Am just about to have a shower and head over to the restaurant - we're in for a reasonably busy nite, and given I've had a mooching kind of day, it will be rather pleasant to have to move my toush.

Spent a fair part of the afternoon trying to remove a link that I'd inadvertently dropt on to the computor when I was trying to track down how we could possibly watch Courteneys World Championship race on Saturday on the computor.

NZ TV isn't covering the Championship,( and typically featured a segment on 2 non selected Allblacks on the news tonite, before it made mention of Linda Villumsens bronze medal in the Time Trial), so I'm trying to figure how I can stream it from an Australian channel, but ended up in places that caused me a bit of grief, until Chris undid the damage. He's very good like that.

We were supposed to be flying over to Melbourne tomorrow to watch the race, but Ricks not allowed to fly, becos its too soon after his collasped lung, so we've had to cancel out, and he is antsy beyond belief and quite unbearable to live with, hence my endeavours to find a way of watching from a distance!

Ah well...that is why a busy nite in the restaurant will be pleasant relief...something else to focus on!

This link is to an interesting article that Mark Bittman has written in the New York Times on the trends emerging that indicate people are taking food more seriously. It dovetails nicely with alot of the other reading I've done over the last little while, and I therefore thought it might be of interest.

 A gracious Australian commentary on why NZ wine styles are featuring so dominantly in competitions, comparing NZ wines to Australian and South African - a vinous Tri Nations...

I met Rick when I got a job at The Coachman Restaurant in Courtenay Pl, Wellington, back in what would have '82 or '83. He was Des Brittans sous chef by the time I started there, and I was parttime, working nites, while I finished off my accounting degree.

Des and Lorraine were stalwarts of the restaurant scene in Wellington, Des more famous than most, becos he had been on TV in the previous decade, and people used to love to see him in the restaurant - the face from TV in the flesh.  The Coachman was tiny, upstairs, in what had become a rundown and slightly seedy part of town - but a rather special world unto itself for all that.

Back in those days it was pretty much considered one of Wellingtons top restaurants - the only real competition was Casey Cooreys, Bacchus, further down Courteney Place, and I used to delight in the stories Des would tell about how, when they first opened, the licensing laws in NZ were so grindingly archaic, that people weren't allowed to drink wine with the meals, so not only did restaurants not have wine lists, but used to have to go to extraordinary measures to conceal the BYO wine that some foolhardy types would venture out with, when the police decided to make a raid.

Prior to working at The Coachman, I had started my somewhat convoluted university career with an attempt to do a law degree at Auckland University, and while living in that city, I ended up working at Bonapartes, another institution - where tablecooking, flamboyant gay waiters, and gold embossed everything, seemed to my young and very impressionable eyes, to be the ultimate height of glamour!

That restaurant was owned by Lada Ourednik, an emigree who came from a tough east european background, and who accumulated a number of restaurants over the years, and who could also tell stories of when the police used to worry about whether people were daring to imbibe alcolholic substances with their meals.

It seemed hard and fast to me, that New Zealand had only arrived very recently at a point where the civilising concept of going out to dinner, and eating and drinking with friends could in any way be considered the norm.  I was quite convinced that it was our generation, who were responsible for dramatically changing the publics perception to the whole dining out experience.

In reading this book, I have discovered that I was wrong.

Perrin Rowland has published her thesis in the form of a fascinating tale on the history of dining out in New Zealand taken back to the mid 1860s, and early settler days. And she paints a picture of a vibrant established industry, vastly more developed than anything I had concieved, which has come in waves of fashion over the decades.

The hotel industry and elaborate restaurants have been very much part of our cities fabric since those cities started to be built, and the reason the generation of restaurateurs in the 1960's felt that they had been responsible for dragging the NZ public into civilised living, was becos of the long shadow that the Temperance movement and the Prohibition cast over the successive decades. Give Government a reason to legislate over human behaviour, and they will do so in a way, that stifles and frustrates, and so it was.  The Prohibition may have been long gone, but  governments had a tool they could use to attempt to control human behaviour. And as so often happens when governments decide to intercede, things devolved into an unmitigated disaster.

It took concentrated pressure from a number of individuals, to peel back the laws, that had seen hotels degenerate into the idea of the 6 o'clock swill,  controlled by 2 all powerful breweries, who resisted attempts to share what was effectively a very profitable duopoly.
Slowly, slowly licenses were dished out to restaurants, who ran thru the expensive hoops of proving that by selling wine to their customers, they wouldn't be adding to the general corruption of society.

