I am indulging in some classic procrastination, and I'm not going to let myself get away with it for too much longer - but just before I bring out the annual accounts folder and get stuck into what I need to do to wrap all that up, I thought I'd just link to the lime curd recipe I've just made.

We get limes from customers in Katikati, and currently have an abundance of them, so they're been used at the restaurant in a host of different ways, and it did occur to me the other day that they may also work as an equivalent curd to lemon.

Sylvia Sandford gave me some of her lime curd at the Clevedon Market last year, so I knew it could be done, I just wasn't sure whether the recipe would need to be tweaked at all to account for different levels of acidity.

So have just followed David Lebovitzs instructions in this recipe, and the only alteration I needed to make was to substitute lime juice for the lemon,  and have ended up with a large cup full of beautifully rich curd, with just that right level of tang.

Don't especially need curd becos we're not big toast eaters in this household, but figured that it wouldn't be too much problem coming up with ways of using it.

I have a Gala recipe for scones that I ripped out of the Sunday paper awhile back, that layers lemon curd and cooked dates between 2 pieces of scone dough, and I may give that a go on Sunday to greet Rick when he drives back from Auckland, having taken Courteney up there the nite before  en route to China.

And we're making a large croquembouche for a good customer in a few weeks - and while the filling is traditionally creme patissiere, we have on occasion filled the profiteroles, with curd mixed with whipped cream - and with all this citrus around that may be the way we go this time.

( During another bit of procrastination last nite ,  I watched the final of Masterchef on the computor, rather than getting stuck into the accounting as I had intended, and was intrigued to see the method they used to make a croquembouche, by layering the profiteroles inside the cone.)

That wasn't something I'd encountered before.

I have no doubt that it will all get eaten - and it was so easy and quick to make that I may just have to make some more.

I used direct heat as instructed by David in his recipe - something my mother would never have done. She always made her curd over a double boiler, but Rick uses direct heat for his, and I figured as long as I stood over it and whisked, I should be OK. Which I was.

 Did however change my saucepan after I'd started , becos the straightsided one I'd initially reached for,  doesn't work with a whisk - you can't get into the edges and things burn there. I have a de boyer saucepan with a rounded bottom that is a dream to use for things like this, and that made the whisking easy and considerably less fretful.

The guys are making pastry cases over at the restaurant for a caramalised onion tart we''re serving as an entree with Clevedon Buffalo mozzarello. I might just have to swipe one after lunch service today and fill it with some lime curd - all in the name of research, you understand!      

Just been flicking thru my emails, and read this article on popcorn which I thought interesting. Hadn't realised that popping corn was as old as it was - and always find the history behind various foodstuffs to be fascinating. The how's and why's that things evolved.

I mean for example, what on earth convinced the first people that red beans growing on a low lying shrub could be hulled, layed out to dry in the sun, then ground and made into a hot drink - that we know as coffee?  We'll never find out I guess, becos such pertinent details are buried in the mists of time, and all we can do is conjecture. But for some reason, someone, somewhere in Africa probably tried it, liked it, and from there a world wide industry has grown over centuries.

Likewise with corn. I knew it had been collected and dried to be made into flour, since the earliest times,  but I'd thought the idea of popping it was relatively recent- but apparently not so.

We did popped corn in a cookschool last year as one of the fingerfood options, and I noted over the series that people could be easily divided into those who liked the idea and those who didn't. Not everyone got as excited as I did! - but you get that sometimes...

It was something that I'd never encountered growing up - so I thought the idea was fantastic, and especially since we were able to access some wonderful corn grown in Tolega Bay. The range of butters that you can coat the popped corn with are endless - and in that class we used the NZ wasabi, but for a winemakers dinner we used truffles. All sorts of possibilities!

Have snuck back over to the house while we wait for tables to arrive, ostensibly to do some bookwork - some stuff I was going to do this afternoon, but lunch service at the restaurant ended up being busy and protracted, and since Rhonda's away for the next 2 months, its not quite so easy for me to slink away, as I normally do. In fact today I did lunch by myself, which won't usually happen, and had to move my tush!

Always good to remind myself that I can still do it - and more importantly, still enjoy doing it. We have considerably more staff now than we used too, and the restaurant is usually divided  into sections, with a waiting staff member in charge of each section, and my role ends up being more of a hostess - someone to do the meet and greet, and float over the top, filling in where required. So to actually have to do the hard grunt on the floor is a rarity for me these days.

