove home safely and drank the rest of the wine when it suited them, and its not our practice to say no, although I have heard of businesses that have.I am aware that in doing so, I am operating outside a strict interpretation of the law, but I believe I'm acting ethically and sensibly in doing so.)

I used to get lots of enquiries during cookschools about the wines I was serving, and where people could access them - to the point that it kind of dawned on me, to apply for an 'off' license so that I could act as a wholesaler and on sell the wine to people myself - in that way I'd be operating within the law, and wouldn't run the risk of jepordising my exisiting on license. Reasonably straight forward kind of concept I thought. Silly me! 18 months later, as I've worked my way thru the labyrinth of interpretation and bureaucratic nonsense, I am now the proud pocessor of an off license.

But!

A restaurant is not legally allowed to simultaneously hold an 'on' license and an 'off'license, so I've had to set up a seperate company with a seperate bank account to run the off license, and that ironically, was the easy part of the process.! Suffice to say we are there now, and thanks to  a delightfully  ( and most unusually!) pragmatic local Liquor Licensing Officer, we are now able to operate as a wholesaler. Note the word 'wholesaler". Thats good in the sense that I can onsell wine at fantastic prices, but bad in the sense that the restaurant is not a retailer, and people can't drop in to buy a bottle of wine, as they would at a wine shop, to take to a dinner party. We're not allowed to sell like that.

I will sell the wine thru the cookschools - from now on a note will be attached to the recipes, with the bottle and case price of the wine we're drinking in that class and people will be able to take it home with them then, or organise for us to deliver it later. And in addition, I am going to have a 'Somerset Wine' page on the website ( Moca are working on it now), where people will be able to purchase the wines listed over the internet, or thru a personal email to me.

We are using Odyssey Rose, in the current series ( one of my missions in life, is to reintroduce people to the delights of a good rose in the middle of the day. The average Kiwi gets sniffy at rose, associating it with Mateus and Cold Duck, when in fact, it is a delightful wine, much drunk in France,) and I'm now in the delightful position where I can legally sell bottles and cases of it to people for them to take home. Thats good for our customers, good for me, and good for the wine producer!

My aim is to slowly build up the list. What I sell will be particular to what I source, and geared towards our existing customers. The Odyssey rose was the first step; I  have a meeting regarding  adding the wine page to the restaurant website next week, and hopefully in time for Christmas purchasing  we will have listed a range of French and New Zealand bubbles, that I can access at great prices ( I have that list done, and if you wanted it faxed or emailed thru in the interim, let me know!), because bubbles is kind of what I associate with Christmas. And then next year, I  plan on making a special feature of a different winery every month at the restaurant, and concurrent with that, will add those wines to my off license list- gradually extending out what we have available.

Wine is a big part of what I do in the business, so this feels like a very  comfortable and logical next step, and I'm rather relieved that the powers that be have finally agreed! We just need to bring them on side with the kitchen extensions cos the underground cellar is planned for under that, and I need more storage space....

Put on some high heels and went out for dinner with my husband tonite to Astrolabe. Had been planning on taking our daughters also, but they both declined becos of study committments, and since exams are looming, and I've been less than impressed with the amount of study they've been doing to date, I decided not to call foul, but to leave them in peace and to head out as just the two of us. We had a lovely evening as we always do at Astrolabe - food and service were absolutely superb - am amazing place that somehow manages to be different things to different people ( restaurant/bar/cafe) , but always done with a degree of panache, that means we leave feeling warm and replete. I read with some disbelieve the review that was written in the Sunday Star  Times by Geraldine Johns a couple of weeks back  about Astrolabe, and  once again shook my head in incredulousness that the editorial  people on that newspaper, can honestly believe that its valid to employ someone with no industry credibility to write in 'shock, horror' tones about food businesses, when she writes complete and utter vapid crap. Her method appears to be to sound clever and snotty, and her reviews always belie a complete lack of understanding about the restaurant business, and a totally over the top sense of significance of her own importance,  and regret that she has to share restaurant space with the general public, who usually seem to cause her an inordinate amount of angst, and for which she always manages to somehow blame the restaurant itself. Her reviews are almost always trite, overwritten examples of hyperbole and drama, behind which I suspect is the desire to shock and titillate and provoke reaction.  She sneers at people, and I don't see that as valid or productive. It certainly isn't what I would call 'criticism'. I would prefer logical, calm analysis - but have long since given up expecting that from the likes of Ms Johns. The Astrolabe review especially provoked me, becos it was written about a business that we know well, and it started off absolutely hammering them. If you hadn't known the restaurant you would have stopped reading, assuming that it was a bad experience, but she actually goes on and  recoups towards the end of the column, begrudgingly giving them credit for knowing how to produce good food, and provide reasonable service - but her compliments are given with such ill grace, that a number of people I've spoken too about the review missed them altogether, and assumed that Astolabe had been annihilated .That pissed me off mightily, becos its completely undeserving. But you get that, especially from people who sneer. And as businesses in the food industry we have no come back from unfair comments in the media - beyond just getting on with what it is that we do, day after day - and not letting that kind of crap carry a disproportionate amount of weight. I like very much that the guys at Astrolabe have the class to do that.