Des and Lada were involved in that process, but they were incorrect, according to this book, in believing that they were instrumental in creating something new for New Zealand, becos prior to the growth of the Temperance movement, we had had great licensed establishments where fabulous amounts of money had been spent to create gorgeous decor, and chefs were brought in from all over the world to impress. Some of the photos are truly breathtaking.

I was stunned, to put it mildly, to read about just how extravagant some of the restaurants were - we had our own belle epoque era right here in little old NZ, and that is something I've been blissfully unaware off.

So I found the book fascinating on 2 levels - its covering of historical fact, most of which I'd previously been oblivious too, and also in reading about the sweep of history over the decades, it was fascinating to discover some of the background stories to people who were dominant in the Wellington and Auckland restaurant scenes, when I first started becoming aware of such things. An anthropological study right there. Names I'd forgotten, people and associations that its nice to remember.

Alot of the stuff described in the last 30 years, I knew, but it was still nice to be reminded, and fascinating to discover some of the interconnectedness between various individuals that I wasn't aware of. Certain establishments were very profound in their influence - staff who worked there would go on to open their own restaurants and in time become legends in their own right, inspiring the next generation.

I am now having to reset my mental preconceptions about dining out in NZ - becos the automatic mindset I have had about Europes historical superiority has been proven to be fundamentally flawed, and I am delighted to have discovered that we have a history that we should be proud off. Distorted maybe over the middle years of the 2oth Century when religion and politics held too much sway, but we shouldn't be letting that deviation influence how we look back.

Eating out is important to the fabric of society - and each generation  establishes the fashion rules for what it wants those businesses to provide, and this book proves just how much has happened in New Zealand, and how much that process has evolved.

Why is it, that each successive generation thinks that they have discovered something new and seriously cool, when, if you look back far enough, you will find someone, somewhere, thats done it  all before?

We have a private luncheon on at the restaurant currently, and I've just left a long table of 41 people happily chatting and eating the slow roasted shoulder of lamb to come back over to my desk for 10 mins. By the time I go back over, Rhonda and Roz will have placed a glass of lemon posset with churros in front of everyone, and I'll stand behind the coffee machine and pump out the coffees.

A 40th wedding celebration for some very special people - and it is one of the privileges of what we do, in that we get to share in some of these milestone occasions, for people who matter.

Flicking thru my emails as I always do when I plonk myself down at my desk, I was delighted to see that David Lebovitz, a blogger I read regularly had visited Balleymaloe Cookschool in Cork, and had done a lenghy dissertation on how fabulous he found the place.

We made a point of going up to Cork at the end of our Dordogne adventures back in 2007 to have a look at the selfsame cookschool, becos we'd met  Darina, the owner here at Somerset, when she had called in while travelling thru NZ. A lady you were made to feel instantly relaxed with, we were determined to go and have a look at her set up, becos her reknown is world wide, and she was so enormously welcoming.

My mother was Irish, so I know a bit about Irish hospitality, but Darina and her family quite blew us away, with their welcome, and their enthusiasm for what it is that they do. The world has caught up with what she has been espousing since the early eighties. Once she was almost a lone voice, but now the whole notion of farm to table is enormously trendy, and taken up as a badge of honour by every young chef trying to earn his/her stripes.

Her set up in the rolling countryside of Cork was truly inspiring, and I was delighted to read this post from David Lebovitz, and to see in it, that she continues on, undaunted and undented by the declining economic fortunes of Ireland.

It has been an interesting couple of weeks- I think I've been in a state of almost suspended animation, going thru the motions, but not really being fully engaged either emotionally or mentally.

Everything however is on the improve ( except for the weather!). Rick is home, and slowly healing, he is going to be in pain from his broken ribs for awhile, and he's currently finding things like taking the dogs down below very taxing on his breathing, which for a man as hyper fit as he is, is super frustrating.

But in terms of possible and probable injuries he was remarkably lucky, so we hold on to that thought as we negotiate what needs to get done each day. First cookschool in the series tomorrow - Matt and I will be sharing a number of the jobs I think, becos Rick won't be able to quite as fluid in movement as he normally is, but we'll sort it.

Our kitchen team have stepped into the vacumn created by Rick magnificently - they are a nice group of people. All of them have done some sort of tertiary cooking training, and all of them have rather strong opinions on the relevance of alot of what they were taught.

