Posts from 2011

Posted on Wed, 01/06/2011

During my teenage years, my mother decided, based on what she would have read, that salt and sugar were the root causes of most health issues and they were effectively banned from our household. No salt was added to any...>>>

Posted on Thu, 02/06/2011

The local media has stirred itself up into a frenzy over someone been filmed planking on a railway line. Watching this green market beside a railway line, kind of puts things into perspective just a titch, and makes you...>>>

Posted on Fri, 03/06/2011

Since my photography class on Tuesday, I've been taking lots of photos at different times of the day to try and get my head around the concept of white balance. Gone are the days when I'd simply turn on the camera and point...>>>

Posted on Fri, 03/06/2011

Courteney has been in America since early March, and is there for another month. All the racing she has been doing to date is building up to the Liberty Classic,  the premier female  race in the American cycling...>>>

Posted on Sun, 05/06/2011

Remarkable how a good, busy service in the restaurant can completely restore my sense of equilibrium, but so it has always been with me. Life can be feeling distinctly gloomy, and then we have a busy nite at work, with a...>>>

Posted on Tue, 07/06/2011

The Liberty Classic is done and dusted - Courteney finished a very respectable 13th, with her fellow Kiwi Team mate Kate in 12th place. This link is to a series of photos of the race, and if I've done it right the one you'll...>>>

Posted on Sun, 12/06/2011

Much against my preferred instincts, I had to get out of bed at 5am yesterday in order to be over in the Waikato for the start of the Maungatautari multisport race that Hannah and Andrew were competing in. My lack of enthusiasm...>>>

Posted on Sun, 12/06/2011

A couple of weeks back I posted a blog in which I commented negatively on the fact that we had been approached by a local publication who wanted to write a restaurant column on us. My issue was not with the fact that they...>>>

Posted on Mon, 13/06/2011

We were up early this morning so Rick could watch life streaming of the Tulsa Tough crit race that Courteney was in this am. The American commentators take a bit of adjusting too, after years of listening to the dulcet tones...>>>

Posted on Tue, 14/06/2011

I have to go over to the restaurant early tonite, becos Rhonda's been in Auckland at a wine tasting and won't be back until close to 7pm, so I need to be back up for Roz in the initial stages, rather than mooching over later...>>>

Posted on Wed, 15/06/2011

I've just ordered a copy of this movie Passion and Patience,  becos figure it will make interesting viewing for all our front staff, especially since it appears to be made from a NZ centric perspective. I sometimes...>>>

Posted on Fri, 17/06/2011

'Excuse me dear, but there seems to be some dirt on the bottom of my dessert plate'. A lovely older couple in for dinner recently, had eaten their way thru the menu, and appeared nicely content with the food, except that...>>>

Posted on Sat, 18/06/2011

The DVD Passion and Patience arrived yesterday, and I've just watched it while on the spinner for an hour. Filmed at the Henderson winery Corazon, its a completely down to earth look at the wine making process, starting with...>>>

Posted on Sun, 19/06/2011

I am a natural cynic. Not, I hope, one who is automatically bitter and twisted. I don't feel quite that far along the spectrum, but definitely I do have a tendency to greet a certain amount of stuff with an instinctively...>>>

Posted on Fri, 24/06/2011

One of the aspects of the cookschools that gives me ongoing satisfaction, is the degree of information sharing that happens. We are constantly updating people on things we've learnt, and new producers we've encountered, and...>>>

Posted on Sat, 25/06/2011

Rick and I had breakfast in town this morning becos we had to drop a parcel of Somerset at Home product into the couriers, and we like doing that first thing, so it gets to its destination preferably in the same day. Breakfast...>>>

Posted on Sat, 25/06/2011

I'm no fan of restaurant reviewers, and especially not of the type of anonymous bile that gets deposited onto the internet by bloggers who feel a need to spread their particular brand of misery around. But even I feel that...>>>

Posted on Tue, 28/06/2011

I had ordered this book a few weeks ago via Amazon, and in the intervening time happened upon a number of reviews of it, in the types of lifestyle magazines that made me a little apprehensive about what to expect. My decision...>>>

Posted on Thu, 30/06/2011

Evening service is well underway at the restaurant, and I went over late, had a bit of a chat to everyone, answered a couple of queries, and collated all the invoices on the spike, seeing as how its the end of the month today,...>>>