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!!

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....

The current cookschool series that we are finishing in a couple of weeks, was pitched as a modern take on vegetarian food.

And the response from people has been interesting. Some people who would normally come to a series didn't, becos it was vegetarian food, and others who hadn't been before, told me how delighted they were that they could finally come to a class, becos they only eat vegetarian food.

It is the sort  of food that Rick and I are eating more and more of at home. We are consciously moving away from eating meat every day, and the reasons for doing that are primarily to do with health I think. Health concerns, tinged a little bit with the awareness of the cost of meat.

I have frequently made the comment in cookschools, not just this series, but in fact many over the last few years, that I do believe that our culture's approach to a hunk of protein on the plate has limited time left. We will increasingly follow the other countries who have developed a cuisine that provides sufficient energy to fuel people,  in which the meat protein features as a minor player.  Thai and Chinese food are 2 examples that immediately spring to mind.

And this article explains why that is a process that is indeed likely to happen, and to happen within my lifetime. I thought it made profound sense.

We definitely see it as a positive thing that over the last few years, the restaurant trade in general has started to embrace the idea of buying local, and using seasonal ingredients.

Rather than shipping strawberries half way round the world and delivering them to NZ in June as an expensive, out of season fruit, that has novelty value, but are tasteless and horrible to eat, we have long since figured that its better to wait until November and December when we head up to the Somerfields farm in Oropi, and buy strawberries that have been picked a mere few hours ago.

And as much as we appreciate the way that companies like Sabato, who import a range of top European food products, opened our eyes in the mid eighties to ingredients we'd never heard off, let alone had the opportunity to taste, we have been equally excited in more recent years, by the fact that alot of those overseas products have been subsequently superseded in our pantry by NZ grown equivalents.

As I've just mentioned in the latest newsletter, it gives us real satisfaction to be able to use and support local initiatives.

But as with most things, it is possible to become just a little too earnest and extreme in the championing of local stuff, and I never want to get to the place where I feel the need to hector our customers about the great deal of trouble we go to on their behalf. Becos that can all get just as pretenscious, as the erstwhile desire to be seen to be eating expensive out of season produce once was.

The food from all the great cultures of the world has been in a constant state of evolution over the centuries,  as the explorers spread out accross the globe and came home with novel ingredients, that, when they were first introduced were very expensive becos of their rarity. Then they gradually became commonplace and generally accepted, until such time as they were so integrated that people couldn't remember a time when they didn't cook with them.

Its hard to imagine Italian cuisine without the tomato, but when it was first brought back from South America, it was considered poisonous and banned by the Vatican.

So I guess my point is, that supporting local farmers makes sense on all levels, and is something we naturally endeavour to do, but to become too narrow in focus, can be much too limiting , and I don't think that is necessarily healthy.

We won't buy local if it doesn't taste as good as what we can get from overseas. With fresh ingredients its a no brainer, becos locally grown and freshly picked, is always going to be superior to that which has had to be shipped across the world, since deterioration begins from the minute a fruit or vegetable is picked. So its a pretty easy equation to figure - the closer we are to where its grown, the fresher its going to be, and therefore the better its going to taste.

But that doesn't necessarily apply for value added products. With some of those it has taken awhile for producers to appear on the NZ landscape with sufficent skill to duplicate some of the artisinal producers of Europe and Asia. One of the most exciting developements for us personally, over the last few years, is the fact that we can now source various ingredients like olive oil, and cheeses and charcuterie, along with things like proper wasabi and smoked paprika all made here in NZ to exactingly high standards.

And then of course there is the additional issue that this American article raises  which I hadn't thought about before,  being the fact that so many of the restaurants that are quick to trumpet their committment to the locavore food movement, are strangely silent on the fact that their wine lists are heavily international in their listings, and the carbon miles  used up in moving that stock around the world, somehow undermines their earnestly stated intentions to do good by buying local.

Always a danger in being too absolute in your stated position is that you set yourself up for a fall, and thats why I'm always naturally a bit suspicious of people who extreme and absolute in their stance.

13 August

And as a postscript: - had to laugh at an email I recieved from Brian Bicknell today, thanking us for the dinner on Tuesday nite, in which he mentioned that he'd read this blog, and while he understood the concept of locavore, hoped that we would still continue to buy our wine from Burgundy, Italy Rhone and Marlborough. He promised to bring his on horseback if required, so as to cutback on the carbon imprint!

Probably isn't - but does create a rather humourous mental image!

Forget all the crap and hysteronics you get to see on reality TV about restaurants, and revel in the precision and beauty of this movie about a day in the life of a 3 starred restaurant in Paris, Guy Savoy.

The hospitality industry doesn't get anymore focused or serious than this. Quite gorgeous....

Was pondering an article I'd read in the paper this morning, about the cons of joining Facebook, and how superficial that kind of electronic connection can be.

I have no desire to join Facebook, and can't see that status changing in the near future, and a big part of the reason for that, is that my work life surrounds me with people to chat too, and exchange opinions with on a daily basis, so there is no need to further share my private life.

I guess to a degree I do that thru this blog, and that seems to work for me.

This short video on a cafe in Paris, captures perfectly why I think eye to eye contact, and real physical interaction is so much more satisfying, then the form of connection you get over Facebook.

Something to smile at on my way to make my early morning coffee....love the bemused smiles on peoples faces!

David Lebovitz is an American pastry chef, ex of the great Chez Panisse, who now resides in Paris and has written a number of cookbooks, with a definite focus on icecream.

He also writes a regular blog which I get and enjoy reading, becos of his take on living in Paris ( something I dream of doing one day!), and his general take on the French and food.

This particular blog should be compulsory reading for all young qualified chefs who are looking to extend their training overseas. The French understand that cooking is a craft that takes many years to master, and that to learn from someone who is a master at what they do, is in fact an honour. That is why the top European restaurants can afford to have almost as many chefs in their kitchens as they have diners in the restaurant, becos they are not paying the 'stagnaries' - those who have come to do a stage and learn.

As I've pontificated about before, in previous blogs, we have a problem with the attitude of some of the young, recent graduates of the polytech training system here in NZ, who seem to think that having completed the tertiary side of things, that they are now officially a chef.

It would be laughable if some of the repercussions of that attitude that we've observed over the years,  hadn't been so costly  in terms of people employing inexperienced chefs, who can't deliver consistently good food, and then wondering why their investment is going backwards in terms of turnover.

The good ones know that they still have lots to learn - and the holy grail for most is to head for Europe - and this blog pointedly lays out what they should be bearing in mind.

We are not so busy tonite, and I have come back over to the house, having done the initial meet and greet. For reasons I don't fully understand I decided to wear shoes with heels tonite, not my usual flat ones, and while they looked good, their practicalities, especially out the back on the walk to the wine chiller, was seriously dubious.  But sometimes you just do put form ahead of function, just becos the urge takes you!

However, I couldn't have done it on a busier nite, where I needed to pull my weight more...

I got away with it tonite, but have come back over to the house remembering why I have a pair of shoes that I have worn practically ever day for the last couple of years becos they are so eminently comfortable and practical, both of which are important characteristics when you're on your feet as much as I am on a busy nite.

The house feels preternaturally quiet - we're had both daughters home for awhile,  and with their departure, things feel very peaceful,  which is not all bad! So have come home to my computor, to update my reading, without the noise of the TV in the background - although I suspect Rick won't be far away and will be turning on the Tour...

Amazing to think that in a couple of years we might be there somewhere at some stage, watching those guys flash past, but a little more water has to flow under the bridge before that becomes definite.

All of which is a preample for what I wanted to link too, being a blog written by John Thorne, who just happens to be my all time favourite food writer - I have most of the books he's published and I adore his languid and unhyped style.

This link is to a blog that he writes occasionally  - which I check in on periodically to see what he's written. I hope you enjoy his gentle and total esoteric manner. This is food writing as it should be!

I'm sort of watching the Magic in their final, but they're currently 10 goals down, and I can't quite bear to sit in front of the TV, so have retreated to my computor with one ear cocked to the commentary...

We did a private cookschool today for a local accounting firm, a really nice group of people, who, when I left the restaurant, after coffee had been served,  looked very relaxed, and happy to while away a Sunday afternoon in situ.

Am about to head back over to the restaurant for an hour or so becos unlike the last couple of Sundays, we are reasonably  busy - which I suspect has everything to do with the fact that the All Blacks played the Springboks last nite, and  meant we were only half full, which is not how I like Saturday nites. Oh well - hopefully tonite will go someway toward compensating...

Just flicking thru my inbox and Chris has sent me this link which shows how to open a bottle of wine if you happen to get caught out without a wine knive. The french remain resistant to the idea of screw cap closures on wine, preferring the romance and history of corks, but the reality now in NZ is that as much as 95% of the wine that we open in the restaurant is  screwcap, negating the need for any wine knives.

I have to say that the approach shown in this short video is novel, though perhaps not one I'd be inclined to use on a delicate old wine - but then again, if you really, really needed to get the top off, who knows....

This link has absolutely nothing to do with the restaurant world, but have just come over to the house after working a busy lunch, and clearing emails, and encountered this email that I'd been sent.

The laughing that I did watching it, was something I definitely wanted to share... so clever, succinct and devastating. Well - at least I think so!

Find it interesting in this article, that a club has to be set up to deal with the notion of BYO at high end restaurants in London, but maybe thats how to avoid getting people to misuse the priviledge.Hmmm...

Interesting that the restaurants quoted limit the nites that they are happy to accept BYO, so you get the feeling that they're dipping their toes into the water but are undecided whether to take the plunge completely.

I've written at length on BYO previously, and am completely comfortable with our position on the subject.

We have a good wine list, we provide nice glassware, that we attempt to match to the grape type being drunk, and we offer a wide range of wine by the glass.

With the wine list I try to cover a range of price points, as well as different terroir, and give people options that will sit well with our food. I consider the wine choices and the way that we serve it, to be an important part of what we offer to customers.

When we opened in 1986 the notion of a BYO restaurant was much more prevalent, and in those days we only had a BYO licence. The onlicence came later, after the loosening of the liquor licensing laws in 89, and was a natural progression for our business.

Wine research and sales are now a big part of what we do - it is not just a minor addendum to the food.

However, we have continued the BYO option, in addition to offering the wine choices that we do,  becos by the time we had established the onlicence so many of our customers were used to bringing their own wine, and I didn't want to stop them being able to do that.

It is a habit that is fading with time, and there are many evenings now when we get no BYO at all.

But it is still part of what we offer and I can't see that changing.

I was interested therefore to read this article on how some restaurants in the UK are starting to re embrace the notion of BYO as a way of countering empty tables, in the current economic downturn.

We get 2 distinct subsets of people who choose to bring their own wine to the restaurant.

           - those who aren't really interested in wine, but will have grabbed something under $10 from the supermarket, and bring it still in the bag, and ask us to chill it. Price is all that matters to those people. And I've got used to being nonchalant about it - the only time my eyebrows start venturing skyward is when one person at a table, will leave the restaurant after having being seated, and drive across the road to the supermarket, becos they've noted on the menu that we have a BYO option.

It is not unknown for people who do that to reappear, and wave the bottle of wine they've just purchased at us, and ask if we have one of the same thats cold that we could serve instead of the one they've just bought.....

       - and then we have a group of people who have good cellars at home and who want to bring a special bottle of wine out to dinner, and for those types it is very much our pleasure to serve their treasured wine properly. That often involves decanting, and is something we enjoy doing.

I guess the moral is, as with anything, there are always some who will abuse the intent of what you offer, and if you let yourself get too ground down by those few, then you have allowed them to take away your sense of pleasure in what you do. And that would be tantamount to admitting failure. And that is somewhere I choose not to go.

I rate this guy. Read 'Kitchen Confidential' years ago, and thoroughly enjoyed the no frills approach to describing restaurant cooking.

Have watched him on and off on the Food Channel, but we don't watch much of that channel becos we can't stand most of the presenters, so have been out of touch with whats he's been doing, and interested to read in this interview that he's just written a new book.

I'll be heading to Amazon next to order a copy, becos I do enjoy the way he simply ain't scared to call it as it is. And that includes himself. There are absolutely no delusions of grandeur, and that can be very refreshing...

Watching people who are good at what they do gives me a sense of pleasure, even when I am aware in the process, that their skill makes what they are doing look deceptively easy.

This pastry ends up being amazingly thin - but retains a pliability and elasticity that is extraordinary. Quite amazing I thought...

Every month or so, we get a whole pig carcass from Free Range Farms. Buying the whole pig, has made us relook at a number of things, becos ordinarily in the restaurant, when we have a meat dish on, we buy in only the required joints. For instance the midloin of lamb comes to us from the Hawkes Bay - packets of 6 loins all perfectly filleted and pretty much equal size, 10 kilos at a time.