Working in a kitchen like Somerset, they get to extend their skill base significantly becos we make so much from scratch. And that bodes well for them, whereever they may end up in the world, becos they have inherited a wide range of skills.

It gives us immense satisfaction that Somerset can set up these guys with such a solid foundation, becos the ability to cook  well underpins everything that we do.

Anthony Bourdain is a chef/writer/TV presenter who is not to everyones taste, but who I have mentioned before that I really rate, for his no holds barred approach to telling things the way they really, really are. I've talked about his latest book in an earlier blog, and I found it a delightfully entertaining read, and insightful look at what goes on behind the seeming glamour of all the publicity.

Michael Ruhlman in his blog, has managed to get a link to one of the chapters in the book, which pretty much encapsulate everything about his approach. In a nutshell, he's saying that there are so many people out there with starry eyed perceptions about being a chef, and owning their own restaurant, and they totally go about achieving their goals the wrong way. As I've mentioned - he doesn't pull any punches, and it makes for good reading....

Am just about to head out for a quick walk around the neighbourhood to clear my head, before I get in the car and drive back over to Waikato Hospital where my husband has been domiciled since Saturdays accident. Getting to know that road quite well!

 He rang this morning to say its looking like he might be able to get out tomorrow, but they were waiting for the results of the xray taken today to make a final call.

He is an exceptionally lucky man. The injuries he sustained ( a car turned into a driveway directly in front of him, 10ms from the finish line of a Time Trial in Te Aroha), after what was apparently a spectacular somersault thru the air over the bonnet of the car, were remarkably light under the circumstances. Hannah had a lecturer who was killed earlier this year, when a car did basically the same thing. That isn't going to make the recovery any less painful - broken ribs hurt like hell apparently - but we are been very thankful for small mercies. No brain injuries, no spinal and no neck...

Fortunetly Courteney was still out on the road so didn't see the accident ( she needs me to explain that becos it was a Time Trial she was behind her father becos the faster riders go off last. In other words he wasn't in front of her becos he was beating her -its not like they're competitive or anything my family!) But she had to deal with all the aftermath and the ambulance trip. Sobering and scary - but it hasn't stopped her or her sister going out on their bikes since. And it won't stop Rick either once he's mended. A fact I am resigned too - although I thought it was reasonable to suggest that if the insurance does pay out on the bike then maybe we should buy a ring for me instead. Somehow I don't fancy my chances...

Pete brought him over 'North and South', 'Walking' and 'Womens Weekly' to the hospital yesterday, with the very tongue in cheek suggestion that maybe it is time for a change in interests. Somehow I don't think so. Riding a bike has real danger potential, but so does traveling in a car, and that doesn't stop us getting in one most days, and this won't stop Rick.

Its been a long few days, but the people we work with at the restaurant have been magnificent and have stepped up to the plate. Rick and I like to think we're irreplaceable, but I have to say that at times like this, it is in fact distinctly reassurring to know that business can continue to tick on without interruption.

I've had to reschedule a couple of cookschools becos we are personally needed for those, but beyond that Somerset remains open.

And I'm doing things that I don't normally have too, which I'll whinge a bit about, but thats OK. John is here now sweeping out the carpark and making sure I'm not loosing the plot, and it matters more than I can say, to know that people care and want to make sure that everything is alright.

 Rick won't be doing the Auckland marathon at the end of October, and possibly some of the other events in the lead up to the Ironman. In fact the Ironman itself is now in doubt, becos he won't want to do that unless he's totally fit. However,  if thats the worst outcome from all of this, then we've been let off remarkably lightly. Something we're very grateful for.

So, enjoy every day - none of us know what is on the horizon, what can literally hit us out of the blue, when its least expected.

 And watch out for the cyclists on the road, huh?!

Richard has just sent me this photo of the bike - everything except for the rear wheel is munted, cracked  and broken off.

I think I am a contrarian. I don't mean to be, but there is something buried deep in my pysche, that tends to react in a negative fashion, when the media get hold of a concept, and I start reading various people who feel the need to beat me and everyone else around the ears about what we should and shouldn't be doing in our lives.

Simply put - I hate to be told what to do. Especially by people who I don't have any reason to respect, and especially by people who climb onto the latest fashionable trend, and run with it, espousing easy catch phrases, but lacking any real depth of analysis.

And this link to an article in the New York Times, captures exactly the sense of uneasiness I've always had about those who would have us focus solely on locally produced food. An idea that is trendy to toss around, and fashionable to be seen to be getting behind, but which, when you start really exploring the angles is devoid of the actual justification that these people claim to have exclusive rights too.

