One of the long standing jokes in the cookschools are the slight tweaks and modifications that  Rick suggests people make to his recipes. Becos we repeat the classes a number of times, Rick sometimes evolves a slightly different way of doing things then what he originally wrote down in the recipes, and that is a process that will develope as the series goes along.

We don't have a problem with that - becos to us, that is what  cooking is all about. Its not fixed - it evolves and changes depending on so many variables, and one of the strongest messages we try to get across to attendees, is to not be inslaved to recipes. They are guidelines only. And good cooks to us,  are those who develope confidence in their own ability to understand the cooking process, and to react accordingly, rather than those who can report how they have cooked from a huge number of cookbooks.

Having said that, we do happen to have a large library of cookbooks, becos with our job we must. They are a source of inspiration and reference - and every 5 years or so, I go thru and cull out those that are no longer relevant, but the number of new ones, purchased in the intervening time always seems to outweigh those I remove.

Some we refer to regularly, and some we hardly even open, but we hold onto them for nostalgic or for their pertinance to one particular subject matter. ( Or becos they cost so damn much, and I can't bear to own up to the fact they were a waste of money!)

It was bearing all that in mind, that I read with curiosity what Nigel Slater had to say about the cookbooks that he considers to be the best ever published.

Nigel Slater is, in my humble opinion, one of the better food writers out there.  He  has complied in this list his opinion of the top cookbooks of all time.

I thought his description of Nigella Lawsons writing style fascinating, not only becos I totally agreed with him and had also found that first book of her's " How to Eat', to be a great read, but becos the familiar and easy style with which he credited her, is one that I found so endearing in his books. It is exactly like he is there in the kitchen with you, discussing all manner of things, in the easy style of a trusted friend.

He nails the point that we are always trying to make - that cookbooks should not be followed religiously, and good cookbooks don't attempt to be too prescriptive. I couldn't find anything to disagree with on his list.

Christmas Day on the beach! God we live in a beautiful place!

We've just been for a bush walk down below. We don't often take the time to mooch thru the bush and that is a shame becos its beautiful down there. A bit muddy underfoot in places from the natural springs, and the dogs are currently being hosed down to remove the mud, to their chagrin.

One day we'll build a pond/lake down there, something my mother always talked about  wanting to do, but never got round too in her lifetime. It'll be a nice legacy for her, to create.

Fed the worms and picked some spinach for dinner, and headed back up the hill.

Closing on the 23rd, gives us this day to chill before Christmas itself arrives, and it's been a nice day. We're going to have dinner soon, and then go and listen to the carol singing that one of the local churches has instigated in the centre across the road, before heading up to friends for a late Christmas Eve drink.

With Courteney in the car, I suspect the trip home will have to be via some of the  Christmas house lights.... She is our Christmasaholic - the one who insists on certain things having to happen, becos that is the way its always been, and Rick and I go along with the process, without too many issues. She flies out on Boxing Day for the Tour de Femme, and then on to Christchurch for Elite Nationals, so we're making the most of her cheerful presence while we have it.

 Hannah went out on the bike ride with her sister and Rick this morning - she met them after they'd already done a loop, becos she'd been kayaking, and wasn't back when they left. Its amazing how social it is out there on the bike - they told me over breakfast at Slowfish, ( I drive over to the Mount, and walk up it, and they ride via Welcome Bay and various other places...and we meet up at Slowfish. Very civilised.) about the people they encountered  on the road and chatted too. The whole world rides a bike these days...Hannahs  back  out on the river now - that girl is always going to have to live somewhere close to water. I remember tears in France when we weren't able to organise a kayak for her - 4 weeks without was just too long. She's more than made up for it since then however...

The last few days the restaurant was open, were busy, very busy.  Lots of people popping in to pick up bits and pieces - I'm keeping track now of the volumes of licorice icecream that we sell for people to take home.  I always knew we sold lots, but I didn't realise just how much goes out the door. That, and cream cheese pastry, and chicken liver pate were our big sellers this year.  And countless  vouchers...

