I finally got out to the restaurant garden today to do some serious weeding. Have been conscious of the need to do so for some while now, but somehow it just never made it quite high enough on my to do list. Feeling virtuous that I finally got there, and will go back over in the next couple of days to do the front part. In a little of a dilemma with that, cos want to strip out all the rosemary which has got woody and horrible, but know that the kitchen regularly pick it, and we don't have another one over at the house, since ours up and died mysteriously earlier this year.

So not sure yet whether form is going to win out over function...

A customer drove into the carpark while I was sitting in the garden - her daughter had picked some oranges for us. Their orchard is one of the oldest in the Bay and I'm not sure if thats a factor in why the oranges are particullary good, or whether its the variety - but I accepted gleefully, and we'll be making them into orange pickle and hopefully I'll get to candy some of them as well.

The orange pickle is made to accompany our pate, and we serve it that way in the restaurant and sell them as 2 seperate products in the Somerset at Home lineup. I overheard Rick tell someone yesterday who was delving into the fridge looking for pate to buy, that its our biggest selling product. Not sure why its developed such a cult status - I do understand the licorice icecream, but I have to say the pate has taken me by surprise, but its a pleasant surprise none the less.

We pickle the oranges, skin and all - and it is happening less in the restaurant that when we go to clear someones plate, they have methodically picked out and eaten the orange flesh and left the skin. I'm not sure why we are so conditioned into thinking that citrus skin is inedible, but alot of people do have that mindset, and it gives me real pleasure when I get told as I did on Tuesday, that the gentleman in question had discovered that the whole thing was part of the dish and that the skin added a whole new flavour dimension. Exactly!

Thats why we candy the peel for baking, or zest it to add flavour to so many dishes- over the years our cookschools have been responsible for alot of people going out and buying zesters, becos its amazing how many have never seen one before. And in the classes Rick always uses one - in fact I can't think of a series we've done where a zester hasn't come out for an orange or lemon or lime. Its just one of those quintessential flavourings that we use all the time.

Mind you, we are all different. A cookschool attendee from a few weeks back, who had just eaten for the first time in the restaurant the previous week, commented on the amount of orange on our menu which seemed disproportionate to him becos he doesn't like it. A quick check of the menu revealed that theres actually not a huge amount when you study the menu in its entirety but it does crop up in the entrees with the pate, the mains with the duck, and its an orange reduction sauce that we serve with the chocolate fondant pudding, and then straight orange juice with the licorice icecream, so it does most definitely feature. And always curious to be reminded that not everyone likes it as much as we do...

We are well into the current cookschool series - and I'm pleased to see that alot of the attendees are people who, like us, are incorporating more vegetarian style food into their diet, but wouldn't actually call themselves vegetarians. Its simply a nice way of eating, becos its moved on from the somewhat grey and earnest approach of the early seventies.

I was a little concerned that by labelling the classes Vegetarian at the outset, that we would be limiting their appeal. But that doesn't appear to be the case. Our regular attendees are still there, plus we've got a few people coming who I don't think have been to classes before, but who I know to be vegetarian.

We mention during the classes our most favoured sources of ideas, which are Denis Cotter from Cafe Paradiso, a totally vegetarian restaurant in Cork, and Yotam Ottolenghi , from the Ottolenghi cafes in London,  both of whom have written some great cookbooks. And my favourite internet resource is 101 cookbooks, a lady in San Francisco who sends out a regular vegetarian recipe, and writes in a delightfully lyrical fashion. Always good to be inspired.

And the internet is a fantastic resource. I've just taken the dogs down below for their evening run, and in my meandering around, contemplated the fig trees which are striped bare of all leaves. They need pruning, but I'm not sure where to start - so have just been doing a bit of internet research as you do, and now have a better idea of what I should be doing having watched a couple of short videos, or at least I think I do! Another job for the weekend...

But as great as the internet is, I still need books. They comfort and please me in a way that a computor screen can never compensate for - so as much as I appreciate having the extraordinary range of information at my fingertips that the world wide web gives me access too (especially given I'm such an impatient tart who, when she has a query usually doesn't want to wait to have it answered., waiting is my idea of purgatory,) I still relish settling down with a good book, be it a cookbook or otherwise.

But time now to head over to the restaurant. We're not busy tonite, so I'm probably be up in the roof trying to locate boxes of tasting glasses to see if we have the 240 I need for the Jane Skilton tasting. I know we're close but just not sure how close....

