(Punk) Rock 'n Roll and more eating
I went to my first (and only?) rock concert / band thing...one of my brothers was touring with a band, "Bad Astronaut" through Australia - a tour called "Hits and Pits".
It was a very cold Sunday night in November when I met my Mom outside a venue whose name I have now forgotten. We were the most unlikely duo there and if you did the old "one of these things isn't like the others" game from Sesame Street, just by looking, we would have been those people.
Anyway - my Mom is a very good mom: she knew most of the songs (not all the newer ones), she knew the words and she bopped along to them. Having your mom bop along to punk songs...I never thought that combination of words would ever be written, much less that I would be the one writing them.
Backstage - yes, we got to go backstage - very exciting (though you still needed earplugs) and Mom did what moms do - she mothered people a bit. I was just taking it all in except I couldn't remember faces and/or names unless I wrote things down later. (One of my brother's friends was a guy who had known us for probably 20+ years. I asked him what band he was in. Luckily he took it in good spirit and at least I remembered him when he joined us for dinner a few nights later.) So AC is talking shop with Dave, a guy from a band which my Mom knew about, called Black Flag (?) - ugh, I've forgotten again. Anyway - they're talking about amplifiers and a few other esoteric things which were incomprehensible to the uninitiated so I took the opportunity to play fan / not-groupie and got a candid shot.
In which I actually use some of the stuff I learned in cooking school...
Funny enough, most of my family seem to be foodie types. AC is a really good cook so when I offered a home cooked meal, his eyes lit up. Of course he pooh-poohed the chili which everyone else requests (my sister having done so only last night or so) since he can make his own. The result: a menu we cobbled together backstage.
He likes duck. So does my Mom. I do not like duck because...it took a while to nail down what the smell reminded me of, but I finally got it: wet dog. So here is the prep two nights before AC was due for a home cooked meal. Duck: bought and butchered and I took my time removing all the shafts from the feathers (yech!) because I do not have a blow torch. So - duck confit done, duck breast separated, bones ready for stock, everything in the fridge ready to be schlepped up the hill for dinner.
Dinner
Dinner was set for after work. Australia has influenced me in several ways - shopping (I can no longer say that I don't care what my bags and shoes look like, though I can say I don't care much about the label) and food - beetroot no longer appears to be the root of all evil but I will never come around to lamingtons or vegemite. Anyway - the starter (left? it shows as "above" as I write the post) is 3 layers of crispy biscuit type things (1 plate is gluten-free), 3 layers of goats cheese, baby heirloom tomatoes and peeled grapes.
The main: duck confit with jus, pan roasted duck breast with orange reduction, rice (as a nod to the Hawaiian part of the meal, and to go with the Hawaiian Seasonings salt which I used as part of the marinade for the confit) and steamed vegetables. You can't see the sauces very well and the jus was over reduced - but luckily most of those little details were only things I noticed.
Mixed salad and dessert, but I don't remember what we had - obviously not very memorable!
I give thanks for everything...
And for Thanksgiving - we went for Indian food down the street.
Do what you're afraid to do
I've always hated snakes. We do not get along, but when you go to a function where an opportunity presents itself, you have to grab it with both hands. Or in this case, touch it very gently with one hand. In this case, there was an exhibit opening at the Taronga Zoo so my Mom and I went on behalf of someone else so that they could give us (and about 100 other people) a little preview. We did not know that the preview would include live animals, including this spotted python, Sputnik. Sputnik was very happy and relaxed, according to his handler. He was warm and he felt very odd as I touched him. The baby lemur was much less intriguing after touching the snake and he (the lemur, not the snake) was asleep so I thought I wouldn't disturb him.
Blast from the Past
And then there was a flying visit from a friend from Le Cordon Bleu days - I got a surprise message on Facebook from WP who said she would be in town for certain days. We ended up having sushi at Hemmesphere after work one night and chatting away until we were both yawning more than the occasion warranted.
It was so nice to have a visit from what seems to be a lifetime ago. We caught up on what each had been up to since graduation - I think we learned more about each other over those few hours than we had in the 9 months in London. Then it was time to say goodbye and despite best intentions and endeavours, I had to get ready to go home for the holidays and she had the rest of her travels to complete.
