#69 - Happy Hannukah / Merry Christmas / Joyous Kwanzaa / Happy [insert relevant holiday here]

Have just experienced one of those unfortunate and irritating things about automated "smart" whatever things these programs do - i.e. lost the post and all the clever, witty things I wrote about over the last couple of days.

I'm not sure I can face writing it all again - not to mention I can't remember what I wrote so I will have to try to reconstruct it using the photos I had for this post.

Packing and Moving
The day after I got back from Germany, it was back to reality.  I had to sort everything.  The movers packed all the things going back to Australia and when they were finished, there was a distressing amount of stuff left in the flat - it hardly looked like a dent had been made.  The rest of the day was spent packing, schelpping things to a friend's house for storage and throwing away rubbish.  I'm not quite sure how much crap can accumulate in such a small space.  Luckily for me, I had made dinner plans with a friend from LCB for that night, which gave a welcome cut-off time for all the moving and packing nonsense.  It was much needed and we had a delicious Mexican meal at a place called Lupita just off the Strand.  They even made guacamole in front of us, which brought to mind a scene from The West Wing in which President Barlett has a conversation with his daughter about guacamole in a restaurant in LA.  We had the fresh guacamole with the chips (the fried cheese in the bottom photo came with guacamole which was already made in the kitchen.

Don't quit your day job...
In which I discovered I will never be a criminal mastermind...one of the things that could strike fear into any traveller, no matter how seasoned, is the thought of having to make a connecting flight through LAX with an international to domestic transfer and a short amount of time in which to do it.  When the time is about 3 hours and one has to clear customs and immigration after picking up one's bags to switch from an international to a domestic flight, the anxiety level escalates dramatically.  This becomes an exponential thing as the first (international flight) becomes later and later - in our case, an hour late.  Somehow I got through the disorganized customes and immigration, collecting my boarding pass for the second leg from a British Airways groundstaff member and it looked like the connection might end easily.

The only problem came with the second security checkpoint - LAX has one of those body scanner things and given that a lot of doctors say they don't know how much of the bad x-rays or whatever go through you, I thought it would be better not to chance it.  Pat down finished, there was (I thought) undue interest in my bags.  In my defence, I had only slept about 6 hours out of the previous 48 hours so it took a little while to see what they were seeing when they pulled my quick cure salt out of my bag:  1kg of white, powdery substance in 2 layers of plastic baggies, one of them a zip lock.  Then I twigged.  Oh - white, powder...I asked the security guard what it looked like in the x-ray.  "Very interesting" was the answer.  Luckily the security guy had had confit duck before, so that made the quick cure a lot easier to explain.  He laughed when I said, "This is what comes of even contemplating cooking for your fmaily over the holidays!"  and I had no objection to there being no testing of the quick cure.  Guessing they must have decided that no one would be stupid enough to schlep a kilo of a naughty white substance in their carry on...

Cleared security just in the nick of time - just enough wiggle room to grab a bottle of water in the airline lounge, then it was time to board for home.

In which we channel Dorothy
There's no place like home.  We didn't even have the smell of jet fuel tainting the air when we landed - warm, flower scented air as soon as we stepped out of the gates and into the terminal.  Managed to overlap with Brother #2 and family - my first night was their last.  I had to laugh as my nephew picked me up and twirled me around.  It's always nice to be greeted so enthusiastically by a handsome (and buff) young man - even nicer when you know that you're on his list of favorite people who always merits a hug and a kiss.  On the right is one of the beautiful and rather common sights.  I can generally count on seeing a rainbow in the late afternoons most days.  It used to be on the way home from the ballet studio, but since the studio moved, I now just look up the hill from my little balcony.

A couple of days of catching up with friends followed my arrival.  One of the things you can always count on over the holidays is that people somehow make their way back here.  It might not be often or on a regular basis, but sooner or later we come back.  I suppose part of it is that it's a great excuse and place to take a break from cold and dark days when one lives somewhere where the days tend to get quite short as the year draws to a close.  Any of that is more bearable if you are heading for warmer climes...

