At the end of our Italian trip back in 2004, we flew from Venice to Paris, to spend 5 days, becos I was worried that we might never get back to Europe, and I didn't want to die not having been to Paris of all cities.

We lugged Patricia Well's book on Eating well in Paris, all the way over there, and used it to find some of the iconic bakeries, patissieres and chocolate shops, as you do.

Poilane's is perhaps the most famous bakery of them all - and we were fascinated at how tiny the shop was, and how formal the service , and how tiny the range of what they offered was. About 5 different things.

We bought some of the bread and an apple tart, and headed back to our hotel room to digest and literally dissect.

This video explains the background to the bakery, and how Lionels daughter has taken the family tradition to another level.

"Art of Eating', my favourite food periodical has also done some indepth articles on the subject of bread in France, and discusses Poilanes in huge detail.

It is simply iconic, and the interchange with Dorie Greenspan in the video, shows exactly why. And that is one of the things I love about the French and their approach to food. Familiarity does not breed contempt. They do not need novelty for the sake of it - instead they recognise quality, and will purchase it day after day after day, allowing businesses to specialise to a very high degree.

What bakery in NZ could survive only making 5 different products? We need to have a wide range to cater to a diverse market so as to achieve the volume of sales that we need to be viable. Hmm...

A colourful blog on why the chefs world is a draining, exhausting metier, quite contrary to the rose tinted version of immediate success and stardom some some young people think they are going to leap frog into.

We deal with the public in what we do - and sometimes they are the source of our greatest pleasure and satisfaction, and sometimes they make you walk away with a sense of complete incredulousness at either their bizarre rudeness, or their ignorance.

Therefore I laughed out loud at a couple of the client interchanges described in this blog - whereby a web designer explains some of the expectations of some of the clients he deals with.

Some people simply defy what I would call reason - they're in their own strange parallel universe.

Have a big pan of calasperra rice perculating away on the stove - don't think I'd quite call what I'm making paella, becos there's a conspicuous lack of traditional ingredients in it, but its a rice based dish, cooked in the paella style, and using up some leftovers,  and in the process I'm giving my family a necessary dose of carbohydrates. Courteneys been out on the bike for 130kms this morning, and Hannah did a 43km kayak race down near Whakatane yesterday, so energy replacement is always a high priority around here!

While it cooks, I've read and pondered this article  on Why there are no Great Women Chefs -  actually I printed it out and lay on the bed to read and cogitate, becos its lenthy and weighty in  volume and depth. We did outcatering for a wedding last nite - and have just finished putting away the last of the stuff. As always, its the carting around of all the equipment and crockery and glassware and etceteras, not to mention the logistics of serving food in a space not designed for meals, thats makes catering such a challenge.

The brief for this wedding was very specific - we had a bride who knew exactly the effect she wanted to create, and the wherewithal to spend the necessary money to create that look.  Abby and Bridget from Blanc, did a truly spectacular job in creating an exotically beautiful ambience, up at Bridgets home, Little Farm.  And fortunetly for us, the weather played ball, so even though we had to cover a fair amount of space over the evening - the marquee was a long way from the garage where the kitchen was set up - at least we didn't have to contend with the hassles that rain or wind can create.

So all good. But my body is definitly weary this morning - a useful reminder of why we don't roll out for too many of these out functions these days!

All of which led me to be having a lie down reading this article - which I might add is the sort of thing I just love to digest. I'm aware its not considered especially popular to define yourself as a feminist these days, but its one of the very few labels that I'm still happy to defiantly claim. I read my Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedman as a teenager, and have believed all my life that women should be able to do whatever it is they want too. An attitude I've actively instilled in my daughters.

As I get older though - and observe life thru different prisms - marriage/motherhood/career - I have learnt to appreciate some areas of grey, in my previously stridently held opinions. I've never waived on the belief that women can do anything, and we shouldn't be defined as who we are by our relationship to the males in our life,  and I doubt very much that I ever will -but I do believe that the balancing act for those of us who choose to have children, as well as continue to work, means that we have to make decisions, that sometimes aren't easy. We can't necessarily have it all.

My generation possibly thought that we could - and I sometimes ponder that that approach didn't quite work out as well as we thought back then it was going too. But I see in my childrens generation a slightly different attitude when they look ahead. They are more clearsighted about the choices they face - they understand that they will have to make those choices, and  they seem more willing to make the lifestyle alterations than maybe we were, possibly becos we felt we had something to prove.

So I read an article like this with interest, becos basically its asking why female chefs aren't given the same industry accolades and acclaim as male chefs. And in doing that its asking the age old feminist question - women are as good as men, so why are only a tiny percentage of them being feted and acknowledged?

The underlying assumption ( and I happen to believe its the one where my generation came unstuck), is that women want to beat men at their own game. They want as many James Beard Culinary prizes and as many Michelin stars, so that they can prove that they are as good. The implied belief, is that without those accolades they haven't  really suceeded, beocs success is defined by how big your restaurant empire is, or how many awards you have to your name.