But with Rhonda in the States for 2 months - the rosters have been jiggled and rejiggled, and Roz has stepped up to take over alot of Rhondas job, and things will carry on. As they always do. But I'll be back up more than I've been used to for awhile. Which won't do me any harm.

 We have a great team around us these days - and I really appreciate the way they rise to whatever the occasion may demand.

I'm having a slightly more full on week than normal, becos not only is Rhonda not here, but neither is Rick, and we haven't spent too much time apart in our married life, which I don't mean to sound quite as twee as it possibly does. Its more to do with the fact that we bought the restaurant ( with my parents,) a couple of short months after we got married, and our life since has been living and working together. And time apart just hasn't really featured.

But he's down in the Hawkes Bay for Club Cycling Nationals with Courteney - so I'm picking up the other pieces as well. As you do. The dogs and I are coping just fine - although I was rather over Bensons efforts to defend me last nite, when he decided that a periodic bark during the nite would keep things at bay, and then a quick lick of mums face just to reassure her that all was under control.

No more special treatment tonite I think - they'll be back in their kennels, otherwise I'll be dead on my feet by the time Rick gets back! But getting them out there is going to be a mission, now they've had a taste of staying indoors for the nite..

I have all the annual accounts to finish organising. Thanks to GST that is no longer a marathon effort like it used to be in the very early days. When I worked as an accountant in my previous life, before we bought the restaurant - annual accounts were something that got done historically. Information was collated at the end of the year, added up and subtracted and Profit and Loss Accounts and Balance Sheets extracted. But with the advent of GST - (when was it?, I know it was after we opened in '86,) accounts had to be done on a twice monthly basis at least, so as to be able to file the necessary statements. And that meant people started staying much more current with their information during the year - rather than throwing all the invoices into a box to be dragged up to the accountants office at the end of the year. Reluctantly.

And now of course some of the software available  - I'm using Xero which is outstanding - means that I can have weekly accounts available to me if I want to be that uptodate with the financial information, so the annual accounts are no longer the mission they once were. More a case of verifying balances and analysing any discrepancies, and journaling miscoding. But always nice to get it done and dusted for another year - so will get onto that shortly.

In between waitressing on customers today and stocking up the chiller with wine, and reordering some more, I got a phone call to say that the 6 cases of Pinot Gris that I'd ordered for the cookschool series we're now in, wasn't going to be able to be delivered, becos Terrace Edge had won a gold with that wine, and Air New Zealand had ordered their entire vintage, which is fabulous for them, but not so stunning for me.

 They'd saved me some cases from the current vintage, but they're not going to be enough to get me thru the series, so I've had to ponder Plan B. Fired of a couple of emails which I'm currently awaiting responses on and am hopeful of having it sorted soon. Theres alot of wines out there to choose from - that's never a problem - its more finding the right one for the food match,  at the right price point,  and one thats a little different for people.

And now I'd better head back over to the restaurant cos can hear car doors shutting, which means our 7pm bookings are starting to arrive...

Don't I wish I could be as quick on my feet as this woman was, when asked an inane question by an interviewer.

I always think of the sharp retort hours later...

Macarons have featured heavily as a blog subject for me over the years, primarily becos I came back from Bordeaux totally fascinated by the idea that there would be shops ( and more than one shop) that sold nothing but macarons. How could a shop afford to specialise to that degree?

( Actually - I exaggerate slightly - this particular shop sold caneles which are a Bordeaux speciality as well as macarons, which are considered a Parisian delicacy. So thats a shop that specialises in 2 things!)

An intriguing concept to me.

The French, especially the Parisians are fascinated by macarons - and macarons are different to macaroons. ( Macaroons are the American biscuit that have coconut in them; macarons are a meringue sandwich). Laduree Patissiere in Paris states that it sells 12,000 in a day. Its hard for us to comprehend that sort of volume.

When we got back from France we spent a number of months working with and trying to perfect how to make the perfect macaron. It was a steep learning curve that involved alot of internet research- all of which convinced me that I was far from alone in my obsession.

The guys in the restaurant kitchen have mastered the techniques involved and we now sell 5 different flavours at the restaurant - dark chocolate, white chocolate, caramel, apricot and licorice.

We sell alot to accompany coffee - the sweet note when you don't feel like a whole dessert, and also increasingly we sell them thru the Somerset at Home concept.( But are a reasonable way from making 12,000 a day, so far!)

