I have one daughter out on the river training, the other is racing in Te Puke, and Ricks just headed out for a quiet hour on the bike to clear his head. As you do. I've been bottling red wine vinegar, and am now sitting at my computor chasing up those silly little things that always seem to throw you quite disproportionatly this time of year. I've had a wine delivery just arrive, and instead of the 6 cases of Savy, pinot gris and pinot noir that I ordered, I've had 6 bottles arrive. And then I went looking today for some more cellophane bags to package the gelatine sheets that we sell in, only the shop is no longer stocking them, and after a quick flick to another couple of possible outlets I've resigned myself to having to brave Gilmours to get them. A shop I never enjoy venturing into.

So. To clear my head, I thought I'd sit down, before I head over to the restaurant, and have a spiel about the dinner we did with John Hancock from Trinity Hill on Tuesday - a neat evening. John and we go back a long way. When we first opened here at Somerset he was the winemaker out at Morton Estate, and was always extremely supportive of us-even if it did mean some evenings we didn't get home till the wee small hours of the morning. He's a man who knows how to chill and have a good time.  We've been down to the winery in Hawkes Bay to do catering - a logistical feat that was made all the more exciting by the fact that our icecream kept getting softer as our source of power was constantly rerouted to the band.  There are a group of people who came down with us to help, all of whom have strong memories of trying to roll rapidly melting icecream...From such experiences you learn!
We have stayed in contact with John over the years, and always featured his wines on the restaurant wine list, partly becos of the personal contact, but also becos we are big fans of his wines. For years I've associated big chardonnays and stylish syrahs with John, but as he proved conclusively in a tasting with the staff before the dinner - the selection of wines now available under the Trinity Hill banner is hugely comprehensive.

John, post staff tasting, but pre dinner, with a cleansing ale, holding forth on something in inimitable John style!

For this dinner he wanted to focus on some of the lesser known wine styles  so we used Viognier, Arneis and Tempranillo - grapes originally from France, Italy and Spain - and attempted to match them with tapas style food, so as to keep them in context.
We've been waiting with some considerable interest for the first pork to arrive from Free Range Farm Ltd, a new venture run by some delightful English people up Hume Rd in Katikati.  Pigs fed with local avocados and kiwifruit, and farmed in healthy free range conditions feels like just the kind of supplier we want to support. We wanted small pigs and we got them - and Rick spent an interesting few hours figuring out how the Italians bone for the porchetta that you see in the markets in Tuscany.

The meat cooked

The oven we hired to cook most of the meat in - becos we didn't want to tie all our ones in the kitchen up for the kind of time period it was going to take to cook it all.

  As we'd hoped, it proved  to be a beautiful match with the tempranillo.
John constantly travels the world telling the Trinity Hill story, and yet even after all those repeats he never fails to make it all sound fresh and exciting, possibly becos it is his life and his passion, and his desire to keep learning and experimenting and improving is very evident.
He is also delightfully blunt and to the point - and I value enormously the more private catchup chats that we have occasionally, when I can get his take on any number of things that I may have read or heard recently. John doesn't bother with niceties at such times and calls it the way he sees it, painting a picture in bright relief. An aspect of the man I always enjoy.
I looked around the restaurant at one point and realised that of the 70 people that were there, 20 of them had been in either France or Italy, or both with us. So there was a reasonable amount of catching up happening between tables too, which I always take as a very positive sign. Rather than being little isolated islands sitting in the restaurant, tables mesh and mingle creating a warm buzz that flows thru the whole restaurant, and is, I kind of figure, what it is all about!

Tables vacated at the end of the evening - ready to be moved and reset for the cookschool in the morning. As one service ends, you start focusing on the next and its requirements...

We are having an exceptionally quiet nite at the restaurant, which for a Friday is somewhat unusual for us and I can't say I  enjoy being this quiet very much. Even though we're in the midst of busy times - I still struggle to look on a quiet nite as a welcome respite, which is possibly how I should approach it. I need to do the same numbers as we did on the same nite last year, or preferably better, for me to feel loved! And tonite the comparisons in numbers are not creating too much reassurance.But you get that sometimes... The positive aspect of the kitchen not being busy is that they have got a lot of the prep done for tomorrow, for both the outcatering and the private luncheon we have on here, so Rick is feeling supremely organised. He spent part of the afternoon after the cookschool loading up the truck with the glasses and plates and other paraphenalia that we need for the catering job tomorrow -that was before he headed out on his bike, toute seule, becos his daughters had gone out without him in the morning.
 I've retreated to the couch in the bar to delve into 'Hungry for Paris - The Ultimate Guide to the Citys 102 Best Restaurants" by Alexander Lobrano, a book that has taken me most of the year to read.  ( I sincerely wish we had had a copy of this on hand when we spent 5 nites eating out in Paris a few years ago, and ended up having a couple of very average experiences, which made us feel very cheated, given the brevity of our time in that wonderful city, and our overarching expectations of how fabulous each and every food experience was going to be.) I keep it over here in the restaurant, and nestle down periodically to read the reviews of the restaurants, absorbing the author's lyical writing style and passion for food and eating out. A beautiful book that I always put down with a smile on my face - even on a quiet nite like tonite. It has restored my sense of equilibrium somewhat, and got me to thinking about a meal Rick, Hannah and I had in Auckland a couple of weeks ago, at Sails.