But lots of people in the restaurant too - family groups getting together again for Christmas. We have one local family who have been coming to us on the 23rd  for years now . Its a tradition for them - and we've watched the girls grow up into gorgeous young women over that time. And then at the other end of the spectrum, we had an older customer who I'm enormously fond of in for dinner, even though he's recently been given not good news by an oncologist. Life continues to go on I guess, but some people tackle it with a bravery that I find very humbling.

And then at about 11.30pm when everyone had left,  we moved all the tables and chairs onto the slate floor, becos the carpets are going to be cleaned while we're closed - and emptied the fridge of all the open wine, ( not us been mean I might add, but the reality of all these guys having to drive home, and being reluctant to drink too much, especially the younger males who get stopped by the cops on their way home quite regularly) and sat down to toast Helen who finishes at Somerset now, having been with us for a number of years.  Rick and I will take her out for dinner next week, before she heads down to Christchurch - but it was nice to sit with everyone else and say our farewells.

And a nice note to go out on with the staff for the year - I'd been tired and grumpy the last few days, and not especially easy to be around, the year has tested me to the nth degree -so I appreciated the effort they all made to acknowledge Helen, and show me by deed that they are good people really! Becos they are. We're very lucky.

(Helen leaving with cupcakes from Courteney and Thomas Kellers book 'adhoc' from us, along with our very best wishes for the next stage in her life.)

I'm just about to head over to the restaurant for dinner service, but have been sitting at my desk answering some emails, and catching up on some  reading, and that led me to this website, which is one I check in on daily.

Its American, and as such is very American-centric - but it has some fascinating links, especially relating to politics.  I'm a big magazine reader, and one that I ponce on with particular glee when it arrives, is Vanity Fair. I just love the ecletic mix of indepth articles, on a wide range of subjects. And often, as with the Copenhagen business at the moment - I'm not even bothering to plow thru the  ridiculously repetitive newspaper articles on the subject, preferring to wait,  until it crops up in a later edition of Vanity Fair, becos that will explain the myriad aspects to me, in one  well written, hit. And that is how I prefer to get my information.

Tina Brown was the editor who revived Vanity Fair - back in the 80's I believe, and this website is of her making, and shows her touch in many ways. It can be a bit of a time waster...

But need to go over to the restaurant, becos busy tonite, and a constant stream of people wanting vouchers and other bits and pieces, as  time runs out before Christmas. 

David Lebovitz is a food blogger and cookbook author that I refer to alot. He lives in Paris most of the year, and talks about his passion for pastry and dessert cooking in an approachable manner that I really enjoy.

I've just read his latest blog which included a list of his favourite cookbooks for the year, and almost inevitably that included a couple on the subject of making macarons. As he says, making macarons properly is more to do with technique, than it is following a recipe.

We have cracked it here at Somerst - and the macarons the guys are making are fantastic. But that doesn't stop me delving into more books on the subject, and reading about some of the more bizarre flavour combinations that some people try.

This link is to a whole host of web based articles on the subject of macarons, that David Lebovitz recommends as being useful.

And now I think I'll go and water the tomatoes down below, before I have a shower and get myself in the right head space for a busy lunch at the restaurant...

Totally unrelated to my world really - but an extraordinary video sent by Chris, thats just, well, amazing....

I am not a chef. I'm an enthusiastic home cook, and I have always considered my role in the cookschools to be one of interpretation. Rick is a restaurant chef with a much higher practical skill level to me, and also most of the people that come to the classes. Alot of what he does instinctively, comes from years of experience, and without that experience, the rest of us sometimes want to know why things happen, when you're cooking. Why if you do things one way, a certain texture will be created, but if you omit a stage, something else quite different will happen.

Rick's response to alot of the questions we used to get in the early years of the classes, was a simple ' becos thats the way it is'. He understands the process, but not being a chemistry scientist, did not necessarily feel a need to get to grips with the science behind that transformation. Chefs referred to other chefs who had gone before to learn their trade, and things were explained in practical terms.

But in the late 80's and early 90's, the scientists starting gaining traction in the food world, and it is not uncommon now to have a pairing between a famous chef and an equally famous scientific chemists.