'Twas the night before Christmas
And all through the house, little creatures were stirring.  My little niece was restive and not inclined to go to sleep because Santa was coming.  She had started making some cookies for Santa but it was temporarily put on hold while my sister tended to my new nephew - at which point I took over supervision of Santa's cookies.  My white hairs multiplied by a magnitude at several points - once when the 2 year-old picked up the blade attachment for the food processor before I could stop her (luckily by the plastic handle) and again when her hand got too close to the moving parts of the stand mixer.  Eventually she lost interest (when it was time to cook the cookies) but only after she added the chocolate chips to the cookie dough.  The quality testing of the chocolate chips was a big hit.

It was almost midnight before both kidlets were finally settled in for the night at which point my sister and I finished wrapping various presents.  I then went back home where I had a few more presents to finish wrapping - possibly a good time for jet lag to hit.

Christmas morning dawned too early for those of us who had been awake until 5am.  This jetlag thing from the opposite side of the world is just not that conducive to a good night's sleep on local time...a few bites of breakfast, then I toddled down the hill to watch the opening of Christmas presents.  My niece was very excited that Santa had eaten the cookies and drunk the milk.  Here is one of the little dresses I bought in London - they were so cute I couldn't resist buying several of them.  Lucky for me she wants to wear all of them although it's a bit doubtful whether she meant all at once (each dress was greeted with the comment "I want to wear it Mommy").

2nd Breakfast
And then came my Hobbit impersonation.  How can anyone turn down an offer to make them breakfast?  My brother-in-law kindly offered, extending this month's tradition of having meals cooked by other people's spouses.  In this case, 2nd breakfast was "hapa rice" (2 parts brown rice : 1part white rice), Portuguese sausage and eggs scrambled with vegetables.  FYI, eggs needed just a little something to give them a little kick.  I tried Tobasco (the best one), Frank's Red Hot or something like that (it's the one they use for Buffalo wings) and the ubiquitous Vietnames "cock" sauce - the plastic bottle with the green top and a drawing of a rooster on the front.  Father and daughter then went to a basketball game, which left my sister and me free to prepare for the afternoon.

Attempting to cook...

We had set up the vegetables at my sister's house so that there wouldn't be any issue as to space / stove / fridge / time while I tried to cook with my gimpy hand.  Thank goodness for shortcuts - I used canned tomatoes and a mandoline to help with all the slicing.  There were 5 people attending who were unable to eat gluten, 3 of whom were also allergic to eggs and 1 of whom was vegan (but willing to make an exception for Christmas dinner).  I was a little stuck for ideas until my sister said something about stuffed cabbage, at which point I tried a variation of the stuffed cabbage we did at school.  Then it was a matter of praying that it would turn out ok - there was a terrible moment when I tasted the tomato concasse and found it too acidic / flavorless / un-tomato-y.  I adjusted with a little sugar, but it was too much sugar and on went the adjusting.  Eventually satisfied with the taste of the sauce, I readied the rest of the mise en place.

The only thing is that I very carefully assembled the stuffed cabbage lasagne / gratin bayaldi with the outside of the cabbage facing out - that is to say, the wrong way out.  I blame the lack of sleep and jetlag for the snafu.  It turned out ok although I could hear a chorus of Chefs' voices in my head when we ate it that the zucchini was undercooked and the assembly uneven, not to mention it wasn't hot.  As a trial run, it could have been better but it could also have been worse.  For the moment, the notes I have are to cook the zucchini longer before assembly, drain everything much better, to have the cabbage with the inside of the leaves facing out, to make more tomato sauce and to heat the thing for about 15 minutes before service instead of 10 minutes.  For whatever reason, we always seem to end up with not enough tomato sauce and it needed rather a lot of adjusting the seasoning and acidity with red wine, salt and sugar.  It ended as one of those things where the people you cook for enjoyed the food but by the standards which I now expect of myself, the dish was lacking in several crucial ways - hence the chorus in my head of what feedback I would expect for the dish.  I remember early on that we were told that the chefs expected perfection.  Of course you never achieve it but that doesn't mean that you don't strive for it anyway, or else why would we be there?

Dinner was the usual food extravaganza for 15 people.  There was a very large turkey, a ham and a backup turkey as well as all the fixings and several side dishes.  Also as is usual for us here, appetisers were poke (pronounced "pokay" for those of you who have not been to Hawaii) with beer and tortilla chips with hummus.