But then, I'm not keen on taking extreme, absolute positions on anything. Life just simply isn't quite that clear cut, and stating absolutes leaves you no wriggle room, and I always like the opportunity to be able to reconsider.

We buy local where we can and where it makes sense - but we don't claim the moral high ground over the issue, and nor do we purport to do so exclusively. I think to do so is a gimmick, a bit like the TV show on the Food Channel some time back, covering a young chef who sort to run a restaurant only using food sourced in the greater London area. He wasn't doing that becos he really 'cared', he was doing that becos it gave him a point of difference, and was therefore an idea the TV producers were prepared to run with.

I personally believe it was devoid of any moral genuineness, and in fact all to do with publicity. But I say that becos I also happen to be somewhat cynical about most peoples reasons for wanting to be on TV, and not becos I actually know whether the restaurant is still there, and still surviving using ingredients sourced from London. Somehow I doubt it.

The history of food is writ large thru ingredients having moved all around the world over the centuries. The locavore purists taken to their logical extreme would have us deny the glories of some of the greatest food cultures in the world. Thats nonsense.

New zealand is a primary producer based economy - we need people in Asia, the Americas and Europe to want to eat our kiwifruit, our dairy and our meat. And to to get that produce to those markets it has to be shipped. Having people screaming about the carbon imprint of such shipping is just a vocal and emotive form of tariff I believe, and one that is devoid of acedemic proof, as this article amply points out.

And thats part of the reason why I get uncomfortable. But the other part is simply becos I really don't like people telling me what I should and shouldn't be eating. I'm quite grown up enough to be making those choices myself, thankyou very much!

Yes, yes and yes!!

I have a huge problem with so many of the restaurant reviews that I read in the media becos so much of the comment portrays a complete lack of real knowledge about the subject matter. And it seems perverse to me becos if you don't know what you're talking about, then why be in print, and worse, sit in judgement on people?

This link is to a blog that Lauraine Jacobs wrote on the subject - and  I have to say, Lauraine! - I was impressed! You have captured succintly the frustration that alot of us in the hospitality industry feel, becos restaurants are such easy sitting targets.

Thankyou!!

We're between cookschools series this week, and that gives us breathing space to catch up on a few things, as you do.Somehow though, whenever I finally get to the bottom of the pile of stuff on my desk, it seems to miraculously reinvent itself, as a perpetual ongoing process... Perhaps just as well, that I don't actually mind the bookwork, becos it is most definitly a constant in my life.

I've also been doing some ongoing pottering with lavash bread recipes - trying to nail one that will be useable for a wedding we have coming up in November, and think I've finally found it. Followed this recipe, but substituted half the flour quantity for the wholemeal flour that had arrived from Hislops in Kaikoura.

We met Paul Hislop and the rest of the family some years ago, when we were on a quick road trip around the South Island with the girls, and had stayed in Kaikoura, hopeful of going out on the Whale watch. That didn't eventuate becos the weather didn't play ball, but we did have the good fortune to discover both their Hislops Cafe, plus the mill where they grind this beautiful flour.

We used it in the restaurant bread for years, and then when the guys were experimenting with different breads, moved onto the all white  olive bread that we have been serving as the restaurant bread for a long time. And the wholemeal flour kind of fell by the wayside, unintentionly, just one of those things that happened.

So I wasn't even sure if Paul would still be there, when I approached him a couple of weeks ago, becos I remember in one of the last conversations we had had some years back, he had been rueing the hassles involved in trying to source wheat that fitted within their organic parameters. I was delighted therefore to discover that yes, they were still very much in evidence, and had a really good supply of wheat sorted.

So I've made both the easy bread recipe that I linked too previously, plus these crackers from the wholemeal flour, and they are superb. This is wholemeal flour at its best - freshly milled, and with a sweetness and nuttiness that you seldom taste in flours these days.

No doubt I'll be mentioning it in cookschools, even though we won't be using it specifically in this next series, and as a result I've packaged some up into 1 kilo bags, for people to purchase.

We've just had a toasted sandwich for lunch - using the restaurant bread, which, becos of the amount of olive oil in it, toasts up to be really crunchy on the outside. And while munching my way appreciatively thru it, I pondered how it would be if we added a little of the wholemeal flour to the mix. We're going to try, and will assess the results.