I am now home for the holidays and ready to have some fun with cooking parties. Christmas plans are in full swing so more later - so until next time, happy and safe holidays to all!
It's been a little while since I cooked anything worth posting but it was my Mom's birthday last night. A bit of a rush since I made dinner after work but it's all in the preparation - last minute sauce but mise-en-place done before and/or most of the major cooking, which means the only things I actually had to do was make the sauce, reheat and flash the duck, supreme the orange, re-heat the broccoli, toast the almonds and plate. Easy 60 minutes (only because the sauce takes a while).
Happy birthday Mom!
The result was a group effort - Dad made salad to which I added a few bits and pieces (roasting the almonds took the longest, surprisingly enough), Mom made the rice and I did the duck, sauce and veggies.
And I found out why you trim the duck's legs before you cook it. Trying to trim them after - well, the bones shattered into pieces and the ugly end was still attached. The confit leg may not have looked very pretty but apparently it tasted really good. Frankly, I couldn't face eating any duck after smelling the duck fat while it was cooking. Don't get me wrong, the duck fat actually smells really good but it's such a rich smell, all I wanted for dinner was a little rice and all veggies.
No madeira for the sauce. Oddly enough, the liquor store / bottle shop didn't have madeira. ("What? No madeira? What kind of bottle shop doesn't have madeira???") They had port but I forgot it at home so I cheated - red wine and orange juice. Substituted chicken stock for brown duck stock. Yes, shock horror - but it all still tasted pretty good so happy faces around the table.
Dad's pretty salad to the right with cherry heirloom tomatoes - just right with the toasted almonds and vinaigrette. The crisp greens were a perfect antidote to the duck fat smell. I think I would have been happy just to eat salad and nothing else. Why is it that there's so much pleasure in cooking but sometimes, the pleasure in the eating is just not there?
And then of course, dessert. You can't have a birthday without dessert...but I didn't have time to make it so I bought it from the deli. I have dessert guilt. On the other hand, this was gluten free and my gluten free repertoire is (thus far) very limited. Mousse, anyone?
In any event, a lovely night with the parents and they got to eat something they don't cook at home and isn't necessarily on a restaurant menu. Ah, Cordon Bleu was definitely not a waste, according to them. A true pleasure for me to have more people who like to eat!
(I am off to pick up some dinner - yes, yes, cheating but all in a good cause - I don't cook Chinese food at home.)
So until next time, happy Mother's Day, happy eating and a very good night to you all!
For better or for worse...
Cuisine final is over and I am still recovering. 15 of us going into the kitchen - they had people going in 2 by 2 (opposite sides of the kitchen) and I was second to last - had to wait almost an hour before I got to go in and set up my station. There was last minute panic in the hallway, a few questions for the Patisserie chefs who were walking past as they set up for their tasting from Group C and a few nervous trips to the bathroom. At least it was before and not during the exam...
There have been sporadic instances this week where I just wanted to curl up in a little ball on the floor and have a nervous breakdown. But we don't do that - we're chefs and we deal with it. Or as one of my friends told me when I told her I just wanted to die, "do it after the exam." As you can tell, we're a sympathetic lot. The bright side is that the feeling does go away - eventually - and there are 4 of us from my cuisine group who will be repeating this experience on Friday morning in staggered starts. The enthusiasm with which we look forward to Friday is as palpable as that which might accompany a doctor's appointment which involves taking off your clothes and being put in positions you normally wouldn't engage in with someone who isn't your spouse / lover / [insert word of your choice here]. It has also reduced even those of us with pretty extensive vocabularies to mostly 4-letter words which you wouldn't say in front of the very young or the extremely elderly, especially when something boils away. You will note that I have not said "boiled over" - I stopped doing that last Thursday.
The exam...
I didn't take in my time plan because I figured if I had to check it too often I'd been in deep s#$* and looking at it wouldn't fix matters whereas looking at my mise en place told me where to go next. It was a busy but not horrific 4 hours and if it hadn't been for the couple of things which went wrong (and if I had had another couple of pots and burners) I think I could have done it in a little less time.