My eldest brother made the roast turkey.  There was gluten free gravy and gluten free stuffing.  I found some of the gluten free alternatives to food rather disappointing because either the taste or the texture is usually not as nice as the normal one.  One of our guests also made mochi (pounded glutinous rice, sometimes with stuffing) and colored it - with the effect that it blends in with the plate.  Find the mochi on the tablecloth on the right...quite a good camouflage, I thought.  Given the amount of contributions, I thought we did quite well with consuming most of the food on the night.  The turkey leftovers were gone by the next day except for the carcass which is slated to make broth for a turkey stew I am going to try to make.  BS isn't a huge fan of soups but he will try a stew...

There was also a mini cask of rum.  Not some gimmicky thing or a scary home made attempt but rather proper rum which was stored in an aged French oak barrel (or something like that).  I'm hoping I said this correctly - I don't speak specialist alcohol language.  All I know is that generally alcohol makes everything better (and sometimes the food too).  This was to go with the figgy pudding - I've forgotten the song but I know it's one of the latter verses of "We wish you a merry Christmas".

It was wonderful to spend such a happy night with friends and family.  So until next time, may you have as wonderful a holiday and family time as I have.

#68 - In which I get to walk through history...

English Countryside


The day after (not) graduation started relatively early.  I say relatively because I had taken to sleeping in as my schedule allowed (i.e. didn't have to get up for exams) and it was a Saturday morning.  I was going up to the English countryside and although I had previously promised to cook dinner, obviously this was out of the question given my knife handling skills are still precarious.  I chose an alternate occupation for the day - namely, being entertainment and the official photographer.  ACP and KP were going to paint a room for the impending arrival of a new family member in the next month or so.  Anyway - it was cold.  Officially really cold...generally for someone who comes from warmer climes, it's probably safe to say that it feels cold when you can see your breath frosting in the morning air.  There was also ice on the asphalt...and of course as we started to drive, there is the iconic symbol for the Underground.  You may or may not be able to see that this one we passed is the one for Arsenal.

One of the nice things about the houses in London is that they have little touches which give them such character.  This one seems to have been inhabited at some point by someone musical.  It was quite cute to see the clefs hanging out over the windows.  The treble clef has been kind of popular for patisserie tuile decorations because it's a slightly more interesting (and complicated looking, if you are not a musician) shape than the bass.  Potentially the alto as well...
  








Morning Tea

We drove towards Cambridge (north?  west?  couldn't tell you...) and eventually ended up going through a little town called Ware (where?)...ACP and KP had some painting to do and various bits and pieces which required our presence sort of by no later than noon.  Having arrived and shivered our way through their ritual of turning up the heating, etc. etc. they proceeded to attend to the various tasks.  Morning tea duling having been served and consumed (scones courtesy of the Cordon Bleu tea party, which I had kept in the freezer against such an eventuality as this), it was time to start painting.

I was on hand as official photographer, some entertainment (it's always funny when someone else falls and trips, as long as they aren't hurt), occasional joke and general all-around cheerleader.  No, there was no cheerleading outfit as it was too cold.  I did bring up some scones that had been in my freezer though - they served for a nice morning tea before the others began the job of painting a room.  The little church on the right is actually a shot I took from the window of the little room that was being painted.  The window had been opened part way to allow paint fumes to waft out into the cold (super clean smelling) air.  The only drawback is that it was also quite cold when the breeze blew.


Spoiled
Both ACP and KP are good cooks.  The nice thing about this for me was that since my hand was out of commission, KP was going to cook dinner.  A welcome change as I had been eating baked beans on toast with cheese.  Ok, toast was a baguette and cheese was sometimes a nice, hard chedder and sometimes a gruyere, but it still gets a tiny bit boring if you have it several nights running.  Anyway - delicious pasta by KP...in the meantime, ACP had made and put away the Christmas pudding for the following week and she and I watched KP make dinner.  What can I say, there are few things more enjoyable than when a someone cooks you dinner.

In which I find out I am not smarter than the heater
We rented a video that night (Body of Lies) - quite entertaining and if we were in any doubt as to whether we might have similar taste in videos, we found another copy of the same video near the TV.  It was freezing so I plugged in the little space heater.  In my defence, the light went on so I thought it was heating.  Couldn't figure out why it wasn't warm so I sucked it up.  The next morning when I went to turn it off, I found out I hadn't turned on the heating elements.  But honestly, if the light is on, wouldn't that make you think that the heating thing is actually doing its thing?