It costs more to buy our meat that way, but it also means no waste, and its been our modus operandum for years.

It does however mean that the chefs in the kitchen merely have to open a plastic bag to access the lamb - there is no butchery skills beyond that. And that is something that has regularly given me pause - becos when you read about the great European kitchens, butchery is a necessary skill for chefs, as much as all the other aspects of the kitchen. And our guys simply weren't getting exposure to it.

In todays world, just as much with us domestic cooks at the supermarket, we can now buy our meat in a homogonised fashion, that doesn't remotely resemble the animal from whence it came. And most of us prefer that - becos we've become hypocrites, my generation, and when we eat meat, we don't especially want to be bothered with the notion that an animal had to die for us to do so.

Getting a whole carcass - head, eyes, ears, tail, the lot, kind of knocks your sensibilites around a little, becos there is no doubt that that was once a sentient being. And interestingly, becos that is reinforced, it makes you much more inclined to not want to waste any. So one of the positive aspects to come out of us dealing with the whole carcass, has been our need to step outside our comfort zone, and come up with ideas to special in the restaurant - just to use up the various cuts of the animal. That is an ongoing exercise that is really good for the whole team.

John has made a terrine a number of times, from the head. We call it euphemistically - "head cheese" - but then describe it for what it is, and invariably people at the table shake their heads with distaste. Why would you eat cheek meat? - how disgusting... Actually, not at all. When you think about it, it shouldn't matter where the meat has come from on the animal. Why is the cheek more disgusting than the belly? - except we are the generation that have got used to eating fillet, and we regard any offal or cheaper cuts with deep suspicion. And in doing so, we deprive ourselves of a whole range of treats.

It reassures me enormously, that whenever we special the 'head cheese', while we may get alot of negative comments, we do also get enough people who are either familiar with the concept, or who are prepared to give it a go, and we always sell out.

I love it - but then I love terrines and pates. They are a way of eating that has infinite appeal to me.

Somehow however - I doubt that we will ever present the head roasted, as an intact entity, as is done in this linked blog. Something tells me that bringing a platter of that out to the restaurant, would push people just that little bit further than they are prepared to go....

We'll stay with 'safe' for now - and just poke at the boundaries every so often to see what response we get. I fully concede that sometimes people surprise me, and an idea that I don't think is going to work, can take off, and certainly with what I'm reading about what is happening, especially in the States, there is this whole groundswell movement back to the idea of using whole carcasses, and getting back into the ancient craft of salume or charcuterie. Its an idea who's time has come round again.

And the fact that we're using free range pork - thats being raised here in the Bay, fits into that whole concept perfectly.

An example of a terrine John made last year from head meat,  that was spectacular. Wrapped in leek, and topped with a prune chutney.

Was following a series of comments of comment around the web, prompted by a blog from Michael Rulman discussing the behaviour of a journalist who, while dining in a restaurant with an open kitchen, took umbrage at the way the chef was yelling at one of his staff, and took it upon himself to go into the kitchen and tell the chef that he thought his behaviour was inappropriate.

As I read the commentary with a kind of morbid fascination I ended up on an associated blog by a female chef, who led me to this truly fascinating video of the commercial, but handcrafted, production of croissants and Danish pastries.

Acompanied by some spunky music, its a riveting 10 min viewing of the making of the pastries. I've tried many times, with varying degrees of success to make croissants, and I learnt alot about what I'd previously done wrong watching this.

But it was also edifying to realise just how much easier a job is made when you have the right tools for it  - hmmm....

We have a customer who's first job was as a tea taster in Ceylon. Not your average kind of occupation, and I'd known Colin for a number of years, in his more conventional role as a corporate accountant before he told me about his tea tasting years.

And I think what brought the conversation up was a dismissive comment he made about the list of teas I have at the restaurant - he told me only one of them, the Darjeeling, classified as a true tea.

I have bought fresh tea for years from Tea Total, and rather prided myself on the fact that we have used loose leave and offered a range of flavours, well before it was fashionable to do so.

So I probably objected to his criticism, as I'm wont to do, but , on hearing his pedigree, was immediately hushed into respectful silence. Usually the best approach when you realise the person you're talking too, knows more about the subject matter than you do, I find!

Naturally then, I thought of Colin when I read an article in the latest edition of the Life and Leisure magazine, on the Chen family in Hamilton, who have created a traditional Oolong tea plantation and factory in Rototuna and Gordonton, just over the hill from us here and  familiar territory  becos its where our daughter races quite often.

By happy serendipity Colin was in the restaurant later in the week, and I gave him the magazine since he'd heard about the plantation and was curious to read more detail.

This link is to the website,  click on The Tea Journey once you get past the introduction, and then click on the little video of Zealong Tea Factory - to see how the picked camelia leaves are made into the special fermented tea that is oolong. A fascinating blend of ancient technique and modern technology.

And apparently there is now a teahouse and restaurant open on the site, so I will aim to head over there sometime soon, to have a look.

I find such innovation and committment to quality truly inspiring.

I'm not far from heading over to the restaurant - we are very quiet tonite which never exactly thrills me, but it will allow Rick and I to sit down and do some work on menus for a couple of functions that we have coming up, and it will also mean that I should be able to get back over to the house to watch 'The Good Wife', which has become compulsory weekly viewing for me. So not all bad..

One of the subjects that comes up for discussion in cookschools, and which I'm conscious that I still haven't quite got my head around is flour. Different flours ( assuming normal wheat flours here), impact on the end product, and our flour in NZ is different to European flours, meaning that interpreting some of the recipes from Europe or America, is the equivalent of guesswork sometimes.

We have added to our library on baking quite considerably over the last couple of years, and one book in particular : Bakewise - the hows and whys of successful baking, by Shirley 0. Corriher, gives an extremely literate breakdown on why various chemical reactions take place, and what you can do and use, to control those reactions in the direction that you want. But it was another cookbook which I can't find right at the moment ( story of my life!), that gave one of the most lucid descriptions of the different types of flour, and what they should be used for. I'll add a postscript when I finally dig it out.

Within reason, in the restaurant kitchen we try to stay true to ingredients and use what is stipulated, rather than jumping around too much. But experimentation borne out of necessity, -ie I don't have any of that so I'll try using some of this - can occasionally give rise to a whole new discovery - that sometimes can be a very pleasant surprise.

But it can become a logistical nightmare for an operation like ours, where a wide range of foodstuffs are made from scratch - to use a hugely variable range of subsets of ingredients. So out of necessity and practicalities, a certain amount of standardisation happens, and flour is a classic example. We use strong flour, which is high in protein, and which is intended for bread - but which we use for all our baking and pasta making as well.

Sometimes specialisation makes all the difference to the end result - using kecap manis, Indonesion soy, rather than Tamari which is a Japanese soy, means a totally different flavour, becos, while once, in our ignorance, we may have thought that all soy sauce was soy sauce and therefore by definition, the same thing, we now know that that is far from the case, and different Asian countries have quite unique soy sauces, that don't cross over.

But with flour we have discovered that we are getting the kind of results that we like using strong flour, so the one fit is working. Although next time I try and make a sponge I may source some flour with less protein in it, becos cake flour is supposed to be lighter than strong flour, and that would be a useful excuse to blame my distinct lack of impressive results in the sponge making department all these years!

Rick is making fresh pasta in the current cookschool series, - and we feel quite strongly that normal strong flour will make perfectly good pasta. Its simply not necessary to buy Italian durum flour.

This link is to a blog written by Dan Lepard, an extremely good UK baker, discussing the different types of flour available, and I thought it broke down a subject matter that I've had several goes at trying to get my head around, in a logical fashion.

As a college student I used to bake for a few of Mums friends, as a way of earning some income. When I think about it now, I don't recall ever reimbursing my parents for the ingredients that I would have used - but that would have been typical of my mother, she was a very generous lady. The only rule was that I left the kitchen as I found it - which I must have done to a tolerable level, becos I don't remember too many arguments over it. And they also tolerated the noise of the mixer going for sometimes hours at a time, which when I think about it now, was pretty decent of them...

Rick and I were given a mixer as a wedding present, and that particular one ended up doing service in the restaurant when the one we inherited with the business died.

Now at the restaurant we have 2 mixers - one huge, that holds about 30 litres, and doesn't tend to get moved around. The other is a bench top one, but still commercial, and considerably larger than the average household one.

I replaced my old one some years back with a Kitchen Aid - that I have grown to love. My efforts at baking continue unabated, becos my family are so frigging active that they need constant calorie top ups, and I'd far rather they were eating homebaking, then some of the other options out there.

( They actually not normal my family - Hannahs just won the Superdune multisport race in Auckland; Courteney has just texted to say shes arrived safely in Shanghai with the rest of the womens team where they racing on Chongming Island in an international event that includes the World Cup; and my husband, god help me, has just enrolled for the Iron man in Taupo next March. Theres nothing normal about any of them!)

  So I bake, regularly, and the Kitchen Aid makes it a pleasure, mainly becos it creams butter and sugar better than any other machine I've ever used. And with well creamed butter and sugar, the rest always feels like a breeze.

Just before Christmas we bought a Kitchen Aid food processor - for use in the cookschools. The restaurant kitchen has a Robot Coupe processor which is larger and has considerably more grunt than the average domestic one, but which also understandably costs appreciably more money. I have always been a bit twitchy in the classes about using a machine that most people wouldn't have access too - becos it makes some of the jobs look much easier than people would find them to be, once they were transplanted back to their own kitchens.

Hence the new foodprocessor, which we bought at Table Pride, and which I have also grown to love, becos of its flexibility. They really are magnificent machines.

So was not at all surprised to read a David Lebovitz blog on the subject of visiting the Kitchen Aid factory. This is a chef who writes books on desserts, and who raves about his mixer - a ringing endorsement in anyones language.

Baking has been such a marked part of my life for so long, that I'm always left slightly aghast in cookschools, when we occasionally get asked by people, how else they can tackle a recipe that Rick has made in a mixer, becos they don't own one. I just can't imagine not having one in my kitchen, becos I use it so often in a week, and I'm  therefore always intrigued that people manage to get by without one. Some people do.

We also get asked what we would recommend for a domestic kitchen, and it is with complete genuineness that we tell people to go to Table Pride or Culinary Council, and have a look at the Kitchen Aids. They'll have them for life!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So pricing is a conundrum whereever you are, obviously.

At the end of our Italian trip back in 2004, we flew from Venice to Paris, to spend 5 days, becos I was worried that we might never get back to Europe, and I didn't want to die not having been to Paris of all cities.

We lugged Patricia Well's book on Eating well in Paris, all the way over there, and used it to find some of the iconic bakeries, patissieres and chocolate shops, as you do.

Poilane's is perhaps the most famous bakery of them all - and we were fascinated at how tiny the shop was, and how formal the service , and how tiny the range of what they offered was. About 5 different things.

We bought some of the bread and an apple tart, and headed back to our hotel room to digest and literally dissect.

This video explains the background to the bakery, and how Lionels daughter has taken the family tradition to another level.

"Art of Eating', my favourite food periodical has also done some indepth articles on the subject of bread in France, and discusses Poilanes in huge detail.

It is simply iconic, and the interchange with Dorie Greenspan in the video, shows exactly why. And that is one of the things I love about the French and their approach to food. Familiarity does not breed contempt. They do not need novelty for the sake of it - instead they recognise quality, and will purchase it day after day after day, allowing businesses to specialise to a very high degree.

What bakery in NZ could survive only making 5 different products? We need to have a wide range to cater to a diverse market so as to achieve the volume of sales that we need to be viable. Hmm...

A colourful blog on why the chefs world is a draining, exhausting metier, quite contrary to the rose tinted version of immediate success and stardom some some young people think they are going to leap frog into.

We deal with the public in what we do - and sometimes they are the source of our greatest pleasure and satisfaction, and sometimes they make you walk away with a sense of complete incredulousness at either their bizarre rudeness, or their ignorance.

Therefore I laughed out loud at a couple of the client interchanges described in this blog - whereby a web designer explains some of the expectations of some of the clients he deals with.

Some people simply defy what I would call reason - they're in their own strange parallel universe.

Have a big pan of calasperra rice perculating away on the stove - don't think I'd quite call what I'm making paella, becos there's a conspicuous lack of traditional ingredients in it, but its a rice based dish, cooked in the paella style, and using up some leftovers,  and in the process I'm giving my family a necessary dose of carbohydrates. Courteneys been out on the bike for 130kms this morning, and Hannah did a 43km kayak race down near Whakatane yesterday, so energy replacement is always a high priority around here!