 Harold McGee was one of the first scientists to come to public awareness, and we  bought his epic book "On Food and Cooking - The Science and Lore of the Kitchen" many years ago, becos it is a superb reference for why things happen.

But most of our need so far, to delve into the book has been postdated - it has been in response to queries we've had, or others have had about the cooking process. We haven't as yet taken it upon ourselves to dabble too far into the world of molecular gastronomy.

Molecular gastronomy, as I've mused before, is a style of cooking that I haven't quite been able to get to grips with, becos it feels too contrived and attention seeking. And yet, when I really think about that, I have to concede that all restaurant cooking is technically attention seeking, in the sense that you want your food to be good enough to attract paying customers to visit your establishment - so therefore we all seek to create attention.So the criticism isn't really valid.

Perhaps then, my vague sense of unease over this new style of 'cooking' is to do with the fact that it has no roots in traditional cooking - it is science interpreted using edible ingredients. It is food broken down into molecular reactions. It is not food that evokes memories of our grandmothers table or other nostalgic memories. It is food that is built quite literally in the testtube, and as such I recoil, becos I naturally suscribe to a much more romantic notion of food.

However. I have sat thru this hour long video and chuckled to myself many times. This gentleman, Herve This, is a french chemist, who works with a top french chef Pierre Gagnaire, one of the exponents of molecular gastronomy. He is the scientist who enables the chef to 'build' food, but not as we have always known it.

And his enthusiasm makes it hard not to be drawn into the  possibilities of his world. He has the sort of ever enquiring mind, that is forever seeing possibilites, and is in no way shackled by tradition. A wonderful quote was
'an open question is a promise of an answer". In other words, a problem is not a problem - its the chance for a new discovery, for new knowledge.

All cooking is chemistry - it is the transformation of molecules by heat or agitation, or acid or some other form of manipulation. The degree to which we want to take that depends on where we sit on that particular continuum I guess. Chefs like Ferran Adria at el Bulli in Spain, and Grant Achatz at Alinea in Chicago, have established reputations based purely on molecular gastronomy. Their food constantly pushes at boundaries, and is new and exciting and totally challenging becos it is unlike anything that has come before.

Some people love it, and some people hate it.

Having listened to this delightfully exhurberant frenchman I have to say my opinion has shifted slightly.And where I was once wary of the whole molecular movement,  I can know see that it is not necessarily about supplanting established mores, but more to do with knowledge. If we understand why something happens in a certain way, then we have new knowledge, and new knowledge is what drives the human race forward, and what differentiates us from other animals.

Just becos something is traditional and has always been a certain way, doesn't necessarily make it better. As Monsieur This says in this video, slavery was traditional, and we decided that wasn't a good idea - so tradition by definition is not always better.

Knowledge opens doors - it expands our horizons, and that has to be a good thing. We have already been doing some experiments at the restaurant with sous vide cooking, that are distinctly 'non traditional', in the sense that we are cooking meat for much longer periods of time, at lower temperatures, becos we are discovering that with some muscle dense meat, like lamb shanks, that long slow cooking breaks down the connective tissues, and makes the meat much more tender and moist to eat.

Those sorts of experiments will intensify in our kitchen, thanks to the vacum packer, and the flexibility that that gives us. I doubt that we will ever end up like the famous molecular restaurants in presenting food that is purely molecular gastronomy. But I can see a future in which by slow degrees, we use new and innovative techniqes that are grounded in science, to make food interesting.

As I've said many times before, there are certain dishes on our menu that will never change. Some of those customers that come to us once a week, and those that come once a year for special occasions, want to eat the duck and the licorice icecream every time. There are a surprising number of people like that. They are in their comfort zone and far be it from us to dislodge them.

But there are others who like to be surprised and stimulated, and we also have a natural interest in learning and extending our repertoire. So there is always room to learn new stuff, and some of that will inevitably work its way thru to the menu.

And I think that is exciting, becos once again it proves that you can't possibly know everything about the food world. There is always going to be new stuff to consider, so I'll never be able to get bored.