There are many links I could give on the internet if anyone is interested in learning more about macarons,  but thought this one here to a Dorie Greenspan article in the LA Times, was one of the best that I've read recently, in terms of how it demystifies the whole subject.  Dorie Greenspan is one of my go to authors, both in her cookbooks and with her blogs for information on baking. She has a peanut cookie recipe in her baking book, ' Baking - From my kitchen to yours"  which has become a firm favourite in our household.

I think this perfectly captures the essence of what makes macarons so special.

Roz was topping up the glass containers that we have in the bar with macarons at the start of service tonite, and as we stood back to admire the biscuits, we mutually decided that we both like the apricot ones the best. But then as I was writing that  I remember last year during the feijoa season, that Jamie I think it was, experimented with a feijoa flavour that was truly divine, so my favourite will probably vary, depending. But there is no doubt that I love macarons!

We are awash in feijoas at the moment - so must make the suggestion in the kitchen that some feijoa macarons might be a good idea and see what sort of response I get!

Our house is feeling quiet, and almost clean and tidy - a rarity in our world. Both daughters have headed back to their respective Varsities, so I've tidied up the mess that they inevitably leave lying around, and am enjoying finding things where I expect them to be, and not having the fridge and pantryn constantly  denuded . Courteney comes back home most weekends, so its only a temporary state of tranquillity, but possibly all the more appreciated for that fact.

I'm about to head over to the supermarket to get some silvo cos want to clean my silver candlebras before the first cookschool on Friday - aiming to use them and some glass domes I bought from Cabbage and Kings,  to bring a slightly different note to the table -just not totally sure yet how its going to come together. Will keep playing...

We headed out after lunch to do a bit of running around, which included finding some moulds for the dessert for this cookschool series - and went to Culinary Council, where we haven't been for awhile. Found what we wanted, and then moved next door to the newly expanded Gourmet Traders, which has a magnificent range of stock. Absolutely fantastic in fact.

Shops like that get me excited becos it makes me feel like Tauranga is finally starting to come of age - when it can support a shop that size,  specialising in ingredients that demand a more cosmopolitan knowledge of cooking. Suspect its a factor of our ethnic mix becoming more varied, and people simply becoming more interested in a wider repertoire of food ideas. As I see it, its all enormously healthy and a positive sign for the area.

Also called into Gilmours to get a couple of things that we'd missed in our weekly delivery - that store changed over to private ownership a couple of months ago, and what a difference!  We've been going there for nearly 24 years and thats the first time I walked out in anything like a postive frame of mind. All interesting...

We'd had friends for dinner on Monday  - and one of them brought us some chocolates which we opened to have with coffee. They were from the chocolate cabinet at Cabbage and Kings, and were sublime. I've just emailed Val to see what the make was and she said they'd have been from Bennets of Mangawhai.

Chocolate is a subject near to my heart and I've done a reasonable amount of reading on it over the years - books by Mort Rosenblum and David Lebovitz are particulary interesting reading. I wrote blogs on both books last year.  I love all chocolate - white, milk and dark - we have a box of chocolates that a friend brought us back from San Francisco, and they are exquisitly packaged little tablets of plain, high quality chocolate with different cocao fat levels. The higher the cocao fat content the darker and more bitter the flavour, becos there is less sugar.

We used to think that the higher the cocao fat content the better the chocolate and almost willed ourselves to like it stronger and stronger - but experiments with some of the recipes for the cookschools, and comments made in some of the books I'd read, got us to start questioning that approach, and wondering if it wasn't in fact a form of reverse snobbery.
Provided its made from pure ingredients - all chocolate taste wonderful, they just different - and sometimes you want a sweeter finish, whereas sometimes you're looking for something rich but without the sweet notes.

And that is exactly what hit me about the range of chocolates that Trice had decided to treat us with - there was a whole range of different types of chocolate, with different fillings - and the quality was simply outstanding. Intensely rich, so you can't indulge in too many in one sitting, but the satisfaction is immense. I stayed home on the couch last nite, disposing of some stuff that I needed to get sorted in my diary, as I do occasionally, and managed to make a small number of left over chocolates last for a very long time, becos you can't gulp them down. They need to be savoured and revered instead.

And chocolate is good for you. Good chocolate that is!

As I pontificated about at length last year, we had a litter of puppies a year ago to the day - one of the more stressful, but ultimately satisfying experiences that we've been thru. And definitely one that qualifies for the 'glad I did it, but don't think I'd want to go thru it again' adage.

