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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Macarons have featured heavily as a blog subject for me over the years, primarily becos I came back from Bordeaux totally fascinated by the idea that there would be shops ( and more than one shop) that sold nothing but macarons. How could a shop afford to specialise to that degree?

( Actually - I exaggerate slightly - this particular shop sold caneles which are a Bordeaux speciality as well as macarons, which are considered a Parisian delicacy. So thats a shop that specialises in 2 things!)

An intriguing concept to me.

The French, especially the Parisians are fascinated by macarons - and macarons are different to macaroons. ( Macaroons are the American biscuit that have coconut in them; macarons are a meringue sandwich). Laduree Patissiere in Paris states that it sells 12,000 in a day. Its hard for us to comprehend that sort of volume.

When we got back from France we spent a number of months working with and trying to perfect how to make the perfect macaron. It was a steep learning curve that involved alot of internet research- all of which convinced me that I was far from alone in my obsession.

The guys in the restaurant kitchen have mastered the techniques involved and we now sell 5 different flavours at the restaurant - dark chocolate, white chocolate, caramel, apricot and licorice.

We sell alot to accompany coffee - the sweet note when you don't feel like a whole dessert, and also increasingly we sell them thru the Somerset at Home concept.( But are a reasonable way from making 12,000 a day, so far!)

There are many links I could give on the internet if anyone is interested in learning more about macarons,  but thought this one here to a Dorie Greenspan article in the LA Times, was one of the best that I've read recently, in terms of how it demystifies the whole subject.  Dorie Greenspan is one of my go to authors, both in her cookbooks and with her blogs for information on baking. She has a peanut cookie recipe in her baking book, ' Baking - From my kitchen to yours"  which has become a firm favourite in our household.

I think this perfectly captures the essence of what makes macarons so special.

Roz was topping up the glass containers that we have in the bar with macarons at the start of service tonite, and as we stood back to admire the biscuits, we mutually decided that we both like the apricot ones the best. But then as I was writing that  I remember last year during the feijoa season, that Jamie I think it was, experimented with a feijoa flavour that was truly divine, so my favourite will probably vary, depending. But there is no doubt that I love macarons!

We are awash in feijoas at the moment - so must make the suggestion in the kitchen that some feijoa macarons might be a good idea and see what sort of response I get!

Rick made someones day, quite unintentionally just now. He'd flicked over to the restaurant to check on the pastry the kitchen team are making for a special dinner we have on Sunday nite - the pastry is different to normal,and while there he got into a conversation with a lady he didn't know, who'd dropped in to grab some licorice icecream becos she had people coming for dinner, and had been caught out over dessert, and had decided on the way home to call in for some licorice.

She asked if there was anything else he could suggest that would be quick and easy for her, and he mentioned the sticky toffee puddings that we also sell, and showed her one ready packaged in the fridge out front. She hadn't realised we had the range of Somerset at Home products, and was delighted to have something that was only going to take some quick re heating and the addition of warm cream flavoured with Heilala vanilla paste and/or icecream. So she bought a pudding - enough for 4, and some toffee sauce.

Dessert sorted.

Perfect. It is exactly that  sort of ease that we are aiming for, so nice to have a happy customer walk out the door armed with the dessert and sauce and brochure with prep instructions, who hadn't been previously aware that she could get anything other than licorice from us for home.

I note that restaurant critics get a bit twitchy about sticky toffee being on restaurant menus - toffee puddings and creme brulees are their two bete noirs at the moment, and to a degree they are correct in that they feature ubiquitously. You do tend to see them everywhere.

And I guess restaurant critics eat out frequently (by virtue of what they do!), and therefore tend to get a bit jaded, so are looking to be stimulated by the new all the time. Which is all very well and fine but therein  lies a conundrum for a restaurant, becos while a critic may want to be wowed, the paying public more often than not want something that they had last time that they loved. And more often than not when it comes to dessert what people want is sticky toffee or brulee.

As a restaurant you want to sell desserts - and we work hard to have a range of diverse options for people to choose from, but it is an unavoidable reality that if we have either sticky toffee or brulee on , they will be the biggest sellers - along with licorice.

Thats just the way it is. So I'm comfortable offering them. We've never stated a need to be at the cutting edge of culinary trends,not with everything that we do, and I don't think its in anyway a contradiction for a good restaurant to have comfort food desserts on the menu.