And that is never going to happen, becos as the article thoughtfully points out, all those assessment based systems are founded on beliefs that encourage the macho, traditional brigade style kitchen - exactly the type of environment that women tend not to thrive in.

In other words - 'can women who choose not to play by the same rules as the boys; who are equally ambitious culinarily but prefer different lifestyles - a slower pace, a more communal spirit in the kitchen, motherhood, less manic hours, or one restaurant where they cook as opposed to ten they oversee from afar - still vie for the same trophies as their male counterparts? As long as success is measured by the male status quo, women will likely remain overlooked."

The article quotes examples of tokenism - where one women competes in Iron Chef America for example, just so the producers can't be accused of sexism. But the rules of engagement are male orientated, and the women who play be those rules end up looking masculine in their approach. But to achieve the awards, and the status, and I guess, the financial benefits, that is the road some feel they must travel.

Not all though - some have chosen an alternative route, and prefer to eschew the hierarchial system dominant in traditional kitchens, and to focus on their restaurants more as an expression of themselves than as the start of an empire. ( And needless to say there are a number of male chefs who also fit that criteria.)

These people will never will michelin stars becos they don't play by the rules of engagement required by such a system - and therefore, they never achieve widespread recognition, and therefore by further extension they are not considered, great chefs.  What is meant there is that they are not 'famous' chefs. They don't have a carefully cultivated public profile.

And that in a roundabout way brings me back to the feminism of my childrens generation, becos that is what I see at play here. These female chefs are not slaving absurd hours under ridiculous pressure  to acquire michelin stars, becos they have made the consicous decision that they don't want too, and that is ultimately going to mean the demise of those systems of ranking of restaurants. Not yet - it will take a decade or two, but its going to happen.

Something that I see as an enormously positive developement. Its already happening. More and more top chefs - both male and female are opting out of the oldfashioned hierarchial notions, deciding it doesn't fit with their values and what they aim to achieve in their business' and their lifes.

Because for every Mario Batali, who is building a huge empire, and is in constant motion, there is a chef somewhere, cooking exquisite food, nite after nite, in the same restaurant, and inspiring the people around them, and in the process building a heartfelt place in the community in which they have chosen to place themselves.

They will possibly never be as wealthy or as wellknown as the Mario Batalis of this world, but if you feel sorry for them becos of that, then you've missed the point.
They simply don't want to be. They see that lifestyle for what it is, and don't want to have a bar of the personal cost that maintaining that level of pressure, inevitably and inexorably requires.( Have you seen how unhealthy Mario looks on TV at the moment?) Other things are more important, and that to me is what feminism is really all about. The ability to make personal choices based on what is important to me and those I love.

So there are lots of great female chefs out there. We just don't know about them becos they are more interested in what happens at their stove, than in cultivating media attention and thru that marketibility and celebrity.

This article goes on to blame the media for being complicit in inflating the significance of male egos, while downgrading women in cooking shows to the exposed cleavage type home cooks on the Food Channel. An example quoted is:

'When Gabrielle Hamilton opened a tiny, uncomfortable place called Prune in 1999, her idiosyncratic menu caught on, the restaurant became successful and today she's a much-admired figure on the scene. When David Chang opened a tiny, uncomfortable place called Momofuku Noodle Bar is 2004, his idiosyncratic menu caught on, the restaurant became successful, and today he's a much-admired figure on the scene -with numerous awards, scads of magazine profiles, and two more restaurants and a public that worships him. However you account for the difference between these two career trajectories its got to include something besides just the food"

I agree. It is something other than just the food, but unlike the writer of the article I'm not quite so quick to conclude a societal conspiracy to keep the woman chef in her place. I've read David Changs book, and he is one seriously driven individual, who, like Mario Batali, is constantly restless and looking for the new and exciting. ( They must be a nightmare to life with these types!). And maybe that personality trait rather than his gender, is why he's continued to build a bigger and bigger empire and in the process, elicit more and more comment.

The underlying assumption is that to be percieved as successful - we have to be wellknown, well off and have a large empire. Maybe that simply isn't the case - maybe there are some people out there, both male and female who want a more balanced approach to their lives and their families. Maybe its not just about their egos....

Learnt something tonite! The Flemish bissous on the cheek 3 times, whereas the French only do it twice. Didn't know that. We have some Flemish businessmen in for dinner, one of whom we have seen many times over the years, and I now get greeted with a kiss placed on alternate cheeks 3 times, when he arrives.

We watched when we were in France, how all social interactions start with a bissous on 2 cheeks - even when waitress'arrived at work, they would greet the chef like that, and we were fascinated by the degree of time and effort that was taken to note other peoples arrivals and departures - 'bon journee' is something that all shopkeepers would say to you as you left their shop.  I rather liked the implicit formality - and the sense of awareness that comes with it.

All curious - well at least I think it is!