Of the many positives to come out of it though, was the relationship that we have struck up with the owners of the father dog - a family who are even more Weimaraner obsessed than we are. And to celebrate the one year old birthday of the puppies Karen sent me thru a photo last nite of their 4 - all of whom are related to our 2.

Going from left to right of the photo you have, uncle, brother, aunt and dad - and how they got 4 Wei's to sit still for the camera for the time it would have taken to compose that shot, god knows!

Aren't they gorgeous!

Rick has been putting together the recipes for the next cookschool series, which is due to start next Friday, and at the same time has been working on some menu changes for the restaurant.

The end of day light saving, more than anything heralds the arrival of the colder months, and that factor combined with new produce arriving on our doorstep, means that it's time for change.

More and more, we are getting access to outstanding local produce that is a real pleasure to be able to use becos it ticks all the right boxes - its seasonal, it's local and its been picked and delivered to us, often on the same day, so the quality is magnificent.

Limes, figs and feijoas are our focus at the moment. The figs are coming off our own trees and also from people in Katikati who have planted a large orchard and are cropping for the first time this year.
Rick is specialing them as an entree with dolce gorgonzola, walnuts and a honey and mustard dressing, and we are selling truckloads. Which is proving to be somewhat of a surprise becos when we specialed them after encountering them in Italy back in 04, we found little interest. So peoples palates have changed and adapted, and they no longer react to the idea of figs with aversion, I'm delighted to see.

We have friends coming for dinner on Monday nite, and one of them was with us in Italy, and I don't remember her eating much else other than figs, so will save some from our trees for her, and ensure they're incorporated into the meal in some way. As you do!

And we're lucky to be getting the most magnificent limes, also from growers in Katikati. I've been ignorantly telling people over the last few months who wanted lime in their beer, that it wasn't the season, and we don't buy imported citrus. I was therefore gobsmacked when Jill offered me some of her limes - they've been picking since February, so the season is obviously different to the orange and grapefruit that we have down below, which are a long way from ripe yet.

 So we now have limes for the Coronas, - and Ricks decided to use them in the cookschool also, becos they are just so beautiful, and the one thing we love to be able to do in the classes is celebrate local product.

Feijoas are suddenly plentiful - and we are using them in a dessert  and possibly also with a chutney to go with the fish. Rick played around with a recipe this week, that was lovely, and I've been using up the surplus with cheese and crackers when my sugar levels get low in the afternoon - as you do. But not sure yet whether thats going to pan out to making it onto the menu.

Feijoas are a fruit that people either love or hate - they tend to generate extreme reactions. Likewise offal - so I've been pleasantly surprised at how the changes to the lamb midloin dish has been recieved. Its been served with sweetbreads, that have been poached in milk, cut up fine, formed into a sausage, chilled then coated in bread crumbs, and roasted in the oven. I thought we'd get lots of requests for them to be left of the lamb dish. In fact I warned the waiting staff when we went thru the menu changes that that was likely to happen.  I was wrong. They've been selling really well.

Likewise the mushroom soup, which is newly on.  Mushrooms as a general rule don't sell. More often than not, if the menu says they're part of a dish, then  a lot of people will ask for them not to be included, so I've been pleasantly surprised with how well the soup is going. Its been served with buffalo ricotta pastries and people are reacting very positively.

The dishes we're serving the soup in are sublime. I bought them a couple of years ago, for a price that still makes me wince, for the kitchen table concept, that back then, I thought was going to be happening in the near future. That particular dream is taking a little longer to come to fruition then I would have liked,  so we had these gorgeous bowls languishing in storage in the garage and I figured that we might as well be using them. Every kitchen hand is warned to be extra careful with the washing of them  - and I suspect they possibly wish the soup wasn't selling quite so well!

Love nice table wear, its a huge focus of mine  - it just makes such a difference...

I hear criticism occasionally that we don't change our menu enough - which always perplexes me slightly becos I  feel that we are very seasonally  focused, and always responsive to the new produce that comes along with the changes of the seasons. Its hard not to get excited when you haven't seen something for awhile. But there are also certain dishes that remain on the menu regardless of the season becos they are so embedded in peoples expectations of dining at Somerset, that it simply isn't worth the drama that would be caused removing them.

And of those dishes, one of the most entrenched now, is the twice baked blue cheese souffle. I overheard a table tonite, explaining to their guests that they always have the souffle every time they come, and that is not untypical. Far from it, in fact. Even though its one of the dishes we've included in the Somerset at Home lineup, that has in no way impacted on the volume we sell during service at the restaurant.