Things were pretty on track in terms of timing right up until I had to plate my starter. Of course that's when things start to go pear shaped. I recovered from burning my carrots (had to scoop out a couple more, but luckily I had a whole extra carrot so that was no drama) and burning away my wine (for the Hollandaise) twice. Then...as I was starting plating, disaster struck - my egg broke and the backup wasn't usable because it looked awful. So I had to poach another egg. This then threw off my hollandaise schedule a little bit and it was cold by the time I had to plate it - so I tried to recover it with a little hot water - hopefully it didn't split but it started to look thin although it went over the egg fine. This time I remembered the lemon and the salt so although the tartlet didn't look as pretty as during the mock exam (and I didn't make a spare) hopefully it will taste better. Also - I presented 2 minutes early! I suppose I could have used those 2 minutes to try to fix the hollandaise a bit more, but really, I wasn't in the mood to mess with it any more than I already had.
Then the main...everything on track again except for a minor hiccup with the mousse which I will tell you about after the debrief on Monday. I also dropped the bowl which had my pigeon legs marinating in it, so I had to clean up the floor and wash the legs (I was going to do that anyway). I don't know how that affects the hygiene marks - I didn't have any spare pigeons and I had to make the legs so since they were going to cook in gently boiling oil for about an hour or so, I figured any bugs would be long since cooked away. The dish ended up looking quite nice - I think everything was there, including the parsley chiffonade. And finally the pigeon was cooked, but it's possible one of them was slightly over - ugh, will it never go right??? Time - 2 minutes over because I had to clear my station down so that I could plate - and there were a lot of components: glazed vegetables, cutting the bottom off the braised and stuffed lettuce, the sauce, the chiffonade, the potatos fondant, the confit pigeon legs where we have to debone the thigh, then pan fry to get the skin crispy (and which took forever), the glaze for the stuffed/braised lettuce and the sauce. Think one pot or something similar for each of those things which then has to go on 2 very hot plates.
My station was a shambles. It seemed like crap was proliferating everywhere, but never the stuff I needed. Another small pot would have been nice (we had an extra one during the mock exam so it was a real nuisance not to have one today). Also, they said we could trade our used pots for clean ones, but there weren't any in the washup area for the first hour of my time so I either washed my own or I had to do other stuff while waiting for my pots to get cleaned - I can tell you where my 2 minutes went. In the meantime, there was quite a bit of "hot pan!" and "mind your backs" but otherwise, it was intensely quiet in the kitchen except for the sound of pots going on stoves and oven doors opening. Oh, ridiculous - I couldn't open my oven unless I used both hands, which meant a little bit of juggling. Small in the grand scheme of things, but awful when seconds count.
Good night...
The next time you hear from me, hopefully the Patisserie will also be finished and I will be able to tell you that it felt good. Until then, may you have enough pots and pans (or whatever) to do what you need to do. And may you beat the clock...
Entering the home stretch
Somehow it's sinking in that two weeks from tomorrow, it will all be over (assuming all goes to plan). I can't believe that I have been in class for almost 2 weeks now. In some ways it's like I never left and in other ways, I still feel a little like a headless chicken. Hopefully that feeling will abate prior to exams, although there's a mild panic at the thought that my cuisine final will take place in a kitchen where I have never set foot (except to get a couple of band-aids).
I packed half a rabbit with sauce and veggies for a friend from Cuisine who is now doing Basic Patisserie. I notice the order of some of the desserts have changed. Anyway, he likes rabbit so some of Peter went home to become breakfast (or so I was told). I packed a bit more of the rabbit and brought it home for other people to taste. I've had enough of it to know that it doesn't taste as bad as I thought the first time, nor does it smell as strong - maybe it has something to do with the fact that this time we cooked it a little after noon instead of first thing in the morning.
Anyway, we then went out to dinner to celebrate GS's birthday from earlier this week. It was an early night - he wanted to hang out a bit more with NH (who also finished Cuisine last term and is doing Basic Patisserie this term) and me, but I was too tired and I think so was she. We've actually had quite a lot of hours in class and I have been falling asleep for the last couple of days in the middle of the day. Dinner was at the Senior Citizen hour of something close to 6pm...