Been a busy sort of evening, with people arriving that I haven't seen in a long while, and lots of wine to unpack and put away, and more instructions for the wedding on Saturday to get my head around, so have stayed over at the restaurant as long as I was needed, and now retreated back to my desk to sort a few things here. And have Masterchef to catch up on - we came over to the house too late last nite after the Yalumba dinner to want to sit thru it, so will watch  that shortly when Rick appears.

The Yalumba dinner last nite was the start of our Winemakers Series for the year, and a little different in that we were show casing an Australian company. As I said in my introduction to everyone, I've noticed a distinct trend in the restaurant over the last few years for New Zealanders to quite consciously order NZ wines.

We appear to have totally lost the cultural cringe of years gone by, when we used to assume that something from overseas was going to automatically be better than a domestic product, and instead Kiwis have belatedly embraced their home grown wine industry with a chauvinism that sometimes becomes a little too all embracing I feel.

There is a wide, wide world of wine beyond Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, and Central Otago Pinot Noir, and sometimes I wish more people would realise that. That of course, is at the same time as I am immensely proud of what our wine industry is achieving, and am for ever championing it in the restaurant. Most of the wines I drink tend to be NZ - although my palate is widening and I am getting the opportunity to try more and different varieties. A process I thoroughly enjoy.

I look on wine as being a huge field - one I'll never cover in its entirely in my lifetime, but one that I enjoy experimenting with and trying new things. And I guess that is what I wish for some of my customers - that they move outside their comfort zone, and try something a little different periodically.

Australian reds used to represent cheap, heavy quaffing wine - but what we got to try last nite were 2 exceptional examples of Aussie red at its absolute best - The Menzies, Cabernet Sauvignon, and The Octavius, a Shiraz. Superlative wines.

We also had a Chardonnay from the Eden Valley, fermented with wild yeasts, and a viognier, likewise from the Eden Valley. Both wines were quite different from the styles I'm used to drinking, and it was therefore fascinating to listen to Alan Hoey, the Manager of Operations for Yalumba talk about each wine.

Yalumba was established in 1849, and has been owned continuously by the same family. I joked last nite that that is my dream for Somerset - but maybe we should have had more children if that was going to be a serious ambition, becos somehow I don't see either of our daughters stepping into our shoes in years to come.

It is an extraordinay winery, with an amazing story - and from the emails I've been getting today, it would seem that people really enjoyed the experience of listening to Alan talk about the business and its history.

The kitchen stepped right outside their normal food to prepare some wonderful flavours to go with the wines  - all of which added to a special evening.
All good fun, and a useful learning experience for all of us.

Looking at these photos of homemade cakes, got me to thinking about the vexed issue of people wanting to bring cakes to the restaurant.

As with so much of what we do, then can be no hard and fast rule to instill in the staff, as being the requisite answer for when people ask if they can bring a birthday/anniversary cake.

And the reasons for there being no clear absolute pathway for us, is becos the reasons for people wanting to bring a cake are varied.

Sometimes its pure and simply a cost decision on their behalf. By bringing a barely iced sponge from the supermarket or The Cheesecake Shop, they are going to get a cheaper option than if they asked us to make them one, or if they choose to order desserts from our menu. That matters to some.

Needless to say, I have a problem with that - becos I always question why people who are so budgetory orientated would bother to come to a restaurant like ours. There are many cheaper options around for them to pick from. And invariably those people also want to BY0 wine, seldom order entrees, want us to provide whipped cream to serve with the cake, and look in horror if  they are told that there will be a charge for that, and say they'll have coffee at home....

We have had people arrive with burnt cakes, hot from the oven, and have been airily asked to whip up an icing  for it. We have had cakes from the supermarket, still in the plastic box, with the "Marked Down' price sticker attached. We have just about seen it all.

A restaurateurs nightmare in other words!

And that is not becos we are mean and want to maximise the spend we get out of every seat in the restaurant.  Buts its becos we're a business, and a business makes a profit when its income exceeds its cost structure. And we make that income from selling food and wine.

And when people want to use our facilities but want to bring their own food and wine - then our ability to make a profit is severely compromised.

But.

Life is never as clearcut as we would like it to be - becos when good customers ring and tell me its someone's special birthday and they've had a cake made and could they bring it to have with coffee, I wouldn't hesitate to say that they are welcome. Becos they are. Even though I am fully aware, that knowing there is cake to come will mean that some at the table will opt to go without desserts.

Thats is what I regularly refer to as the 'swings and roundabouts' of restaurant service.

So its never easy. Sometimes I end the nite feeling used and abused, and sometimes I am totally comfortable with what has transpired, and I guess ultimately the distinction rests on what I think the motivation from the customer is.

If they are trying to get away with spending the bare minimum on what they say is a special occasion, then I just don't understand why they've come to a restaurant at the upper end of the cost scale in Tauranga.