Have just got changed again for what feels like the umpteenth time today, as I switch between the various hats ( figuratively speaking!) that I've needed on, to get done what I needed too...

About to go and get a couple of buckets of food slops from the restaurant, to take down to the worms below, and the dogs will relish the chance of a run. They've been a bit neglected all day, as we got ourselves ready for a catering job.

I'm back from having done the initial set up round at the property, where the party is being held,  and introduced the front staff to the hosts. Rick, Matt and Mike have things set up in the garage - BBQ, oven and all. And Ali, Zoe and Linda, are ready and waiting for the guests. So having made myself redundant, I've retreated and headed back to do stuff here before I wander over to the restaurant for evening service. As you do.

Its very cool having people around you, who you feel totally comfortable about just leaving to get on with it. Ali has been helping us with catering as long as we've been doing it, and she will take Linda, who is having her first experience, through everything - and I trust her implicity to get on with it.

We've had a big week so far, with lots of large groups, lunch and dinner - so tonite is going to feel a bit lightweight with only small tables in. Sometimes though, those nites can end up surprisingly intense, and I shouldn't pre-empt anything in advance.

Last nite was extra busy becos we had a large table on the deck in addition to a full restaurant. Necessitated becos when we'd rung to confirm their numbers for next Friday, they told us that no, they were coming this Friday. A quick email check proved that they had in fact booked for next Friday, but proving yourself right in these situations, doesn't necessarily take the problem away. We simply couldn't fit them in, internally, but agreed to have them on the deck, and they came early, and were very accomodating, and had, I think a lovely nite. They and we, were very lucky with the weather- we put lots of red tealights down the table, and it all looked very festive.
Sometimes bad things happening can turn out to have a positive ending. Always like it when that happens....

The Christmas rush is very real and happening - which I'm pleased about on one level, becos its nice for the bank balance, but I'd forgotten just how physically exhausting it can also be. It's intense. All the guys are doing big hours, as you do this time of year. And my body, which is alot older then when we started doing this back in'86,  gets distinctly creaky at the end of the nite. Thankgod for Susie and massage!

I got to reminise the other nite when good customers popped in on their way home from Prue Gooches' Christmas  ballet recital with their 9 year old daughter, for a quick dinner. It feels like a lifetime ago, that I was precariously trying to  fit in the running around that having a daughter in that production meant, along with all the other demands of the restaurant at this time of year. I never made an especially good ballet mother. 

Remembering that, made me realise that we have things conspiciously easier these days, in no small way, becos we carry a bigger team which allows us to share the load considerably more.

Plus the improvements to the restaurant building itself, make what we do so much easier. Turning on the aircon this week, after a couple of weeks of trying to avoid it, becos I like to have all the windows open, made me very grateful for the not inconsiderable amount of money that we paid installing it. A couple of nites this week have been so steamy and hot, that not only for our guests, but also for our sanity, being able to provide cool air is something we quickly take for granted.

And that wonderful new chiller that we got built this year, has earned its weight in gold. Having the size and capacity ( and coldness!) is simply bliss. A catering job like this one, combined with busy times in the restaurant used to put our old chiller capacity at a premium, but no more. Now we have this fabulously large, cold space that we're not even coming close to filling up yet. And that just makes everything so much easier. Ridiculously so really.
I smile every time I walk into it.

People are celebrating and spending well - and the general zeitgest seems to be one of relatively good spirits, tempered with a soupcon of caution. I get asked alot of questions about how business has been - and the ensuing conversations always seem to center around a sense of relief that the year is nearly over, becos most people have found it a challenging one,  and some reserve about what it is come.

Which pretty much sums up my own personal viewpoint of matters at the moment.

 However the pohutakawa in our gully is finally flowering. I've been watching it anxiously for the last few weeks, becos a burst of red flowers doesn't happen on that tree every year, and when it does, I look on it as a good luck talisman for the year to come.

We aren't awash in blooms, but there is definitly enough colour there for me to be prepared to be cautiously optimistic. Not that I am in anyway superstitious you understand!

