A lengthy, but I guess you don't have to watch it all in one fell shot as I've just done, video taken over the weekend at the South Beach Wine and Food Festival in Florida, where 5 chef/owners are quizzed about what its like to operate a restaurant in todays world, with the changes in the age demographic, and also with the advent of the technology that has made everyone a restaurant critic.

Theres a lot of information in here, and lots of pearls, that I totally agreed with, and then one or two points made, that have made me look at certain aspects from a slightly different perspective.

Found it very interesting.

There have been massive changes in the electronic media, between my generation and my childrens, ( Christ! when we started out in business in '86, fax machines were considered state of the art, and are now laughed at as totally antiquated. That was a short lifespan of usefulness), which impacts on the way restaurants are reported about in the media, and how people make decisions about where to spend their eating out dollar.

How do we grapple with those changes, and how do we let them control the decisions we make? How much do we allow the customers who walk thru the door, dictate to us what they want us to provide? How do we deal with the instantness and the pervasiveness of the commentary that can happen about our business out there in the blogshere, without having any right of address?

Times have changed, dramatically - and it sometimes does make me ponder, what our useby date will be. Becos any restaurant has to stay current in order to stay in business, has to continue to provide what people want, and to do that has to be almost literally in a constant state of flux, becos the market is constantly moving.

Its a balancing act, that can create all sorts of discussions...

Why do we travel? Why do we go to all the expense and angst of removing ourselves from our comfortable everyday life, to travel to the other side of the world, via ridiculously cramped ( for those of us who fly cattle class!) space, only to be subjected to trangressions on our liberty as we cross national borders, all the time being regularly reminded of our particular insignificance in the overall scheme of things. The fact that I, Margaret Anne Butcher, has landed at Charles de Gaulle airport is not going to matter one jolt to anyone at the airport, and I will just be one of a sea of ants, moving thru that space on any particular day.

I don't  feel a particular need to be important as I go about my daily life, but there is something willfully diminishing about the way we are subjected to queues, and agressive officials in airports, and then yet more queues and waits, that I always find hard to come to terms with. Every so often I just get this urge to stamp my foot, and announce to the world in general that this is all quite ridiculous. But needless to say, a certain look from my husband, not to mention my own inherent sense of self preservation  restrains me.

And then when we arrive at our destination, unless we had the sense in our youth to learn more languages than just that of our birth, we become regarded as reviled tourists - people who are merely passing thru. Again, a fleck of inconsequence in the multitudes who have passed that way over the years. And without language skill to bolster our communication, we go on tours, shield ourselves in buses, and view the foreign countries from a step removed.

Or at least that is how it is to some.

Travel causes me significant levels of angst, becos I am not especially comfortable out of my comfort zone, and I am someone who values the ability to vocally communicate sufficently highly, so that when my lack of prowess in another language limits my ability to do so, I end up feeling unpleasantly restricted.

And yet, I am looking forward enormously to the trip we have coming up to Italy and France, even though I am at the same time, working through a reasonable level of anxiety about all sorts of aspects of what we go too, and what we leave behind.

This book, has helped clarify my somewhat agitated thinking. It looks at travel from a number of different perspectives, all of them framed from the viewpoint of wellknown artists, writers or painters, so that we may better 'see' what it is that we experience when we move away from what is familiar.

And it has calmed me down a little. I am by nature a worrier, and sometimes that can be useful becos it can mean that I have prepared myself for various eventualites, just in case I encounter one of them, but taken to an extreme that personality trait can also operate as a dampener, becos the fear of what may possibly happen, can stop you ever getting started.

We are started, however. We are on our way. We have 2 weeks of cookschools fully booked at a beautiful spot in the north of Italy, with  customers of ours from here in Tauranga ( and one couple from Auckland, and one from Wellington),  with whom we are going to share 7 days of eating, drinking and living in  rural Italy. For those 2 weeks, Rick and I work, to ensure that our customers are comfortable, and while we can't guarantee their happiness, we will endeavour to remove any worries or stresses, and provide them with ample opportunity to relax.