We had the last class in the current series today, and I took my camera over to take photos of the food as Rick plated it, becos I quite often get asked 2 or 3 years down the track what a certain dish looked like, and I find having a pictorial archive helps my memory considerably.!

Also I'm starting to think about planning the next cookschool cookbook - something I'd quite like to tie in with our 25th celebrations next year, so having some photos will help us decide what to include in that stage too.

A couple of people asked in the class today if I'd email thru the photos for their reference, and I've been downsizing them for email, and thought I'd post here, now that the series is done and dusted.

We started with a beautiful salad of apple and celery and walnuts, spiked with lime juice and naped with a celeriac puree. Celeriac is a new culinary star in NZ -we're currently seeing it in most of the local cooking magazines, which is great becos our first encounter with it was in France in the markets, and when we got back to NZ we weren't able to source it originally, so great that things have changed, becos this puree is one I could eat with relish at any time of the day. Served in a poppy seed tuile biscuit with a feijoa and apple relish.

The main is a  dish we currently have on the restaurant menu - duck canneloni, served with a pea puree, and Rick went thru all the composite stages of making the pasta and the 2 sauces needed for the duck, plus the pea puree, so as to bring the dish together.

Then for dessert we copied Phillipes souffle idea - radical becos the souffles can be prepped in advance and taken straight from the fridge to the oven, with no lose of the required lift. Souffles are all about the visual wow factor of this glorious elevation, and in the class Rick talked thru the various little techniques that enhance that process.

We'd encountered this recipe when we did some classes at Auberge Lou Peyrol, with the group that came with us to the Dordogne, and Phillipes name was mentioned often during the series!

( Equally as impressive as Phillipes!)

All quite involved dishes prep wise with multiple steps, but the theme was Fine Dining, and this style of cooking very much represents what we do here at Somerset, where theres layers of preparation that go into each dish- sometimes not always obvious to the casual observer, but each stage essential to make the dish a satisfying whole.

And then to drink with the lunch the Te Whare Ra Toru - a blend of gewurztraminer, pinot gris and riesling that I had wondered if people would enjoy, and have been pleasantly impressed by how positively people did respond and how much of it they wanted to buy.

So, another series down - have no idea how many series we've done since the classes inception back in 1997 now, but we're rolling on already to the next ones with lots of bookings in, and Rick narrowing down the recipes he thinks he'll use. We'll be doing some experimenting over the next few days to sort out what he thinks is going to work, and then we start the process all over again.

Its not a hardship though. Both of us thoroughly enjoy the classes and the people and the chat that flows back and forth. They're a very important part of the business.

It is now 3 years since we went on our last European trip, and up until now I haven't really been inclined to delve too deeply into the complexities of organising another trip.

But its funny how life, can start throwing little reminders your way, and there is no doubt that just recently I've been having a number of fortuituous little prods about some of the glories that await us.

I had assumed that when we do go back that it would be too France, but interestingly watching a movie a couple of weeks back that was set in Tuscany, got both Rick and I to reminescing favourably,  about the experiences we had at Podere Fineri, just outside Asciano,  back in 2004. That whole trip was our first big one overseas, and we finished of the 2 weeks of cookschools with time in Venice and then Paris. A massive experience.

And just this week I got talking to a couple who had heard about our overseas forays, and who mentioned that friends of theirs have a place close to Turin, that would be available for group bookings.

I really didn't think too much more of it, becos people often tell me that they know someone who has something that could be of use to us, and then we hear nothing more. But in this instance the lady was as good as her word and shes just sent me thru the website to have a look at , and I'm enchanted.

Click on this link and then click on the 10 min introduction video - not bad huh?!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I have the hugest pot of bolognese sauce simmering away on the kitchen stove, and have retreated out the back of the house to our rickety old deck, to enjoy some late afternoon sun, after what has felt like days and days of dreary weather.

We're heading down to Ohope on Friday - the rest of the family are in a team with Ash to do the Motu Multisport race on Saturday which starts in Opotiki - and aiming to repeat their success of last year, when they were the first mixed team home. ( They're serious athletes my family!)  We stay the nite at a friends house in Ohope - eat lots of spaghetti bolognese and leave at the crack of dawn the next morning to get to Opotiki for the start of the race. Hannah has invited another team to use the expansive lounge floor in Sally's house as a communal bunk, which was very nice of her - so the quantities of mince that I've laboured over this afternoon got increased to take into account the extra bodies. We're caterers. We're used to it!

We had a cookschool this morning and I was thinking about some of the points that Rick made while preparing the beef sauce in the class, as I browned of the mince and created the needed patina on the bottom of the saucepan. His sauces have a complexity and layering of flavour, which in my humble opinion is what makes them so good - and it is really satisfying to see people responding so favourably to learning how he goes about that process.