If however they are just trying to add the icing on the cake, figuratively speaking, to a birthday celebration  then we will bend over backwards to accomodate and facilitate.

And regretfully, there is no ironclad framework I can wrap around how to deal with the issue becos people are so different. For better and worse!

I have half an hour before Holly arrives to accompany me to The Elms, where we'll by setting up champagne to serve to guests after a wedding ceremony. From there I shoot up to Ambiance, up Pyes Pa Rd, where all the other staff will be assembling, to serve the rest of the wedding dinner.
We know the bridal family very well, which always creates a nice level of familiarity, but doesn't detract from the fact that its the bride and grooms special day, and we want everything to go of without a hitch for them.

The one thing we can't control or organise is the weather, and I hope I'm not tempting fate by saying that is starting to look promising. What clouds that are around don't look like they're going to come to much, so hopefully, we will be lucky!

Friends in for dinner last nite were talking about relatives who also do catering in  another town, and who do over 60 weddings in a year. Sometimes 3/4  in one weekend. I can't begin to imagine the amount of emotional and physical energy that goes into that kind of volume - its simply massive. We have cut back on the number  we do - becos they involve so much, and maybe we're just getting older, but unloading the truck at 2am in the morning, when you started the previous day at about 9am - does kind of give rise to questions like, 'why do we do this again?!"

We do it, I know, becos the people involved matter to us, and its always a priviledge to be involved in the big occasions in someones life, but with that comes a very weighty responsibility to get it right, and that isn't something we carry lightly.

Cooked lunch for Rick so we both had something to eat before I headed off. Ironically even though you're surrounded by food, its easy to forget to eat on days like this, so I try and make a point of having something. Bulghar wheat today - tossed with some goat cheese, roasted eggplant, tomatoes and mint. Distinctly stodgy - but stomach filling, and will keep us going for the next little while.

Opened a bag that had arrived from one of the second hand book shops that I get linked to via Amazon to discover the autobiography of Michel Roux, one of the 2 Roux brothers who opened their first restaurant La Gavroche in London in 1967, and who with their sons, continue to be involved in that and other 3 star establishments to this day. A quite remarkable achievement I feel!  Looks very promising, but didn't want to delve in too deep, becos it would distract my thought process too much, so have reluctantly closed it, to come back to another day.

Did however finish last nite 'Lunch in Paris', a gentle delightful tale, of an American who falls in love with a Frenchman, and goes to Paris to live with him and eventually marry him. The book is a clever description of the process of her coming to grips with living in Paris, and with learning to meld the differences between the way Americans approach life to the European outlook.

I thought initially it was going to be all sweetness and light, but in fact it never descended into being cloying. Her take on people is genuine and real, and a pleasure to read.

Included with each chapter are recipes appropriate to what has been descriped in the preceding pages. Her love for food obviously growing as she familiarised herself with the french way. A number of the recipes looked practical and useable I thought, and will go back to them at a later date.

My desire to fall in love with a frenchman is zilch - that role is already amply filled, but I could definitely imagine myself slipping away to live in Paris for awhile. There is just something about that city that evokes a need, and books like this do nothing to quell the ambition, even though she is completely upfront about the downsides of trying to assimilate into a culture that goes about things differently to what I am used too.

Heilala Vanilla are a company that we have had a long association with, and whom we hold in the highest regard.

They have created a very special product  thru a joint venture with a village in Tonga, and not content just to get the best dried vanilla pods to the market, they have gone on to create all sorts of value added products as well.

We think what they have achieved in a relatively short time from is amazing - and speaks volumes about Jennifer and Garths combined talents.

Below is a trip that they are organising to Tonga for people to go and see the source of the vanilla, and to travel with Peter Gordon, a very special NZ chef who has a totally original way of looking at food.

We would love to go, but the timing is all wrong for us du of a large catering job we have booked for that time frame, so I've had to gnash my teeth and be practical. Hate it when that happens..

But  our loss may be someone elses gain, becos places on the trip are limited, so below is the email from Jennifer for those who might be interested in having a special few days in Tonga..

A rather gorgeous short video of dogs in motion - which regretfully turns out to be an artfully filmed ad in the end. You get that!

My friend Chris, who is a huge part of our life here at Somerset thinks these sortsof challenges are fantastic. I think they are distinctly odd - and can't even begin to imagine the amount of time that is spent setting them up.

But it is exactly that sort of minute fastidious detail that appeals to Chris, and is why he is so amazing with computors - and perhaps why I have to learn everything the hard way...

Vanity Fair is a magazine that I devour cover to cover when it arrives, and one of the main reasons I love the magazine so much, is the quality of the writing. And  of the columnists, Christopher Hitchens rates as one of the best. The depth of his knowledge, the stringency of his opinions, and the glorious flowing english that he uses to articulate those thoughts, constantly staggers me.

By coincidence this weekend I've finished reading a most thought provoking book "Inside the Kingdom' a study of the 20th century Saudi Arabia, and what led to 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 being Saudis, when Saudi Arabia was considered an ally of America.