The other side of those 2 weeks of 'work', we will be travelling, initially on our own, and then later after the classes with Hannah and Andrew, and at this point in time, we are starting to formulate just where we are going to go, and how best we will make our way around. Hannah and Andrew are here at the moment, and she dragged out the box from our earliest trip away, when we had 5 days in Paris at the end of our cookschools in Tuscany.

We were discussing hotels in Paris, which is where the four of us will end up, before we head for home, and they move on to England, and I had mentioned that I was keen to go back to the hotel that we stayed in last time, that I think Diane Ponzio recommended to us,  becos it was small, and authentic and very central. I couldn't remember the name of the road it was in, which is why Hannah went looking in the box of everything that I retained from that trip, and flicking through it, brought back a wealth of memories.

And that process, along with finishing this book has served to underscore and remind me of why I go travelling. It is for the experience. To increase my understanding and my appreciation, specifically of food and wine most certainly, but not only. Having read an especially evocative chapter in this book, where de Botton, referring to John Ruskin, believes that only those who pause long enough to sketch what it is that they see, are then  able to really appreciate what they are looking at, and see all the detail, I have got to thinking about how best I can make the most of the precious few weeks that we have away,and how I can best deepen the value of what I experience.

I doubt I will turn to a sketchpad, but certainly I will use my camera and my diary to delve into what I'm seeing and experiencing, and in doing so, accentuate and prolong its impact. Only recently I reread the diaries I kept for our last European trips, and it brought back much detail that time had obscured. These trips make a huge impression on us, partly becos we have had to wait so long for the opportunity to travel to Europe. Mortgages and children, and the daily committments of the business made such undertakings inaccessible for many years.

It is still a jiggle to do so even now, and we are not in a position to travel without due regard to costs, regretfully, but I know enough from my previous experiences, that some of the memories that have stayed the strongest with me, are not the most expensive meals in upmarket restaurants, illuminating experiences though they undoubtedly are, but rather the feel of sitting in a rustic arbour in the middle of a delapidated old village somewhere in the back of beyond, in rural Tuscany, being served by an extremely elderly gentleman and his wife, who brought out plates of simple charcuterie and tomatoes, and who later played the accordian for us.

It wasn't something written up in any tourist book, rather it was local knowledge from the people who owned the house we were all staying in, that allowed us a glimpse into that life, and it is one I cherish, quite disproportionately to alot of other things that we got to do on that trip.

And I hope that with this next trip, that I allow myself the luxery of simply being in the experience, and savouring all that we get to see regardless of where we are, a state of mind I suspect I managed to achieve in that village quite unintentionally, but just becos everything aligned for a perfect stressfree couple of hours in a magic location. And  that, I think, is why I want to travel.

We had a cookschool today, and I am about to head out for some exercise to clear my head before service tonite, but first thought I'd link to this article on Yotam Ottenlenghi, becos I've been referring to his cookbooks in this series of classes and therefore this discription of his approach to food felt pertinent. We think they are particularly inspiring - the food is so fresh and interesting, and has enormous visual appeal.

In the class on Wednesday I came over to the house to retrieve our copies of his two cookbooks to show people who had expressed an interest in looking at them. ( And was then somewhat nonplussed when a table that had been in for lunch, unrelated to the cookshool, and came in again for dinner, dived on one of the books, and took it down to their table. Made me a bit twitchy, even though I don't consider myself unduly possesive, but I did make a point of making sure that the copy was still there in the morning!)

I'd come to the Guardian interview via Michael Ruhlmans blog on what constitutes a successful cookbook. An article that makes interesting reading in its own right, becos of the sorts of numbers it bandies around. I have been meaning to get the last few years of cookshool recipes into some form of book for the last 12 months or so, but over complicated the process by deciding that I'd also incorporate the 25 years that we've been in business, and tell the 'story'. Needless to say, I've found the thought of doing that somewhat overwhelming, and as a result have achieved effectively nothing.

But I will get on to it, one day. It will be self published however, and somehow I don't think our print run will achieve quite the sales targets that Mr Ruhlman talks about. And thats OK...

No amount of money would be sufficient to encourage me to do what these guys do for a job. I know human beings are diverse, but bloody hell! - who could possibly want to do this for a job...