The Littlejohns who own the restaurant, and have done so for over 20 years, owned Orsinis in Wellington, one of the great Wellington restaurants from the same era as The Coachman and Bacchus. Rick and I worked ( and met at The Coachman ) and often heard the Brittens talking about the Littlejohns, so we kind of felt we knew them by default, but this was the first time we'd ventured to Sails.
The restaurant is by the Marina in Auckland, miles out on its own, and on the Monday nite that we went was extremely busy, much to our fascination. We were equally fascinated by the whole aura in the restaurant. In many ways it was a huge trip down memory lane. Old fashioned in the very best sense of that word. Classic and faultless- seamless service and food. Almost totally male front staff - who worked rigidly to sections and between food and wine service. Demarcations I was familiar with from The Coachman, and which have everything to do with tip allocation I suspect. I recognised one of the waiters as someone I worked with at Bonapartes in Auckland, almost 30 years ago. A scary thought! He, and his contempories have worked as waiters all their lives, a fact reflected in the competency of the service, and the general air of polish. It really was rather special. The food wasn't trying to be unduly clever or attention seeking, but it was lovely and satisfying, and sitting in an immaculate restaurant and being looked after by staff at the top of their game, consumnate professionals in fact, reminded me of just how good it can get. We'd had a very average lunch experience at another Auckland restaurant, with prices on a par to Sails - but you just couldn't compare the two in terms of class and value.
 I have only even eaten in a 1 Michelin Star restaurant in France, that's as high up the scale as we've so far been able to afford to go - future trips to France will allow us to work our way up further - but the level of care at Sails reminded me very much of that experience. It was special, and interestingly, far from the most expensive eating out experience we've had in NZ.
We now only have one table left in the restaurant, so we will start discreetly moving the other tables to set up for the lunch tomorrow. I need to fit 5 eights into the backroom - somewhere and somehow! Hmmm...

We have just put a clean broom thru all our plates, and replaced them. Over the years we've tended to end up with a few bits and pieces as we buy square plates for presentation of a particular dish, or rectangular plates when they were in vogue - and we've ended up with a bit of a mish mash, that was  long overdue rejuvenation.
We saw these plates at one of our Auckland suppliers - and had to place a special order for them becos they didn't carry them in stock. I brought back what they did have to the restaurant to try it out, and decided that I was very happy with the look, but then had to endure a 3 month wait for the plates to arrive from the UK.
The delivery was huge - a palete no less...

We unpacked and washed, ( and removed all our old plates over to the catering quarters) and started plating the food with a certain degree of apprehension. Becos if they didn't look good, I was somewhat stuffed, becos I didn't think that Schott Commercial would welcome a return, and it hadn't exactly been a cheap exercise.
I spent most of the nite exclaiming with genuine pleasure at just how good they did in fact look. They lift the food, and frame it - the red and gold in the border, is reflected in our  curtains, and all together I feel that they bring a timeless classic look, that is one I am very comfortable with.
And they have the added bonus of making clearing tables easier, becos they're all the same shape, and we are no longer having to stack awkwardly mismatching piles of plates.
They're lighter, being a better quality china than what we had  previously, and that is always a bonus when you're carrying an armful of china and someone wants to have a chat.
It's funny - they're almost oldfashioned, and I thought I would have preferred something more modern. But there is something about the timelessness of good classic design that I feel very comfortable with, and am really chuffed with the decision. I get a frission of pleasure quite often as I glance at a table and see the food set out, looking even better on these plates.
Good customers are required to exclaim and proclaim them to be fabulous! Being a sensitive soul I need confirmation that I've done the right thing when I make decisions this big, and I've been delighted to recieving alot of that.
And perhaps even more importantly, the kitchen team are really enjoying working with them, and relishing the way they have freshened up the food and our approach to it.

A friend who has a very established, and quite stunning rose garden dropt me in a bunch of 'Just Joey" last week - huge blooms with a perfume that filled the restaurant. They attracted a massive amount of comment, and I now want to go and find a plant.

The roses in our own garden which I inherited from my mother are in full bloom at the moment, and as little as I know about gardening, I have to say they are a source of great pleasure to me. One day we'll have lots more around ( and maybe a gardener as well...!

When we bought the house property from my father 4 years ago, this climbing rose had gone over the trellis accross the roof and was coming down the other side of the house. It gets watched very closely by me now and isn't allowed such unfettered growth.

The Garden and Art Festival is happening in and around town this week - and those people really know what they're doing, whereas I'm just happy to have inherited a few blooms that are capable of giving me such pleasure this time of year. One day, when we have the budget and the time, we will set Terry loose on designing a serious garden for us, but for now these roses keep me quite content. For now!