So we change some things, and other things stay the same. And if that leads some people to believe that we don't change our menu 'enough', well, so be it. I guess I can live with that.

Some apple crumble to eat - bought a big bag of gloriously red apples earlier this week that turned out to have a disappointingly soft texture, ( I need apples to be crisp) so have stewed some of them up and reinvented them as crumble for us for a late supper. Rick and Courteney are both racing in the Waikato/Bay of Plenty Road Cycling champs tom in Morrinsville, so it will be early to bed for all of us I think, with some crumble and cream in our tummies to encourage the sweet dreams!

Darina Allen is one of our gurus. We met her at Somerset when she called in unannounced one Christmas Eve, when Anne was feeling decidedly over people and tired and grumpy, and nearly, so very nearly told her to go away becos we were closed. But something in the dim recesses of my brain registered the name, and made me say ' you're famous aren't you?', to which she responded in her eminitly understated practical fashion.

She's wonderful. Her cookschool at Ballymaloe is a huge source of inspiration to us. We made a special point of flying up to Cork after our French cookschool in the Dordogne a couple of years ago, just so we could go and get a take on what she has created there. I wrote a blog on the subject at the time, and have continued to accumulate her cookbooks, becos our approach to good food  resonates  with hers. I just wish I had half her energy.

She writes a weekly letter on the website and this link is to one discussing her eating experiences on a recent trip to New York. As is to be expected with Darina, she crammed a whole heap more into the trip than most mere mortals would be capable off, and she embraces all with her customary exhurberance and enthusiasm.

Thought the points she made about the rise in interest in specialist butchery, charcuterie in other words,  was fascinating, becos it's something thats happening here as well, but also picked up on the reference to the trend that restaurants have of opening cafes alongside their main restaurant,  that focus on' food to go' - food that people can take home and reheat. That is exactly what we have targeted with Somerset at Home, so reassuring to know that our instincts are playing out on a larger scale.

We are getting a reasonable amount of comment regarding the article that was in the business section of the Bay of Plenty times earlier this week, which featured us, along with Mount Bistro and Two Small Fish as being representative of owner/chef restaurants in the region.

The point of the article was driven by comments from Peter Blakeway, in a discussion about how cheap dining out in NZ is expensive, and  the more upmarket restaurants are cheaper, relative to Europe.

It was certainly something we noticed in France, in that as you moved up the chain of formality with dining out, the cost doubled on each step.

We simply don't get those kind of jumps in NZ.

So Peter believes that our top chefs in the region aren't earning what they are worth, and that has the danger of us losing potentially good talent as they follow the money overseas.

Fortunetly for Somerset Rick is wedded to more than just me - and isn't planning on heading anywhere else, any time soon, becos he wouldn't get as much free time to get out on his bike, and he'd hate that.

We ate at what we believe is NZ's top restaurant a couple of weeks ago, The French Cafe in Symonds St, and it cost us $150 each. ( Admittedly with rather abstemious drinking becos we were driving back to Tauranga that nite.) And the food was absolutely world class - so when you compare that to the prices in this blog that David Lebovitz has posted about eating in top Paris restaurants, I think there can be no doubt that dining out in the upmarket restaurants in NZ is good value by world standards.

And that probably is becos we're too far away from the monied markets, and our restaurants don't have the kind of international catchet, that the long established French ones have cultivated. And we're servicing a much smaller local market, and therefore have to price accordingly, if we want to get enough bums on seats to be viable.

What the article doesn't mention but which is relevant is that a number of 3 star restaurants in France have tumbled into bankrupcy over the last couple of years, as the number of customers prepared to pay those prices dwindled, even over there.

So pricing is a conundrum whereever you are, obviously.

I grew up in a family where my mother insisted, all thru our college years that we had to eat a major, sit down at the table, kind of breakfast. No grab and run eating was ever allowed - even when we tryed to find excuses for why we didn't want to have to eat bowls of cereal, then have bacon and eggs, followed by toast. No dissention was brooked, as was often case with Betty.

Possibly becos of that, and possibly becos of the years I've spent working late at nite, mornings have never been one of my favourite times to eat. And once I left home, that legacy of a major meal in the morning was one of the first childhood habits that I jettisoned.

And thru all those years I was never able to enjoy commercially bought cereal. Simply couldn't stomach the stuff. It had the texture of cardboard I always thought and was preternatually sweet. Weetbix was just bearable, but I had to eat it dry. Once it had milk on it and went soggy, I couldn't handle the texture.