While it cooks, I've read and pondered this article  on Why there are no Great Women Chefs -  actually I printed it out and lay on the bed to read and cogitate, becos its lenthy and weighty in  volume and depth. We did outcatering for a wedding last nite - and have just finished putting away the last of the stuff. As always, its the carting around of all the equipment and crockery and glassware and etceteras, not to mention the logistics of serving food in a space not designed for meals, thats makes catering such a challenge.

The brief for this wedding was very specific - we had a bride who knew exactly the effect she wanted to create, and the wherewithal to spend the necessary money to create that look.  Abby and Bridget from Blanc, did a truly spectacular job in creating an exotically beautiful ambience, up at Bridgets home, Little Farm.  And fortunetly for us, the weather played ball, so even though we had to cover a fair amount of space over the evening - the marquee was a long way from the garage where the kitchen was set up - at least we didn't have to contend with the hassles that rain or wind can create.

So all good. But my body is definitly weary this morning - a useful reminder of why we don't roll out for too many of these out functions these days!

All of which led me to be having a lie down reading this article - which I might add is the sort of thing I just love to digest. I'm aware its not considered especially popular to define yourself as a feminist these days, but its one of the very few labels that I'm still happy to defiantly claim. I read my Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedman as a teenager, and have believed all my life that women should be able to do whatever it is they want too. An attitude I've actively instilled in my daughters.

As I get older though - and observe life thru different prisms - marriage/motherhood/career - I have learnt to appreciate some areas of grey, in my previously stridently held opinions. I've never waived on the belief that women can do anything, and we shouldn't be defined as who we are by our relationship to the males in our life,  and I doubt very much that I ever will -but I do believe that the balancing act for those of us who choose to have children, as well as continue to work, means that we have to make decisions, that sometimes aren't easy. We can't necessarily have it all.

My generation possibly thought that we could - and I sometimes ponder that that approach didn't quite work out as well as we thought back then it was going too. But I see in my childrens generation a slightly different attitude when they look ahead. They are more clearsighted about the choices they face - they understand that they will have to make those choices, and  they seem more willing to make the lifestyle alterations than maybe we were, possibly becos we felt we had something to prove.

So I read an article like this with interest, becos basically its asking why female chefs aren't given the same industry accolades and acclaim as male chefs. And in doing that its asking the age old feminist question - women are as good as men, so why are only a tiny percentage of them being feted and acknowledged?

The underlying assumption ( and I happen to believe its the one where my generation came unstuck), is that women want to beat men at their own game. They want as many James Beard Culinary prizes and as many Michelin stars, so that they can prove that they are as good. The implied belief, is that without those accolades they haven't  really suceeded, beocs success is defined by how big your restaurant empire is, or how many awards you have to your name.

And that is never going to happen, becos as the article thoughtfully points out, all those assessment based systems are founded on beliefs that encourage the macho, traditional brigade style kitchen - exactly the type of environment that women tend not to thrive in.

In other words - 'can women who choose not to play by the same rules as the boys; who are equally ambitious culinarily but prefer different lifestyles - a slower pace, a more communal spirit in the kitchen, motherhood, less manic hours, or one restaurant where they cook as opposed to ten they oversee from afar - still vie for the same trophies as their male counterparts? As long as success is measured by the male status quo, women will likely remain overlooked."

The article quotes examples of tokenism - where one women competes in Iron Chef America for example, just so the producers can't be accused of sexism. But the rules of engagement are male orientated, and the women who play be those rules end up looking masculine in their approach. But to achieve the awards, and the status, and I guess, the financial benefits, that is the road some feel they must travel.

Not all though - some have chosen an alternative route, and prefer to eschew the hierarchial system dominant in traditional kitchens, and to focus on their restaurants more as an expression of themselves than as the start of an empire. ( And needless to say there are a number of male chefs who also fit that criteria.)

These people will never will michelin stars becos they don't play by the rules of engagement required by such a system - and therefore, they never achieve widespread recognition, and therefore by further extension they are not considered, great chefs.  What is meant there is that they are not 'famous' chefs. They don't have a carefully cultivated public profile.

And that in a roundabout way brings me back to the feminism of my childrens generation, becos that is what I see at play here. These female chefs are not slaving absurd hours under ridiculous pressure  to acquire michelin stars, becos they have made the consicous decision that they don't want too, and that is ultimately going to mean the demise of those systems of ranking of restaurants. Not yet - it will take a decade or two, but its going to happen.

Something that I see as an enormously positive developement. Its already happening. More and more top chefs - both male and female are opting out of the oldfashioned hierarchial notions, deciding it doesn't fit with their values and what they aim to achieve in their business' and their lifes.

Because for every Mario Batali, who is building a huge empire, and is in constant motion, there is a chef somewhere, cooking exquisite food, nite after nite, in the same restaurant, and inspiring the people around them, and in the process building a heartfelt place in the community in which they have chosen to place themselves.

They will possibly never be as wealthy or as wellknown as the Mario Batalis of this world, but if you feel sorry for them becos of that, then you've missed the point.
They simply don't want to be. They see that lifestyle for what it is, and don't want to have a bar of the personal cost that maintaining that level of pressure, inevitably and inexorably requires.( Have you seen how unhealthy Mario looks on TV at the moment?) Other things are more important, and that to me is what feminism is really all about. The ability to make personal choices based on what is important to me and those I love.

So there are lots of great female chefs out there. We just don't know about them becos they are more interested in what happens at their stove, than in cultivating media attention and thru that marketibility and celebrity.

This article goes on to blame the media for being complicit in inflating the significance of male egos, while downgrading women in cooking shows to the exposed cleavage type home cooks on the Food Channel. An example quoted is:

'When Gabrielle Hamilton opened a tiny, uncomfortable place called Prune in 1999, her idiosyncratic menu caught on, the restaurant became successful and today she's a much-admired figure on the scene. When David Chang opened a tiny, uncomfortable place called Momofuku Noodle Bar is 2004, his idiosyncratic menu caught on, the restaurant became successful, and today he's a much-admired figure on the scene -with numerous awards, scads of magazine profiles, and two more restaurants and a public that worships him. However you account for the difference between these two career trajectories its got to include something besides just the food"

I agree. It is something other than just the food, but unlike the writer of the article I'm not quite so quick to conclude a societal conspiracy to keep the woman chef in her place. I've read David Changs book, and he is one seriously driven individual, who, like Mario Batali, is constantly restless and looking for the new and exciting. ( They must be a nightmare to life with these types!). And maybe that personality trait rather than his gender, is why he's continued to build a bigger and bigger empire and in the process, elicit more and more comment.

The underlying assumption is that to be percieved as successful - we have to be wellknown, well off and have a large empire. Maybe that simply isn't the case - maybe there are some people out there, both male and female who want a more balanced approach to their lives and their families. Maybe its not just about their egos....

A rather gorgeous short video of dogs in motion - which regretfully turns out to be an artfully filmed ad in the end. You get that!

My friend Chris, who is a huge part of our life here at Somerset thinks these sortsof challenges are fantastic. I think they are distinctly odd - and can't even begin to imagine the amount of time that is spent setting them up.

But it is exactly that sort of minute fastidious detail that appeals to Chris, and is why he is so amazing with computors - and perhaps why I have to learn everything the hard way...

Vanity Fair is a magazine that I devour cover to cover when it arrives, and one of the main reasons I love the magazine so much, is the quality of the writing. And  of the columnists, Christopher Hitchens rates as one of the best. The depth of his knowledge, the stringency of his opinions, and the glorious flowing english that he uses to articulate those thoughts, constantly staggers me.

By coincidence this weekend I've finished reading a most thought provoking book "Inside the Kingdom' a study of the 20th century Saudi Arabia, and what led to 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 being Saudis, when Saudi Arabia was considered an ally of America.

My world view is very west centric - very English and American based, becos of the education system I grew up in, and yet  I enjoy taking the opportunity to look at things thru another set of values sometimes. It illuminates and it can enrich, and it can widen the sphere of reference significantly. Not something I see as a bad thing. And as a result of that I found this book fascinating.

This link is to a lecture that Christopher Hitchens gave to the Daniel Pearl Memorial on the subject of anti semitism - and the connections and contrasts to the book I'd just read were immediately apparent. Muslims and Jews seem to be locked in a perpetual struggle that has no solution and no end. 

He speaks as he writes - eloquently and profoundly - and I will wander over to work now with a head full of thoughts...still confused, becos no-one can offer easy answers, but with quite a bit to chew over, metaphorically speaking.

I suspect I'm probably not alone in finding this quite extraordinary, and in hoping that this degree of political interference in what people eat could only happen in America...

A congressman in New York wants to introduce legislation that will ban restaurants using salt in the preparation of food. All salt. Huh?!

That is so absurd on so many levels that I wouldn't know where to begin to rant, and right now I have to head over to the restaurant, and probably just as well!

Dan Lepold is a baker that we rate very highly, and have a couple of his books.

I also happen to have a great love for good hot cross buns, and rue the fact that Dean is no longer at La Boulangerie, becos his hot cross buns used to be superb.

Last year I made some of my own - but in my typically disorganised fashion, I can't remember just what book I sourced the recipe from. Have a feeling it was out of a magazine, and trying to find that again will be like the needle in the proverbial haystack.

But while I ponder which I should use, I thought this an interesting article on what I should be aspiring to achieve...

This link is to a blog I check in on periodically. The author cooks in both the US and England, and she makes some interesting points sometimes.

I have mentioned previously, my frustrations with some of the attitudes of young chef trainees who are somehow encouraged to believe, that a quickly achieved qualification somehow magically caterpaults them into the world inhabited by the likes of Gordon Ramsey and Jamie Oliver.

Cooking is in fact a craft learnt over time - a lot of time, which requires a huge amount of imput - and this blog captures some of the hugeness that is required rather well I thought.

( I couldn't link onto the exact blog alone - so just for future reference the particular one to read is dated,  24 Feb 2010)

I've been hovering around the computor - flicking backwards and forwards from the restaurant for the last couple of hours waiting for the results of Day 2 of the Womens Tour of NZ to be posted. We'd spoken to Courteney earlier, but Rick wanted the results to see how she was going in the overall scheme of things.

Cycling results take a bit of understanding, and he's currently pouring thru them as I caught up on emails. This link was sent me by a good customer, who'd just read it and thought we might be interested.

I thought tjhe restaurant critic who wrote the article,  sounded like a grumpy old man, but a grumpy old man who's eaten in enough restaurants to know what he likes and what he doesn't. And interestingly I agreed with him on virtually every point - which is unusual for me, becos normally, what people do and don't like in restaurants is so variable and so up for personal interpretation, that its virtually impossible to achieve unanimity.

But in this case I ticked each box!

 This is a link to the latest Michael Ruhlman blog, in which he ponders on why he gets so much satisfaction from the act of cooking, and his resoning, and some of the following responses from people underscore for me, exactly what going into the kitchen at home is all about.

And it is exactly that sense of pleasure that we try to capture in the cookschools - people see good food being prepared; they get to listen to the chit chat that goes along with that; they eat it in the company of chatty relaxed people, and then, hopefully they go away enthused..

But now I have to head over to a busy Saturday nite service at the restaurant ( busy is good!), and the type of cooking that goes on in the restaurant kitchen, over the next 4 hours is the sort of cooking that only a special few put their hands up for. It is not relaxing or cathartic. It is presurised, full on and intense - and I'd far rather be out front!

I've done my pottering in the kitchen ( at home ) today, while Rick was over in Morrinsville with Courteney. Made some chicken stock, a sort of paella for Hannah and I for lunch, a chocolate and banana loaf that I'll take over to Morrinsville tomorrow, when I join the others - and the hugest dish of muesli for the girls to take back to their flats.

Courteney thinks Josh's muesli at Slowfish is the best, so I asked him for some pointers, only ever having made the bircher style muesli before - something that niether of my daughters are fans off! - and I've created this concoction based on his directions.

That is the kind of cooking that I enjoy - that gives me sustenance and enjoyment, all rolled up together . What the chefs do in a professional kitchen is a whole different level all together.

I never knew that each snowflake has a unique and quite beautiful formation. Not living with snow, and seldom having ever handled it, its just not something I needed to think about. But this link shows some how truly exquisite  and intricately complicated nature can unexpectedly be.

I've always thought of snow as an homogenous mass, so the fact it actually comprises myriad tiny, beautiful, totally individual crystals, has rather grabbed me.

Proof perhaps, that things are seldom as they seem on the surface...

I am no computer buff, but I do enjoy the daily updates I get on American politics from the Daily Beast, and this afternoon becos I had nothing else to do, I'd gone to flick thru the updates, and by fortuitous timing caught a live streaming of Obama's State of the Nation Address - a written version of which is linked here.