We give people alot of pointers in the class about various ingredients that we have discovered which may be a little different, but I think the more important information that people gain in the classes is all about technique, becos technique is what cooking is all about. The sauce in this class is in many ways the cornerstone of Ricks style of cooking, and the levels of flavour that he creates and the process by which he goes about it, is all quite fascinating, and so much more so when you watch it happening. Likewise with the cheesecake there's much discussion over our trial and error learning curve as we endeavoured to get a silky smooth texture.

It's understanding what to look for, and knowing how to react, that we try to impart to people. To have the courage to step outside the worried following of the confines of a recipe, and learn to trust your own instincts.

Given the level of chat and exclamations over lunch, I think we achieved that all important 'yum' factor, which is always gratifying for us to see, and needless to say, always another very important part of the classes. Food needs to taste good - that is certainly what we are always aiming to achieve first and foremost.

We're busy in the restaurant tonite, so time to drag myself away from my beautiful bush vista and head inside for a shower. Busy is good. Its been a tough winter, so I'm regarding it as  somewhat miraculous, the way numbers have gone up for the restaurant  dramatically, since the advent of daylight saving.

Long may it last....

Is a girl allowed to dream??! Have a look at this short video....

It is very rare that I will walk back over to the house after a cookschool, without feeling a special kind of warm glow. Can't pin exactly what the source of that glow is, but suspect its a combination of factors, rather than just a single thing, and the class today was a typical example of why I enjoy them so much.

The combination of chat, and laughter and good food and  wine brings all sorts of nice stuff to the fore, and underscores for me on a very simple level what this business is all about.  Pleasure really.  Making people happy. I am only too well aware that we can't, and don't, please all the people all the time. ( One customer told me last week that a work collegue had eaten at Somerset on his recommendation, and had told him the next day that he thought it was 'crap'!). So I know we don't win everyone, and I've learnt to kind of accept that as inevitable becos human beings are too diverse to be able to please them all, but there is no doubt that occasionally I struggle,  becos I care enormously about the business, and I don't think for a minute what we do is 'crap'.

The cookschools however. provide us with a chance to talk about all sorts of things relating to the business - its an opportunity to share, and we do, and so do the attendees, and its this amazing interchange of chat that leads to all sorts of things. Today I was told by a lady, who started coming to the classes last year with a group of women, who then go on to cook the cookschool menu in its entirety for their menfolk at a shared dinner, that coming to the classes had reignited for her  a sense of enjoyment in cooking, She had given up cooking at home, becos she had issues with food and as a result had simply stopped cooking, but had found that the classes had given her a new perspective and enthusiasm, and most importantly a sense of pleasure in the kitchen.

I can think of no greater compliment. Food is such an integral, every day part of our lives, that I simply can't imagine living without enjoying pottering around in the kitchen. That we help make other people realise that satisfaction in some small way gives me immense pleasure. It makes the occasional negative comment a little easier to digest and leave behind....I think!

We are about to head over to the Mount to drop off some cases of wine that we've organised for a client. We are doing her daughters wedding catering on Saturday night, and we've also organised the wine for the followup celebration that will take place the day after. Pretty typical of weddings these days to be spread over a couple of days. I delivered yet more wine to the brides Aunts house this morning, becos the family will also be having a pre wedding luncheon there - so hopefully I've sorted what needs to be where. I have nightmares about running out of wine with weddings, so usually grossly overcompensate, and end up with twice the amount needed. Therefore have tried to be a little more circumspect this time, and as a result have ended up with sleepness nights over whether I've got the calculations right.

Moral of the story is you can't win! We have lots going on in our lives at the moment, so will use the opportunity of being over at the Mount to do some exercise, which should have the beneficial effect of clearing my head a bit.

In for a busy weekend with Easter - we've been full for Saturday for awhile now, and have the outcatering wedding on as well. Means we will also be full for Friday and Sunday, as people discover they can't book in on Saturday - and its interesting to note that we're filling up for Friday, and so far no one has asked whether we charge the holiday premium that alot of eating establishments have got into a habit of adding to customers bills on Public Holidays. We don't charge it becos I don't believe in it - but I'm curious to note that people would come out for dinner seemingly regardless.

We are in the middle of our BBQ cookschool series, although we won't be doing any classes over Easter with everything else happening.

