I'm sitting at my desk, contemplating a typical Tuesday, which revolves around all the start of week stuff - bookwork, throwing out opened wine at the restaurant, responding to the answerphone, and a myriad other small tasks at my desk.

Have just had a quick flick thru my inbox, and smiled at the short video at the end of this Paris Breakfast blog, on sitting at a cafe in Paris, watching the world pass by.

In the few days that we have spent in Paris - the highlight for me, was not going up the Eiffel Tower or other monuments of significance, but instead those quiet moments when we rested our weary feet, and snaffled a table, content to pay the extra to sit down, so that we could kick back and watch...

My favourite photos of the 4 of us, are of us doing exactly that - even though the girls were appreciably younger back then, they were still quite content to sit back and absorb.

How could you not?

But a trip to Paris is not on my immediate agenda, so maybe I'll just mooch over to the restaurant instead, and make Rick and I a cup of coffee, as you do!

 A new mockumentary that looks promising, becos it pokes the borax at the pretensions that build up in the wine industry - something that I trip over occasionally.

Most of the wine makers that I know personally, are down to earth, and very pleasant people, but regretfully, so much else associated with the wine industry, can be pure unmitigated snobbery, and I just don't understand why that needs to be the case.

I've read a couple of books over the last year on the subject of the growth of the Californian wine industry in general, and the Mondavi family specifically - both of which made for fascinating reading, and which to a degree are mirrored in NZ, with our sudden ( ie over 30 years, as opposed to centuries in France), growth in a wine industry and concommitant wine culture.

It is almost as if to validate the lack of heritage, and to build their own sense of prestige, some of the worst of the traditions from Europe are adopted, to justify price and brand. To give credibility if you will, by those inclined to believe marketing hype, rather than trusting their own palates.

Which can make for a considerable amount of bullshit - and this trailer would indicate a movie that highlights some of the extremes.

Should be good fun...

Have made some gnocchi for Rick and I for dinner, and just waiting for the saucepan to come to the boil, so I can cook it...and ended up catching up on some reading, as you do.

This Waiters Rant blog that I'm going to do a link too is one I discovered last year, and dip in and out of occasionally. He became famous in the blogshere for writing searing commentaries about the customers who frequented the restaurant he worked in, in New York. As a result of that he ended up writing a book, and is now doing research on his second one, which is going to be on the subject of tipping.

Reading some of his earlier blogs, I was tempted to launch into my own analysis of why I couldn't understand his justification of the tipping system, but I never quite got round to gathering my thoughts enough, to state my position unequivocably.

This latest blog of his and the subsequent comments makes for really interesting reading, and reassures me that our approach to tipping is the best for our scenario.

In other words - we follow the European system, where we pay a proper wage to our staff, and charge our customers according. Therefore staff are not dependant on the volume of customers they get to generate enough tip income to live off, a system which must contribute to the pressure to turn tables, so as to maximise the opportunity for staff to earn income.

Here - a quiet nite, and resulting drop in  income,  is something that Rick and I wear as the business owners, and it doesn't make any difference to what our staff earn.

We split our tips amongst the entire team - kitchen and front of house - becos we figure they all contribute to making the customers nite enjoyable. In the States, kitchen staff are paid properly, but front staff are paid a minimum wage and then expected to top up, from tips. So their wages are not a business cost. This would seem to cause all sorts of inherent disparities, and I've always wondered why it has been allowed to develope to the degree that it has.

I know our Restaurant Assocation would like to see tipping become more common place in NZ , they make noises to that effect reasonably often, but I think I would be sorry if in doing so, we ended up heading to the extremes of the States.

And I think some of the comments in this blog highlight why that would be a retrogressive step for an industry, that wants to be seen as a postive career path and profession.

Hmmm.....

Been an interesting kind of afternoon...

We had a cookschool this morning, and very pleasant it was too - a number of people who'd come with us on our trips to France and Italy happened to be in the class, which, given we're doing French Bistro Food, led to some interesting discussions, that I always enjoy.