We'd had friends for dinner at home on Monday nite, and one is an American - and a Republican American, who undoubtedly sits substantially more to the right of the political system than I do, and the ensuing conversation that we had about the impasse over health reform in the States, was very fascinating, cos it gave me glimpses of a mind that works quite differently to my own.

He was predictably no fan of Obama's - and looking at some of the impassive faces in the audience, during the Presidents speech, I would say that he is not alone.

This link is to a Michael Ruhlman blog on the subject of salt - one of those vexatious issues that get brought up a lot in cookschools, becos Rick uses salt in his cooking, since he believes firmly that it improves, enhances and deepens flavour.

We get asked less these days for alternatives to use, and I can't decide whether we've pissed off the people who used to ask all the time, and they've stopped coming, or whether, like the whole fat debate, people are beginning to realize that a little bit used consciously ( I thought the tomato description nailed it perfectly!), is OK, and we really should stop worrying... there is no single magic bullet for health.

A customer of ours, who we knew well - he and his family came to France with us a few years back - died last year from motor neuron disease. A disease that came on very suddenly about 18 months ago, and which processed inexorably to all our horror.

Mark had recently gone to Mexico to have stem cell implants, but he died before the treatment had any chance to potentially improve his condition.

We saw and spoke to him and his wife on a number of occasions - as you do. I thought I empathised and sort of understood what they were experiencing.

Reading this article though has made me realise that I had no frigging idea - humbling and devastating.

This link is to a TV programme in the States featuring Eric Ripert from Le Bernardin. In this particular episode he explores a garden affiliated with a restaurant in California, and I found it inspiring listening to 2 chefs with significant restaurant kudos,  discuss the importance of fresh produce.

Gardening is one of my New Years resolutions - we have established a worm garden here, and have 2 raised gardens for vegetables, and I'm slowly going to build up the range of produce that we grow. For now I'm focused on tomatoes and eggplants and some herbs, but the repertoire will expand as my confidence grows.

Wouldn't it be fantastic to have the kind of knowledge and practical expertise to tap into that this chef in California has in the lady from Love Apple Farms. Maybe one day Anne..

David Lebovitz is a food blogger and cookbook author that I refer to alot. He lives in Paris most of the year, and talks about his passion for pastry and dessert cooking in an approachable manner that I really enjoy.

I've just read his latest blog which included a list of his favourite cookbooks for the year, and almost inevitably that included a couple on the subject of making macarons. As he says, making macarons properly is more to do with technique, than it is following a recipe.

We have cracked it here at Somerst - and the macarons the guys are making are fantastic. But that doesn't stop me delving into more books on the subject, and reading about some of the more bizarre flavour combinations that some people try.

This link is to a whole host of web based articles on the subject of macarons, that David Lebovitz recommends as being useful.

And now I think I'll go and water the tomatoes down below, before I have a shower and get myself in the right head space for a busy lunch at the restaurant...

Totally unrelated to my world really - but an extraordinary video sent by Chris, thats just, well, amazing....

I am not a chef. I'm an enthusiastic home cook, and I have always considered my role in the cookschools to be one of interpretation. Rick is a restaurant chef with a much higher practical skill level to me, and also most of the people that come to the classes. Alot of what he does instinctively, comes from years of experience, and without that experience, the rest of us sometimes want to know why things happen, when you're cooking. Why if you do things one way, a certain texture will be created, but if you omit a stage, something else quite different will happen.

Rick's response to alot of the questions we used to get in the early years of the classes, was a simple ' becos thats the way it is'. He understands the process, but not being a chemistry scientist, did not necessarily feel a need to get to grips with the science behind that transformation. Chefs referred to other chefs who had gone before to learn their trade, and things were explained in practical terms.

But in the late 80's and early 90's, the scientists starting gaining traction in the food world, and it is not uncommon now to have a pairing between a famous chef and an equally famous scientific chemists.

 Harold McGee was one of the first scientists to come to public awareness, and we  bought his epic book "On Food and Cooking - The Science and Lore of the Kitchen" many years ago, becos it is a superb reference for why things happen.

But most of our need so far, to delve into the book has been postdated - it has been in response to queries we've had, or others have had about the cooking process. We haven't as yet taken it upon ourselves to dabble too far into the world of molecular gastronomy.

Molecular gastronomy, as I've mused before, is a style of cooking that I haven't quite been able to get to grips with, becos it feels too contrived and attention seeking. And yet, when I really think about that, I have to concede that all restaurant cooking is technically attention seeking, in the sense that you want your food to be good enough to attract paying customers to visit your establishment - so therefore we all seek to create attention.So the criticism isn't really valid.

Perhaps then, my vague sense of unease over this new style of 'cooking' is to do with the fact that it has no roots in traditional cooking - it is science interpreted using edible ingredients. It is food broken down into molecular reactions. It is not food that evokes memories of our grandmothers table or other nostalgic memories. It is food that is built quite literally in the testtube, and as such I recoil, becos I naturally suscribe to a much more romantic notion of food.

However. I have sat thru this hour long video and chuckled to myself many times. This gentleman, Herve This, is a french chemist, who works with a top french chef Pierre Gagnaire, one of the exponents of molecular gastronomy. He is the scientist who enables the chef to 'build' food, but not as we have always known it.

And his enthusiasm makes it hard not to be drawn into the  possibilities of his world. He has the sort of ever enquiring mind, that is forever seeing possibilites, and is in no way shackled by tradition. A wonderful quote was
'an open question is a promise of an answer". In other words, a problem is not a problem - its the chance for a new discovery, for new knowledge.

All cooking is chemistry - it is the transformation of molecules by heat or agitation, or acid or some other form of manipulation. The degree to which we want to take that depends on where we sit on that particular continuum I guess. Chefs like Ferran Adria at el Bulli in Spain, and Grant Achatz at Alinea in Chicago, have established reputations based purely on molecular gastronomy. Their food constantly pushes at boundaries, and is new and exciting and totally challenging becos it is unlike anything that has come before.

Some people love it, and some people hate it.

Having listened to this delightfully exhurberant frenchman I have to say my opinion has shifted slightly.And where I was once wary of the whole molecular movement,  I can know see that it is not necessarily about supplanting established mores, but more to do with knowledge. If we understand why something happens in a certain way, then we have new knowledge, and new knowledge is what drives the human race forward, and what differentiates us from other animals.

Just becos something is traditional and has always been a certain way, doesn't necessarily make it better. As Monsieur This says in this video, slavery was traditional, and we decided that wasn't a good idea - so tradition by definition is not always better.

Knowledge opens doors - it expands our horizons, and that has to be a good thing. We have already been doing some experiments at the restaurant with sous vide cooking, that are distinctly 'non traditional', in the sense that we are cooking meat for much longer periods of time, at lower temperatures, becos we are discovering that with some muscle dense meat, like lamb shanks, that long slow cooking breaks down the connective tissues, and makes the meat much more tender and moist to eat.

Those sorts of experiments will intensify in our kitchen, thanks to the vacum packer, and the flexibility that that gives us. I doubt that we will ever end up like the famous molecular restaurants in presenting food that is purely molecular gastronomy. But I can see a future in which by slow degrees, we use new and innovative techniqes that are grounded in science, to make food interesting.

As I've said many times before, there are certain dishes on our menu that will never change. Some of those customers that come to us once a week, and those that come once a year for special occasions, want to eat the duck and the licorice icecream every time. There are a surprising number of people like that. They are in their comfort zone and far be it from us to dislodge them.

But there are others who like to be surprised and stimulated, and we also have a natural interest in learning and extending our repertoire. So there is always room to learn new stuff, and some of that will inevitably work its way thru to the menu.

And I think that is exciting, becos once again it proves that you can't possibly know everything about the food world. There is always going to be new stuff to consider, so I'll never be able to get bored.

Contrary to the impression I may be giving I am not obsessed with the Julie/Julia movie ( although it has been a useful reference point, when people got twitchy about the use of 'butter' in the last cookschool series. We could quote Julia Child as someone who lived to a great old age while eating lots of butter...)

But its topical at the moment - becos the woman who started the whole thing by writing a year long blog about her project of cooking thru Julia Childs epic cookbook " Mastering the Art of French Cooking", has just released a new book, describing her life after the project finished, called 'Cleaver'.

This link is to a TV broadcast of her describing the book - and I was curious to see her in the flesh, becos as I said in an earlier blog about the book she wrote, I had felt that the movie didn't capture her character. She's much tougher and grittier in real life, then she was made to appear on the small screen I thought.

And what I found interesting is that this book talks about how she goes of on a whole new tangent of learning to be a butcher, which is a curious career choice, and from what I understand, short lived.

Julie cried when she was told by a reporter that Julia Childs  herself, had not been a fan of her blog, and thought that she was doing it for the attention, and not for any real love of food.  She justified that sense of dissapointment really well in the book, I had thought, but interestingly, in a funny kind of way, I think that JC was absolutely spot on in her assessment.

Food is not really what its all about for this lady - its much more a forum to explore and analyse the complications of life in general. Curious...

We had a large table booked for lunch today - supposed to be 18/20 people and we staffed up accordingly, becos if some of our other regulars turned up, it would be a busy lunch. A long table was set up in the restaurant last nite, and even though we know from previous experience with this group that numbers can vary ( both up and down), Rhonda rang them and confirmed yesterday in the vain hope, that we would have some surety.

Not to be. We have 9 people sitting at one end of a long table... and there is absolutely nothing we can do, except get on and serve them, and ignore the empty seats.

I'm just immensely grateful that they weren't coming tom, when we have a lot of lunch bookings, and would have been turning bookings away if these guys had been booked.  This costs us today becos we brought in a kitchen hand and an extra waiter, but at least we didn't turn away any bookings.

It must be Christmas time!! I think I'll head over to the Mount to clear my head.....

This is an amazing video clip that shows Julia Childs addlibing on the David Letterman show when the element she has to cook a hamburger on  doesn't work.

As he says towards the end of the clip, she is 'very inventive and quick on  her feet'

In fact nothing what so ever seems to faze this lady -its as if she just totally lacks the ability to be embarassed!

Sometimes I wish that I came similarly equipped!

This article blames the  trend towards the dumbing down of restaurants in America to blogs written  about how people don't want all that goes with fine dining anymore.

But I suspect is has a whole heap more to do with costs. Keeping linen table cloths and linen napkins on our tables costs us a significant amount every month - but its money that I consider well spent, becos I like the look and the feel that linen gives the restaurant.

So its not a trend that I'd like to buy into...

( Time for bed - it has been huge day...)

If swear words offend you, I wouldn't go on this link - becos swear words proliferate! But it's kind of an interesting window into a world quite different to the one I choose to inhabit.

Recently I bought a pair of jeans from a shop I'd never been to before - and I come away with a strange taste in my mouth, from the efforts of the admittedly, friendly enough sales assistant to encourage me to buy more. I was on a mission to buy jeans, and wanted nothing else, and had to vest a reasonable amount of energy in deflecting her efforts, when all I wanted to do was pay and leave - and not be forced to get rude in the process, becos I don't especially enjoy being rude.

Once she'd determined that she wasn't going to make any additional sales out of me, the offensive then switched to collecting my personal data, which kind of fascinated me. Its a trend that the comments in this blog I've linked too, indicate have been going on for awhile in retail, but one I've been blissfully unaware off. Possibly becos the shops I tend to shop in are ones I'm already known in.

But this link would show that this is a massive trend in both retail and now hospitality to build data bases of clients. We live in a world of constant contact, with Facebook and Twitter - and we're regularly exhorted to stay in communication with our customers.

I tend to believe differently - to think that too much contact can lead to overfamiliarity and fatigue.

I also get quite miffed at the checkout when the process of paying becomes protracted, becos of the information that accountants in a head office somewhere, require  to be entered into the computorized till system. More often that not all I want to do is pay and leave - I don't want to be captured in any shape or form, digitally or otherwise. And for that reason refuse to have one of the supermarket loyalty cards so they can track my spending.

The original rant in the link was from a restaurant owner, abusing his staff becos they hadn't collected customers email addresses. The issue of the absurd level of abuse directed at his staff aside , I can't quite get my head around, a business owner believing the collection of a volume of customer data is crucial to business success.

Call me really oldfashioned, but regardless of how much I enjoy the opportunity to wax on these blogs and newsletters that I write, I have never suffered from any form of illusion that it is that contact with our customers that bring people to Somerset. They are simply part of the restaurant story - but what really matters, what really determines whether people are going to come back to the restaurant, is the experience they have when they're there - the food, the service, the ambience.

Working hard to ensure that enough people enjoy that, is what our business concentrates on more than anything else. Becos that's what we think is most important.

