In the next newsletter, which is currently being printed and due to go out next week, I talk at length about how we are now endeavouring to be proactive about spacing the times that tables arrive, so as to avoid a major hit, and in doing so attempt to ensure that customers get better care and attention, both from front staff and kitchen staff - who aren't scurrying around like fleas in a fit!

I have no doubt that we will meet some resistance from people who will not take kindly to being told what time they can come - but I'm hoping that an awareness will gradually seep thru, that we're not doing it to be pigheaded, but purely becos we want to make things as smooth as we possibly can.

I've headed back over to the house tonite, to address another box of envelopes for that newsletter - marvelling at how spaced the nite has been, and how much easier that has made doing 70 covers. It helps with the conviction that we're doing the right thing.

Flicked thru Michael Rulhmans latest blog - one I go on regularly - and got a link to an American lady who works in a 3 star restaurant in Paris, and writes a blog- Ms Glazes Pommes d'Armour. Of special pertinance was this blog which I've copied below describing what its like to be in a French restaurant kitchen, when tables all get seated at the same time. A problem that is obviously and not surprisingly, universal!

February 16, 2008

We are about to head over to the Mount to drop off some cases of wine that we've organised for a client. We are doing her daughters wedding catering on Saturday night, and we've also organised the wine for the followup celebration that will take place the day after. Pretty typical of weddings these days to be spread over a couple of days. I delivered yet more wine to the brides Aunts house this morning, becos the family will also be having a pre wedding luncheon there - so hopefully I've sorted what needs to be where. I have nightmares about running out of wine with weddings, so usually grossly overcompensate, and end up with twice the amount needed. Therefore have tried to be a little more circumspect this time, and as a result have ended up with sleepness nights over whether I've got the calculations right.

Moral of the story is you can't win! We have lots going on in our lives at the moment, so will use the opportunity of being over at the Mount to do some exercise, which should have the beneficial effect of clearing my head a bit.

In for a busy weekend with Easter - we've been full for Saturday for awhile now, and have the outcatering wedding on as well. Means we will also be full for Friday and Sunday, as people discover they can't book in on Saturday - and its interesting to note that we're filling up for Friday, and so far no one has asked whether we charge the holiday premium that alot of eating establishments have got into a habit of adding to customers bills on Public Holidays. We don't charge it becos I don't believe in it - but I'm curious to note that people would come out for dinner seemingly regardless.

We are in the middle of our BBQ cookschool series, although we won't be doing any classes over Easter with everything else happening.

Rick has designed a menu for this series that uses every part of his new BBQ, including cooking butterflied shoulders of lamb. It all comes together really way, and theres some beautiful flavours - although one gentleman commented yesterday when he sat down at the table for lunch, that that was the 'flashiest' BBQ food he'd ever seen.  Charred sausages it definitely ain't!

We discovered pure wasabi last year and have been looking for an angle to use it ever since. I really like it when I come accross a good NZ product -and like being able to let people know about it. For years we've laboured under the mistaken believe that the green stuff we bought as a powder was wasabi - possibly becos it said on the container that it was. Had read an interesting article some time ago, that pointed out that what most people have got used to unquestioningly accepting as wasabi was in fact horeseradish. Worse. It was coloured horseradish. Pure wasabi has a very short shelf life, which is why if you're paying exhoribant prices for tuna belly in  a sushi bar in the States, those in the know, pay an equally exhorbitant price to have fresh wasabi grated in front of them.

We were therefore delighted to pick up on NZ producers of the real thing at a Trade Show last year. They've patented a way of bottling wasabi to give it reasonable shelf life - but still only a few months. But thats fine by me, becos I've ceased being convinced that longevitity is necessarily a desirable feature when it comes to the food I eat. Too many nasties lurk within the food to give it that time on the shelf, and I ain't convinced thats such a good thing for me or those I care about.

But I digress.. Once we get some Coromandel oysters back on the menu, John wants to pair them with a wasabi granita made from this which I think sounds like a perfect idea, and I'm sure we'll come up with other ideas.

The Deinlein Apricot liquer goes in the semifreddo that Rick makes for the cookschool dessert. The Deinlein people are local, and have set up a stunning still, in the hills behind Te Puna. They make a range of fruit liquers and brandies that are simply world class, and we offer a number of them at the restaurant. We find Kiwis are less inclined to imbibe a post prandial drink though, in the same manner as the Europeans, where a bottle of limoncello plonked on the table after mains, is considered par for the course. Here we're more inclined to be conscious of the drive home. We find alot of use for their fruit brandies on our cooking though becos the flavours are so clean and fresh.