And talking of trees - we have a large old plum tree down by the worm farm, one of many plum trees on the property.  This one is currently laden with plums, and they're dropping faster than we or the birds can collect. Will shovel up the rotting fruit tom and feed it to the worms....

Contrary to the impression I may be giving I am not obsessed with the Julie/Julia movie ( although it has been a useful reference point, when people got twitchy about the use of 'butter' in the last cookschool series. We could quote Julia Child as someone who lived to a great old age while eating lots of butter...)

But its topical at the moment - becos the woman who started the whole thing by writing a year long blog about her project of cooking thru Julia Childs epic cookbook " Mastering the Art of French Cooking", has just released a new book, describing her life after the project finished, called 'Cleaver'.

This link is to a TV broadcast of her describing the book - and I was curious to see her in the flesh, becos as I said in an earlier blog about the book she wrote, I had felt that the movie didn't capture her character. She's much tougher and grittier in real life, then she was made to appear on the small screen I thought.

And what I found interesting is that this book talks about how she goes of on a whole new tangent of learning to be a butcher, which is a curious career choice, and from what I understand, short lived.

Julie cried when she was told by a reporter that Julia Childs  herself, had not been a fan of her blog, and thought that she was doing it for the attention, and not for any real love of food.  She justified that sense of dissapointment really well in the book, I had thought, but interestingly, in a funny kind of way, I think that JC was absolutely spot on in her assessment.

Food is not really what its all about for this lady - its much more a forum to explore and analyse the complications of life in general. Curious...

We had a large table booked for lunch today - supposed to be 18/20 people and we staffed up accordingly, becos if some of our other regulars turned up, it would be a busy lunch. A long table was set up in the restaurant last nite, and even though we know from previous experience with this group that numbers can vary ( both up and down), Rhonda rang them and confirmed yesterday in the vain hope, that we would have some surety.

Not to be. We have 9 people sitting at one end of a long table... and there is absolutely nothing we can do, except get on and serve them, and ignore the empty seats.

I'm just immensely grateful that they weren't coming tom, when we have a lot of lunch bookings, and would have been turning bookings away if these guys had been booked.  This costs us today becos we brought in a kitchen hand and an extra waiter, but at least we didn't turn away any bookings.

It must be Christmas time!! I think I'll head over to the Mount to clear my head.....

We had the last class in the Christmas series today. We started this series back in Sept so it feels as if we've been doing it for awhile now, and I confess that I'm not too distressed by the thought that I won't be sitting down to eat cheesecake again for awhile...

I enjoy all aspects of the classes, and am always buoyed by the response that we get from a wide range of people. Even the aspect of  repeating the same subject matter as often as we now have too, to fit in the number of people who want to come, doesn't especially faze me.

We always seem to find different things to discuss, becos the people mix in each class varies, and people bring their own interpretations and thoughts which can send us of on all sorts of tangents. And this series has been no different.

Especially for the Christmas series, Rick always tries to come up with food ideas, that can be prepped in advance, so as to minimise the amount of hassle for people on the actual day they're entertaining. Its not easy food necessarily - but it is food that with a little thought, can be organised even days in advance.

Its a concept of 'mis en place', which restaurants use. If we were to do all our food preperation at the last minute, then customers would have to wait an unacceptably long period of time for their dinner - so a certain amount of prep is done in advance, with dishes being finished of  'to order'.

And as usual Rick hits people with lots of ideas for the Christmas class - cos he's conscious that not everyone is going to cook everything, but he tries to ensure that people will go away with at least a few ideas that they will want to duplicate.

We did 3 different fingerfood ideas  which everyone got to nibble outside with a glass of champagne, while the kitchen staff plated the beef as a main. Today especially, it was a pleasure to stand out in the sun, but theres been a couple of days over the series when we've stuck to standing in the backroom, becos the weather hasn't played ball.

I always come back to my home kitchen a little wiser after a series - there is some trick or techniq

ue that I pick up, and there is no doubt that my cooking ability has improved over the years as a result of watching the professionals, and getting to understand why Rick does things the way he does.