My world view is very west centric - very English and American based, becos of the education system I grew up in, and yet  I enjoy taking the opportunity to look at things thru another set of values sometimes. It illuminates and it can enrich, and it can widen the sphere of reference significantly. Not something I see as a bad thing. And as a result of that I found this book fascinating.

This link is to a lecture that Christopher Hitchens gave to the Daniel Pearl Memorial on the subject of anti semitism - and the connections and contrasts to the book I'd just read were immediately apparent. Muslims and Jews seem to be locked in a perpetual struggle that has no solution and no end. 

He speaks as he writes - eloquently and profoundly - and I will wander over to work now with a head full of thoughts...still confused, becos no-one can offer easy answers, but with quite a bit to chew over, metaphorically speaking.

I am truly shattered. We were up before 3am this am in order to head down to Taumaranui to support Hannah and Andrew in the Kararau Krusher - a multi sport event.

A long day was had by all - but once again my offspring never cease to amaze me with the quite alien ( to me!) levels of energy and grit that they exhibit. And once again I marvel at how my childrens sporting endeavours get us out to parts of the country that we wouldn't ordinarily go too. Shot down the Western Access route quite quickly, becos so little traffic on the road at that time of the morning.

We came back via Te Kuiti and Te Awamutu becos Gail had told us about a new cafe, foodstore and cookschool that had opened up and we thought it'd be a good opportunity to have a look, but too late coming thru. Courteneys doing the Te A Tour in a few weeks though, so we'll be looking for somewhere for coffee then...

I've retreated from the restaurant tonite cos I'm beat- went over for the first hour but felt quite surplus to requirements and since we have a cookschool in the morning, I will be heading to bed soon. I need some catch up snooze. The restaurant is fully staffed, and all is proceeding smoothly. I won't be at the restaurant for the next 2 Saturday nites becos we have weddings on, so always reassuring to know they can cope without me. Makes life much easier!

Some photos of our girls day...

The start....

Pep talk from her father - he can't help himself...

The start - in the main road at 8am...

With multi sport - transition happens in different places and since the athletes are going from road bikes to run to kayak to mountain bike, there is a fair amount of equipment that needs to be in the right place at the right time. Rick is reading Hannahs instructions at this point about what she needs at each transistion. Our daughter has an exceedingly  dry sense of humour which sneaks thru - her assessment of the time it was going to take to do the mountain bike leg - 'Ages'.

Zoe, part of the family and the support team heading to the kayak transition with Rick and bags of stuff...

At the end of the run leg...

And about to paddle 20 odd kms on the river - as you do!

I suspect I'm probably not alone in finding this quite extraordinary, and in hoping that this degree of political interference in what people eat could only happen in America...

A congressman in New York wants to introduce legislation that will ban restaurants using salt in the preparation of food. All salt. Huh?!

That is so absurd on so many levels that I wouldn't know where to begin to rant, and right now I have to head over to the restaurant, and probably just as well!

I have just got to the end of a reasonably intense few hours spent downloading all the information from my old computor onto a new system. A process made much easier by the fact that Chris comes and helps. I would be completely lost without him, but don't tell him that - he'll be insufferable!
I've needed a new computor for a while but have been delaying, becos being such a creature of habit I was dreading this readjustment stage that I knew I was going to have to go thru to familiarise myself with all the new stuff.

I think we're over the worst now however, and I certainly loving the new key board, and the speed with which stuff is happening...

Its kind of ironic to ponder that when we opened up back in 86, personal computors were not around. I'd just left an accounting office where there was only one mainframe computor, and an operator who would work overnite - we'd leave all our files on her desk and she'd do all the entry overnite.
I can distinctly remember getting our first fax for the business here, and feeling absurdly modern! Then came the photocopier, and the very first computor, which has been upgraded a number of times over the years.

I've been lucky in that I've had Chris to drag me up to date with each modification - left to my own devices I'd probably still be sending everyone snail mail. But I am a convert - I do love the immediacy that the computor gives me. I can sit down and complete a task - send it and get a response all within the space of minutes. Plus the depth of knowledge that the internet opens up is just extraordinary.

So its a great tool - and well worth the few hours of discomfort, while we swap everything over and make it all compatible.

Plus I had a gentleman from the Liquor Licensing board call in to check details for the onlicense application, and I had to do all the normal bookwork as well, so being a pretty full on day, and I'm looking on going over to the restaurant for service shortly, almost as light relief!

The restaurant has been put back to its normal state after having moved all the furniture outside on Sunday for the Sharon Elizabeth concert. I delayed doing that as late as I could becos the weather wasn't offering me any guarantees that it was going to stay fine, and going thru the process of getting everything set up outside, only to have a shower sweep through, would not have been good.