Had come back over to the house to do more accounting work, and Rick had headed out in the car to do some picking up of stuff, when John wandered over and imparted the news that the septic tank appeared to be overflowing.

I don't do septic tanks - even though I've brought 2 daughters up to believe that girls can do anything - there are certain things that I figure, that if you're married, you maybe don't need to feel obligated to get involved with - and the septic tank certainly comes within that gambit for me.

However Rick didn't have the mobile phone on - typical - and it was a Friday afternoon, and we have a reasonably busy restaurant tonite, and if people can't use the loos -well, its going to be kind of tricky, so I made a phone call to Petes Takeaways, and didn't exactly play helpless female, but did say it was an emergency, and was totally blown away when the gentleman on the end of the phone said he'd be there in 15 mins.

For the merest second I considered pulling rank and getting the 2 males in the kitchen prepping to go out and start digging, but my conscience got the better of me, and I headed over to attend to it myself, as you do, when you're husband isn't around when you need him.

Was patting myself on the back at what I'd achieved when the truck pulled up, so was therefore a little taken aback at the temper tantrum that the guy had when he discovered that I hadn't dug out all the dirt as well.

 As I say, I don't usually get involved when the septic needs cleaning...

To give him credit, he got over his temper tantie, very quickly - obviously realising he was dealing with a complete ignoramous, and took over, and I gratefully retreated back to my desk.

I am less precious about the whole excrement business than maybe once I was - but I still didn't really see a need to  hang around. Had stuff over here to get done that the accountant needed, so...

Rick, who finally arrived home, has been over and had a chat, and just told me that it looks like we're going to have to hook up to mains, which are now on our boundary, thanks to the friends who did the subdivision next door,  even though we were hoping to delay until after we'd done the major alterations. Apparently the very expensive grease trap system we put in with the last round of alterations - which I think if I remember correctly, we were required to do becos its eco friendly, does not infact work efficently, and the gentleman from Petes Takeaways is currently having another wee paddy at the stupidity of it all, becos the new system doesn't trap all the fat - instead it slips thru and congeals and settles on top of the septic, blocking any water getting thru.

Fabulous!

Ah well. Shit happens, sometimes a little too literally for my liking.  I am just very grateful that he is here and dealing with it, even though it has ended up more of a process than he anticipated.

I think I'll go and have a shower....

We won!

A worthy boast, becos there was some pretty intense competition on the last nite, and we didn't perform that spectacularly,  but managed to hang on by a slim margin, which, fortuitously is all you need to win!

Rick had gone up to Auckland to pick up Courteney who'd flown in from Australia, and didn't get back until the last 2 wines, providing a boost that we needed by then.

All good fun....

 I am a huge Meryl Streep fan, and have read a number of books on Julia Childs - so the idea of watching a movie of Meryl Streep playing Julia Childs, is equivalent to my idea of heaven.

Hopefully not too far away from being released in New Zealand...

If you watch the trailer of the movie in this link you'll get to hear Meryls version of Julias voice. I can't believe she nailed it that accurately.!

A gloriously sunny still day. Have just got back from the Mount, where I went alone cos Rick headed out on his bike. The Mount is full of families, with the school holidays currently on - and it's always fascinating to note the diversity in response that parents get from their children as they attempt to either weedle or coerce them up the Mount. Some kids obviously love the exercise, but there are some who object in the strongest possible terms, extremely vocally...

We had the Dog Point Winemakers dinner last nite - and thoroughly enjoyed the evening. As expected Ivan and James from Dog Point were completely laid back and delightful company. The introductions that they give to the wines and the winemaking process always gifts the evening an added level of interest, becos it gives us all invaluable information that you can never derive from a bottle label.

The wines are elegant and superb with food, so we tried hard to pick up the flavours notes in each wine, and attempt to match those in a complementary fashion with the dinner. I have a great book that we refer to often when we're doing this sort of work -'What to Drink with What you Eat' by Andrew Dornenberg and Karen Page, a cleverly laid out series of lists of flavours that work with different wine.