Ma went thru a period of making bircher   muesli - the stuff you soak overnite -  which I enjoyed, or porridge over winter, but I was never able to convert myself to cornflakes or rice bubbles.

Over the last few years I've got into the habit of getting my morning nutrition via a smoothy - and that seemed perfect for me, becos I never wanted anything too heavy, but could blend up fruit and yoghurt with some honey and maybe tahini, and feel reasonably virtuous in the process.

Have had a rethink this year though, prompted by both my daughters now flatting. Both of them expend a scary amount of energy during the day with their various physical endeavours, and I'm just not convinced that there is the nutritional value in the store bought cereals, to keep them going at their kind of level. They're both lazy little tarts when it comes to cooking too, and neither would be inclined to cook themselves a big bowl of porridge, so I decided to step in and commit myself to supplying them regularly with homemade muesli.

And have surprised myself by enjoying eating it too - its not too sweet, its filling and satisfying to eat, so we've all become addicted.


When I suggested to the girls earlier in the year that it would be something I could do - we decided to have a chat to Josh at Slowfish, becos his muesli is what we always order for breakfast if we're there, since its the best available in town.

I've also noted in a few foodstores that I've been in recently that  inhouse muesli is becoming very trendy - with a number now on the market. Tried some of them, and am comfortable that the recipe that I've evolved from Josh's original advice works just perfectly for us.

Have however, tweaked it just slightly after a chat with Leanne, late at nite at a wedding, when we were discussing food as you sometimes do. I'd spotted a container of raspberry coulis that was left over from the plating of the dessert and mentioned to Rick that I'd be quite happy to commandeer that for the house- alot of food gets thrown out at the end of weddings becos its not useable in the restaurant - becos had the sudden thought that it would be lovely on my muesli. Leanne asked if I was making my own, and we got into a bit of a discussion, with her saying that she is now using macadamia oil and vanilla in hers. That sounded like a pretty awesome idea to me, and I have included both ideas in the last couple of batches - and am sure that there will be further tweaks ahead as other people share their good ideas.

So the current version of muesli in our household goes something like this...

I head to Bin Inn and buy a couple of bags of jumbo rolled oats; some seasame seeds; pumpkin seeds; sunflower seeds; coconut threads; dried fruit; and banana chips. There really is no measurement - it all just gets tossed together until the proportions look about right. Bin Inn have convenient and very reasonably priced bags of seeds which I grab and use one of each in the batch.

Heat a 250ml bottle of macadamia nut oil with a large spoonful of Mossops honey, and a couple teaspoons of Heilala vanilla paste.
While thats happening I mix all the oats, seeds and cut up what nuts I have. Today was almonds and hazelnuts - that all gets tossed together, then dried in a low oven, approx 150o for a couple of hours. I stir it regularly to make sure it doesn't burn on top.

When it comes out of the oven I add what dried fruit I have - usually something like raisins, dried pineapple, and quite by accident these banana chips have become a bit of a hit with the family.

Thats it - it's easy.

Have commandeered the Weetbix tin to store it in, and that with some fruit and yoghurt, ( and raspberry coulis for now), constitutes a breakfast that I can really enjoy. At last!

Packets from Bin Inn unloaded and ready to go...

Oil and honey and vanilla heating up, prior to being mixed thru the oats and etc. I don't like too much oil or too much sweetness in the muesli - it needs to be just right. Tried one recently that I suspect had liquid glucose in it as well as the honey and oil, and it was too coated, if that makes sense.

I give it a long slow roasting in the oven at a lowish temperature so theres not too much chance of it burning. I do however stir on a regular basis just to keep tossing things and keeping the cooking even. And once its out of the oven like this I add the fruit, while everything is still hot.

Will let it cool right down, and then store it away. By the time Courteneys nicked half when she heads back to Hamilton on Sunday, I'll probably be making another batch next week.

But thats OK! Our feijoas are just starting to drop and Johns just brought us out a couple of big bags of his, so I'll be stewing some of them up to take the place of the raspberry coulis.

I enjoy breakfast these days....

It was interesting to read these books one after the other to get a feeling for the similarities and then the distinctions between two generations of restaurant royalty in England.

Michel Roux snr opened La Gavroche in London with his brother Albert in 1967. It garnered 3 Michelin stars early on - and has held onto them ever since, making it a true icon, in the correct sense of that word!