There is always a lot of discussion, becos we've usually learnt with trial and error with certain dishes, and what we try to do in the classes, is pass on our experience and alert people to the potential pitfalls, so they don't necessarily have to make the same mistakes that we did.

Having said that however - there is no doubt that practise makes perfect!

Some of the product that we use in the class is not readily available, so we either stock it to on sell, or alert people to where they can buy it. And its always interesting to see what sort of thing people become interested in. It can vary from class to class for no apparent reason.

In this series we've gone thru truckloads of proper wasabi, and mango star tea, bing cherries and fregola pasta. As well as good quality anchovies, and our own cream cheese pastry.  Amongst other stuff.

One of the reasons for setting up the Somerset at Home concept on the website was to make these sorts of pantry essentials more readily available to people, and its an idea that is increasingly catching on. Which is great to see.

And now I'll have to start thinking about what I'm going to cook for our family Christmas - becos having eaten this lunch the number of times that we have over the last 3 months, somehow I don't think its what we'll be doing....

This blog is by a female chef who is working in one of New Yorks top restaurants. I started reading the blog when she was working in Paris - and find her descriptions of what her day involves to be lucid and fascinating.

In an earlier blog  ( 26 Nov 09 ) I mentioned how over both Rick and I are, the cocky attitude that tends to emanate from recent polytech graduates who come here for some work experience,  and who have the temerity to call themselves chefs, when all they have really achieved is the first step in that long journey of becoming a chef.

Reading a description like this,  of a service in  a busy up market restaurant, is, I think, a useful reminder, that being a real chef, takes a huge amount of grit, determination,  and sheer physical hard work. Not to mention years of experience.

I wouldn't want to do it.

This is an amazing video clip that shows Julia Childs addlibing on the David Letterman show when the element she has to cook a hamburger on  doesn't work.

As he says towards the end of the clip, she is 'very inventive and quick on  her feet'

In fact nothing what so ever seems to faze this lady -its as if she just totally lacks the ability to be embarassed!

Sometimes I wish that I came similarly equipped!

This article blames the  trend towards the dumbing down of restaurants in America to blogs written  about how people don't want all that goes with fine dining anymore.

But I suspect is has a whole heap more to do with costs. Keeping linen table cloths and linen napkins on our tables costs us a significant amount every month - but its money that I consider well spent, becos I like the look and the feel that linen gives the restaurant.

So its not a trend that I'd like to buy into...

( Time for bed - it has been huge day...)

I took this photo of my husband earlier this week, as we had our normal start of the day, cup of coffee on the restaurant deck - discussing as we are wont to do, what we have coming up during the week.

It is the first of December, and we are very much now in Christmas mode, and for us that means a lift in everything. The pace around the place goes up quite significantly -  and maybe the contrast is even more so this year, becos we're coming of the back of what has been a quietish year.

The last couple of weeks have lifted significantly in terms of busyness - and from now on thru to when we close for Christmas on the 23rd, things will be pretty frenetic during service. Which is all good! Its just that you've kind of got to adjust and ready yourself for the onslaught. Because its a very different type of energy at this time of year.

As I said to Rick yesterday - this is our 24th Christmas season, are you ready for it? - and wasn't completely reassured by the somewhat noncommital reply I got! He didn't exactly look like a man raring to go, I didn't think...

We have a large group in the backroom tomorrow nite - who, unusually, I don't  know. They're an Auckland company who are entertaining local clients, and most of the contact I've had over the format of the evening has been thru email.

But I got a phone call today from one of the partners wanting to discuss a special drink he wants us to make as an aperitif for the guests when they first arrive - a Pisco sour. Not a drink I've ever heard of. He gave me the rough outline of the ingredients, and I came back to my computor to do a google search, as you do - and am now up to speed with what a pisco sour is.

Except! In this video , the guy makes the interesting comment that limes in Peru are what we call lemons, and our lemons are limes to them. So when he told me on the phone that it was two thirds pisco, and one third lemon  - did he mean lime or lemon?

In that video the bartender uses limes, but in another one I've just watched someone else uses lemons - so I'm thinking at this stage that we'll use lemon.

Whichever way - its going to be a potent start to the evening.....