Macarons have developed into somewhat of an obsession for me, and the only thing that saves me from too much undue concern about myself is the fact that in my research trips on the internet, I have discovered that there is a whole host of other people out there who are similarly obsessed.
They are really hard to make. To make perfectly that is. Anyone can make a meringue biscuit and sandwich it together with some creamed butter or ganache. But to make them smooth on top and with legs, is a process that has literally taken months to perfect. And I would be lying if I said I got there. I started the process - spent evenings searching thru the web for hints and information and then involved the restaurant kitchen. Two of our chefs John and Jamie, have risen to the challenge magnificently and are now making beautiful macarons.
My interest was piqued in Bordeaux last year, where we saw shops that specialised in selling only macarons and caneles. I couldn't imagine being able to specialise to that degree, and didn't realise till I got back to NZ and started doing some research that macarons are new to Bordeaux.

 Paris is where they have become famous and ubiquitous. Great pastry chefs like Pierre Herme are constantly creating new flavours, and keeping alive the fashion - but every patissiere on every street corner, now sells them.
American macaroons are also made from egg white, but any analogy ends there. They have coconut in them, and while lovely - I made some the other day, just to see- are nothing like the luxery of a good macaron.
My miranderings around the web in search of help when my first few efforts fell dismally short of the photographic evidence I had from Paris, led me to all sorts of equally obsessed people. If you're really keen you can even while away hours watching various you tube videos of varying quality. Listed below though are the blogs that I found most helpful, and the Australian one, shows that macarons are now embedded in the Southern Hemisphere.

http://www.syrupandtang.com/200712/la-macaronicite-1-an-introduction-to-the-macaron/

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2007/10/how-to-make-macarons-recipe.html

http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archives/2008/09/making_french_macarons.html

http://cannelle-vanille.blogspot.com/2008/08/chocolate-macarons-and-tropical-storm.html

http://www.travelerslunchbox.com/journal/2005/9/27/the-mighty-macaron.html

One of our visions for the business, going forward, is to gradually build up a range of foodstuffs for purchase - Somerset at home if you like. And it was with very real satisfaction that I packaged up the first batch of macarons last nite, after literally months of experimenting. We have 2 flavours available - and are selling them as an addition to a cup of coffee in the restaurant, or as boxes of 4 to take away. Dark chocolate with chocolate ganache, and Vanilla with white chocolate and orange ganache. John had also made some orange ones yest with dark chocolate ganache, and I noticed when I was leaving the restaurant last nite that he was getting ready to make some powder out of strawberries that he had dehydrated - so I suspect that the experimenting will continue, which needless to say, I think is a wonderful idea.

Not bad, huh?!

An extraordinary book. I've just finished it, reluctantly - becos I didn't want it to come to an end. But Rick and Courteney were out on their bikes; we'd done a cookschool today, and my head wasn't really in the right space to sit down with all the typing I need to face for some catering quotes, so instead I retreated to the bed with the dogs to keep me company, and finally finished this immensely satisfying account of an extraordinary life, dedicated to the pursuit and enjoyment of good food and wine.

Richard Olney doesn't enjoy the same widespread familiarity of someone like Julia Childs, but he has a strong following for all that. He was an American, who ended up living in France from his early twenties. He began as a struggling artist in Paris, but his palate and love of good food and wine, and the personal contacts made, led to a life spent based in the South of France from where he entertained a huge range of food, wine and restaurant people, and gradually become more famous from his writing.

 As the picture shows we already have a stack of his books, having first encountered mention of him in the cookbooks from Chez Panisse, but I've subsequently ordered the 2 wine books, on Chateau Yquem and Romanee-Conti, becos I wanted to absorb his knowledge and love for the history behind these fabled wines. Alice Waters and he were very close and he had a huge impact on the evolution of her restaurant. As she says in her introduction to the book, having recieved a glowing recommendation from Richard for a luncheon cooked at Chez Panisse ' readers of this book will have some sense of what it must be like to recieve a tribute from someone whose discrimination is so artful and whose enthusiasms are so passionate;and, above all, they will learn something of what it means to lead a life so honest, so pure in taste, and so fine in judgement."

His life was fascinating. Everyone who was anyone in the food or wine world at some point during the second half of last century beat a path to his door, and his recounting of what ensued is sometimes deliciously ascerbic. Just becos they were famous didn't mean he had to like or respect them!
But its served to give me a different take on a whole host of people who I've previously read about like Julia Childs and Elizabeth David, and James Beard. Not to mention a whole heap of other people, quite a few of whom I had no idea as to who they were.

He ended up being as admired and feted by the French gastronomic community, both food and wine, as he did the international one, and given their propensity for chavinism, that is no mean feat, and a true reflection of the depth of his knowledge.

I pulled his cookbooks of the shelf for this photo, and am going to spend some time going thru them over the next few days, so as to be inspired to head into my own kitchen. It will be interesting to see if his recipe writing speaks to me as eloquently as his account of his life has done.

This article says it all as far as I concerned.

I watched Obama's acceptance speech tonite and wept. He's the right man, in the right place at the right time.