But I have no doubt that at some stage over the next little while I will read a restaurant review in which the critic will be disparaging about the fact there is sticky toffee on the menu. You get that!

Am just about to head over to the restaurant for a cookschool - but finishing off a newsletter, so that I can proof it, before we head down to Nelson on Sunday. Simpson will print it for me next week, and we'll get it out as soon as we get back - meaning that we be ready to go on the 'Somerset at Home' concept.

Which will be a huge relief, becos its been a long road getting to this point...

One of the food products that we are selling lots of though, already, is the macarons - people are increasingly walking out the door with bags of them, or having them with coffee in the restaurant, and my pleasure at seeing people respond so favourably is immense.

However, I think the link to this blog shows that, even for all my enthusiasm, I am not as obsessed as some...

We went to a presentation last nite that Jennifer and Garth Boggiss from Heilala Vanilla did, for local business people on the growth of their business.

It had been meant to be out at their plastic houses in Te Puna, where they have just cropped and dryed the first vanilla grown in NZ - an exceptional feat, given that vanilla has never been successfully grown outside the tropics before. Garth said last nite that initial tests are showing that the NZ grown vanilla has slightly different aromas to the Tongan one, indicating as they had hoped, that terrior will contribute to flavour variations, just as it does with wine.

Vanilla is one of the more expensive base ingredients that we use in the kitchen, and we have always used it in its purest form - the pods - even before we met the Boggiss'. In the restaurant kitchen they continue to use pods, and the ones we get from Heilala, are the biggest, and most supple that we have ever had the pleasure of dealing with.

A good part of the reason for that is becos the Reunion Food Company is unique in the world in that it has a 'plantation to platter'structure, whereby they grow the vanilla in Tonga in a joint venture with a local village, bring it back to NZ, and from here do all their own marketing, plus the research and production involved in creating other products from the vanilla.

We have enormous respect for what they have achieved in a relatively short time frame - I think Jennifer said last nite the first vines were planted in 2003. There are a massive number of variables that have had to be dealt with, just in the growing stage - not to mention the added complications of finding and establishing reliable markets for a crop that is increasing exponentially as the vines get established.

There is a fascinating book "Vanilla" by Tim Ecott, that charts the history of vanilla, and the skullduggery that occurs in todays world, becos of its value as a commodity. I found it truly amazing.

Vanilla is and will always be, one of my favouritist aromas - there aren't many foods that aren't improved in my opionion by a smidgeon of vanilla been added. But as with most things in life, you get what you pay for - and the true vanilla, with complex and rich aromas is expensive. But once you take into account the hand pollination of the flowers, and the time and care taken over drying the pods - that expense doesn't seem at all ridiculous.
And more than justified when compared to the sharp and sometimes acrid tones that you get in imitation vanilla.

We have long espoused the pods in our cookscools - and encouraged people to discover the pleasure to be had from burying their noses into a jar of pods. As a result we've sold lots over the years - both the A grade, which are extra long and plump, and the B grade, which is what the guys use in the kitchen. The pods may not be quite as large or as perfectly formed as the B grade, but have the same levels of the all important flavour component, vanillin.

Last year Garth introduced us to their paste, which me, being a bit of a purist was initially a little wary off, but I'm long since over my reluctance, and have taken to the paste with total abandon. A conviction shared with every cookschool, and which has meant we sell more of the paste than any other product.

It is an incredibly economic and convenient way of using vanilla, and getting the telltale black fleck, which is an indicator of real vanilla. The only disadvantage that I can attest too, is that its too easy to dip your teaspoon back into the jar to take another spoonful...

But porridge with touch of vanilla- yum! Now theres an aroma to wake up too in the morning!

 It should be no surprise by now for me to state that I'm obsessed with macarons - our attempts to duplicate the Parisian delicacies have taken months of effort, but the guys in the kitchen are now making them quite nonchalantly. Anyone would think they were easy!

Its a technique that has been mastered, and the results are a pure delight to my eye.

With the Champagne dinner last Tues, we wanted to finish off with sweet flavours centered on aniseed and ginger, becos we knew they worked with champagne, so we decided to do licorice macarons and baby ginger cupcakes.

