As people who have been coming to cookschools are aware, we have been using the ricotta, the yoghurt and the mozzarella from Clevedon Buffalo for some time now.

We were introduced to Helen at the Clevedon market last year, and she encouraged us to go out to the farm, meet her husband and have a look at the buffalo. As I mentioned in a blog written at the time, we drove away from the farm, hugely impressed by the vision of the two of them, and their tenacity to go the distance, and with a distinct sense of obligation to support them by buying what they produced.

That means that every week now, we take delivery of buffalo yoghurt, glorious little balls of mozzarela and also the ricotto.

This link is to a Country Calendar documentary on them, that I thought made fascinating viewing.

We don't carry enough stocks to onsell the products, but I know Culinary Council in Gate Pa do, as does Catharine at The Village Pantry in Te Puna.

The ricotta is drier than most of the others we've tried - we're using it in parcels at the moment, that are flavoured with thyme, and served with the mushroom soup in the restaurant, and as an accompainment to the quinoa salad in the current cookschool series.

The mozarella, Rick has used with caramalised onions on a cream cheese pastry base,  for the restaurant menu,  which has been enormously popular, and has been a nice side step from the more conventional treatment of matching mozarella with tomatoes and basi.

And the yoghurt, which is thick and unctuous and divine, gets used in anything we need yoghurt. Its simply the best.

We are having a nice Saturday nite at the restaurant - and by that I mean we're full ( which is always a positive start to proceedings!), and there is a lovely low hum of conversation, from relaxed people who are enjoying themselves.

Last nite I came back over to the house twitchy, becos we'd had difficult customers in - people who did things like get up, mid way thru their meal, when their BYO bottle of wine was drunk, and headed over to the supermarket across the road to top up with another bottle; a man who complained that his medium steak wasn't, when in fact it was a textbook example of medium; another table who'd booked as a 9 and turned up as a 6, without any thought to ringing ahead to say their numbers had dropt; and people who were just generally demanding in a way that left us all feeling drained...

The contrast between the 2 nites just serves to remind me, that it doesn't matter how much money you have spent on your decor, or how fabulous your food or wine list is - if people don't appreciate what it is that you do, then it is just going to make you miserable. And even for a restaurant as long established as us, we have nites when I come back over to the house wondering quite why it is that I own a restaurant! Fortunetly though, they are few and far between. Most of the time it is like tonite - a  lovely feeling emanating from the floor - that wonderful confluence of happy people enjoying themselves. And that after all, is what it is all about.

 I tell the staff in their initial training manuals, that we are not about maximising the spend per seat; we are instead all about ensuring that people enjoy their visit enough that they are going to want to come back. Return trade is what makes businesses' like ours viable.
And interestingly tonite - of the 18 tables that we have,( 19 in fact cos one is being turned;) I personally only know the people at 3 tables,  which for me is a very low percentage. Usually I would know at least half, but tonite I don't and I'm not sure if thats becos we have lots of out of towners, or what the reason is- but I look on it as positive becos any business needs new blood coming thru the door all the time. As much as I love my regulars, and we have some formidably loyal customers, I am also acutely aware that we need to be expanding our customer base all the time. Nites like this prove to me that we are, and that is all good.

Tonite was the last nite in awhile that I'll walk over to the restaurant in daylight, given the clocks go back overnite,  which is cause for some sadness, becos as much as I enjoy the change in the seasons and the variation that it brings,( I'm now eating feijoas for breakfast which I love!), I have to say I've postively luxeriated all this week in the glorious late autumnal light that we've been getting in the evenings. Its been beautiful, and I don't feel quite ready to say goodbye...

We've had a good catchup kind of week becos we're between cookschool series which frees up our days considerably, and our last major wedding for the season is over. That has meant lots of free time,  so have put my feet up and read a couple of books, and gone up the Mount an extra couple of times during the week, and am just now at the point where I'm starting to do some more focused work at my desk.  Whereas Rick has mowed things, and cut things and sprayed things - making the property look spic and span! For now!  Stuff to plan for going forward, and I'm finding the energy and enthusiasm to start thinking about it all.

I mentioned in the February newsletter that we were going to be getting 2 pig carcasses a month from Free Range Farms, and that having already tried the pork, raised organically and free range up in the Kaimais, we were feeling pretty good  about this new direction, even though we were going to be required to learn some new skills to use all the pork on a carcass up, and in doing so, make it viable. Picked up on a Neil Perry recipe in the latest Vogue Entertainer, which looked lovely  - and one we might try for friends who are coming home for dinner on Monday nite; and Rick has put pork croquettes on the menu, done in the Spanish style, which is all intended as ways of using up the pork, that we don't otherwise roast or braise or...
I can even feel a special evening coming on - just focused on pork in all its glory! Hmm...