I know that people enjoy getting the newsletter, becos I get alot of positive feedback about it. But I also know that it only goes to people who have directly requested it - either electronically or via conventional mail. And that is deliberate, becos I abhor the thought of sending it out unsolicited. We redid the mailing list last year quite deliberately - becos over 15 years it had got large and unweildy, and I correctly guessed, that we had ceased to be relevant in some peoples lifes. If people chose to continue to get the letters from me, they needed to fill in forms and return them, and from those I rebuild the list. That gives me the reassurance that the people I stay in contact with are people who are interested in hearing about what is going on in our world. That works for me.

I simply don't believe that everyone who comes thru the door at Somerset is going to want to either necessarily return, or  have that one visit mean that they are now contacted on a regular basis, by us.

But I guess my focus has always been on the 20% - the 20% of customers that give us 80% or our business. That is a perspective spelt out to me many years ago, by a man who's opinion I had alot of respect for, and although I didn't agree with him fully at the time - having watched our client base over the years develope, I tend to believe he was right. We are not going to please everyone all the time - but we have a large base of very special customers who I would rather focus on, then attempting to be all things to all people. And expecting all people to want to hear from us.

We're a niche business and that approach just doesn't make sense.

I therefore read these comments, on the link  with a distinct sense of distaste and lack of comprehension. And hopefully that doesn't sound pompous - its just that I genuinely don't 'get' that approach. Adn what concerns me, is that the comments that followed the blog , indicate that collecting customer data is now a recognised and standard business approach in America, which means it wil doubtless follow suit here.

And which means I will spend even less time than I currently do in chain stores, and a whole heap more in locally and personnally owned business', who treat me as an individual, and not another statistic.

 Alot of  my more right wing leaning friends scoff when I mention something I may have read in the Listener. But this link to an extraordinary article, proves to me ( not that I especially needed the proof), that the Listener is a great source on all sorts on interesting, thought provoking issues.

This is a speech given by David Foster Wallace to a group of graduating students - and it is a superb dissertation on the old 'glass half empty / full' connundrum.

In other words - life is what we, personally choose to make of it - a thought I will ponder as I make the way up the Mount shortly...

I made a point of sitting down to watch this episode of 'New Zealand on a Plate' before I went over to the restaurant last nite, becos not only do we know the chef presenter, Peter Blakeway, but we also knew the local food business'  that were going to be featured,seeing as how its focus was on the Bay of Plenty. I therefore had somewhat of a novel experience to see people I know, talking about what is that they do to a camera.

Peter did a superb job. He loves TV work and I thought his enthusiasm shone thru - aided and abetted by the very important fact that he also happens to be a seriously good chef, who doesn't just exclaim about all the wonderful bounty, but who can actually create something great to eat out of it, all the time making that prepping process interesting.

All rather cool I thought, and showcased this beautiful area we live in superbly...

New Zealand on a Plate, Episode 3, 3 October  2009.

An interesting article written by Simon Gault on the subject of molecular gastronomy.

He is probably New Zealands most experienced exponent of this approach to cooking, and I thought what he had to say, stripped away some of the criticism that is fueled by ignorance alone.

Maybe we should ask him to come and do a guest chef spot at Somerset sometime, so we can learn some more...

I have just been approached by the producer of the Masterchef series which is soon to start filming in NZ to put the word out there to any amateur chefs who might be interested in being part of the process to contact them.

Apparently the one in Australia has absolutely blown away any expectations in terms of the number of viewers they were expecting, hence the desire to make a NZ version.

So - the script is as follows:

ABOUT THE SHOW

MasterChef - the global phenomenon is about to hit New Zealand television. The

programme which first appeared on screens in the UK in 1990 is still going strong and

Australia has just completed their first season to rave reviews and extraordinary

audiences. In July this year over four million tuned in to watch the final - an audience

bigger than the entire population of New Zealand. Not only did this set a new Australian

record, these ratings prove the delicious combination of food and individual achievement is

one of the most significant trends in television today.

MasterChef New Zealand will be filmed between October-December 2009 and will be

shown on TV1 in 2010. Via a huge promotional campaign on the network the show looks

set to attract thousands of applications from across the country - students, mums,

professional sportsmen, solicitors, nurses and cleaners amongst them. Young and old,

each will come prepared with raw talent and enthusiasm to leave their old life behind and

enter the kitchen with one driving aim: To become New Zealand’s first ever MasterChef.

ARE YOU THE FIRST NZ MASTER CHEF

The search for New Zealand’s best amateur chef will begin with auditions being held in

Christchurch, Wellington, Hamilton and Auckland. Cooks will be given a chance to

impress our judging panel enough to be invited to attend the final audition in Auckland. Its

here we will discover our Top 24.

The Top 24 go through a series of challenges that will put their cooking skills and their

palates to the test. Only 12 make it through to the weekly elimination rounds where they’ll

face a range of cooking challenges that will examine their ability in several styles of

culinary excellence.

Please note….to enter you cannot have any formal tertiary or other professional catering qualifications acquired in the last 10 years. Are 18 years and over.  You cannot have ever worked full-time in a kitchen as a cook, chef or in food preparation.

If this is you then go online to:

tvnz.co.nz/masterchef-new-zealand/want-masterchef-nz-2973586

Have just been over to the restaurant to help Rhonda and Grace cope with the initial onslaught of customers. Its Sunday nite and normally not a nite I front at the restaurant, but tonite, perversely, we are busier than we were last nite, Saturday nite, and I thought I should go over to help.

The All Blacks were playing last nite, and I assume that had some impact on making our Saturday nite so quiet - a game televised at 7.30pm at nite cuts right thru the dining evening. Fortunetly we had some catering on as well, so the nite wasn't a complete washout, but I sometimes do wonder when I will get to the point in my business career, when I won't be so put out by a quiet nite .When I'll just learn to roll with the punches...maybe when the bank balance isn't quite so adversly affected...hmmm...

Anyway -  this is supposed to be about cooperage and wine barrels.

I've always loved wine barrels. There is something about the age old craftsmanship that appeals to me immensely, and I was very excited when I acquired the small french barrel below from a shipment Steve Bird brought into the country last year.

As I've mentioned in a previous blog, we use it to make our red wine vinegar, and I love it to bits.

Its small however, and I was  therefore delighted when I was offered a larger one, from the Bourgogne region. I've brought it home and am currently trying to reswell the wood which has dried out and shrunk as a result. That means that its not water tight - a definite liability for something you want to hold liquid! A bit of a mission though trying to soak something this large - had considered taking it round to a friends swimming pool, but don't think the chlorine will be conducive to nice tasting vinegar, so have desisted with that idea...

This link is to the latest David Lebovitz blog in which he shows pictures of the cooperage process, from the tree trunks - through the process of creating the barrels. In his blog he's talking about barrels used for cognac, and I'm acting on the assumption that it would be the same for wine barrels.

In the marvellous book "Wine and War" by Don and Petie Kladstrup, theres a wonderful description of how the Resistance used wine barrels to move men around the country. Apparently the wood allowed just enough air in to let them breathe.

Amazing things really!

It has been a funny kind of week, and I haven't been much inclined to do very much of anything really, possibly becos I'm preoccupied with 'other' stuff.

Announced to all and sundry last nite that we were going to sell up everything and run away, becos the current state of the bank balance is depressing me, but as one long term customer pointed out, ( and by doing so, very effectively cut me of mid torrent!), she's heard that all from me before, and she just knows we're not going to do anything that stupid.

She's probably right...

But sometimes it feels good to vent!

  I had however gone off on a bit of a tangent during the afternoon,  when one of the Paris based blogs I read regularly gave me a link to a beautiful looking chateau close to the Normandy/Loire region, and that got Rick and I discussing the probabilities and possibilities of another big European trip. We get asked alot when we're planning the next one, and I'm starting to get warm around the edges about the thought of embarking on the start of the organisational process. And certainly this particular Chateau looked liked a rather gorgeous place to begin. Hmmm..

We could of course sell up here, everything, and then just do cookschools and the occasional foray overseas. But then again as last nite proved, hospitality and restaurants are in my blood, and I do love what it is that we do, so I really can't imagine not doing it any more.

Any way - this link is to an interesting article on an American website which is very restaurant focused, and discusses the current state of dining out in America, and I thought made some interesting points.

We have some friends holidaying down in Nelson at the moment - and I've sent them names of restaurants to try, and have been reading their subsequent reports with interest becos we're heading down that way in a month for Courteneys Nationals, and are hoping to get to some of the good places to eat.

I think I'm in need of the break!

Ah well - first cookschool in the Christmas series about to get underway - have Kelly from Nest, who's lent us a heap of platters to showcase the food, and Anna from Silver Bubbles getting the table organised so I'll wander over and make everyone a coffee.

And go over again with Rick what it is exactly that we're doing. We always fly a little loose in the first class, as he brings it all together for the first time - but we had friends home for dinner on Monday nite who got experimented on, so we know that the flavours work - it'll just be timing of stuff today. By the time we've repeated it 25 odd times, we have it down pat, but always a relief to get the first one out of the way...

Some things you just have to share...http://www.flixxy.com/water-slide-jump.htm

As always, reading Michael Ruhlmans blog, leads me to other interesting places on the internet. This article by Michael Pollan, starts off as a dissertation on the importance of Julia Childs, and why the new movie about her that is shortly to hit our screens will be great viewing.

But the article then moves on to encompass how cooking on TV has evolved from the educative tones of Julia Childs day, to what is classified as 'food porn' today. The Food Network is more interested in targeting eaters who are likely to buy product from its advertisers, than it is in educating people to vacate the couch and the TV and head into the kitchen to cook.

The article is a fascinating discussion on why the art of cooking from scratch has become lost to so many, and at what cost to our culture. For someone who cooks becos I love to do so, but who also listens to a wide range of people at the cookschools, talk about their own approach to cooking, I found the article a pin point accurate description of where our culture currently sits, in its attitude to food and cooking.

Much to chew over. I hadn't considered before that we are the only species who transform our food source thru the art of cooking. Other creatures eat food in its raw state.

'Cooking is a metaphor for the transformation of nature into culture". In other words, by cooking we are adding value to what we eat, and like anything there are those amongst us who take it too an extreme, and get horribly pretenscious about it all, and then there are those who create good food, becos they like to share and nurture. And there are also those who simply don't care. They eat whatever is easiest, fastest and cheapest, becos food is purely a source of fuel to them.

I think I am comfortable with where we sit on that continuum.

I'm currently catching up on some internet reading - its gray and miserable outside, and I'm not feeling very disposed to do anything really - so flitting around various posts is working for me right now.

Thought this little video was interesting, becos in part it is such a different way of looking at presentation of food in a restaurant. Alinea is a restaurant in Chicago, that is at the forefront of the 'molecular gastronomy' movement. What they do there is quite unique.

Customers of ours have just come back from a major overseas trip during which they ate at a number of 3 starred establishments in Chicago, London and Paris - and their descriptions of the meals were vivid and fascinating.

They ate at Alinea and had their dessert brought out to them on this silcon mat - and said it was an amazing finale to a special dinner.

These guys are thinking outside the square all the time, and constantly pushing at boundaries - while here in Tauranga, we worry about whether we're pushing our customers too far outside their comfort zone by us finally making the call to stop serving potatoes in our vegetable dish, since most of the mains are plated with a form of starch! It seems a little incongruous sometimes...

Michael Ruhlmans blog is one I refer to regularly, feeling that he has his finger on the pulse in terms of food and industry trends in America. He's a journalist, not a chef or restaurant owner, but one who decided that before he wrote a book on training to be a chef, that he himself would do the training at the Culinary Institute of America, and his book on the experience is fascinating.

His passion for cooking comes thru in all of his books that I've read, and I'm currently dipping into the latest " Ratio" with considerable interest. Mainly becos both Rick and I seem to have reached a stage, where we are constantly asking 'why' in terms of things happening during the cooking process. Partly fuelled no doubt by questions from cookschool attendees over the years, and our own observations in repeating the classes, that slight twecks here and there can create a substantive difference. I find it all fascinating, and love the new genre of cookbooks that tend to get into more description about why things work out in certain ways.

As a bye the bye, Harold McGee was the granddaddy of this type of scientific approach, and I've read some interesting links that show how profound his influence was on chefs like Ferran Adria and Grant Achatz who's restaurants have been at the forefront of the whole molecular gastronomy approach to food, a strong restaurant movement over the last 10 years or so.

We don't tend to take our 'why' questions quite to that degree however, becos its not a style of cooking that we are necessarily comfortable with, nor what we suspect our customer base would want to eat week in and week out. But we do like having access to information about queries, and there is an abundance of that around now, regardless of the level you operate at.