Given the diversity that occurs in the wine world however - chardonnay for instance, covers a huge range of styles and flavours,you can't just rely on that, we also had to taste and narrow down what we thought our options were. A process we sat down and did after a cookschool last week, spending a very pleasant hour or so, tasting and discussing and refining the menu. All good fun.

We try not to get too serious about these evenings - but we're also aiming to do something thats different from our everyday menu also, becos alot of the people who support us on these nites are very good customers, and its nice to use the opportunity to give them something different to what they ordinarily have at Somerset.

I'm also acutely aware that taste is a very personal thing - and combinations and flavours that may work for Rick and I, who's palates have become very aligned over the years, may not necessarily appeal to everyone.
One of our good customers last nite felt that the chardonnay would have gone better with the pork dish, and the Section 94 with the crayfish rissotto. We don't take that as a criticism, but rather an expression of someones opinion, becos there is really no right or wrong - just what suits individual people.

And certainly people seemed to enjoy last nite, which was a pleasure for us to observe.

As someone said leaving -'just what we need in the middle of winter!'

Absolutely.

It is a gloriously sunny afternoon, and the dogs are sprawled out on the floor having just come back up from a run down in the orchard. Days like this, its no problem having 3 dogs cos all the doors are thrown open and they mooch quite contentedly. Wet days aren't quite so much fun, cos the mud gets tracked inside and...But there has to be a bit of yin to balance out the yan I guess.

Rhonda and I have just been setting up the restaurant for the Dog Point Winemakers dinner tonite - fitting more tables than normal in the backroom, so the winemakers only have to give their spiel once - which means people should all know each other reasonably well by the end of the nite!

We're trying 4 wines with 4 matching courses, so that means 4 lots of knives and forks on the tables to start, rather than just the usual entree and main, and we've had to resort to all the catering cutlery to give us enough for a total set up. And as it is we will still have to get knives washed during the course of the evening for the cheese course. But thats Ok.

While I was over there I unpacked the weekly delivery of coffee from Island Coffee, and thought I should mention that we're now getting small retail packs of 250gm in addition to our normal order, for those who want to drink the coffee at home.
Jane and Stephen Burns are the owners, and have become good friends - special people with an enviable lifestyle on Waiheke Island.

We switched to these guys early last year, having been with our previous coffee supplier for most of the preceding 20 odd years, so a big step, but the time was right for a number of reasons.
I am a black coffee drinker, and I want a coffee with some grunt but without the bitter aftertaste that you sometimes get with Italian style roasts, which usually means you have to add sugar to avoid that back taste. This coffee I love - it gives a full flavour,but in a mellow, pleasant fashion.

Coffee is an integral part of my day - Ricks and my morning almost always starts with a trek over to the restaurant and that first restorative cup to wake us up properly, while we discuss the day ahead.

The video on the Burns website captures beautifully what seriously neat people they are, and has just whetted my appetite for the much talked about visit up there that Rick and I have been promising ourselves for ages. The litter of puppies and subsequent disappearance of anything vaguely resembling a normal life put paid to that idea in the recent past, but  things are on somewhat more of an even keel now, and I think a few days away would be rather a fine idea... Hmmm....

There is a huge amount of comment about this movie in the blogshere - I'm not sure that I'll go to see it, becos graphic images of animals suffering takes me too far out of my comfort zone.

But for all that I think the issues that it raises are hugely important and are part of the continuum being expressed in all manner of media, about how important  the provenance of the food we choose to eat is.

So many chefs and foodwriters have been trying to draw peoples attention to the importance of what is at stake - and ironically I suspect a movie like this will probably have a more profound impact, becos actual pictures have a way of conveying a message more stridently than a picture created out of words.

The more people start thinking about it all though, the better for all of us.

www.youtube.com/watch

We've just got home from spending a very mellow couple of hours at No. One The Strand, somewhere we've been meaning to go for ages, and on a whim this morning, Rick decided to ring good friends and suggest a catch up.