Want to go for a walk this afternoon, and want to also plant out my first crop of micro greens, but its currently pouring down, and I'm not sure I can get too enthusiastic about heading down below where it will be unpleasantly boggy, to dig out some worm castings to spread over the raised garden that Ricks put in for me at the back of the restaurant kitchen. Might leave that for a finer day, and instead bundle myself up in wet weather gear, and head out the door for a brisk march around the boardwalk. That will get rid of the cobwebs....

Saturday nite is nearly over in the restaurant, and I have left the others to deal with the desserts and coffee that remain, and to do the reset of tables. We have the last cookschool in the current series tomorrow morning, so I've come back over to the house intent on heading to bed soon, becos we've had a big couple of days with various things happening and I'm starting to wilt around the edges.

Am sure Rick won't be too far behind me. But before the dogs get ushered out to their kennels, I thought I'd make mention here, of a place we found today that was just fascinating. I've been talking about wanting to go for awhile, having read about the enterprise in an earlier edition of "Life and Leisure", and just hadn't quite had the opportunity to head over to the Waikato.

But today, my husband decided to ride over to Morrinsville, as you do, and Courteney and I drove over some hours later, and rendevouzed with him there. She then went on to do a 3 hour training ride, after which she was due to join the Morrinsville Wheelers, for their weekly race, ( a mere extra 2 hours)  as you do!

While she was on her initial ride, Rick who'd got changed, and I, headed to the Camelia Cafe, part of the extraordinary Zealong, Oolong tea, developement that is happening at the Hamilton end of Gordonton Rd.

A truly spectacular concept - oolong tea, which is one of the worlds most precious, is been grown in conspicuous quantities and processed using age old methods, and then exported all over the world.

We have for years sold leaf tea, at the restaurant. Its just one of those things that I've always believed in - if we were going to sell tea, I wanted to make it good tea, and since the start I've used Tea Total, and stock a range of teas, that we serve in glass teapots. And we sell alot of tea.

Oolong, according to a customer of ours who was once a tea taster in Sri Lanka, is the rolls royce of teas - and having tried it for the first time today, I begin to understand what Colin was intimating.

They serve it beautifully at the cafe - you have special containers that hold infusers for the leaves - they are placed in the container, using a spoon that looked like it was made from bamboo,  and then boiling water from a teapot is added, and you are told to wait 1/2 minutes, before removing the leaves and drinking the tea. The teapot in the meanwhile, is placed on a warmer, where it maintains a boil, and you can use it to top up your tea leaves again and again.

We were told today, that you can get 6-8 cups out of the same leaves. I think I drank at least 8 cups becos I was curious to see how the flavour of the tea changed and developed, and it did, but imperceptibly. Normally teas get more tannicy the longer the leaves are left, but the flavour of this stayed fresh and vibrant. The waitress mentioned that the best pour is considered the 2nd to 6th cup - and I decided you would have to have a pretty developed palate to be able to judge to that degree.

I'm not a tea drinker - I like coffee. Although I do try and drink some green tea in the week, becos of its beneficial properties, but I tend to wax and wan on it.

This experience today was quite delightful - we had lunch as well, and the sushi platter that I choose just felt like a perfect match. They are developing the whole area, - the decking and seating outside, overlooking the expense of camelia plantings, was just lovely. An inspiration indeed,  for what we could  one day do out the back here, at Somerset maybe...

Needless to say, I very much want to include the tea in Somersets lineup. I was stung some years ago, when Colin told me I didn't have 'real' teas on my list. So we will serve this Zealong oolong, but I will make sure that we do it as close to properly as I can realistically achieve, and that will involve getting some of the special drinking cups to infuse and then strain the tea. So we've made contact and will follow up next week.

Oh! - and by the way - Courteney got an email late on Thurs nite informing her that she has been selected for the Worlds Road team to compete in Melbourne in 4 short weeks. We're talking the elite Worlds, the top of both the men and the women from all around the world, so for her to be named in a 6 person lineup is huge kudos in her first year of racing at Open level, and to say her parents are fair bursting with pride would be a little of an understatement. Think I should be checking my air points on the Amex...becos I think Rick will burst if he doesn't get to watch her actually race...

This movie I have got to see...

I understand perfectly, the innate need to be good at what you do, but I don't quite get the sense of obsessiveness that drives people to need to be the very, very best at what they do.

To put themselves and their families thru the agonies that trying to achieve a Meilleurs Ouvriers de France qualification  entails.

A bit like striving to become an Ironman, perhaps! - only different....