And thru Mr Ruhlmans blog I've read a number of interesting links to all sorts of things relating to food.  The latest being the hugely hot topic of the provenance of our food supply, and the evils of agribusiness. The movie "Food INC' is creating a large amount of comment in the blogshere, and in his latest article Mr Ruhlman describes his emotional response to the excesses protrayed in the movie, where profit is more important than food safety and human health.

Large companies are easy targets to paint as villianous, money obsessed evil entities. And history is littered with copious examples of how true such a portrayal can be all too regularly.

But!

Unfortunetly no argument is ever easily onesided, and I thought this blog from another commentator was a useful reminder of what the actual reality is for a whole host of people - and that while it is easy to romanticise the agrarian existance as being one of harmony with nature, the reality of farming people who had to deal with the vagaries of the weather and the sheer unrelenting physical hardship involved in working the land, tends to get lost somewhere in the descriptions by those determined to paint a rosy picture.

Which is why I always cringe a little over those who become obsessed about trumpeting one side of a picture. Life is never that uncomplicated, and I resent more than a little, those intent in hitting me over the head with their world view, a view that will usually brook no dissent.

I am acutely aware that I live in a fortunate country that allows me to make conscious decisions over what I eat and why. I have the ability to make rational choices, and I deliberatly do so becos my own health and that of those I love is very important to me. And I happen to believe there is an indelible link between what we eat, and how are bodies and our minds fare.

Which makes me very pro a lot of the arguments propounded in literature and movies like this - I feel that there is no doubt the pendulum has swung too far in support of intensive, unsafe farming methods, and I make the choices of what I buy to eat accordingly.
And I believe that the awareness that something like this movie creates is incredibly healthy, becos it influences the direction of the pendulum, but at the same time, I have to confess to a slight twitch at the evangelical zeal of some of the people involved.

However - I also acknowledge that to generate attitudinal change  in society, you need people who are prepared to stand up against the prevailing wisdom ( thank god for the suffragettes I say!), and in doing so these people seem to set themselves up for a whole host of abusive riducule. A couple of subsequent articles on Alice Waters, shows the backlash that is generated when people feel they're being told how to live by someone who has a priviledged reality.

Which kind of means I've argued myself round in a circle, which I think is more to do with my own self image. I've never seen myself as a crusader, or someone intent on changing the world. I simply lack the grunt required, or the need to project myself out to that degree.  My immediate environment and those I care about, and who care about me, have always been more my focus - and the way Rick and I live is pretty much reflected by that.  Without ever feeling the need to have a mission statement, or anything quite so absurdly pompous,  we live, both in our personal and business lifes, in a way that makes us feel comfortable. And that means making constant changes as we learn and grow as people, and have new information. It is a constant process, and one that I feel fully engaged with.

And that I suspect is why I have a tendency to shy away from dogma, becos it is entrenched and unbending, and resolute, and I just don't believe that life can be that unforgiving.

Hmmm...

I'm sitting at my desk, contemplating a typical Tuesday, which revolves around all the start of week stuff - bookwork, throwing out opened wine at the restaurant, responding to the answerphone, and a myriad other small tasks at my desk.

Have just had a quick flick thru my inbox, and smiled at the short video at the end of this Paris Breakfast blog, on sitting at a cafe in Paris, watching the world pass by.

In the few days that we have spent in Paris - the highlight for me, was not going up the Eiffel Tower or other monuments of significance, but instead those quiet moments when we rested our weary feet, and snaffled a table, content to pay the extra to sit down, so that we could kick back and watch...

My favourite photos of the 4 of us, are of us doing exactly that - even though the girls were appreciably younger back then, they were still quite content to sit back and absorb.

How could you not?

But a trip to Paris is not on my immediate agenda, so maybe I'll just mooch over to the restaurant instead, and make Rick and I a cup of coffee, as you do!

 I am a huge Meryl Streep fan, and have read a number of books on Julia Childs - so the idea of watching a movie of Meryl Streep playing Julia Childs, is equivalent to my idea of heaven.

Hopefully not too far away from being released in New Zealand...

If you watch the trailer of the movie in this link you'll get to hear Meryls version of Julias voice. I can't believe she nailed it that accurately.!

There is a huge amount of comment about this movie in the blogshere - I'm not sure that I'll go to see it, becos graphic images of animals suffering takes me too far out of my comfort zone.

But for all that I think the issues that it raises are hugely important and are part of the continuum being expressed in all manner of media, about how important  the provenance of the food we choose to eat is.

So many chefs and foodwriters have been trying to draw peoples attention to the importance of what is at stake - and ironically I suspect a movie like this will probably have a more profound impact, becos actual pictures have a way of conveying a message more stridently than a picture created out of words.

The more people start thinking about it all though, the better for all of us.

www.youtube.com/watch

Bethlehem Cornerstone are having a party to celebrate their first year in business tonite, and the marquee's up and the band's playing, and I don't think I'll be getting to sleep anytime soon, becos this house is far from sound proof.  So having fed the puppies and tucked them up in their kennel, I've just read this New York Times article, via Michael Ruhlman's blog, and I thought it was particularly apt, and a wonderful description of someone following their heart to discover their lives work, rather than succumbing to what they thought they ought.

I grew up in a household where a high expectation was placed on the notion of all of us going on to get tertiary education. My parents had not been given the opportunity in their youth, and therefore they set a requirement on us achieving what they hadn't been able too. It was simply expected of us.

Through a somewhat circulatory route I finally ended up with a BCA, majoring in accountancy, and for a year or so worked in a small accounting firm in Wgtn, before we made the call to move up to Tauranga and buy the restaurant with my parents.

I can distinctly remember gazing out the window from my desk, which in those days was on the 41st floor of the Williams building on Lambton Quay, temporarily distracted from a cheque book I was coding for a client, and thinking to myself, that I would much rather be out there writing the cheques, than sitting in an office coding them.

I learnt alot in my time there, and the skills have come in useful over the years in our own business, but I never felt like I really belonged. I never felt that that was it - my career path.

Whereas the restaurant life and all that it means, is my vocation. I feel incredibly lucky to enjoy what I do to the degree that I do.  But its not a profession with the same degree of kudos that accountancy has. Does that bother me? Certainly not now, not remotely, but perhaps for those first couple of years I was a product of my upbringing, where the professions were looked up too, and maybe I considered that what we did lacked some of that gravitas.

One of the partners from the old accounting firm came to visit us shortly after we opened the restaurant - he was a sweet man and an old school accountant. I sat down to have a coffee with him after his lunch, and he floored me when he pronounced that he couldn't get his head around how I would leave a profession like accounting to work in an industry where I 'served people". I equally was stunned that he didn't feel that as an accountant he was also serving clients.

But I didn't doubt that what he was really alluding too, was that underlying assumption that waiting tables is a lowly occupation that doesn't require a high skill level, and is therefore not a job to aspire too.

It is a general preception that I think became all too prevalent for a number of years, when it was assumed that everyone wanted to go to work in a suit,  and all the apprenticeship schemes were done away with. A philosophy that created a serious vacumn of skilled labour in a wide range of industries. Stupid really.

And now I see signs everywhere that we are trending back in the other direction - that people are discovering that a job that is a craft, is satisfying on so many levels, and not something to be in any way disparaged.

Our own children will never be coralled into an occupation becos their parents think its the correct one. They have the world at their feet in terms of the options open to them, and unlike our generation they don't appear to link status with an office job. Quite the contrary in fact. Its an approach I admire and think is really healthy.

As I've mentioned once or twice before, perfecting macarons has been a mission for our kitchen for the last year.

The professional chefs in the restaurant have taken my first very humble efforts to a whole new league, and any time I encounter a french blog with photos of the macarons in patissieres over there, I'm able to confidently think, that ours are as good.

And achieving that standard has been no mean feat, becos they're not easy.

We sell a steady stream in a week - some people have them in the restaurant as a sweet note with coffee, and some people take home packets of 4.

We store them in large glass jars on the bar, and some people when they walk in exclaim straightaway, knowing exactly what they are, and others comment on the strange looking melting moments!

I did however read in this Paris Breakfast blog that Laduree , one of the upper end french patissieres sells over 12,000 macarons a day, from its 4 shops in Paris. No  - that is not a misprint!

We pipe ours by hand, but I guess if you're making that kind of volume, the need to get things automated becomes a bit of an issue, as this series of photos shows.

Somehow I don't think our requirements will ever reach quite that level...

Jamie has just made some licorice, orange and white chocolate ones, which are utterly stunning, and seeing as how licorice icecream is so strongly identified with Somerset, could create a nice kind of niche, I figure...

The food a family eats in a week. This link is to a series of photos of families from all over the world showing the amount of food they eat in a week, and the cost of it in US$.

Extraordinary the range of the amount that human beings are capable of surviving....

Previously I've written about the connundrum that El Bulli represents to Rick  and I in terms of the style of food that it serves - this whole concept of molecular gastronomy is one that we don't pretend to have got our heads around. Food for us is  a sensual experience rather than an intellectual one - but I'm increasingly beginning to suspect that a statement like that over simplifies the subject.

We do use our intellect a reasonable amount in analysing new dishes and discussing the reasons for various things happening in the cooking process, and for understanding the background behind things.  We are constantly reading and experimenting, and  trying things and discussing them. Our body of knowledge is a work in progress that has been built up over years, and which we are sure still has a long, long way to traverse. Chefs like Ferran Adria however, push the barrel out a whole heap further than where we go, and this link is to a meal that a Paris based writer had at the restaurant back in 2006.

Dinner at el Bulli means:

35 courses over 6 hours

International travel based on when you manage to get a booking in the restaurant. Something you leave to the discretion of the restaurant, rather than you telling them when you want to come. They will fit you in maybe, when they can..and you will be hugely appreciative of the favour!

It's a whole another world, and one day we are going to have to go and try!

 This is a link to a CBS interview with Alice Waters who is considered  by many to be one  of the gurus of the food movement in America which, over the last couple of decades  has seen a gradual change in peoples attitude to food. The Farmers Markets that are now increasingly prominant in  New Zealand, can be linked back to her efforts in Berkeley in the 70s to get a market up and happening in an urban area.

Nothing that she was doing or espousing back then was original -  she was simply  transplanting the ideas that she had absorbed in France with the likes of Richard Olney - and taken back this concept of eating locally grown, seasonal food to a suspicious American public.

Increasingly such ideas have found reasonance with a wider and wider circle of people - but as I think the comments made in this followup thread to the CBS interview with her, the flag bearers of ideas  that provoke people to make changes in their lives have to be prepared to wear some fairly derisory personal comment.

I'm never sure why people who disagree have to respond on quite that level, but then I'm no fan of the degree of idiolatry that can come with the territory too. I find much healthier dialogue tends to happen in the middle ground.

All interesting - and links to another article on Serious Eats, that points out somewhat plaintively, that just becos things are espoused as been artisinally produced, doesn't by decree mean that they are going to taste good. Life isn't that black and white, unfortunetly, and just becos you suscribe to a belief that small producers are better  that mass produced food stuffs, it doesn't mean you can park up your critical facilities and assume that all product produced from small producers is going to be by definition, better. Becos it simply ain't so!

This link is to a recording of Fair Go, and shows a debate over culpability in a situation where inexperienced diners in a middle of the road restaurant, thought they had ordered a couple of glasses of cheap red wine, but were instead presented with the most expensive wine on the list which was decanted in front of them and then poured into their glasses. Grange Hermitage, a mere snip at $575.00 a bottle.

The programme endeavours to show that this particular diner is not someone intent on getting something for free, but was instead out of his comfort zone, and was misunderstood by the waiting staff, and presented with something that was substantially outside his means to pay for.

I found it all really interesting, and what had led me to track it down on the TVNZ website, was the fact that good customers of ours came in for dinner last week having watched it, and had what I thought were intriguing comments to make. They felt that the restaurant had been unfairly targeted by the programme and that the owner had tryed to point out that it really isn't the restaurants responsibility to make a judgement call on whether or not customers can afford what they order. And I agree. I try really hard not to judge people by appearances - to do so, reeks of snobbery.
However. If a bottle of wine of that value was ordered, and tellingly the restaurant had only ever once before in 9 years, sold another bottle of Grange, then I would have thought that alarm bells, or at least considerable interest would have been peeked by who was ordering such an expensive bottle of wine. I know it does with us - and we don't have any bottles over the $200 mark.
I know that at the very least I would check or make some comment with the table before I pulled the cork - becos once that cork is out there is no going back..

To my mind, the crux of the whole issue is the discrepancy between what the diner believes he said, and what the waiting staff member says she heard. He said he ordered 2 glasses of Grange; she says she heard a bottle of Grange- the Grange, quite understandably isn't available by the glass. So therein is the rub.
Interestingly, as with most wine lists these days there were 2 columns of prices - one for bottle prices and one for glasses. And only a few of the wines are available by the glass which means a lot of blank space in the glass price column. I thought the suggestion of the TV reporter that to avoid confusion that column should then be filled with 'N/A", was ridiculous. If its blank its pretty bloody obvious that its not available by the glass I would have thought. I simply don't believe in pandering to the lowest common denominator - that means everything gets far too PC for my liking.