These chickpeas come from Sabato and like most things Sabato deals with, are the Rolls Royce equivalent of what you would get at the supermarket. Rick usually cooks his own chickpeas from dried - but during this series we've tried these bottled ones and found they give a significantly smoother end product. They're made by the same people who make the butter beans that I just happen to think are nirvana on earth, but then I love lentils and beans and such stuff.

The hummus Rick makes from this is so superior to the commercially produced stuff, as to be almost a different product. I like having it in my fridge cos then I use it instead of butter, and feel accordingly virtuous. ( And save the butter for the hot cross buns!)

And the package to the side of the photo is dark palm sugar - coconut sugar, which we use in our Thai food. More common and readily available is the golden palm sugar, but we've  long been fans of  the dark one becos of its more caramel tones.

Selling product is not a big part of our cookschools, but we've learnt that people like to have new product available to them, without them having to go out and source it, so we like to make it accessible. But most of the delis in town, and even some of the supermarkets also stock some of these things.

We don't however have a Moore Wilsons in Tauranga yet. A fantastic one stop shop, that would be simply awesome. Maybe one day they'll look at coming our way...

We're about to head out to friends for dinner, but before we do I thought I'd take a photo of this gorgeous small wine barrel that I did a deal over, with Steve Bird at the Wine and Food Festival on Saturday. I've been wanting a wine barrel for yonks in which to age my red wine vinegar - subject of an earlier blog, in which I talk about the Art of Eating article that got me started, and means I get the satisfaction of using up all the opened red wine in the restaurant from selling wine by the glass.

So far I've been making the vinegar in glass jars which has been fine - but the photos in a Patricia Wells cookbook of her house in Provence and her 2 small vinegar casks had me chaffing at the bit for my own. Had had a discussion with a winemaker customer to buy one of their used wine casks at the end of vintage, but have gone one better than that by spotting this little beauty in Steves tent at the Wine and Food.

Steve and we go back a long, long way. When we first opened at Somerset back in 86, he was working with John at Morton Estate, and we've had many an enjoyable lengthy evening spent discussing all manner of issues - some pertinent and some less so. It felt very appropriate therefore to rock up to the set up stage of the Festival and to see him and Caroline setting up in the marquee next to us.  Much catch up chat later, I exclaimed at length over this simply gorgeous barrel that had arrived in a container load with the more conventional sized wine barrels, that they had ordered direct from the people making them in France.

I confess I get very excited about things that are hand crafted like this - it is simply beautiful, and I'm thrilled to think that I will be able to use it for the vinegar from now on.

Am hopeful that Steve will remember to order me another couple, so that when we get our Food Store up and running we will be able to have a number of barrels on the go. Not sure at this stage where I'm going to keep it - there simply isn't space out front at Somerset - and vinegar has a distinct smell , which may not be the perfect background aroma for a restaurant!. But this is too beautiful an object to stick out the back in storage so will have to ponder that for a bit.

We sold an excessive amount of wine by the glass last week - for reasons I don't fully understand. We have a number of wines available by the glass - and tend to sell a reasonable amount that way. But the week just finished for some reason was especially notable for the quantities sold - very little BYO. And seeing all those opened bottles of wine has caused me no distress at all, becos I know I'm going to be pouring it into my barrel tomorrow, and setting the cycle of creating vinegar that our kitchen will use, and our customers can buy, in process.

And that concept pleases me immensely!!

Time for dinner...

I'm currently reading a book 'How to Pick a Peach - the search for flavour from farm to table", which somewhat eloquently explains what has happened to the supply chain from grower to consumer over the last 50 years or so, for various fruits and vegetables, together with the breeding work that has been done to give us better vegetables. It is American based, and makes for fascinating reading, so the latest link on Michael Ruhlmans blog  made sense to me, becos of the political issues involved.

The explosive growth in farmers markets in the States is a direct response to people objecting to how dissicated and horrible the fresh fruit and vegetables they buy thru major shopping chains has become - and they want to go back to the flavours they remember from their youth. Big business has taken over alot of agriculture in the States and has a vested interest in  keeping the small operators at bay. This article explains the way they use their political leverage to achieve that.

It makes sobering reading.