We were lucky.  The weather played ball, the courtyard looked quite lovely - Anna from Silver Bubbles worked her magic and created a lovely space, that was beautiful in the sunlight when people first arrived, and then turned romantic and dreamy when the candle light and fairy lights kicked in as it got darker. I told Anna that she reminds me of Rick - in the sense that what she does is create layers of visual interest. The end result is deceptively easy in appearance, but I have more than an inkling on Sunday of how hard she and others toiled to create the kind of effect they wanted. And there were multitudes of things to catch the eye.

Ricks sauces are like that. Look simply on the plate - but there is layers of technique gone in to create the complexity of flavour that is arrived at. All interesting.

Sharon sang beautifully - the sort of songs that evoke nice romantic memories for those of us who have been fortunate enough to go to any of the Mediterranean countries. I have absolutely no religious belief at all, but never fail to became captivated by listening to Ave Maria. We visited a monastory close to Montalcino that had been built in the 900s, and the soaring stone edifice was one of the visual highlights for me of the trip. I associate Ave Maria with it, becos I bought a CD of the monks singing it.

I used the evening as an opportunity to introduce everyone to the Herons Flight Sangiovese - an Italian style red wine grape made in Matakana that I particularly like, and was gratified to get a uniformly positive response. You never know with wines how they're going to be recieved, and its always a big step to convince New Zealanders in general to step outside the grape types that they're familiar with.

An evening like this where Rick and I set the food and the wine matches gives us a chance to throw in something a little different  - and always a buzz to have that recieved positively.

A nice nite - well worth all the stress that came with the territory!

We have a function on tonite, for which I'm hoping that everyone will be able to sit outside - on the deck and in the courtyard. Anna Robertson and team are currently over at the restaurant creating their own special blend of magic - hanging things from the maple tree and putting up fairy lights and candles and other visual treats.

Hopefully the weather will play ball, but not feeling quite as optimistic as I did on top of the Mount early this am, where the skies looked nice and blue. Cloud is currently rolling in , and I'm in 'hmmm...'mode at the moment.

Will just have to wait and see....Be such a shame if after all this  effort, people don't get the opportunity to enjoy what Anna has created - but...

Courteneys home for the weekend and she and I are going to have a mince cooking experiment shortly - as she starts to feel her way into cooking at the flat. Ironically have just read a Michael Ruhlman blog where the commentary is all about how important it is to teach your children to cook, and so far that is something we haven't really focused on with our two. Courteney makes sensational cupcakes - but has never shown much inclination towards savoury cooking, but needs must, and now she's fending for herself, she's starting to look at ways she can do it easily and nutritionally and we're happy to help.

But I digress...

we have a staff member who's pregnant with her second child, and I asked Vicki the other day what type of information she was getting from the Ministry of Health about eating whilst pregnant, becos we have had a run of pregnant women in the restaurant recently, in itself not unusual, but what has been noteworthy, is the amount of concern that some of them have expressed over what they can and can't eat.

Vicki said there is copious amounts of information.  I haven't been pregnant in 19 odd years, and I remember even back then that some of the warnings were pretty dire.

A  pregnant lady  complained last nite that she couldn't have an entree becos there was nothing on the list that she was able to eat becos she was pregnant. As Mr Ramsey would so aptly put it -  'bollocks!'

There is literally not one entree on the list that would be unsafe - no raw meat or fish, or unpastureised dairy products, so what actually is she scared off? And more importantly why is she so scared?  I didn't step in to explain that to her, becos she had made it clear it wasn't a subject up for discussion, and I don't feel its my place to intrude. But I did shake my head, and Ricks and my exchange over it, was one of discouragement. You really do wonder.

I understand the need for caution, I really do, but I do wonder about a world where we get so scared about what might possibly happen, that we avoid virtually everything except overly processed food. I just can't accept that that is a healthy approach, either on a physical level or an emotional one.

I am conscious however of a desire not to be seem to be judgemental of the decisions that other people make - each to their own, but it just seems to have been a bit of a week for it. A steak got returned on Friday nite, becos its 'welldoneness' wasn't well done enough for this lady, becos she was pregnant.

You get that!

Larry left these books for me when he was in NZ last year, and I've just finished the second one today. The author wasn't someone I was familiar with, but apparently he was wellknown in the States as a novelist.

Before he decided to be a writer he trained as a chef, and worked at some of the great hotels in Europe in the 40s and 50s, back at a time when those huge hotels, relics of the belle epoque era were falling out of fashion, and gradually disappearing.

These were hotels where ' the staff quarters were seven stories up under the slates of the roof, with two hundred staff in each wing, ( men east, women west) and room above the central block for two hundred more - the maids, the valets, and chauffeurs brought by the guests.'

A world that disappeared with the devastation wrought by the second world war.

His description of being trained in those kitchens - where there was a rigorous separation into different specialities, and a ghastly adherance to rules and regulations handed down from the time of Escoffier, paint a world that has long gone now.

But it makes for intriguing reading nonetheless.