Both Michel and his brother learnt to become chefs in the time honoured fashion of that generation by doing the hard yards. Both of them started in patissiere - apprenticed at what seems the ridiculously young age of 14, to our more modern sensibilites. They then worked in private homes for the likes of the Rothschilds, learning to hone their understanding of luxery ingredients for employers who had no notion of budgetary restraints.

It was Albert who thought that there were exciting possibilites in England , becos at that stage it was considered devoid of seriously good food- and according to this memoir, from the day Le Gavroche opened it was busy, proving that the English were ready for a restaurant that took what it did very seriously.

His memoir is a delightful tale of a singular talent, honed and  expanded by the opportunities that came his way. They were clever businessmen who quickly expanded into other more casual style eateries and a charcuterie, but they never lost the inclination or desire to put in the hard yards themselves. Even if that meant getting up in the early hours of the morning to go to the markets themselves to do the shopping - having worked a 14 hour day on the preceding day.

As their reknown grew, they were flown to exotic places to do catering  for very wealthy people ( including the Kremlin - where the Russian chefs, showed their petulance at being upstaged by a French chef, by indulging in not so subtle sabotage!), and have lived life large.

Michel Roux snr is an egoist. He couldn't have achieved all that he has, without a healthy self regard, and this comes thru in all sorts of ways. The relationship between he and his brother broke down eventually, meaning that he went on to open his open restaurant 'Waterside Inn', which also became a 3 star restaurant. His nephew describes the relationship rather tactfully, as 'sibling rivalry'.

They have published cookbooks in tandem, the one on pastry is one we have referred too for years, and understanding now that his early training was in one of Paris' top patissieres of the time, I now get why it is such a tightly focused reference.

He is fiercly proud Frenchman who has lived most of his adult life in England, and who has been seminal, along with his brother in training at some point a whole host of the top chefs, who gain media dominance today. The likes of Gordon Ramsey,  Marcus Wareing and Pierre Koffman all started in those kitchens. Their influence on a whole generation of restaurateurs has been huge. A fascinating story.

Michel Roux Jnr, is the son of Albert, and named after his uncle - who has gone on to take over the running of Le Gavroche in the early 90s, on his fathers retirement.

This book describes his journey to become a master chef, while being simulaneously, hampered and assisted by having such a famous surname. There is no doubt that the contacts his father and uncle had, opened doors for him, - a simple phone call and request from them, made things possible- into some of the most important kitchens in France, but once there he had to prove he was worthy of the association, and obviously felt it to be a burden on occasion.

Again he started in pastry, then went on to work at the Elysee Palace, before going to Alain Chapels restaurant, and then home to England to start working in the family business. Some of his storys of the catering jobs they did, were fascinating - high end cooking for over a 1000 people, in an area with no commercial kitchen.

Eventually he took over the kitchen at La Gavroche and talks about how hard that was becos of the 3 generations of customers that had been coming since its inception , who were initially resistant to the idea of any change.

'Taking over was a huge responsibility because of the Le Gavroche name and becos of its history. Le Gavroche doesn't go in and out of fashion and many of our clients have been coming here for years.
So at first I changed absolutely nothing, not for the first couple of years anyway. That's why the comments about things not being the same rankled so much. Bloody idiots, They thought they were gourmets and they couldn't even taste the cheese properly. '

Ah yes! - the joys of dealing with complaints from uninformed customers who think they know, when in reality they're talking a load of tosh. Always somewhat reassuring for me to read that it happens even at that level of dining!

At the back of this book is a description of a day in the life of the restaurant - how the kitchen brigade of 22, and the front of house staff of 22 attend to matters with a total obsession on the perfection of detail. It is extraordinary.

I do realise that Hot Cross Buns are supposed to be eaten on Good Friday, and that I'm a little late linking to a recipe, now that the long Easter weekend is done and dusted.

My first couple of efforts to make some buns for the family last week,  were not successful, and as  much as Courteney was polite about the 'flavour' of the buns I'd made from a new recipe, we both knew that hot cross buns aren't supposed to have the texture of bullets, so after a bit of research I found this recipe on Dan Lepards website.

He actually calls them Spiced Stout buns - and I suspect the cross was added simply to modify them into being an Easter bun.