Cooking with your heart
The chefs used to tell us that if you are happy, your food is happy. If you're not happy, your plate will reflect that as well. Maybe it's knowing that the worst (not being able to finish) has already happened or maybe it's something else - it doesn't feel like much has changed but somehow the cooking seems to have improved. "More love, less passion" as one of our Patisserie chefs likes to say. I mentioned this to other friends who finished Cuisine on time and they said they noticed the same thing - on the days when there was unhappy conflict in the kitchen, their plates were invariably "shit". Hopefully things will continue to improve - we only have a few more classes to go before we hit finals. I have been using classes as an opportunity to strengthen my hand as well - somehow there's always a little adrenalin rush - maybe it's the knowledge that there's continuous assessment every day, maybe it's that exams are almost here and the time is fast approaching when things will be over, one way or the other. In any event, it will be a relief once it's all over - I have a feeling that there will be a few tears of tension finally receding when we have presented our pieces. There's definitely a plan for people to get together and get some dinner after the 6-hour Patisserie marathon. Still seriously considering whether to get Astronaut diapers - you know how it is, you always have to go to the bathroom at the most inconvenient time. My current time plan does not have a bathroom break built in because I have used that time as a cushion against something going wrong. Too much information? I wonder if anyone has ever done it - I've heard of people who complained they didn't have time to go to the bathroom...
Monday and Tuesday will be our Patisserie skills test - a run through of the exam pieces. Recipes will be refined/finalized after chef comments and we will see where we are with organization and seeing how long it takes to execute things. There's a bit of waffling with a couple of components, but otherwise things look like they are on track. Then it's the last minute panic of printing out our portfolios. A bit more to be done for Cuisine, a lot more to be done for Patisserie.
Must go now - it is early but definitely past my bedtime. So until next time, may your cooking adventures be full of more love, less passion...
It truly sounds like a poultry heavy beginning of a joke, doesn't it? And it kind of was, except perhaps not in the way you might think.
Studying...kind of (and a day of non-stop eating)
Yesterday we spent getting ready for today's mock final. Part of the preparation involved getting lunch - always an excellent idea. Since I haven't been here for the first 8 weeks of term, I was excused (as I understood it) from attending the Patisserie tutorial sessions - there weren't any marks to discuss. There was some discussion after class and a half-hearted study session. As you can see, we were working super hard.
I noticed that the LCB cafe had a croquembouche on display. It was one that had been done by one of our Patisserie chefs the day before - well, the assembly and the decorations had been done the day before. A croquembouch basically means "break in the mouth" - a reference to the fact that the filled profiteroles are stuck together with caramel, which crunches when you eat it. There are other variations (like filling the profiterole with ice cream and dipping it in chocolate) but then they are known as something else - I don't know what the something else is. In this case, the actual profiteroles and the praline base had been done the week before. So here is an example of something we might be able to do in a couple of hours, once we've had at least 15 years of experience and are talented...I know it's hard to see, but those are pulled sugar roses and sugar tendril-y things. I tried to do something like that in class the other day when I was putting my ugly sugar sculpture together, but had to take them off because they just looked like mistakes from bad assembly. Inspirational in the skill displayed, discouraging to know just how far we have to go to even begin to approach this kind of ease and skill.
Anyway, lunch...we went to this yummy burger place called Meat Liquor which is actually on the way home from class - a dangerous location. I had a private giggle to myself that we spend time thinking of ways to plate fancy food pretty, but given a choice, this is what we go for. There were a bunch of mushroom and swiss burgers, I had a bacon cheeseburger (see below) and 3 orders of chili cheese fries. One of the guys liked his burger so much that he finished most of his girlfriend's burger, then ordered a second one.
Several beers (for them) and a coke (for me) later, people dispersed - some to go back to school for a couple of things, some to go home and work on their portfolios (basically the school making sure we prepare for our final exams - you have to write out recipes and methods) and a few of us to do other errands. I went with a couple of guys to drop off some knives at this Japanese knife shop near the old school where they will sharpen the blades on a stone - a much better result than just using a steel before and after each class. In fact the fellow did such a good job that I didn't even know I had nicked myself today until way later when I wondered why my finger was stinging.