Sally from the farm has also informed me that the Village Butchery in Katikati will be stocking their pork from now on, so if you want to source the very best of NZ pork I suggest you try there. They are having an introduction on Thurs 9 April from 1 pm, with free hot roast pork samples, and I think Rick and I will mooch out in the afternoon to say hi, and offer our heartfelt support for what they are doing, becos we think its pretty awesome!

Will head up the Mount in the morning and brunch afterwards, as you do! - and then drive up to Auckland for a late lunch with my extended whanau which promises to be interesting, as family get togethers always are.. We're hoping to carry on to dinner at Jeremy Schmidts new restaurant in Mt Eden  before we head for home, and 2 indignant dogs who will not have enjoyed been left by themselves all day. They see it as their god given right to have human company...

This link is to an article in Life and Leisure magazine on Jennifer Boggiss and her family and the growth of their vanilla business, Heilala Vanilla.

We have been using their vanilla since the very  early days, becos we like and respect them enormously ( always a good place to start I find!), and love the vanilla itself.

We go thru an amazing amount of vanilla and spent lots of time in cookschools convincing people that its worth using the real thing. Recently I've been converted to their paste, which is an even more convenient way of getting my much loved vanilla hit!

 Rick and I were over at the restaurant this morning, sorting thru some of the myriad detail that we need to get our heads around , for the upcoming cookschool trip to France, when Rachel from Flaveur bakery dropt off our Friday delivery of bread. We get a delivery twice a week - on a Wednesday and Friday to coincide with cookschools, and the loaves we don't use in the cookschool we onsell to people who appreciate the difference of naturally produced, artisinal bread.

Normally I'm in the cookschool when the bread arrives, so no time for a chat - but today we were able to have a catchup up on what is happening in our respective worlds. She was saying that they are trying to get a baker from France to come and join the business and help them grow the next step - after 2 years of doing all the baking between the 2 of them, they're realising the necessity of sharing the load a little. Something I can strongly identify with. Interestingly they've had no problems generating lots of interest from bakers keen to shift to NZ - the difficulty now lies with convincing the immigration powers that be, that a baker trained under a master baker for years in France, has a level of skill and expertise, that just isn't found on the local labour market. Because we simply don't have the layers of  heritage in producing bread in the true artisinal fashion.

Flavuer bread delivered this am, and still warm to touch from the ovens.

We make our own bread at the restaurant, and have always done so. In the early days it was becos there simply wasn't any good bread commercially available, so we played around with doughs and starters and learnt all sorts of things along the way. We are now strongly identified with the olive bread that we make and serve at night, that isn't quite a foccacio - more correctly it should be called an olive flat bread. 3 loaves are made every day, and we serve it with olive oil from Ricks Aunt and Uncle in the Hawkes Bay- Ellsgrove Oil- and butter( which from this week on, will be our own homemade butter! - (see previous blog on our butter making endeavours.)

The bread we make.

I have often talked about a desire to open a bakery, and make proper bread - an idea my husband has always pooh hoed, as unrealistic, and I hate to concede that he is probably right. ( I'm never keen on conceding anything really!)

There is a balance to be maintained in a business like ours, between making as much of what we sell ourselves, and in doing so, defining who we are - but in also realising that you can't realistically be totally self sufficent. Taken to a literal extreme it would be impossible really. I guess where individual restaurant operators draw the line depends very much on their personal interests, their perception of costings, and their level of expertise.

It has always been important to us to make as much as we can on premise. For that reason we buy in virtually nothing prepackaged. We make our own stocks, sauces, icecreams, pastries, terrines and pates. Some other charcuterie we've bought in - things like black pudding, simply becos we have no expertise in making it. Cheese we buy from good producers, and naturally wine and other alcoholic beverages we purchase from people expert in that field. We don't roast our own coffee, nor make our own tea - although I do like the idea of getting into some herbal tisanes and using herbs from our garden.

I am very capable of getting fired up about an idea or concept, and rushing around with it for awhile, until the more mundane practicalities of how it is going to  sit with our day to day realities and committments, kind of hits me. Sometimes we are able to work out ways  of fitting it in ( and I'm seriously hoping at this stage that the homemade butter experiments of this week, fall into that category.), or I get one of those looks from my husband which tells me that he is not sharing my enthusiasm. Surprising as it may seem to some people, that is usually enough to knock back the idea, becos I am always very aware that any great ideas need to be followed up by the tedium of being made all the time, over and over again. And if Rick doesn't think that is going to work for the kitchen, its not for me to override him. Not unless I'm prepared to be the one to do the work.

I've also become increasingly aware over the years of the importance of a business like ours to support other food businesses, who are making product of a superior quality, and trying to establish a market for themselves.Small artisinal food producers are a relatively new concept in NZ - and the growth in the oldfashioned idea of food markets, coupled with the very modern accessibility of the internet, is breaking new ground  in terms of the public being able to access these products. But the public has to be made aware of the importance of this type of food, and just why it is worth making that little extra effort to source artisinally made food, rather than grabbing stuff off the supermarket shelve during the weekly shop. In the cookschools that we run, we talk alot about where we get product and why we believe it to be superior, and sometimes we take people with us and sometimes we don't - but when I get told ( as I have done twice this week) that coming to the cookschools has completely opened peoples eyes to a whole new way of looking at food and cooking, then I figure we must be doing something right.