The recipe was a little different to what I'd worked  with previously, but the idea of what is almost a poolish, that is left to sit overnite, is very similar to the base of the bread we make at the restaurant. And it suited me, becos I started it on Sunday nite, headed over to Te Awamutu early Monday morning, for Courteneys last day of racing, then came home and made the rest of the dough, did the small amount of kneading, and  left the buns to rise, while Hannah and I headed over to the Mount. ( I usually go up the Mount in the morning, so to be heading down as nite was falling, and all the lights were coming on, was quite beautiful. )

Came home and popped them in the oven - and we had Hot Cross Buns after an Indian takeaway dinner - which was possibly considerably more carbohydrate then we needed in the evening, and maybe not the most appropriate of accompanments, but with some Prosecco, it all seemed to taste just fine!

Nice relaxed end to a full on few days!

In his recipe he uses Stout - I used Guiness cos I usually have some cans of that in the pantry becos I need it for the Christmas puddings.

His spice range was interesting too - cinnamon as well as mace. They're very similar so I used cinnamon as instructed and also allspice, along with the ginger.

I have some grapefruit that we candied last year - and I chop that up very fine instead of mixed peel. It is divine - a much richer more complex flavour than packaged peel.

And I used currants instead of raisins, becos they're more traditional to me. But beyond that I followed instructions, and we ended up with flavoursome, rather scrummy buns, The sort of baking that I enjoy.

We have got into the habit of  calling these biscuits 'Outward Bound' biscuits, but their correct name I believe, is Anankiwa Flapjacks. They're a biscuit I make quite often when either of the girls are racing.In fact Courteney went thru a stage when she didn't want them, becos she said the taste of them made her get nervous, so strong was the association with racing.

She is currently doing the Te A Tour, a 3 day event, and requested some of these to fortify her - so I made them along with hot cross buns yesterday. The hot cross buns were not as sucessful as the ones I made last year - was trialing a new recipe, and I would not describe them as an unmitigated success, so rather than giving the recipe for those, as I promised in the newsletter yesterday, I thought I'd dig out the Outward Bound one instead.
As an aside, the one good technique I did pick up from the hot cross bun recipe though was to glaze them when they came out of the oven with melted golden syrup. That was easy - easier than melting, and sieving apricot jam as I normally do, and worked really well.

The first time I made these biscuits they were great - so I got cocky and was a bit casual with the measurements the next couple of times which cost me dearly. Rather than having 36 odd biscuits we ended up with a large one covering the entire base of the oven tray. Chastened I went and bought some proper measuring spoons, and have used them ever since. With baking I have found that being precise helps!

Recipe;

Melt:
285g butter
6 tbsp golden syrup

Add: 2 tsp baking soda
4 tsp boiling water

Mix with:
2 cups rolled oats
1 cup sultanas
2 cups flour
1 cup roasted sunflower seeds
2 cups coconut
1 cup raw sugar
1/2 cup chopped apricots

Bake: 160o for 30 mins.

I vary the mix depending on what I have in the pantry - often using pumpkin seeds rather than sunflower, or raisins instead of sultanas. Its also become a bit of a tradition to cut up chocolate - sometimes white, if I happen to have a block of that ( I mean the proper stuff, not milky bar) hanging around, or as I did yesterday, dark chocolate.

They are kind of like eating solid muesli...

Our daughter is currently racing in the 3 day Te A Tour, and this has just been written about her on the website after the first day racing...

  The women’s race provided the excitement for the spectators at the finish, with an almost full peloton charging towards the finish line. Courteney Lowe showed why she is one of the most promising female cyclists in the country with a strong surge down the middle of the road to claim stage one line honours. Along with claiming the sprint ace and QOM jerseys she will also wear the yellow jersey into stage two.

I'm going over to watch tomorrow, and will take some photos.

Proud? Who, us?!  As Rick has just said 'thats cool!', which is somewhat of an understatement, but which is typical of my husband.

The Te A Tour was one of the first races Courteney ever did, as an U15, and she's gone back every year over the last 6 years. Now shes racing as an Open Woman, and showing the kind of class that her father has predicted every step of the way that she had.

He's nailed it every time - and like her, when she suceeds greets the news with a calm, relaxed sense of pleasure.

As he has just said - it is all very cool!

Courteney heading to the line up for the Time Trial, with the Zipp wheel her uncle funded and a tri wheel borrowed from an incredibly generous Richard. As you get towards the back of the Time trial lineups, and into the more serious riders, the equipment they wheel out, gets more and more serious. Thanks to some very generous people in her life, this is now a very serious time trial bike....

Even me, who doesn't know very much about the technicalities of these things, think that it looks pretty spunky!