4 countries in 3 days...

Then it was an early wake up on Sunday so that I could make sure I got back into London on time.  There was a booking through Heathrow to fly to Dusseldorf (shorter trip) so that I could visit with a friend from law school.  Things are so close in Europe that it was only a little bit longer for him to come get me at Dusseldorf instead of Cologne.  Still cold - colder than the countryside had been, actually.  I was really regretting the fact that my sweaters were all in a closet in Sydney, which is currently in summer.  Especially since we ran into snow on Monday morning as we started to drive towards the mountains.

It was almost as though there was an invisible line over which all of a sudden snow appeared on the side of the road and on the branches.  This wasn't your small fall which melts as the day wears on, but rather the kind that has been there for a few days.  For the most part the brown bits from being driven over were at a minimum and it was just that smell you get in the air when it's snowing with the slightly glowy but dimmer light.

Winter Wonderland (Monschau)
We arrived at this little place called Monschau - a tiny village, mostly self-contained.  The ground wasn't that wet so we got a nice little walk around.  There were a bunch of little bridges going over the river - a tributary which eventually feeds into the Maas river (I think).  It was so picturesque I couldn't help myself from taking a zillion photos.  The Christmas market stalls were mostly closed as the market itself is only open on weekends.  Given the amount of traffic - or lack thereof - I can understand why.

We had a little stop for morning coffee / hot chocolate.  Once of the nice things about the cold is that since you are desperate to warm up, it feels a little less naughty to have a hot chocolate and since most of the places here use milk (instead of water, which you might get in the US) I think it tastes better.  More photos ensued before we went back out.  I have to admit to getting a little turned around at one stage so I thought we were on one side of the river when we were actually on the other side.  There was a stop at this shop which sold so many different kinds of mustard that I lost track.  I wanted to bring some back but hadn't checked any bags and was daunted by the weight so I gave the mustards a miss.

Maastricht
Then it was on through Belgium to the Netherlands - I hope I got the geography right!  Again there was an invisible line - a horse cropping grass through snow between Germany and Belgium, then something a bit more subtle at the Belgium/Netherlands border where at the bottom of a hill the snow disappeared and the light all of a sudden turned bit golden.  It was like we had driven into a Van Gogh painting of hay and other Dutch paintings with houses along a river.

More Christmas markets! We wanted to go into the church but it was actually closed so that didn't happen.  However, one of the good things was that since there had been some French influence since whenever, I was relieved to be able to understand the French signs.  Much excitement!

Then there was the option of stopping at Aachen on the way back to Cologne.  I love that everything is so close to everything else!  I remember reading quite a lot about how the capital of Christianity was in Aachen for a while.  Yes, I know this is going back quite a while, but then again, in this part of the world a "young" building was built in the 1500s (part of the wall in Maastricht).


In which the mind boggles - Aachen (aka Aix la Chapelle)
The streets wound their way around.  I mistook the Town Hall for the cathedral at one point - we were approaching from the side and it just looked a little church-y.  In any event, it wasn't - good thing because it seemed a bit disrespectful to have such a hugh market in front of the church, even though that was probably used as a gathering place for a while.

Stepping into the Aachen Cathedral was a completely different experience.  The first thing to hit you is the Byzantine style of everything - the mosaics were intricate, astounding and everywhere - which sounds less impressive than it actually is.  Apologies for the bad lighting / photography but this is the best I could do.  It invites you to just look and look - you could probably spend a lot of time just looking at everything but we actually had to get back.  No matter - it was enough to be in the Cathedral where Charlemagne's throne is.  There is a tour available to see it (apparently just a simple wooden throne) but we had missed it for the day.  Just something to bring you back another time, I think.

Outside view of Aachen Cathedral

Streets of Aachen and a Chrstimas Fai

It took UP's kids a little while to decide that perhaps the stranger wasn't so strange after all, although we didn't share a language in common so communication was done through the good graces of their parents translating or a little bit of mime and gestures.  They were very generous about my attempts to speak German (prompted, of course!) and if nothing else, there was a little bit of laughter at the American's attempts to pronounce words which to us can be a bit of a tongue twister.