It also sits very comfortably with my business ethos to be able to support other like minded businesses -without there having to be any financial gain in the process for us. If you want to be really hard nosed, you could argue I guess, that the more people become food aware, then the less crap they are going to tolerate, and the better for a quality focused food business like ours. But I prefer to think that I'm doing it simply becos it feels like the right thing to do.

We buy bread on a Sunday from the supermarket for sandwiches for our daughters school lunches during the week. It is not unusual for that bread to still be feeling soft 3/4 days later. Whereas with the Flaveur bread, becos there are absolutely no additives or preservatives in it, it goes stale relatively quickly. I find it infinetly curious that people see that as a negative. We don't. I find the concept of bread that stays unnaturally soft over a protracted time frame to be the scary thought - and I have no problem with the idea of buying bread fresh, freezing it if need be - or toasting it the day after.  Certainly that requires a titch more effort and thought - but so does any good cooking, and it is that notion that we all have to learn to re-embrace. Putting time and effort into the food that we eat, is not a bad thing. We have just been subjected to a concentrated advertising campaign over the last 20-40 years telling us that we're silly to bother, when we can buy a ready made product instead. Maybe there was a time when we were inclined to believe that message, but I know for a fact that a vast number of people have become increasingly sceptical and are more and more willing to invest a little time. And its a trend I feel very comfortable about.

Even Courteney, our youngest, who has a tediously boring palate, which I'm seriously hoping she will grow out of one day, loves that on Wednesdays on Fridays there will be a loaf of fresh Flaveur bread waiting for her on the bread board. Its chewy, flavoursome, substantial bread - absolutely superb,  and she devours it with relish. Giving me pause to hope that  we will one day have a break through with some of the other food stuffs that she turns up her nose at!

We are having an exceptionally quiet nite in the restaurant - an annual occurence becos of the Field Days in Hamilton, this week every year. It used to send me into major spins - thinking that no-one loved us anymore, and as a result we were doomed to destitution, but I've learnt to become a little more pragmatic, and just accept it as one of those cyclical trends that happen, which is just the way it is, and no huffing and puffing on my behalf is going to change!! We did a cookschool today,and I sat down tonite and did a box of envelopes ( ie addressed them) for the next newsletter which is due to be printed next week, so doesn't feel like a complete waste of time

We have a major cocktail function to cater for tomorrow for 300 people, so the guys in the kitchen have used the gaps in time tonite to get 380 tiny beef and guiness pies baked, and 400 lamb empanadas assembled, and 400 prawn tails denuded of the hard tail shell, so time has been used fruitfully!!

But the purpose of this blog is to talk about vanilla -which I think it would be fair to say is my all time favourite aroma. We have a large jar of B grade pods here in the bar, in amongst the other product that we sell, and I love it when someone opens it to extract the number of pods that they want ,becos that incomparable aroma gets released into the air, and I get to savour it all over again. As I mention in every cookschool that Rick uses vanilla pods in - I have the scrapped out pods in either a bottle of vodka as my replacement vanilla essence, or in the can of sugar that I use for baking, and I swear that every time I open that can, I smile, becos the smell of vanilla just makes me want to smile - I love it that much!

We're using it in the current c/school series and people are starting to finally twig on to what a difference the real article makes. We are in the very fortunate postition where people we know well - Jennifer and Garth Boggiss of Reunion Food Co - sell us their vanilla , which they grow in Tonga as part of a joint venture with a village there. They sell it to us at a very reasonable price which means that we are in turn able to pass that on to our customers - $1.40 a pod is pretty good value I figure. We pass a pod once Rick has scrapped it, around in classes, just to let people feel and understand that when they buy vanilla it should be soft and malleable - proof that it is still fresh and therefore still has flavour to extract. Similarly we always stock it in glass, which we believe is the only way to ensure that the air is kept off, and it therefore remains worthwhile purchasing.

I read a book on the subject of vanilla - Vanilla, Travels in search of the Icecream Orchid, by Tim Ecott, which brought alive the whole history of the plant and also the reality of people growing and purchasing it in todays world. Made for fascinating reading, and makes me appreciate even more the way the Boggiss' have allowed us to access such an exceptional product at such exceptional value.

(The last customers have now left  the restaurant - and Rick and I, somewhat unusually are here to close up, and my husband is indicating in no uncertain terms that he's ready to go home, so time to sign off, and depart).

There are 2 grades to vanilla - A and B grade. We use B grade in the restaurant, they are slightly smaller than the A grade, but have the same level of vanillin ( the flavouring), and are incredibly good value. I hate to say it, but once you've encountered the real article there is just no going back - everything else tastes a little bit false, a bit off, a bit like a bottle of corked wine, if you catch my drift!!