Rick has designed a menu for this series that uses every part of his new BBQ, including cooking butterflied shoulders of lamb. It all comes together really way, and theres some beautiful flavours - although one gentleman commented yesterday when he sat down at the table for lunch, that that was the 'flashiest' BBQ food he'd ever seen.  Charred sausages it definitely ain't!

We discovered pure wasabi last year and have been looking for an angle to use it ever since. I really like it when I come accross a good NZ product -and like being able to let people know about it. For years we've laboured under the mistaken believe that the green stuff we bought as a powder was wasabi - possibly becos it said on the container that it was. Had read an interesting article some time ago, that pointed out that what most people have got used to unquestioningly accepting as wasabi was in fact horeseradish. Worse. It was coloured horseradish. Pure wasabi has a very short shelf life, which is why if you're paying exhoribant prices for tuna belly in  a sushi bar in the States, those in the know, pay an equally exhorbitant price to have fresh wasabi grated in front of them.

We were therefore delighted to pick up on NZ producers of the real thing at a Trade Show last year. They've patented a way of bottling wasabi to give it reasonable shelf life - but still only a few months. But thats fine by me, becos I've ceased being convinced that longevitity is necessarily a desirable feature when it comes to the food I eat. Too many nasties lurk within the food to give it that time on the shelf, and I ain't convinced thats such a good thing for me or those I care about.

But I digress.. Once we get some Coromandel oysters back on the menu, John wants to pair them with a wasabi granita made from this which I think sounds like a perfect idea, and I'm sure we'll come up with other ideas.

The Deinlein Apricot liquer goes in the semifreddo that Rick makes for the cookschool dessert. The Deinlein people are local, and have set up a stunning still, in the hills behind Te Puna. They make a range of fruit liquers and brandies that are simply world class, and we offer a number of them at the restaurant. We find Kiwis are less inclined to imbibe a post prandial drink though, in the same manner as the Europeans, where a bottle of limoncello plonked on the table after mains, is considered par for the course. Here we're more inclined to be conscious of the drive home. We find alot of use for their fruit brandies on our cooking though becos the flavours are so clean and fresh.

These chickpeas come from Sabato and like most things Sabato deals with, are the Rolls Royce equivalent of what you would get at the supermarket. Rick usually cooks his own chickpeas from dried - but during this series we've tried these bottled ones and found they give a significantly smoother end product. They're made by the same people who make the butter beans that I just happen to think are nirvana on earth, but then I love lentils and beans and such stuff.

The hummus Rick makes from this is so superior to the commercially produced stuff, as to be almost a different product. I like having it in my fridge cos then I use it instead of butter, and feel accordingly virtuous. ( And save the butter for the hot cross buns!)

And the package to the side of the photo is dark palm sugar - coconut sugar, which we use in our Thai food. More common and readily available is the golden palm sugar, but we've  long been fans of  the dark one becos of its more caramel tones.

Selling product is not a big part of our cookschools, but we've learnt that people like to have new product available to them, without them having to go out and source it, so we like to make it accessible. But most of the delis in town, and even some of the supermarkets also stock some of these things.

We don't however have a Moore Wilsons in Tauranga yet. A fantastic one stop shop, that would be simply awesome. Maybe one day they'll look at coming our way...

 We had a cookschool this morning, and I'm now over at my desk sorting a few things before I head out the door to check up on a marquee that went up yesterday, at a clients property for a wedding, we're catering there tomorrow. Just like to have a look see, and make sure that the entree AND the main course plates have all been delivered - that sort of thing.. Nothing quite induces stress then the discovery 30 mins before you're about to plate up 100 mains, that you don't have any plates to put them on. It happened to us once- which is why I now take the time out to check in advance..

But I digress..

One of things I've done here at my desk  is photocopy off an article for some c/school attendees who asked for information on making red wine vinegar. This article came out of an earlier edition of 'The Art of Eating" an erudite food periodical that I suscribe too, and whose indepth articles I love reading. So many food magazines now are glossy and full of ads, but leave you feeling dissatisfied. This is a complete contrast -  no advertising, relatively few articles, but each one discussed in depth, with the kind of detail that I find eminently satisfying. For those interested in background information about food and wine,  rather than just the latest trendy recipe ideas,I would heartily recommend it

www.ArtofEating.com

or, PO Box 242, Peacham, Vermont 05862, USA.