However- this gentleman obviously didn't read the list properly, and made an honest mistake. So who is responsible? I thought Mike Egan, the Restaurant Assn president, and a very experienced restaurant owner in his own right, expressed it totally accurately, when he was interviewed in the clip and said it was a perfect storm. No side had had malice of intent, but becos of circumstance and lack of understanding, it ended up with a very unfortunate outcome for all. ( Which I'm pleased to note that Penfolds have put right, subsequently.)

How do you avoid something like that happening? - communication and instinct I guess. Rhonda and I have spent alot of time around people in the restaurant, and you tend to very quickly catergorise them, and its relatively easy to pick up when people are out of their comfort zone, and would be appreciative of a little guidance, either with the menu or the wine list - and we really enjoy talking to those people and going the extra mile to find something that they would enjoy. ( Having said that, there is also a breed of people, who when they are out of their comfort zone, respond by getting aggressive and rude, and after an initial effort, we tend to back off those sorts.)

But, as I tell my husband reasonably often - communication is a wonderful thing!

When a query arises about a recipe  these days, more often than not Rick and I tend to head to the internet rather than to our extensive book and magazine library. There is a massive worldwide community out there of people, ready and willing to share their love of good food.

That process has led me to a few writers who I especially like - who's philosophies and approach to food reasonates with me, and I refer back to those people on a regular basis.

Was interested therefore to see that most of the blog writers that I go to are on this list just published by The London Times of the top 50 food blog writers in the world.

Since I'm surplus at the restaurant tonite, and technically supposed to be on bed rest, I thought I'd have a little perusal of some of the sites that I'm not familiar with. Has just served to underscore that the web is an extraordinary tool, for sharing information easily and directly. It truly is amazing!

Via Michael Ruhlmans blog I got to watch this video of a passionate Italian chef making pesto creamier than I've ever seen it, and with some fascinating asides about the importance of soaking the basil, and putting wine in the pasta dough.

We have a garden full of basil at the moment, so I'm going to make this tomorrow becos it looks like my idea of heaven...

Home alone today - Courteneys racing over in Te Awamutu in a 2 day tour, and Hannahs up in the Coromandel doing a 24 hour bush trek, as part of her training for the 4 person adventure racing team she's just got into, and I'm needing some down time after a particularly frenetic few days, to restore my sense of equilibrium, before I front my least favourite nite of the year - Valentines nite. So the dogs and I are having a quiet kind of day - we'll take the coffee grinds down to the compost later, but I don't envisage exerting myself too much more than that, although I will have some food ready for the family to consume on their return. Because they'll be needing it!

Maybe my sense of distaste for all the overhyped commercialisation and herd like behaviourial patterns that  Valentines Day seems to generate in people, has made me particularly sensitive to the  understated frankness and honesty of this amazingly competent man, in this US network interview. The pilot who brought the plane down with no loss of life in the Hudson River.

Hero is a word sometimes used too glibly, and attributed to people who do little more than create lots of press about themselves and their own fabulousness. But this gentleman is in a totally different class all together. An amazing man!

As I've written previously, molecular gastronomy is not something that Rick or I have embraced as yet. We haven't had the opportunity  so far, to eat at one of the restaurants that are considered world leaders in this modern style of cooking, although we have occasionally experienced foams or powders in Auckland  and Wellington restaurants, which are derivatives of the general approach.

Both of us naturally gravitate to food that makes us feel good, rather than food as an intellectual exercise - which is why I guess, we're both a little dubious about some of this molecular stuff. But not having tried the best, we don't feel in a position to really comment, and we've both read the Alinea cookbook and Thomas Kellers latest on sous vide cooking with a heightened sense of curiosity and the intention of trying some of the techniques.

Was intrigued therefore to read thru David Lebovitz's experience  in his latest blog thats just arrived. I thought he captured extremely well, the debate that is going on in the food world as to whether this a  passing trend, like nouvelle cuisine, or something that is going to permenantly alter the way we cook in the future.

It was also interesting to read the comments posted at the bottom of the blog, , becos they somewhat concisely represent the arguments that flurry around the food world about this style of approach to food.

We did a dinner recently with John Hancock from Trinity Hill - an old friend. John wanted to showcase some of the European grapes that they are growing in New Zealand, Arneis and Viognier and Tempranillo, so we took our cue from that and matched the wines with tapas style food, simple and flavoursome  and Europe based. Uncomplicated food, that belied the effort behind it.

In his introduction, John said some very gracious things about what Somerset meant to him, and talked alot about Ricks ability as a chef, which was lovely - and got me to thinking about the style of food that we do, which is described by Michael Guy in his latest restaurant guide  that I read today as 'classic'.

I guess we are classic in approach, and there are dishes on our menu that we will never be able to remove becos they are too entrenched, and some people eat the same thing every time they come to the restaurant, even if that is once a week. But we do like developing new ideas and extending our horizons, and the menu and the cookschool menus also reflect that process. Current in our world at the moment is this concept of molecular gastronomy, which people seem to feel a need to either rave about or revile, and for a long time, we've debated our approach. We've not had the opportunity to eat at either el bulli in Spain or Alinea in Chicago, maybe the 2 most famous restaurants of this type of approach, and before I comment conclusively on my sentiments, I would like to have experienced the very best to weigh my conclusions.

There is a forment which is pretty much media generated as I see it, over whether this style of eating is overdone, and people really prefer to eat safe and familiar, and this article  is a interesting argument pushing the strengths of chefs who want to challenge themselves and their diners.  If you click on the Marco Pierre White link, you go to a forum where he and Anthony Bourdain decried the rise of this style of multi course complicated food - but I suspect they were being contrary, purely to create a reaction.

We have the Alinea cookbook and also one that Thomas Keller has just written on sous vide style cooking, and I'm planning on reading both during our closed time, just to absorb some of the philosophy. And Rick and I will bat backwards and forth our attitude to this type of cutting edge cooking, and it will be interesting to see if some of the technique ends up reflected in some way on Somersets menu. Will keep you posted...

Increasingly these days, when I am looking for a recipe or need to research a food question, I find myself heading to the computor rather than to our extensive library of books and magazines. I can get lost for hours following various links around, and reading different peoples interpretations of certain things. Most of the stuff I read is food related, by virtue of what I do I guess, and I've sort of narrowed down the range of writers that I automatically turn too, to a few, who's opinions and writing styles I respect.

Was intrigued then to see in Dorie Greenspans recent blog a link to a Bon Appetit article that lists a number of food writers that that magazine rate. Some of my favourites were included, and when I get a bit of down time I may have a little squisy at the other ones that I'm not familiar with.

David Lebovitz, Doris Greenspan and Heidi Swanson are 3 I refer too regularly. David and Doris are both Americans who live a reasonable amount of each year in Paris - an aspect of their lives I quite freely admit to envying significantly! And Heidi is a vegetarian foodwriter who sends out a weekly email with a recipe, which I quite regularly print off and try, even though I am far from a vegetarian. She writes beautifully and takes exquisite photos.

Others that I rate but who aren't in the Bon Appetit lineup include Michael Ruhlman who is the writer behind all Thomas Kellers cookbooks. His blog is very wide ranging and I go to it for information rather than recipes - but did smile this week at the coincidence in a recent blog where he described the process he was going thru of breaking down a whole pig carcass. He co-authored a fantastic book 'Charcuterie', which we refer to alot, and is very much putting it into practise. We got an unexpected email from Sally at the Free Range Farm to say that our pig was ready for collecting from the Katikati butchers - which will mean a serious amount of work breaking it down over the weekend. And when I finish here, I will head straight for Michaels book to do a bit of research. We are hoping to get these pigs on a regular basis, and to upskill ourselves significantly in charcuterie. Ham, bacon, sausages - it is our intention to learn to do it all, but we will be taking baby steps initially, and just learning as we go.

It will be a great opportunity to run with specials in the restaurant though, of the very best organic pork, farmed right on our doorstep, up in the Kaimais. An idea I love.

Michael is also close to Anthony Bourdain who's book ' Kitchen Confidential' I read years ago, with increasing incredulousness at the extremes of restaurant conditions and people that he described. We had breakfast this week with Diane Ponzio, our favouritest New Yorker, and she is adamant that while she was a struggling muso working tables she worked with some of the people that he describes in the book, so maybe it isn't quite as much a fiction as I thought. He has gone onto increased noteriety thru his various TV shows, and I just enjoy his jaded, erudite take on stuff. He's cynical and nasty, but also genuinely passionate about food and people, and I think its a much more stimulating combination then some of these plastic presenters who just keep pontificating about how absolutely fabulous everything is at the top of their voices. I find them strident and trite.

Lunch service is not far off starting, so need to head over to the restaurant - with 'Charcuterie' tucked under my arm! The phones go beserk this time of year with people wanting to order vouchers, and making enquiries about cookschools and product, and its much easier if I'm there to deal with that and leave the staff to get on with the tables.

This article says it all as far as I concerned.

I watched Obama's acceptance speech tonite and wept. He's the right man, in the right place at the right time.

This link is to 2 speeches given by 2 passionate speakers on the subject of food and sourcing our food  in todays world. I'm not sure if I am being hopelessly romantic in my hope that  NZers care enough about the providence of their food, that they would prefer to be given the choice as to whether the cauliflowers they buy are grown in China, or in the soil just outside Katikati. We were told earlier this week that a family of local market gardeners are getting to the point they can no longer run a viable business and compete with the prices of the fresh vegetables been shipped in from China. That concerns me on a whole host of levels and these 2 speeches, one by Michael Ruhlman, a very good food writer ( I recommend all his books) and Dan Barber, a reknown chef in the States, who gives an especially entertaining speech on the subject of fois gras and gavage, both cover that issue from slightly different perspectives, but both arriving at the same conclusions.

Both of them eloqently discuss how the choices we make about what we eat shapes the world, and how modern methods of farming, both with the huge agribusiness and feedlots for animals is an insult to history.

Be warned - they both speak for over 20 mins, but I found what they had to say fascinating.

A chef in America, Shuna, writes an occasional blog that I read, which reveals a hugely passionate committment to the craft of cooking in a restaurant kitchen.

I am not a professional chef- my skills lie in other areas, and while I love reading about food and pottering around in our kitchen making food, I am under no illusions that I am not professional in my cooking. But living with and working with people who aspire to be chefs, has taught me alot about the personalitites that succeed, and those that you prefer not to have around when the going gets tough, becos they lack the crucial element of being a team player.

This article, eloquently and somewhat dramatically describes the kind of pressure that can come to bear in a restaurant kitchen when people aren't organised or prepped, or know what they're doing. The pressure during service is uniquely intense in a kitchen, and hard to describe to people who have never experienced it. I thought this painted a masterly picture.

In an earlier blog about the Michelle Richardson wine dinner we did on Tues nite, I mentioned in passing that those sort of set menu dinners are much easier for the kitchen, becos everyone is served the same thing at the same time - and therefore the food goes out in waves. Unlike during a normal service where a restaurant our size will have 18 different tables of different numbers of people, all ordering different configurations of food ( some eating thru the menu, some going straight to mains,), some wanting to eat quickly, some preferring a leisurely meal, and all happening at different times. It is a juggling act of interesting proportions - and when it goes wrong, and the kitchen gets 'in the weeds', it can make for a pretty intense time

When we do our alterations, we are going to put in a kitchen table so customers can sit in the kitchen and watch, and maybe get to see vicariously some of that intensity.

I am sitting at the dining room table working thru Courteneys various documentation for University next year with her. This particular daughter makes hard work of this sort of process, and likes to have someone around to check, double check and then triple check each stage. And someone to get grumpy with when things don't go quite the way she wants them too...

There have been a few digressions along the way as she collates documents and goes to find information, so I've been reading in short bits while I wait - 'The Simple Art of Marrying Food and Wine" a delightfully erratic but enormously comprehensive book written by Malcolm Gluck and Mark Hix, about that interesting world of Wine and Food matches. My interest is spiked at the moment becos we have 2 wine makers dinners coming up, and want to come up with a range of ideas that are going to be fresh and interesting, and which are going to make the wine shine. As I read, I'm sipping on a glass of the Riesling that Michelle Richardson has sent me, the only wine in her intended line up, that we haven't previously tried. A refreshing reminder of why I like riesling so much!