In any event, it snowed early Tuesday morning.  I heard the something hitting the skylights and hoped it was snow, not rain.  Rain did eventually fall and melt most of the snow away, but when everyone got up in the morning, everything had been softly covered by about an inch of snow.  Getting the kiddies ready for school was interesting to watch.  I'd forgotten how wiggly they can be and seeing two parents almost outnumbered by an equivalent number of enthusiastic offspring was quite an experience.  I have to admit being glad that we don't have to do the same with my nieces and nephews.

After everyone had been dropped off at school and work respectively (UP's wife had to work) UP and I went to the Belgian Quarter of Cologne.  We walked through a park whose name I don't know and had coffee at a place whose name I've forgotten...then more walking - to the Cologne Cathedral.  When we were here a zillion years ago, the towers were not open to the public and they were covered in scaffolding.  There's still scaffolding but it has moved.   More Byzantine looking tiles and mosaics inside the Cathedral, as well as the controversial "new" stained glass window.  The colors match the cathedral quite well but apparently the design did not, being abstract rather than one depicting your typical stained glass scenes.  I could see both sides of the argument, which sometimes drives me crazy.  Occasionally it's just restful to have only one idea in your head.

UP was game when I suggested that we climb the tower.  Well - if you can count someone jumping up and down as "suggesting".  The only drawback was that we got caught in waves of teenage hordes who were there - possibly a school field trip but it was a little hard to tell.  I had expected to see Quasimodo up by the bell and the rest of the time I expected to see Harry and Dumbledore having a face-off with the rest of the cast of characters from the various Harry Potter movies.  Somehow they seem to end up by bell tower looking things quite often...

Several more Christmas markets later and a walk down slushy side alleys to the Rhine, we went to lunch.  A pub whose name I've forgotten where I had something like a brisket in BBQ sauce for lunch.  Really yummy and not something you would be able to eat, then do any work in the afternoon but perfect for a really cold day when you are on vacation.  Apparently it is a traditional dish (they describe it as braised Rhine beef or something similar)...followed by more walking.  Sorely needed after such a heavy lunch...all I can say is that it was delicious and if I could, I would probably have it every week - I wonder how it would taste with white rice to soak up all that delicious sauce.  Because the dish wasn't already filling enough, you know...

Back to reality
Back in London, there remains a ton of things to be done:  parking dispensation for the moving van, sort clothes, etc. for movers, get coffee so I am awake enough to direct the movers (rather than falling over which is what I feel like doing right now...apologies for any errors, I blame them on sleep typing.

So until next time, may the things that need to be done not pile up on you as they have done to me here.

#67 - (Not) Graduation and variations on a theme

The variations are not on a theme by Paganini.  It's more a theme by Le Cordon Bleu London - that is to say, hygiene.  Kind of.  Sort of.  What can I say, it's more laundry.  But as usual, I've begun in the middle so must loop back to the beginning.

Good bye Dinner
On Thursday night I had dinner with a friend of one of my brothers (they of the walk in the countryside and trip on canal boat fame) - she and her partner took me to a lovely restaurant called Alba near the Barbican - really good Italian food - definitely comfort food.  I took a photo of the dessert as research.  As delicious as my vegetable soup and slow cooked lamb were, they weren't something I might put in an exam.  Probably not the pear either, but it was good for taste, texture and potential ideas (the marscapone cream was really good - definitely on the list for a future dessert).  The Alba is a family owned and operated establishment and my hostess had been going there for years.  I must say that I will definitely go back - what's not to like?  Small but thoughtful menu with something available for the carnivore, the vegetarian and the pescatarian (they're the ones who eat fish but not meat, right?).  I was tempted to get the set menu which had a truffle dish on it, but couldn't go past the lamb.

Graduation Lunch
As of Friday, 16 December 2011, the term has officially ended for my fellows in Superior Cuisine and Patisserie - they are now chefs, some of them entitled to wear the toque at least for the last few minutes of the graduation ceremony.  Today was graduation day for most of those who began this long quest to learn how to cook, improve technique and to share our love of all things food.  The party was at the Dorchester Hotel on Park Lane.  Much better food than what I remember being served when we had our graduation from Basic.  This is the final graduating batch of Superior students from 114 Marylebone Lane.  From next year, students will be taking classes in Bloomsbury Square.