What a delight!  One of the few buildings in Tauranga that can justify the label ' historic '- Claire and Brian have done a simply stunning job of converting it into a cosy, warm, bar/restaurant downstairs, with magnificent office facilities for their Sun Media empire, upstairs and out the back.

Darryl Switilla the chef is someone we've known ever since we've been in Tauranga, and was great to catch up with him now he's back in town. The meals are served tapas style - ie small plates, that you choose a selection of, and which in typical Darryl fashion, take their inspiration from a wide range of cultural references.

The wine and beer selection is cleverly presented - everything is quirky and original, in the very best sense of the word.

And Ricks day was made by the band that was playing, Bob Dylonish and Eric Clapton style covers. My husbands idea of heaven!

They're open for dinner Thursday, Friday and Saturday nites, and then from lunchtime thru to about 5.30pmish on a Sunday, for a very laidback, relaxing way to while away a Sunday afternoon.

Amidst so much doom and gloom, it is truly inspiring to see people that are actively growing their business, and looking forward, rather than just treading water. Along with everything else they've created there, they've got enlarged office facilities for their online news filter, which reports news as its happening - a service that I didn't realise was now available, but will be checking out regularly from now on.

All very cool!

I am just about to head over to the restaurant for dinner service. We're in for a busy Saturday nite, which is good, becos the start to the week was very quiet, and its always somewhat of a relief when the weekend sales pull the weekly total up.

I am in a much calmer, happier frame of mind, then  I was this time 23 years ago, when we opened the restaurant - 4 July 1986. It was a Friday and we did lunch and dinner - and the lunch service was one of the worst experiences of my life. I have said often that I can distinctly remember standing in the middle of the restaurant consciously wishing myself back in Wellington, from where we had come 4 days previously to take over the business.

My parents who were our business partners, arrived in the middle of service and got thrown into duties straight away becos we were running around like scalded cats. The staff we had inherited  were not enough to cope with an extremely busy lunch.

After it was all over - in its shambolic, horrible state, Rick and I went for a long cool off wander to the orchard down below, and figured that it had to be all uphill from here, becos it certainly couldn't get any worse. He took himself of to Gilmours to buy some pots and pans, becos one of the things he discovered in the middle of the lunch was that the kitchen was woefully inadequately equipped with that sort of thing. Previous cooking had been centered around the microwave, not pan work.

And we limited bookings for dinner that nite and the next 2 nites, until we felt that we had systems in place and everyone was more comfortable with what they had to do.

I can still remember some of the people that came in over those first couple of days, and I'm relieved to be able to report that some of them are customers still.

There were lots and lots of things about the restaurant we bought that we wanted to change - the physical appearance, the lighting ( gingham lampshades just weren't my thing!), the cutlery, the glassware, the crockery, and everything about the kitchen - but we had to start on a shoe string, and with what we had.

It looked like this....

And we looked like this:

Rick had worked at The Coachman in Wellington, where the chefs attire was reasonably formal becos the chefs worked out in front of the customers, so he persevered with the chefs hat for a few months at Somerset, and then decided to jettison it, becos it wasn't really his style. A stylist who tried to get him to wear one for a photo shoot a few years back was told in no uncertain terms that it wasn't going to happen!

This photo was taken a few years later, must be early 1990, becos thats Hannah in the carseat, while Rick preps, and my father and mother do stuff in the background.

The kitchen lacked any commercial equipment, beyond the stand of 4 gas rings that we brought up from Wgtn with us, becos Rick insisted he needed gas for pan work.

The first alterations we ever did, were to upgrade those facilities somewhat.  Theres been alot more money spent on it since, and we're about to make some further changes, so its all an ongoing process, for which I doubt there will ever be an end point.

I spent a good part of this afternoon going thru old photos so I could find some of the restaurant as it was back then, and digging back down thru history has an interesting effect on me.