Having covered what I could in the book, I've been going thru some Wine websites for further information and ended up by default on one with 2 interesting articles that I thought I'd link too. The first is on what the writer expects from a good restaurant, and reading it irritated me, becos it showed how virtually impossible it is for any restaurant to please all the people all the time, becos people can't even exactly, precisely quantify what it is that they want in a restaurant. We're doomed to piss some people off, some of the time!

And the second article, refers to wine prices in restaurants and how they attempt to rip customers off. An article responded by a UK restauranteur with a pleasantly more pragmatic understanding of the reality of trying to make money in a tough industry.

Sometimes uneducated opinion, especially when originating from a self descriped expert,  does so much damage, becos all it does is reinforce existing stereotypes, and make it harder for those of us who care about what we do and who go out of our way to attempt to provide value to our customers, while at the same time making enough money to pay our bills, resent enormously, the implication that we are trying to rip our customers off.

Hmmm...

Back to Courteney... she's currently trying to find the various character references that people have written for her for a scholarship application. We're nearly done!

Got connected to this series of photos via one of the foodblogs that I read regularly, and thought it was worth sharing becos the originality and effort that goes into these peoples lunches makes an amazing record.

As I mention quite often in cookschool, becos chicken stock seems to come up in conversation rather regularly  being a base ingredient in so much, it is not unusual for Rick and I to have stock with poached chicken and vegetables for lunches on days  when theres no classes on, but our range of lunch ideas tends to stay small and  is reasonably often repeated...

So I have to confess I was mightily impressed by these people who own an Art Gallery and who put this kind of time and effort into what they eat in the middle of the day.

Scroll down past the initial part of the webpage and you'll end up with a series of photos of "What we made for lunch".

We were in Auckland yesterday with the staff for the big Trade show, and at one point in the afternoon, before dinner, Rick and I flicked over to Mt Wellington to have a look at Farro Fresh, and did comment that a store with that kind of range, would be simply fabulous in Tauranga...and would make, making interesting lunches, so much easier... Hmm...

We have been doing cookschools since 1997, and over that decade we have witnessed interesting changes in nuance with how people respond too, and talk about food. When we started out, there was appreciable reluctance from a significant number of people, to eat anything that was percieved as high in fat, or questions would always be asked about how we could substitute the use of salt.

Salt and butter and cream are some of the cornerstones of Ricks cooking, and he has remained steadfast in his use of them, believing that fat and salt underpin and draw out flavour, and without them, food tastes bland and unsatisfying.

As the years have gone by, less and less people comment negatively ( maybe those people have stopped coming to the classes!), and we've noticed a drop in the trend in the restaurant, where people will order a rich dessert and then want lowfat milk in their coffee. A habit that has always struck me as perverse and contradictory, and has long irritated me excessively!

I have always subscribed to the theory that a little of what you fancy occasionally is not going to do you any harm, and people who treat everything that passes their lips as something to be analysed and fretted about, are turning one of lifes true pleasures into a trial. And I've never been able to see the point in that. This article in Saveur online ( Saveur probably gets my vote for the best, most authoritative food magazine published),  is an interview with Michael Pollan, on precisely that subject, only he discusses the issues alot more eloquently.

There are 2 problems with food at the moment, as I see it. Those that eat processed crap the bulk of the time, and don't have the budget or the inclination to improve their diet; and then those who are so fixated on 'health', that they forget that food is about sustenance and enjoyment.  Food has become something constructed in a laboratory to improve your colesterol. Perhaps his best punchline is: 'if your grandmother wouldn't recognise it as food, I wouldn't eat it" !

Interesting, pertinent reading, that dovetails very comfortably with what we feel and how we approach food. And I am sure underscores part of the popularity of cookschools worldwide, becos people are looking to rediscover a healthy and positive relationship with creating meals again.

Stories like this one, below, gladden my heart enormously and make me feel positive about the future. Human endeavour seems to need to move to extremes - the pendulum swings out a long way in one direction, before it self corrects and starts going back the other way. But at some point it always does.  And I think this article articulates a movement that is gaining momentum and swinging away from the huge corporatorised farming style of the last few decades. Farmers markets and restaurant chefs are creating a demand for artisinally grown food, that is seeing a resurgence in the viability of small family owned tracts of land, and I think that is really exciting.

I'd just very much like to have a farm like this on our doorstep that we could tap into..

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C02E3DA1E3FF935A2575BC0A9669C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1

Have just watched this interview with Thomas Kellar, one of the worlds most recognised and celebrated chefs.

We have his cookbooks, The French Laundry, and Bouchon, and read about him in the food media all the time. This is the first time I've seen him speak, and liked very much what I heard. Sincere and compelling I thought - with a lack of ego.

Will leave my comments at that, cos now heading to Amazon to see if I can track down the Ferdinand Point book he talked about. Should probably check our bookcase first though, cos we have a number of cookbooks from the great french chefs gathering dust!!

The following is a link to an interview between Gordon Ramsay and Michael Parkinson, which was done earlier this year I think.

I like it becos it underscores for me what it is I admire about the guy - and I'll be able to direct all those people that call him  one dimensional and loudmouthed , to it, to see quite a different perspective. I'm forever defending him in cookschools, becos people in general tend to be critical of him, and I've long held that there is a whole heap more to the man than the expletive driven individual we see on some of the TV series.

He's enormously sucessful, and enormously passionate about what he does, but still delightfully human.

Gordon Ramsay interview

Friday nite is well underway at the restaurant... Rhonda has everything under control, so I've beaten a retreat to catch up with some stuff at my desk. There just doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day at the moment, to do everything that I need too. Have menu changes to email thru to Simpson Print, together with some wine list updates of vintages.....

I've installed a computor programme for wages after years of doing them manually - and got a quick lesson on that early this week. Amazingly fast,  and is going to be great once I'm feeling a little more confident about finding my way around. I need to go back in and find an employee that I managed to delete this week - he has finished, but I deleted him before calculating his holiday pay - inadvertently!! So am going to be here for a while!

Have just checked out the latest blog on Michael Ruhlmans blog -something I refer to regularly, becos I like his take on most things, and was intrigued to read the latest ( April 17, 2008) on fois gras. Fois gras has become a cause celebre in the US, with activist groups targeting restaurants who serve it, and using extraordinarily extreme measures, to try and force them into stopping serving a foodstuff that these self appointed public watch dogs have decided is cruel and unusual. I've felt for awhile that such a stance is a little suspect, becos fois gras is considered a luxery item in the States, and therefore in targeting it, they are really striking a blow at the 'dillitente rich'. Which is fine, but not consistent. So much of the cheap chicken that is sold in supermarkets in vast quantities, not to mention the beef and also pork, is farmed under truly appallingly cruel conditions, and I am convinced that if the general public were aware of just how extreme some of those environments were, then they wouldn't consider buying the end product. But to target that stuff in a militant fashion, means making people who shop to a budget each week have to examine their consciences, and that would be a much harder sell to the general public. So instead these groups go for the easily targetable, at the luxery end of the market.

I'm suspicious.

When we were in France last year, we were in the middle of fois gras territory, and gavage ( forcefeeding ) is considered a perfectly normal thing to do. there.  In no small part becos the geese and ducks naturally gorge themselves when they are about to undertake the long migatory flights, where they don't stop for feeding. Its an ancient custom, which can be done in a much more humane manner than a lot of modern farming and slaughtering techniques of animals, so it has always felt a little perverse to me, to single it out as a sign of mans inhuman treatment of animals.

I came home  feeling  a little conflicted, becos I'd gone to France expecting to be revolted by the process, and I didn't end up feeling that way. As I said in the booklet I sent out to our cookschool attendees about our impressions, like anything it can become cruel when it is industrialised and the animals are force feed by machines. But done as it was always intended to be, it is not cruel - and I thought this blog captured that sentiment really well. Proved the point actually.

Like anything - misinformation is dangerous in the wrong hands, and its amazing how people can build a cause around something without bothering to check the facts...

I'm currently reading a book 'How to Pick a Peach - the search for flavour from farm to table", which somewhat eloquently explains what has happened to the supply chain from grower to consumer over the last 50 years or so, for various fruits and vegetables, together with the breeding work that has been done to give us better vegetables. It is American based, and makes for fascinating reading, so the latest link on Michael Ruhlmans blog  made sense to me, becos of the political issues involved.

The explosive growth in farmers markets in the States is a direct response to people objecting to how dissicated and horrible the fresh fruit and vegetables they buy thru major shopping chains has become - and they want to go back to the flavours they remember from their youth. Big business has taken over alot of agriculture in the States and has a vested interest in  keeping the small operators at bay. This article explains the way they use their political leverage to achieve that.

It makes sobering reading.

I find much of what is on the Food Network to be truly dismal - very few of the presenters have the kind of credibility that makes me want to kick back and relax and watch them. Most times I find myself cringing and reaching for the remote. It appears to be mostly about hype and youth and looks , and the wow factor. Very little about excellance and knowledge build over years of experience, and empathy. Rick Stein  and Mario Batalli are about the only 2 that I watch with any sense of enjoyment - and I'm distinctly off Rick Stein since I found out his moved on from his wife for a younger model! Have to remind myself that that doesn't bear any relation to his food knowledge!!( And is essentially none of my business!)

Bill Burford wrote a superb article in The New York Times that captured the pressure for commercial success that seems to outweigh food credibility on the Network

Michael Ruhlman, an American, who's an author, and judge for the Iron Chef in the States, writes a good blog that I check out frequently. I also have a number of his books - found his ones about training to be a chef at the CIA ( Culinary Institute of America) especially fascinating. He is close friends with Anthony Bourdain, who's determinedly non politically correct approach to absolutely everything is one I've longed admired. Niether of them are fans of what the Food Network has become, and this link is to a blog that Anthony Bourdain wrote about one of his first TV series being hauled out of the archives for a reviewing ( and interestingly, without first any consultation with him. It would appear that keeping the 'talent' in the loop is not considered a necessary part of the business!)

A good customer has just sent me this interesting link to a Radio NZ broadcast about umami - the timing of which was most fortuitous, becos we'd been discussing it in the kitchen the other day, when Matt mentioned that he and his mother had watched a programme about it on the Food Network.

I've read various articles about umami over the years - I think the first time I encountered it was on a wine course that we did at Mills Reef with Bob Campbell, when he started discussing flavours. For centuries the accepted version has been that there are 4 main flavours - all food can be broken down into salty, sweet, sour or bitter, but a Japanese chemist at the start of the 19th Century did some work that illuminated a 5th taste, umami, that he described as the flavour when food starts to break down. Glutamate. His theory was published and  resoundingly rubbished at the time, and has only really  gained credence over the last 10-20 years, particularly in the hands of chefs, who have grown to understand that certain foods have an intensity of flavour that adds to the overall deliciousness of food. Foodstuffs like parmesan cheese, overripe tomatoes, soy sauces that have fermented, meats that have been browned to the point of caramalisation... by incorporating these flavours into dishes, then the overall flavour impact goes up, and customers like that, so chefs have become increasingly aware of 'umami' flavours, and have started consciously doing, what good cooks in all the great cuisines of the world have known on a subconscious level for centuries.

Needless to say the number of magazine articles on the subject have increased significantly over the last few years. I got a book thru Amazon a couple of years back that describes in detail the concept of umami, and includes a number of recipes from top American chefs- 'The Fifth Taste- cooking with Umami" David and Anna Kasabian

Its an idea that I suspect there will be alot more hyperbole about in the years to come, as mainstream media catches on to it, so listen to this broadcast and you will be substantively ahead of the play! I liked the concept expressed that in the acceptance of this fifth taste, which took awhile to break thru scientific orthodoxy, it was the chefs as artists who trusted their tongues and sense of taste, who finally convinced the scientists. Artists lead the scientists.. for some reason that is an idea that has resonance with me. I like it!

http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/thiswayup - click onto Good Taste and you should be able to listen to the recording... sorry about the pyschedic imagery though!

I have a very computor literate friend, who is indispensible in my life, for sorting out all those little glitches that are inevitable for people like me, in dealing with computors. I don't especially like machines, as much as I respect the range of information that they open up, and the ease with which I can access that information. Still - they cause me great angst sometimes, when they don't perform as instructed, and I am regularly grateful for the presence of Mr French. Even if I do have to endure my intellectual capacity being questioned on a regular basis!

Chris also regularly sends me titbits he discovers on the net - I have no idea how anyone can spend as much time as he does in front of a computor screen, but I am regularly the beneficiary of interesting asides, about food and wine.

The latest one I got today I thought was worth sharing, becos its such a bizarre concept, and not one I hope will catch on! An extension on the automated sushi bar idea, I suppose...

A restaurant in Germany that delivers food to the tables via a robotic system and therefore elimates the need for waiting staff. I think I'd rather pay my staff, and nourish my customers not just with food, but also with personal service!!