I thought this comment by Michael Pollan to be especially interesting, becos reading it happened to coincide with some musing I was doing all by myself, on the trend that we'd picked up during some recent eating out experiences in Auckland, where the waiting staff place your dish in front of you, and then proceed to give you a short, sharp, rehearsed synopsis of whats on your plate, and that can take some time when theres 4 or more people at the table, as they work their way round the table, one by one.

I find it irritating. And I wasn't exactly sure why I reacted that way. Rick and I are foodies after all,  in the most sincere sense of the word, in that when we eat out at other restaurants, it genuinely is research for us. We are always curious to see what others do, how they do it, and surmise why, and it naturally follows that the food is always of special interest to us, so therefore you would think that it would naturally follow that I would be especially interested to have what I'm about to eat explained to me again in detail, but instead I find it intrusive.

 We've read the menu, which explains the dishes and we've made our choices accordingly, and put our order in. And then when the food is brought to us, the waiting staff are trained to go over the component parts of the dish, which can often be quite multifaceted. I presume this is a pointer from the kitchen that the food is very important, and we, as customers can't be relied on to have remembered all of what was in the various dishes that we ordered, and therefore we are going to have it verbally pointed out to us, again, so that we can get the opportunity to be impressed by how clever the kitchen was to think of various flavour combinations.  Whereas my logic is, that I know what I ordered, and I don't need to have it pointed out to me again, but should I have any queries about what anything is, then I will feel quite comfortable about attracting one of the waiting staff members attention and posing the question.

I guess the reason for my disquiet, is that inherent in that process, is the belief  from the establishments perspective that it is more important to interrupt the flow of what is happening conversationally wise at a table, so as to make sure that the customer pays due respect to what is on the plate in front of them, and I simply can't agree with that.

My core belief system for the restaurant is the desire to make sure that all the component parts - the food, wine, ambience and how we front staff treat guests, come together in a way that makes each individual customer feel at ease. Simply put, we want them to enjoy the total experience enough, that they are going to want to come back. It isn't just about the food.

Don't get me wrong. Good food is of fundamental importance, but I believe that people chose to eat out for a whole host of reasons, of which what they are going to eat, is only one component part, and by elevating the food to an alter of worship, you create a level of seriousness around the process, that most of us can't be bothered with. And that is coming from someone who is very, very interested in food.

So I don't think at Somerset you are likely to encounter anytime soon, the front staff, deferentially placing food in front of you and then commencing to describe what is in each dish. It ain't going to happen. If however, you should have any queries about anything on your plate, then please, by all means, feel completely free to ask, and we would be delighted to share our knowledge with you.

I should perhaps point out here though, that I think that the analogy between the restaurants that Michael Pollan makes is a little unfair, becos The French Laundry is one of the most famous restaurants in the world. It is one that people make literal pilgrammages too, from all around the world,  and for those types it is very much all about the food. The meal is multi coursed, and I don't think you get given a menu, instead it is a succession of small courses, and it would make sense in that instance for the waiting staff to need to explain what is in the food when they place it on the table.

But I wonder if its an idea that has been taken out of context and usurped by restaurants that provide a la carte printed menus to their customers, therefore making the need for the front staff to explain the food somewhat redundant in my eyes. But then again, most probably some people love having that added note of seriousness. It just depends I guess!

I am delaying going over to the restaurant becos it is currently hosing down, and I don't want to get my recently washed hair wet - otherwise it will go all frizzy! These things matter, ok?!!

We have a leak in the restaurant that is driving the roofing guys mad trying to isolate, and it only seems to be apparent in certain winds. Fortunelty at the moment , even with this volume of downpour, nothing is coming in, which is kind of important when you have customers due to arrive.

We had an appointment with our travel agent this afternoon to finalise our airfares and travel insurance, and on the way back from that we popped into The Good Food Company, to see if they would have any masa harima flour. And they did! Like it when that happens. Haven't been in the shop for awhile, so good to have a poke around, and see what new things they have in stock. Its always useful to have a bearing on what is available out there for discussion in cookschools, becos people always ask, and I like to be able to point them in the right direction.