People see owning a restaurant as a fun thing to do, almost glamourous. I can attest to the fact that  that is far from the truth. Those early years were sheer, unremitting  hard work,  with the added layer of stress from significant financial pressure. I find it very hard to look back with any affection.

And yet now, we're in the position of doing something we love, something that has got conspicuously easier as the years have gone by, and we simply can't imagine doing anything else.

What the business is now, is vastly different to back then - everything is bigger and more complicated:

-our menu over those first few years was very small, about 5 entrees, 5 mains, and 5 desserts. It is considerably longer now, and each individual dish involves significant amounts of prep work. We have 4 chefs on a shift prepping through the day, to make everything - the butter, stocks, icecream, bread,  all from scratch. We strongly believe that that makes what we produce unique to us, and we like that thought.

-we were BYO only when we opened - but now have a license and a reasonable sized wine list, that requires alot of attention. Wine is a big part of the business now, as it should be. We put alot of care into our glassware, and how we serve the wines we sell, and also into our ongoing education.

-Cookschools started back in about 1997 I think, and are now a substantial contributor to turnover. They demand alot of Ricks and my time, and are an aspect of the business that we really enjoy. Back in 1986, there simply wouldn't have been enough free time in the day to do them, becos our staffing levels were by financial necessity very low, and we were at the restaurant from first thing in the morning to, literally last thing at nite.

-Catering has grown into a substantial side business, and has required a whole seperate array of equipment and staff.

But we also have alot more people around us to share the load with, so ironically, Rick and I probably work less hours now than we used too, even though the turnover is 5 times what is was back then.

And one of the things I love about it  all is that we're not done yet. There are still dreams and schemes and things we're planning on doing, which will extend the business yet further. One of which - Somerset at Home- is about to kick in over the next 4-6 weeks.

No time to get bored, and thats a good thing, I figure!

I am the nougat maker in this business. Not quite sure why it has remained my domain - normally, as with the macarons, I may do the initial research and playing around, but there is always a point at which I hand  over the idea to the proper chefs to take forward. Nougat however has stayed with me, possibly becos I feel somewhat possesive about  a technique that has taken me years to master.
 
I haven't made any in awhile - but a lady called in today looking to buy some, and that gave  me the necessary kick up the butt to get some made. Which I've done this afternoon and just wrapped ready to go on the restaurant shop shelves, and I have to say it has probably been the best batch I've ever made - just that right degree of chewiness. Not too soft and not to crisp. Rick and I have munched on the edges that I've trimmed off to cut it into wedges - and we've both oohed and aahed, and remembered just how much we adore nougat.

The first I ever tried was imported by Sabato from Italy, and it was a revelation for me. I'd never eaten anything quite like it, and was immediatly entranced.I remember at the time though, not being sure if you could eat the paper it was wrapped in. My subsequent learning curve has taught me that rice paper is fully edible, and is most definitely not the same as the rice paper that the Asians use in their cooking, whichis soaked in water before use.

My fascination  with the stuff grew after discovering Lygon St in Melbourne with tiny little shops that just sold nougat. Shelves were packed with huge hunks of the stuff, with all manner of flavourings - I'd have loved to have seen the making of it, but back in those days, was too timid to ask.

I tried many recipes in my early experimenting, without much success, and it wasn't till a good customer gave me some for Christmas that she had made, and then very generously obliged me with the recipe, that I got to finally start making  it properly.

And then a year or so ago I got the text " Chocolate and Confections" from the Culinary Institute in America, which is an exquiste recipe book on artisinal confectionary, and which included a version of nougat, with one or two variations on what I'd been doing. I now follow this recipe - the main difference is to add cocao butter, and the honey is also heated seperately to the  sugar/corn syrup mix, and the final texture, as evidenced by what I made today really is sublime.

We use honey which we buy direct from Mossops in Tauriko - Rewa rewa - a delicate, beautiful honey, that when I boil it attracts every bee in the neighbourhood. And the only inclusions I add are toasted macadamias, which are grown up Belk Rd. And of course Heilala vanilla.

Love the stuff!