Jamie has been playing round with a number of macaron flavours over the past few months, and I think it was he who first made the licorice ones a couple of months ago. They got oohed and aahed over, and then kind of forgotten as we moved onto feijoa, and tamarillo and other flavours.

So licorice were made again for this dinner, and people positively eulogised - so much so that Matt had to make up a large batch to be sent up to a house party in Pauanui for the weekend, and we've decided to make them a permanent flavour. So now in the restaurant when people order a macaron they have a choice of 5 flavours - dark chocolate, white chocalate and orange, apricot, caramel and licorice.

Licorice icecream has long been associated with the restaurant,  having been on our menu for pretty much all of the 23 years, so it has a nice sense of natural connection to also be making licorice flavoured macarons.

Rick's just ridden home from Te Aroha (as you do!), where Courteney had a time trial, and we had some macarons for afternoon tea - quality control you understand- and I can vouch for the fact they really are sensational!

It is a gloriously sunny afternoon, and the dogs are sprawled out on the floor having just come back up from a run down in the orchard. Days like this, its no problem having 3 dogs cos all the doors are thrown open and they mooch quite contentedly. Wet days aren't quite so much fun, cos the mud gets tracked inside and...But there has to be a bit of yin to balance out the yan I guess.

Rhonda and I have just been setting up the restaurant for the Dog Point Winemakers dinner tonite - fitting more tables than normal in the backroom, so the winemakers only have to give their spiel once - which means people should all know each other reasonably well by the end of the nite!

We're trying 4 wines with 4 matching courses, so that means 4 lots of knives and forks on the tables to start, rather than just the usual entree and main, and we've had to resort to all the catering cutlery to give us enough for a total set up. And as it is we will still have to get knives washed during the course of the evening for the cheese course. But thats Ok.

While I was over there I unpacked the weekly delivery of coffee from Island Coffee, and thought I should mention that we're now getting small retail packs of 250gm in addition to our normal order, for those who want to drink the coffee at home.
Jane and Stephen Burns are the owners, and have become good friends - special people with an enviable lifestyle on Waiheke Island.

We switched to these guys early last year, having been with our previous coffee supplier for most of the preceding 20 odd years, so a big step, but the time was right for a number of reasons.
I am a black coffee drinker, and I want a coffee with some grunt but without the bitter aftertaste that you sometimes get with Italian style roasts, which usually means you have to add sugar to avoid that back taste. This coffee I love - it gives a full flavour,but in a mellow, pleasant fashion.

Coffee is an integral part of my day - Ricks and my morning almost always starts with a trek over to the restaurant and that first restorative cup to wake us up properly, while we discuss the day ahead.

The video on the Burns website captures beautifully what seriously neat people they are, and has just whetted my appetite for the much talked about visit up there that Rick and I have been promising ourselves for ages. The litter of puppies and subsequent disappearance of anything vaguely resembling a normal life put paid to that idea in the recent past, but  things are on somewhat more of an even keel now, and I think a few days away would be rather a fine idea... Hmmm....

I am the nougat maker in this business. Not quite sure why it has remained my domain - normally, as with the macarons, I may do the initial research and playing around, but there is always a point at which I hand  over the idea to the proper chefs to take forward. Nougat however has stayed with me, possibly becos I feel somewhat possesive about  a technique that has taken me years to master.
 
I haven't made any in awhile - but a lady called in today looking to buy some, and that gave  me the necessary kick up the butt to get some made. Which I've done this afternoon and just wrapped ready to go on the restaurant shop shelves, and I have to say it has probably been the best batch I've ever made - just that right degree of chewiness. Not too soft and not to crisp. Rick and I have munched on the edges that I've trimmed off to cut it into wedges - and we've both oohed and aahed, and remembered just how much we adore nougat.

The first I ever tried was imported by Sabato from Italy, and it was a revelation for me. I'd never eaten anything quite like it, and was immediatly entranced.I remember at the time though, not being sure if you could eat the paper it was wrapped in. My subsequent learning curve has taught me that rice paper is fully edible, and is most definitely not the same as the rice paper that the Asians use in their cooking, whichis soaked in water before use.

My fascination  with the stuff grew after discovering Lygon St in Melbourne with tiny little shops that just sold nougat. Shelves were packed with huge hunks of the stuff, with all manner of flavourings - I'd have loved to have seen the making of it, but back in those days, was too timid to ask.