Chris was very much in evidence - someone who we have known since forever - and he managed to convince us that we had to buy a wedge of very ripe talegio cheese, which I've just tryed, and loved, although Rick found it too pungent, which just goes to prove that you can never please everyone.  I love rieslings that have fully developed kerosene characters, and he hates them, so we've learnt to agree to disagree on different flavours. Theres no absolute right or wrong, but I do think he's on the wrong track with this cheese. I love that stinky, ripeness, and I'm therefore naturally quite convinced that everyone else should as well. Will take whats left over to the restaurant now, and see what the concensus is amongst the staff - suspect we'll get 2 distinct camps!

Also bought some raspberry powder which I'm going to have a play around with, and the masa harima flour, which we'll experiment with for tortillas. We have some South American musicians playing here next week, and we want the dinner to be in keeping, without having to be too literal about it.

One of our staff Maree, is married to a Chilean and is a chef, even though she's working out front with us now, so we've been picking her brains, as to what she thought, and the ideas have started to crystallise around ingredients that are fortuitously plentiful this time of year - corn, avocado, etc.

And I've been sitting here responding to a number of emails that I've had from people commenting on the article on Courteney in last nites Bay of Plenty Times, talking about her next few months in the States. People have watched her grow and develope as an athlete from when she was a young preteen,  and feel personally vested in her progress, which is rather cool. And which brings me to linking to her blog in which she describes the last few months, in the build up to leaving for America.

Proving they don't just ride bikes all the time....

And now I have a window of opportunity where the rain has cleared, to whisk across to the restaurant without getting too wet...had better make the most of it!

I am about to take myself off to bed, with Alain de Botton's 'The Art of Travel' tucked under my arm. Feeling somewhat dispirited - a mood that comes around periodically, and which I find best to deal with by retreating from people where I can, and looking for inspiration, to lift me back up.

This video was one I connected with on the Ideas in Food blog - a fantastic source of all sorts of ideas. Last week I made a carrot cake, and dehydrated the carrot first, primed by one of their blogs - an idea that worked very well to intensify the flavour of the carrot, but I need to have a rethink about the texture, becos I didn't quite get the balance right with the moisture.

This video is about food photography - not the styilised, studio kind of food photography, but more the story telling kind. The documentary - the visual description of the central place that food has in different kinds of cultures. And that just happens to be very much the kind of photography that most interests me.

A depiction of life as it is, without artifice - a record of what is.

Its given me stuff to think about, and thats always good! Especially for my here and now...

I have just finished reading 'La Bella Lingua', sitting out the back on our rickardy old deck, enjoying the slow haze of a summers afternoon, with a  cresendo of cicadas in the background.

We have just about finalised our international travel plans for our trip to Italy in the middle of the year. Some of what we will do in both Italy and France, outside of the actual cookschool weeks, remains to be sorted, but things are starting to come together, and at least now we can plan with certainty around actual dates of arrival and departure.

As part of the whole anticipation of travel, I enjoy reading, and building up a background of detail about where we're going. More often than not, I tend to look at things thru a food and wine perspective, becos that tends to cover in very large part, most of my cultural interest in different places. So most of the books that I've acquired on Piedmonte, the region in Italy that we will be spending most of our time with this trip, are food related, just becos of my natural predilection.

This book is a little different, becos it traces the history of the modern Italian language, and food is but one of many aspects  of Italian life that are analysed in terms of their contribution to creating a national language, from a base of formal Latin and regional dialects.

I'm going to recommend it to the people who will be spending time with us in Italy, becos it captured beautifully the essence of what we like to think of as the quintessential Italian spirit, and has put me in very mellow mode. An improvement on some of the angst of previous days, as I start to get myself twitchy about all the things that need to be organised, and all the worries that people like me must work thru as they bestir themselves to embark on a major overseas trip, which takes them so much out of their comfort zone.

I don't especially like being in unfamiliar territory - I make myself anxious over all the possible pitfalls, so sitting down and reading a beautifully written book like this, which positively teems with a deep passion for all things Italian, reminds me that I need to let go, and just get on with it.
 
It is going to be a trip of discovery, and that is exciting, and its good to be excited!

I have survived another Valentines night. No mean feat for me!! Roz has just knocked me and upended a glass of water down my front, which I took as a sign that it was time to beat a retreat. Dripping wet is not a good look to front customers...