We sell alot of our wines by the glass at the restaurant, and as a result end up with reasonable amounts of unsaleable wine at the end of the week. It gives me immense satisfaction to convert that wine to vinegar ( not an arduous process!) which we can then use in our cooking. Not only is it using up something that would otherwise be thrown away, but its also saving  on the balsamic vinegar that we used to buy in reasonably substantial quantities. Bought in the mistaken belief that it really was balsamic vinegar - but what I have discovered belatedly ( and probably thru an article in Art of Eating), is that we don't get to see true balsamic becos its made in tiny amounts and aged over decades. What we buy is actually red wine vinegar, that can be made commercially much quicker, and has some must from balsamic added to enrich it.

Having said that - some importers, Sabato and Simon Gault that I know of, are bringing in the authentic article, and you will pay appreciable amounts of money to purchase it. Literally, hundreds of dollars a bottle. Another option is to buy from Unison Vineyards in the Hawkes Bay - who as far as I am aware are the only people making the real mccoy from scratch in NZ. Its beautiful - and costs about $40.00 a bottle I think.

The edition of Art of Eating that has the vinegar article is No 68. ( You can order back copies when you subscribe), or if you'd like a copy of the article let me know, as the title of the article says:'The best red-wine vinegar you're likely to find is the one you make yourself"

We finalised the recipes for the next cookschool series, the Summer one, today - always a major achievement for us, becos of the angst that goes into the process.

Coming up with a range of recipes that are going to work within the time constraints that we have to do the class  - and doing food that is going to appeal to the wide range of people that attend, always causes a lot of discussion, and alot of debate, until we end up with a shortlist of ideas that we think work together, and which reflect what is available at the time of year. We fret everytime that we start a new series, that people won't enjoy the food- and every time we remember that the food is good , and people are therefore going to enjoy it. There is always someone, who for dietary reasons maybe doesn't eat something we're using, or maybe someone doesn't 'like' something for whatever reason. But we have always found that the vast majority of people are prepared to try - and with their appetities simulated by sitting in the kitchen and watching Rick prep the food, that whole process of enjoyment seems to be heightened, by the knowledge they now have.

Having done the classes for over 10 years now, we run into the added complication, that a lot of ideas that appeal, we have already done in a class, so we need to move on to Plan B.

Often ideas are triggered by something we've discovered - a special product that we like the idea of supporting, so we will work it into the class in some way.  Cheese is high in our awareness at the moment becos we have Juliet Harbutt coming here in a couple of weeks to do 2 Masterclasses, and as a result of the organisation that I've had to do to get all the cheeses she wants to show the different styles, and also to compare NZ with French and Italian, we 've been trying cheeses that we never have previously, and are loving the experience.  So we're using one of the Canaan soft cheeses Galilee, in a dip to start, with fresh basil and parsley from the garden. We were going to use the Hohepa cheddar, which is one of the best cheddars I've ever eaten, on the dessert platter - but decided instead to go with an apricot dish becos their season will last thru to early April when this series finishes, and we will look to use the Hohepa in the next series when fresh walnuts come available.

High also in our awareness, is the fact we're going to the Dordogne region of France latter this year, to repeat our Italian experience of a few years back, so the cookbooks we're naturally gravitating too, are from that region - Stephanie Alexander, Paula Wolfert, Patricia Wells - and alot of that influence will be reflected in the recipes we choose.

We will do the first class next week - and we will worry in advance how everything will be recieved, and the sense of relief when that first class is over, is pallible. We then repeat the experience, for as many dates as we have too - which naturally means alot of repetition, but somehow that never gets tedious, becos the people mix in each class is different, and the questions that get asked vary, and take us off onto all sorts of tangents.

We used to worry that we didn't know enough to put ourselves in the position of teaching others -and we are still conscious that we are far from experts, but we have learnt enough to be able to be instructive- and watching Rick is a pleasure becos he is a talented chef, and his skill level is very adept.

But more than anything, we enjoy the classes - and always get something from the interaction with the people that attend. They're small, so intimacy is automatic - and we have discovered that to be a real bonus.  So much so, that the classes are a significantly growing part of the business, and as we plan the alterations to our kitchen, we are looking at ways that allow us to better acomodate the classes. Maybe be able to do some at night; and do some hands on ones ; maybe do a series which introduces people to the basics of cookery; maybe even get into some form of chefs training.  There are alot of ideas being tossed around at the moment, but I have no doubt that any changes will be a gradual evolution.

At the end of our French trip, we are going to zap up to Cork to have a look of Ballymaloe, the very famous cookschool and farm, in Ireland. We met Darina Allen here a few years ago- she called into have a chat with her husband and one of her daughters, and we were much taken with the scope of what they have created, and very much want to go and have a look. It will all help our perspective on what we want to achieve here.

All exciting!