Mondays are nice days for Rick and I, cos they're the one day of the week that the restaurant is closed. We used to do the occasional cookschool on a Monday, but have stopped now, as we've learnt to value that having at least one day clear of work responsibilites is really important for us on all sorts of levels. We get Sundays off too occasionally, but not this time of year, when we're heavily involved in the Christmas cookschool series, which is always the biggest of the year, and as such involves most Sundays in November. We're well into that series, and with things underway, relax into a nice routine  about the classes, that we both enjoy. I never fail to come back over to the house after a class with a warm glow of satisfaction, that is generated in large part from people articulating how much they've enjoyed the experience. In each class we still get a mix of people who've been coming for ages, and those who're arriving for the first time and are unsure of what to expect. I like it very much when those people leave raving, and promising to return. Makes the effort that we put into each class all worthwhile.

My brother called in last week and I showed him the plans for the building extensions that will one day give us a custom built cookschool kitchen. For the last few months we 've been bogged down in all the requirements of off street carparking that the increase in the building size is going to require, and as a result its been a while since I've looked at the plans. Explaining them to Alan was a useful reminder of why it is that we want to borrow yet more money and take this step, becos the cookschools have become such a big part of the business, and we both love the idea of the flexibilitly that the new kitchen will give us. So need to keep channelling energy towards that goal, since its valid in terms of the growth of the business.

We've been doing a lot of discussion since we got back to work, about business growth and what we see as our next step,  and have a number of ideas that we now want to bounce of people whos opinion we value.  One of our daughters leaves home next year, and the balances in our life will change as a result. Even though Hannah is very independant as she is now, the pyshological impact of knowing that your children are  moving into the next stage of their life journey, means that you get to contemplate where you are at, and what it is that you want to achieve. I confess that for the first couple of weeks after we got back from France, I did sucumb to a morbid sense of ' I don't want to do this anymore; lets sell up and run away' type mentality, that gradually diminished, until I've reached  a sense of remembering how much I enjoy what it is that we do. Conscious however, that there is more that we do want to do, and as our day to day focus moves away from  our children, room is created for other things, and those opportunities are what are being tossed around by us both at the moment. For the first 17 years in this business we worked incredibily hard just to keep our heads above the water level, and over the last four years, things have changed at an increasing pace, as we've been able to add to the core business. That is a process of growth that I expect to see accentuated over the next few years, and we have the energy and enthusiasm to focus. All cool!

Had an exceptionally lazy morning at home, becos it was wet and windy - no rushing over to the Mount to do any exercise. Headed into town for lunch at the Med as is our habit on Mondays - the Med is simply the best cafe we have in Tauranga. Jo is a consumate professional who delivers a consistent product day after day and has attracted a formidable cartel of regulars who go there every day, and sometimes more than once a day. She has created what I always envisaged as the quintessential cafe culture, where people feel wanted and appreciated, and are served  fantastic coffees. The tables are ridiculously close together and it just doesn't seem to matter becos we're all so used to it, and go there for a whole host of other reasons. It proves to me that these places where a fortune is spent on the setup and look, don't seem to grasp that the fundamental in hospo, is making the paying public feel good enough about what they experience to want to come back, again and again. Look gets forgotten very quickly, but how people are treated and the qualitly of what they are served does not. That rather than how flash somewhere looks  determines whether or not customers are going to come back and make a place viable.

On our way out of town we remembered the picture gallery thats been down on the Strand as part of the Arts Festival, and spent an hour or so working our way along all the extraodinary photographs of the planet. A depiction intended to remind us of the precariousness of the state of our environment, and that sentiment was very profoundly conveyed via the  photos. A fantastic exhibition which if you haven't seen yet, you really should make the effort to go and have a look at. The sheer size of the photos seems to accentuate their impact - quite amazing. Shows nature in all her glory, but there are also some very thought provoking photos of the impact that man has had on nature, and similarly the impact that nature can wreck on manmade constructions . Very sobering.

By chance we'd had a lengthy conversation with someone we knew at the Med today, who'd been in Mexico last Christmas, and who had heard about our plans to head there next year. Debbie raved about the place and the people and in doing so, helped fire up my enthusiasm for the project  after a period of been focused on France for obvious reasons. I believe we need another 2 people for the trip to become viable for the travel agents organising it -mailto:annie@cwtravel.co.nz, and I'll now put some energy into trying to convince people we know to come with us. Looking at these photos today, simply reinforced for me how big the world is and how much out there there is to see, and how we should seize every opportunity we get ,becos none of us know whats round the corner for us.

I've been working on a Notebook  for everyone who came with us to France - a compilation of recipes, notes and photos, which they're have as a momento. We've been bumping into those people, as we've been out and about over the last couple of weeks, and its been wonderfully gratifying to listen to them speak so positively of the time they spent with us. We worked pretty hard for those 2 weeks of cookschools - always hyper conscious of wanting people to have a good time, and acutely aware, that no matter how well organised we may be, if the customers themselves don't want to get on, then nothing we may do or say is going to impact. We were lucky. The people who came were great - and made a real effort to have a good time, in doing so making what we had to do so much easier. Its been a huge experience, which, as I expected, is going to be a fond that we will be drawing on for years to come. It all adds to what we do becos we look at things from a new perspective, and that is a really useful exercise.

The rest of my family are sitting watching the Tour of Southland on the TV - study has obviously finished for the night!- and I think I'll retreat to bed with a book, cos I don't share their enthusiasm for watching a pelaton. I  don't understand all the  attacking and counterattacking that goes on in the way they do - and it all just gets a tinsy bit repetitive, but to give voice to that opinion in the present company would result in complete incomprehension!