I find Valentines Day a trial. It is so overhyped, and we turn away literally hundreds and hundreds of tables in the run up to it, and in the end I get depressed by how much pressure people feel to conform, and be seen to go out for dinner on that  one particular evening.

Today while I was at the restaurant setting up after a function we'd had there in the morning, it took  probably three times as long as it normally would to reset, becos the phone ringing was so constant, that you would answer, replace the recievor, take 4 steps heading back to what you were doing, and it would ring again. And on it would go.

I tried, I really tried to be polite to everyone who rang, wondering if by any chance we would have table for 2 for tonite. I even went thru and confirmed all the bookings that we did have, becos when you've turned away this volume of business, there is nothing more frustrating then having a no show on the night. So I left messages on answerphones all over town, asking people to ring and confirm that they still wanted the table that they'd booked weeks ago, and thanks to doing that, we got a couple of calls from people who didn't want their booking, so we were able to give those to people on the waiting list.

But I must have been feeling the pressure, becos one table who arrived tonite, told me that the phone number that I left in my message to ring the restaurant to confirm, was in fact their number, not ours, and I was blissfully unaware that I'd done it. Mind you, each time I tried to ring out to confirm a table, the phone would ring as I was dialing the number with someone ringing in, wanting to book.

I leave the bookings on Valentines Day to Rhonda. I mutter in the background, but she organises the tables, and makes a magnificent job of it. Valentines is all about 2's for obvious reasons. And if we fill up with 2's then we would do 36 covers with our 18 tables, which is considerably less than our capacity of 65,  so Rhonda sets about rejigging the restaurant, and she fits in  more tables, and we end up with 6 extra tables on the floor, and then in addition we double sell tables, becos some people are happy to come late, and slot in after an earlier booking has left, so she managed to wind the bookings up to a very respectable total. I was impressed.

We did have minor moment of panic when we thought we had more bookings than we did tables - but we managed to sort that and no-one had to sit in the bar!!

Over for another year!!  I think I need my diary...




''

I've had to have a week off exercise becos I twisted my ankle at the start of the set up for the big wedding we did last week, and by the time I finally got to bed, 14 hrs later,  it wasn't looking pretty.

So after a number of days doing nothing, I'm picking it up again, and am intensely frustrated to have slipped backwards in the interim. Every metre I manage to run is hard earned. My breathing capacity has been so limited for so long, that the efforts over the last couple of years to improve it, are tediously slow. But I am making forward progress, I just don't appreciate the two steps backwards that I've taken this week, and the need to make up that ground again.

So came home to breakfast and the papers feeling a bit grumpy and sorry for myself, niether of which are admirable traits.

I have however just read this delightful post, written by a pastry chef at the top of his game, who's made the decision to leave Le Bernadin and explore writting options.

Evocative and beautifully written - its helped me get over myself and move on to other things...

This link is to an article in which Michael Ruhlman lets of a bit of steam about the universal fear of eating fat.

I've  nodded my head in agreement with him the whole way through it, becos he succinctly captures the points that we try to make regularly in cookschools. Fat in and of itself, isn't bad for you - the quanitites of it that you choose to consume, are what makes it bad.

My daughters and I have on going debates about trim milk, becos I don't believe in it. I'd rather eat or drink full fat something, but have a little less, then make do with a watered down equivalent. Courteney works with nutritionists with her training and they all strongly advocate green top milk, and I don't agree, so we've kind of got to the point where we've agreed to disagree.

I did however think it was absurd when I read the recommended diet in one Sunday paper given by a dietician to a mother who'd queried what her two active under 10 year old boys should be eating. Trim milk was trotted out in the line up, and I thought that was crazy. For growing active young kids, why on earth would you recommend low fat milk?

People's attitude is changing. Years ago when we used lots of butter in the cookschools, we would regularly get enquiries as to what else could be used in butters place, and now we get those questions very seldom. People seem to be relaxing, and understanding that a little of what you fancy occasionally isn't going to do you any harm. Literally!

Courteney left for America on Monday. She is going to be based in North Carolina this year, but first she's gone direct to LA and straight into a 2 week training camp with her team.

Last year she was based in Texas. Going to America was a huge step for her back then, and that team was a fantastic introduction. becos it was club based, small and amateur.