I tried many recipes in my early experimenting, without much success, and it wasn't till a good customer gave me some for Christmas that she had made, and then very generously obliged me with the recipe, that I got to finally start making  it properly.

And then a year or so ago I got the text " Chocolate and Confections" from the Culinary Institute in America, which is an exquiste recipe book on artisinal confectionary, and which included a version of nougat, with one or two variations on what I'd been doing. I now follow this recipe - the main difference is to add cocao butter, and the honey is also heated seperately to the  sugar/corn syrup mix, and the final texture, as evidenced by what I made today really is sublime.

We use honey which we buy direct from Mossops in Tauriko - Rewa rewa - a delicate, beautiful honey, that when I boil it attracts every bee in the neighbourhood. And the only inclusions I add are toasted macadamias, which are grown up Belk Rd. And of course Heilala vanilla.

Love the stuff!

Macarons have developed into somewhat of an obsession for me, and the only thing that saves me from too much undue concern about myself is the fact that in my research trips on the internet, I have discovered that there is a whole host of other people out there who are similarly obsessed.
They are really hard to make. To make perfectly that is. Anyone can make a meringue biscuit and sandwich it together with some creamed butter or ganache. But to make them smooth on top and with legs, is a process that has literally taken months to perfect. And I would be lying if I said I got there. I started the process - spent evenings searching thru the web for hints and information and then involved the restaurant kitchen. Two of our chefs John and Jamie, have risen to the challenge magnificently and are now making beautiful macarons.
My interest was piqued in Bordeaux last year, where we saw shops that specialised in selling only macarons and caneles. I couldn't imagine being able to specialise to that degree, and didn't realise till I got back to NZ and started doing some research that macarons are new to Bordeaux.

 Paris is where they have become famous and ubiquitous. Great pastry chefs like Pierre Herme are constantly creating new flavours, and keeping alive the fashion - but every patissiere on every street corner, now sells them.
American macaroons are also made from egg white, but any analogy ends there. They have coconut in them, and while lovely - I made some the other day, just to see- are nothing like the luxery of a good macaron.
My miranderings around the web in search of help when my first few efforts fell dismally short of the photographic evidence I had from Paris, led me to all sorts of equally obsessed people. If you're really keen you can even while away hours watching various you tube videos of varying quality. Listed below though are the blogs that I found most helpful, and the Australian one, shows that macarons are now embedded in the Southern Hemisphere.

http://www.syrupandtang.com/200712/la-macaronicite-1-an-introduction-to-the-macaron/

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2007/10/how-to-make-macarons-recipe.html

http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archives/2008/09/making_french_macarons.html

http://cannelle-vanille.blogspot.com/2008/08/chocolate-macarons-and-tropical-storm.html

http://www.travelerslunchbox.com/journal/2005/9/27/the-mighty-macaron.html

One of our visions for the business, going forward, is to gradually build up a range of foodstuffs for purchase - Somerset at home if you like. And it was with very real satisfaction that I packaged up the first batch of macarons last nite, after literally months of experimenting. We have 2 flavours available - and are selling them as an addition to a cup of coffee in the restaurant, or as boxes of 4 to take away. Dark chocolate with chocolate ganache, and Vanilla with white chocolate and orange ganache. John had also made some orange ones yest with dark chocolate ganache, and I noticed when I was leaving the restaurant last nite that he was getting ready to make some powder out of strawberries that he had dehydrated - so I suspect that the experimenting will continue, which needless to say, I think is a wonderful idea.

Not bad, huh?!

We're about to head out to friends for dinner, but before we do I thought I'd take a photo of this gorgeous small wine barrel that I did a deal over, with Steve Bird at the Wine and Food Festival on Saturday. I've been wanting a wine barrel for yonks in which to age my red wine vinegar - subject of an earlier blog, in which I talk about the Art of Eating article that got me started, and means I get the satisfaction of using up all the opened red wine in the restaurant from selling wine by the glass.

So far I've been making the vinegar in glass jars which has been fine - but the photos in a Patricia Wells cookbook of her house in Provence and her 2 small vinegar casks had me chaffing at the bit for my own. Had had a discussion with a winemaker customer to buy one of their used wine casks at the end of vintage, but have gone one better than that by spotting this little beauty in Steves tent at the Wine and Food.