It was nice to see everyone dressed up and out of their school uniforms.  It appears that people dress up more for the Superior Graduation - not that I remember much from when I was in Basic (and I wasn't here for the Intermediate one) but I have to admit people cleaned up very well.

Everyone had put their best shod foot forward and you could feel the palpable air of relief, excitement and (possibly it's my imagination, but who knows?) the need to catch up on just a little more sleep after the marathon Patisserie exam a couple of days ago.  Some of people said that a few problems had occurred in one of the exams and sometimes it was little but important things which just went wrong on the day.  I think it's always frustrating when you have an element which normally is not a trouble maker all of a sudden causing problems on the day because it tends to throw you off your stride.

The Dorchester was very pretty - a little OTT perhaps, but then again, this was a big occasion for everyone - a culmination of a lot of work and in many cases, some blood, lots of sweat and a lot of tears.  Possibly also some grumpy moments, loss of sleep and monumental self control when something didn't go right in class and continued not to go right.  Yes, it is personal experience talking...

Having had so much time in class, I have to say I cast an eye over our lunch as though we were having it presented to us for tasting and judgment.  Maybe not Iron Chef - but definitely consideration on a couple of levels:  the first being, could I do this?  (Sometimes yes, sometimes maybe...) - and the second one being, what might the chefs say if this was a dish that we were presenting to them.

So I do not have a 3 Michelin star palate - even after al this time and the incredible ingredients we used in class, I still do not like foie gras (although today I hated it less than usual).  The toasted brioche was a nice touch although I observed a demonstration of someone's objection to it which is that you get this large slab of foie gras but only a little bit of bread and salad.

The menu said cannon of lamb.  I thought the cannon was part of the leg but this looked more like a steak-ish type of cut.  Also, it didn't taste particularly lamb-y, but maybe the tastebuds were confused by the foie gras and a piece of the toasted brioche (yummy, by the way) which had preceded it.  Again, left the sweetbreads behind.  I think they are considered a delicacy nowadays - certainly they seem to be trendy at the moment, both as part of the head-to-tail philosophy of using every part of the animal and as part of the offal-is-trendy-because-it-sounds-kind-of-weird-and-no-one-knows-what-it-is.

Dessert was a mocha and something-or-other parfait, macadamia nut brittle, coconut ice cream (milk ice cream?) and sauce.  This one got particular scrutiny as there were several patisserie students at my table from all the levels as well as our head Patisserie chef.  The students looked at it from the view of a plated dessert and Chef JW looked at it, comparing it to what had been served during the tasting (when they chose the menu) as well as technical points.  The only really technical point is that a parfait is frozen, which these weren't.  I thought the mousse might have been a tad heavy on the gelatine, but that might just have been me.

There was some discussion as to how well the chocolate was tempered, some people at the table having had rather recent and harrowing experience with uncooperative chocolate.  Split verdict - I thought it was fine, someone else thought not and Chef JW did not weigh in with her opinion.  She did observe that there are two LCB graduates who worked in the pastry team of the Dorchester and at least one of them had worked on these desserts.  In any event, it tasted good and was quite pretty.  They stuck the tuile and chocolate in the dome though, so I'm not sure what Chef GB thought of that - he told us particularly not to do that to our plated desserts.

I also found out one of the girls who just completed Basic Patisserie has been reading this blog - rather a compliment.  I asked her how she had found it and she said it was because she had been searching for photos of the dishes we had been making in class.

Chefs!
Anyway - they made it and have the medals, papers (lots of papers) and the hats to show it.

Well done chefs!

As for my graduation, hopefully I will be able to time my finals with the next batch of graduating Superior students.  This was supposed to be a year of food, but it's turning out to be a bit longer.  It's been more of a year of building character - in which food played a large role.  I will know more once I hear back from the Academic committe but for now, there will be photos of practice sessions (once my hand is back in shape), possibly some bitching and moaning and now I have a great excuse to eat a lot of things at a lot of places.  After all, it's a chance to collect ideas for finals without trying to get too clever.  It wasn't far to find a very large silver lining (a break to reorganize, get warm at home for the holidays with family and friends and a chance to see the new school).

So until next time, happy holidays - may your year end as positively as mine bids to do.