This year she has taken a massive step up, and is now part of the best ranked female team in America. She goes in as part of the grunt machine - there to do the hard yards in the Tours, for the more senior riders.

Everything about the setup is professional. She got handed 3 bikes when she arrived - a training one, a racing one and a time trial one. They are only allowed to be seen in branded gear - they are given helmets, shoes, sunglasses, casual gear - you name it, everything.

They have wrap around team support - it is all enormous. This is what professional cycling is all about. She's living her dream, and we are absolutely thrilled for her. This link is to photos of a ride they've just gone on in the camp - Courteney features in a number of the later ones of the female rides.

This is her life now, and how cool is that!

And just to give you a feel for what she's currently experiencing, this blog is written by one of the other newbies to the team...

Being a business owner creates its own special stresses and strains, some of which, occasionally, can feel quite overwhelming.As the owner you are where the buck stops for all the good stuff, and also the bad. And while I am told quite regularly that I am lucky becos I have a wonderful job, and I don't dispute that  what I do is very much what I want to be doing, I'm not sure that I view it with quite the same rosy tinted hue as some others do. Its not all wandering around a busy restaurant of happy customers with a glass of wine in hand!

There are downsides, as there are for any occupation. But for all that, I never cease to consider myself remarkably lucky to be able to do something day in and day out, that I enjoy so much. And when there are negative aspects that need to be fronted,  well, they eventually become part of the rich tapestry, that make life interesting. Or so I tell myself.

According to the latest edition of The Thymes, a monthly magazine that The Restaurant Association sends out to its members, the biggest issues universally facing restaurant owners this year are food costs, and staffing issues.

We are incredibly lucky with our staff. We have good people around us, who are committed to Somerset and who we enjoy having in our lives. Becos we all work so closely together I have come to hugely appreciate the ability to get along with others - to be part of a team in the most genuine sense of the word.

I used to work in a hotel restaurant as a young varsity student, where the predominantly male kitchen would take bets every time a new waiting staff member ( invariably female) started, as to who in the kitchen would be the first to get them to cry. They seemed to think it was a sign of their superiority. I thought it was absurd, and wasn't backward in expressing my sentiments.

The purpose of a restaurant I have always felt is for each and every customer to feel that the meal they have just had was  one that they would want to come back and repeat. And to achieve that result, the kitchen and front of house need to be working together in unison, not undermining what the other is doing. And I was very determined that we would never have that kind of bollocks at Somerset, and it would be fair to say that over the years we've pretty much managed to avoid that kind of attitude.

We haven't always got the mix right with staff. There have been periods when I have felt under considerable strain becos of incompatibility and becos of problems that some people cause with other people.  You get that when you deal with human beings, but it can certainly be an area that can cause a business owner real grief.

There have been enough ups and downs along the way, for me to read this article in The Thymes, which quite understandably is written incognito, and to smile with a certain amount of recognition. We've never  experienced quite such a degree of staff turnover I must say, but we have certainly had the odd time when we've wondered how the hell we were going to get up in the morning and  do it all again the next day.

And those memories make the fact we have such a good team around us these days, something that we both never stop appreciating immensely.  Quite simply Somerset couldn't exist without them!

I worry sometimes about the constant interconnectedness of my childrens generation. I don't do Facebook or Twitter, either on a personal level or a business one, becos I get all the people connection that I need thru my job. And where possible, I'd much rather interact with other human beings face to face. And where I can't do that. I find that email is a perfectly serviceable option. I just don't need anything more.

My children are very much of a different generation - and they are constantly in communication with their friends. We had a rule in the house which has been carried over into their adulthood, that when we were at the table, either at home or out at a restaurant, that there was to be no texting, and that was pretty much followed, although I did sometimes wonder if I was been taken for a sucker, and whether some subterranean under the table judicious texting was happening while I was sweetly unaware, just becos they were dexterious enough to do it without looking.

And that ability to be in touch is not always all bad. It can have an upside like when Courteney has just spent 5 hours in Sydney airport on Monday, on her way to LA,  and filled in that time using her phone and laptop.

But to my way of thinking there is also a dark side to the pull that the electronic media has, and I thought this article , was spot on in the sentiments it expressed.