Steve and we go back a long, long way. When we first opened at Somerset back in 86, he was working with John at Morton Estate, and we've had many an enjoyable lengthy evening spent discussing all manner of issues - some pertinent and some less so. It felt very appropriate therefore to rock up to the set up stage of the Festival and to see him and Caroline setting up in the marquee next to us.  Much catch up chat later, I exclaimed at length over this simply gorgeous barrel that had arrived in a container load with the more conventional sized wine barrels, that they had ordered direct from the people making them in France.

I confess I get very excited about things that are hand crafted like this - it is simply beautiful, and I'm thrilled to think that I will be able to use it for the vinegar from now on.

Am hopeful that Steve will remember to order me another couple, so that when we get our Food Store up and running we will be able to have a number of barrels on the go. Not sure at this stage where I'm going to keep it - there simply isn't space out front at Somerset - and vinegar has a distinct smell , which may not be the perfect background aroma for a restaurant!. But this is too beautiful an object to stick out the back in storage so will have to ponder that for a bit.

We sold an excessive amount of wine by the glass last week - for reasons I don't fully understand. We have a number of wines available by the glass - and tend to sell a reasonable amount that way. But the week just finished for some reason was especially notable for the quantities sold - very little BYO. And seeing all those opened bottles of wine has caused me no distress at all, becos I know I'm going to be pouring it into my barrel tomorrow, and setting the cycle of creating vinegar that our kitchen will use, and our customers can buy, in process.

And that concept pleases me immensely!!

Time for dinner...

I suspect that Licorice icecream is one of the dishes most strongly identified with Somerset. Its been on our menu, since the inception - and although in the early years we played around with the presentation and the sauces a little, we have got over the need to update it, and now just serve it in all its glory with freshly squeezed orange juice ( a combination that cropped up thru pure serendipity, when Rick happened to eat some licorice icecream having just had a glass of OJ, and commented on how well the 2 flavours melded, which when you think about it makes sense - remember the balls we used to get at the movies which were aniseed and orange,)and oranges that have been dehydrated and then dipped in dark chocolate.  Sometimes we have to talk people into trying it with the orange juice - they don't think the flavours are going to work, but the icecream needs that acidity becos its so rich.

The original recipe came from Des Britten, from his Coachman restaurant where both Rick and I worked - he used to serve it as part of a trio of homemade icecreams, but we found very early on at Somerset, that it had a fan club all of its own, which is why its served all by itself, and is why we also sell a serious number of pottles for people to eat at home. People pop in quite regularly to the restaurant to pick up some licorice - and we always notice a spike in sales just before long weekends.

We have used RJs Licorice to make it for years - that gets melted down and then added to the custard base, unlike some licorice icecreams we've tryed where they've used the licorice root, or as we've also seen occasionally, vanilla icecream to which some licorice allsorts have been added.

Its the type of flavour you either like or you don't, and we seldom put it on set menus for the reason that it tends to divide people. They are either fans or they are most definitly not!

We do however sell kilos and kilos of it in the week, and there are people who have been eating with us for years who will never be tempted by anything else for dessert. For that reason therefore, there has been a little consternation expressed over the change in its appearance over the last couple of months - its gone from being a somewhat greenish tinge, to looking more like chocolate chip, and I thought an explanation was in order.

We noticed it first a couple of months ago - the licorice we get from RJs looks the same, but once heated it took on a brownish hue, rather than the green tones we were used too. A few phone enquiries later, we were told that they had decided to stop adding a colourant to the licorice, hence the change. So now when I put it down in front of someone in the restaurant I explain that it isn't chocolate chip, but is licorice, and will taste exactly the same, which it in fact does.

I've just had a couple of spoonfuls from the bowl Craig dished me up so that I could take the photo below, and I can verify that there is  most definitly no difference in flavour - it still tastes distinctly and rather divinely of licorice.

We did a cookschool this morning and in the flurry of purchasing of product that was going on at the end, one of the participants nailed me becos she'd bought a copy of the cookbook and the licorice icecream recipe wasn't in it, and she wanted to know why. We've never done it in a class,  which is the main reason its not in the book, becos it contains recipes we've done in classes, and  somehow I don't think Rick ever will - but he's given out a number of other icecream recipes, which can be adapted if people so desire.

Much less hassle to buy it from us though!!