Posts from 2010

Posted on Fri, 05/03/2010

Sat down to write this blog last nite when I'd come back over from the restaurant - but have just reread what I wrote then, and decided that I was much too grumpy - thrown off kilter by a table who refused to be satisfied...>>>

Posted on Fri, 05/03/2010

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...>>>

Posted on Sat, 06/03/2010

Larry left these books for me when he was in NZ last year, and I've just finished the second one today. The author wasn't someone I was familiar with, but apparently he was wellknown in the States as a novelist. Before...>>>

Posted on Sun, 07/03/2010

We have a function on tonite, for which I'm hoping that everyone will be able to sit outside - on the deck and in the courtyard. Anna Robertson and team are currently over at the restaurant creating their own special blend...>>>

Posted on Tue, 09/03/2010

I have just got to the end of a reasonably intense few hours spent downloading all the information from my old computor onto a new system. A process made much easier by the fact that Chris comes and helps. I would be completely...>>>

Posted on Thu, 11/03/2010

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...>>>

Posted on Sat, 13/03/2010

I am truly shattered. We were up before 3am this am in order to head down to Taumaranui to support Hannah and Andrew in the Kararau Krusher - a multi sport event. A long day was had by all - but once again my offspring...>>>

Posted on Tue, 16/03/2010

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...>>>

Posted on Thu, 18/03/2010

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!...>>>

Posted on Thu, 18/03/2010

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...>>>

Posted on Fri, 19/03/2010

Heilala Vanilla are a company that we have had a long association with, and whom we hold in the highest regard. They have created a very special product  thru a joint venture with a village in Tonga, and not content...>>>

Posted on Sat, 20/03/2010

I have half an hour before Holly arrives to accompany me to The Elms, where we'll by setting up champagne to serve to guests after a wedding ceremony. From there I shoot up to Ambiance, up Pyes Pa Rd, where all the other...>>>

Posted on Sun, 21/03/2010

Looking at these photos of homemade cakes, got me to thinking about the vexed issue of people wanting to bring cakes to the restaurant. As with so much of what we do, then can be no hard and fast rule to instill in the staff,...>>>

Posted on Thu, 25/03/2010

Learnt something tonite! The Flemish bissous on the cheek 3 times, whereas the French only do it twice. Didn't know that. We have some Flemish businessmen in for dinner, one of whom we have seen many times over the years,...>>>

Posted on Sun, 28/03/2010

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...>>>

Posted on Mon, 29/03/2010

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....>>>

Posted on Mon, 29/03/2010

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,...>>>

Posted on Wed, 31/03/2010

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...>>>