I have just zapped out to the venue where we are catering a large wedding tomorrow. Sometimes its nice where possible, to have a look at the layout of things a day or so in advance, just so that when I'm lying awake at 3am in the morning fretting about all the possible scenarios that can possibly go wrong on a catering job, at least the images of the marquee, that I'm conjuring up relate to what we'll actually encounter.

The bride, her mother and friends were covering all the chairs, and tying organza ribbons, and it all has that nice sense of anticipation that builds prior to big events.  But no drama. And that is possibly becos the quality of the marquee and all the fitout would have to be the most outstanding that I have ever seen. It looks utterly gorgeous - and theres nothing like knowing that something is looking special, to calm nerves.

Anna Robertson from Silver Bubbles will be out there tomorrow morning, when I go out with Hannah to set up the tables, and I have no doubt that she will take the whole ambience up yet another notch, if that is possible. She has a way of working complete magic, that woman.

Our kitchen marquee is attached to the back of the big marquee, and I swear that Rick is going to cry when he sees the set out. We simply aren't used to getting something that well thought out, or that much room! ( He's out on a ride at the moment, so thats why I'm writing, becos I need to get this very large 'wow' out of my system, and since he wasn't around to share it with...)

Everything in the hireage has come up from Wellington, and in our meetings last year, I got the distinct impression that Colin, who owns the hireage company, and is a long term friend of the family, was vastly experienced in these mattters.

My hunch has more than been proven correct. Its not only the size of the marquee, which is bigger, higher and more spacious than most marquees I've seen, not to mention, being in immaculate condition ( and made by Baytex  , which is owned by good customers of ours, Spencer and Wendy Tankard), but its all the small details that have been taken care off, and which  can make such an appreciable difference.

My 3am thought last nite was whether there would be any lighting in the kitchen - it has been a point overlooked on previous jobs, where much attention has been given to creating the right ambience in the main marquee, and the thought that we might need artificial light  after about 9pm wasn't even considered. And we were as guilty of that as the client. Mind you, you only get caught out once on something like that, so once I'd chatted to the bride and headed to the kitchen marquee to have a look today, the first thing I checked was the lighting. Not only do we have more than enough lighting but we also have an electric insect zapper box!

And the tressle tables in the kitchen have extensions on their legs. Tressle tables are universally too short to work at - and that is becos hireage companies hire them out for multipe uses, sometimes as tables that guests sit at, and sometimes as work benches for kitchens or bars, or to present buffet food on. The ones in this kitchen have extensions fastened to the legs, so they stand at commercial bench height. Matt is going to be so pleased - no sore back from bending over...

All the plates and glassware have been put in the appropriate places, by the men working for the hire company. That is ridiculously significant becos  one of the first jobs I usually have to do at a function is lug crockery and glassware around to be where I need it, becos more often than not it gets dumped in one mass dropoff. Not in this instance. Oh no. The predinner glassware, is over by the pool,  where the guests will be at that stage; the stuff for the table set up in the marquee, was left alongside them; and what we need for the entrees  and mains is in the kitchen, where those dishes will be plated. Such organisation.

The quality of the crockery and glassware is beautiful - I've never seen so many coffee plungers in one place before, so I'll put my ones back away becos we are definitely not going to need them. May take a teapot though, cos I didn't see one of those.

Early last year we went to an extraodinary party catered by Simon Gault and his top chefs on a high station down in the South Island. Miles from civilisation, the setup was unlike anything we'd seen, and the kitchen marquee alone, was bigger than the floor layout of all of Somerset. No expense had been spared, and we marvelled at the banks of ovens and equipment that had been hired, and kind of pondered how it is that we do what we do on catering jobs with a couple of mein host ovens, that blow out in the wind, and never get as hot as you want them too, and try and plate food for 150 people in a tight time frame. Yes - I confess to a degree of envy, and I'm not someone who ordinarily does envy.

But tomorrow, Rick has more oven capacity than he does in the kitchen at Somerset - as I say, he is going to cry!!

So. The setting is exquisite, the flowers will be outstanding - and the bench mark for us to measure up to is very high.

No pressure then!! ( And probably no sleep tonite!)