And then in the "Cookbook", he describes in his leisurely prose how to cook a few dishes in a style more reminiscent of a novel than a cookbook. And that is deliberate becos he argues that most cookbooks don't teach people how to cook, they are more just a list of instructions that don't provide the right kind of information.
By contrast he doesn't even list ingredients, but instead explains to the reader the process of oldfashioned country cooking, that, had we all grown up in an idyllic country setting, we would have learnt from the knee of our grandmother. Regretfully most of us didn't get that  sort of start to our cooking career, but reading Mr Freeling is to absorb some of the instruction.

He is however, a somewhat cynical human being, and some of his asides about humans and life in general are barbed in the extreme.

    'The human being is such a creature of habit that he falls easily into laziness and monotony. He dislikes both the effort of altering his basic conceptions and the need for concentration in carrying out new or at least unaccustomed movements, and this applies to cooking and cooks as much as to musicians, politicians or physicians. The cooks falls easily into narrow and hidebound ways, and while the strength of regional cooking lies in doing the same thing over and over again until it is perfect, the weakness is that standards are blunted by repetition and rigidity. A country restaurant loses its reputation, often very quickly, when work on the three or four dishes in which it specializes becomes listless and mechanical.
Exactly the converse process takes over in 'international' restaurants, where the menu is far too big and varied, where there is a high turnover of staff, and where there is great pressure to allow vulgar, luxurious and ghastly presentation to compensate for lacklustre food cooked in a skipshod way."

Ouch!

Sat down to write this blog last nite when I'd come back over from the restaurant - but have just reread what I wrote then, and decided that I was much too grumpy - thrown off kilter by a table who refused to be satisfied with anything, and wanted to change everything - and I'd allowed them to have far too much an impact on my state of mind.

Kenny Shopsin in his book describes customers like that as being people who are insecure and to make a statement and be noted get awkward and demanding. Possibly he's right, but that sort of illogical queriness always has the reverse effect on me. Rather than trying to impress those sorts of people, I do the reverse and back off, becos I can see that no matter what we do, or how far we bend we ain't going to make them happy. By definition they thrive on not being happy.  So I refuse to put the energy into them. Right? Wrong? hmmm.. Call it a survival tactic. To my mind they are bullies, and if you bent over and did what bullies wanted all the time, you would never have a clear system in place for your business. You would be all over the show. And there are enough variables in what it is that we do, without that added complication.

So. Last nite I was grumpy, but have slept on it, and its dissipated, and I'm ready to go over to a cookschool shortly. Ricks headed over a little earlier becos his arm movement is limited, but he assures me he's in no pain. It looks however like I might be stirring a few pots in the class today...

Which in a funny kind of way brings me to this book - a book written about the changes wrought in France over the last few decades, which has meant that it has lost its supremacy in terms of the very best of restaurants. A mantle that the author says Spain has now claimed from the French.

Mort Rosenblum wrote a similarly themed book ' A Goose in Toulouse, And Other Culinary Adventures in France' which I've written about previously. But this book focuses more specifically on the demise of haute cuisine - the top end, Michelin starred restaurants on which France based its reputation for decades as being the most serious, and simply the best country in the world for serious dining experiences. ( I bet no-one asked any of those chefs to heat up a soup that is stated on the menu as being served chilled...)

Now however, France is in crisis. The pre-eminence of the wine industry has been upsurped by other countries; hundreds of artisinal cheeses have disappeared; thousands of bistros and brasseries close every year, and McDonalds has established itself so significantly, that France represents its second most profitable market in the world. ( Behind America, I'm guessing.)

So how could all this come to be in a country that has prided itself for so long on simply being the best when it comes to culinary matters.

The author takes a rather cirular route to explain what has happened, VAT taxes of 19.6%, a youthful population that simply aren't interested in food,  but it makes for fascinating reading. And in the end when I ponder it all, I'm left with the impression that what he says is correct, but it is not quite as dire as he predicts.

He himself, talks about classically trained young chefs, who are eschewing the tradition laden approach to cooking that they were brought up in, and are embracing a more casual, more relaxed approach, that is none the less totally serious, about the style of food they present. Everything is just broached in a much more casual manner.

Is that necessarily a bad thing? Definitely not, if they care about what they do, and are catering to a demand that is there in the market.

Fashions change. And food is caught by that just like most other aspects of desirable living. If, what you offer the public is no longer in demand, then you are not going to generate enough turnover to be profitable, and you are going to disappear, and just becos there is a certain degree of nostalgia generated by your brand, doesn't mean necessarily that you should be continuing to offer something, that people no longer want.

Any business, in what ever field it is in, needs to remain relevant, needs to provoke demand. Some do that by creating a constant blitz of publicity around them, that is forever drawing in new customers. And some prefer to do it, by calibrating what they offer to the sort of customers that they get to see alot off.  I know what camp I consider Somerset to be in!

There is no end point. There is no sense of satisfaction that you have possibly arrived where it is that you wanted to arrive. As a businesss we are constantly evolving and learning and adapting.  Thats just the way it is.

Some of the stuff we control - some of the publicity games we have decided a long time ago to have no part in, and the discussion in the book about the restaurateurs that have decided to eschew the Michelin system made for interesting reading, becos I have long been confused by people who would set such a store on what nameless inspectors would have to say about their business based on one visit.
Been a bit of a natural cynic I refuse to believe that politics and self aggrandisemnet doesn't come into play when it comes to the allocation of stars within the Michelin sytem. The world just simply ain't that simple.

And I've never understood why really good restaurateurs would set more store on that sort of qualification than they would on the nightly parade of customers, happy with what they provide.  Surely those people are more significant to their ongoing business sucess? Yes and no. The irony with Michelin is that it attracts publicity which in turn attracts customers I guess, and that is why the 3 stars is the holy grail for so many restaurant owners and chefs.

Its all very interesting - and in the end I think its as simple and yet as complex as saying that the world is constantly in a state of flux, and you have to acknowledge that in order to survive. If you put your head in the sand and refuse to allow any variation, then you will die by slow degrees, and that is an especially miserable way of living. So why would you?! A number of the top restaurants throughout France have gone into bankrupcy over the last 5 years - they had lost the volume of customers they needed.

We have spent time in both rural Italy and France in the last decade, and the profound impact on us, beyond all the cliches on how beautiful it was, was the lack of people. And an average age well into the 70's. Rural France has emptied out into the cities - there is no cachet attached to agricultural endeavour for the young. And if there isn't a generation coming thru prepared to raise the livestock and make the artisinal cheeses for the great restaurants to use - then where are those restaurants going to go to source the product they need?

I'm a big believer in the pendulum  - it swings backwards and forwards thru history, and it takes a certain momentum of events to change its direction. But I do think that is currently happening - and we are moving back to an appreciation of the land and a slower way of doing things. I get a magazine from America called Culture - which is full of ex professionals who've gone back to a few acres and some goats or sheep and are making cheeses and a more bucolic way of life. Funded however, it should be noted by their previous life in medicine or...

Ironically France is behind the US in that trend. The Slow Food movement that originated in Italy has gained no traction in France whereas its hugely popular in America. I suspect theres a bit of good old fashioned chauvanism behind that - the French really do think they are better than anyone else at this food and wine production, and what this book describes is the waking up that has occurred over the past few years, as those at the forefront realise that they actually do have to adapt and change becos they aren't actually that much better than anyone else, otherwise they will gradually fossilise and become irrelevant.

I guarantee that once they come out of the dumps - they will move forward, and its going to be exciting to watch. And provides yet another excuse to have to go back one day....

Rick made someones day, quite unintentionally just now. He'd flicked over to the restaurant to check on the pastry the kitchen team are making for a special dinner we have on Sunday nite - the pastry is different to normal,and while there he got into a conversation with a lady he didn't know, who'd dropped in to grab some licorice icecream becos she had people coming for dinner, and had been caught out over dessert, and had decided on the way home to call in for some licorice.

She asked if there was anything else he could suggest that would be quick and easy for her, and he mentioned the sticky toffee puddings that we also sell, and showed her one ready packaged in the fridge out front. She hadn't realised we had the range of Somerset at Home products, and was delighted to have something that was only going to take some quick re heating and the addition of warm cream flavoured with Heilala vanilla paste and/or icecream. So she bought a pudding - enough for 4, and some toffee sauce.

Dessert sorted.

Perfect. It is exactly that  sort of ease that we are aiming for, so nice to have a happy customer walk out the door armed with the dessert and sauce and brochure with prep instructions, who hadn't been previously aware that she could get anything other than licorice from us for home.

I note that restaurant critics get a bit twitchy about sticky toffee being on restaurant menus - toffee puddings and creme brulees are their two bete noirs at the moment, and to a degree they are correct in that they feature ubiquitously. You do tend to see them everywhere.

And I guess restaurant critics eat out frequently (by virtue of what they do!), and therefore tend to get a bit jaded, so are looking to be stimulated by the new all the time. Which is all very well and fine but therein  lies a conundrum for a restaurant, becos while a critic may want to be wowed, the paying public more often than not want something that they had last time that they loved. And more often than not when it comes to dessert what people want is sticky toffee or brulee.

As a restaurant you want to sell desserts - and we work hard to have a range of diverse options for people to choose from, but it is an unavoidable reality that if we have either sticky toffee or brulee on , they will be the biggest sellers - along with licorice.

Thats just the way it is. So I'm comfortable offering them. We've never stated a need to be at the cutting edge of culinary trends,not with everything that we do, and I don't think its in anyway a contradiction for a good restaurant to have comfort food desserts on the menu.

But I have no doubt that at some stage over the next little while I will read a restaurant review in which the critic will be disparaging about the fact there is sticky toffee on the menu. You get that!