Dinner in Poland and France
Then I went to meet a friend for dinner. CL started basic at the same time I did for both cuisine and patisserie. She decided not to continue on as she had a lot of travelling to do (I can't remember if she did Intermediate - they do say that memory is one of the first things to go with age...) so it was good to catch up and hear what was going on with her life. We went to this Polish place (I think - she had heard about it from other people) and it was really good. Her dish was kind of like a fancy version of what I fondly believe to be Hungarian Goulash since it was served with something that resembled spatzle (except made with veal escalopes) and I had a topside beef something-or-other braised in consomme - just what I wanted - a beef and vegetable dinner with a beefy veggie soup for dinner.
Then we had dessert at CL's favorite crepe place, almost next door to the restaurant. I got ice cream with chocolate sauce and she got a chocolate and banana crepe. Apparently the crepe is usually better (this one was kind of crunchy - not good). Then I had her try the ice cream. Also not good - there was something wrong with it, it tasted really fake and chemical-y. A shame really - they had the right crepe pan / burner things that I've seen on the streets of Paris and it smelled pretty good. I think they must have pre-made CL's crepe and it got dried out somehow. As you can see, this photo was taken before either of us had tasted the ice cream. There was an after photo as well, but I freely confess that vanity has prevented me from posting that photo.
4 hours of confusion...
Jetlag may finally be starting to abate - I slept in until 6am or something this morning - whenever it was that my alarm went off. Of course that may have something to do with being up a little past midnight, getting ready for this morning's cuisine practical. Rather, a double practical class - because we were running through our 4-hour final exam to see where we were in terms of timing and results.
There were 15 of us in the kitchen. I've been in the kitchen exactly once before, so someone had to show me where the numbers were on the ovens so that I knew where I was for my station. They staggered our start times by 10 minutes per side of kitchen so that we wouldn't all pile on top of each other while setting up. Fine in theory, but in practice - well, there were a few things we didn't know, so we weren't as efficient as we could have been. Or rather, I know I could have been more efficient if certain things had been clarified earlier on. Anyway - a demoralizing morning a little bit. I knew what had to be done with each component, but I kept losing my place and the induction burners have a few tricks with which I was unfamiliar. This meant I had to stop a few times to regroup and try to remember where I was in relation to where I wanted to be. I got told by a friend that sometimes it's good not to think.
Tartlet Florentine avec Oeuf Poche et Sauce Hollandaise (Tartlet with Poached Egg, Sauteed Spinach and Hollandaise Sauce)
The starter wasn't too bad but I messed up the timing a bit. Things actually take a little while longer in these ovens, possibly because the old ones often seemed to run super hot. This means that the 10 minutes I allocated to the tartlet shell was insufficient and I was cutting things close so I wouldn't have to reheat - not a good idea until you know how the kitchen equipment works. (Really - the ovens have a light, but it took a couple of tries to figure out they don't stay on if you take your finger off the button.) Then being a bit discombobulated and not feeling really comfortable, I missed a couple of very basic things - like seasoning the Hollandaise sauce. I tasted it, but only after I had presented the plate - ick. It needed lots of salt and some lemon juice in the worst way. Also, it was overcooked - I wasn't sure what that meant because it wasn't scrambled, but eventually found out that it was probably because my sauce was too thick (did I mention the lemon juice?) so it wasn't quite the right consistency. Spinach needs a bit of work - it's the English kind so quite a bit tougher than the Popeye the Sailor Man kind. You actually have to blanch it now instead of just sauteeing it, which is what we used to do.
Also, the eggs were old. How do I know? The whites just bloomed everywhere when I put in the second and third eggs. The first one was fine - I'm normally pretty good with eggs, even the slightly old ones, but we don't have slotted spoons and I was having difficulties coaxing the whites to envelope the yolks. I do know that if it happens in the exam, I'm going to request better eggs or something. And perhaps take them out of the fridge a little earlier, although I think that has less to do with the whites going everywhere than the age of the eggs.
The main
Verdict: deep fried pigeon legs (instead of confit - yummy, but not what they were looking for) and the pigeon crown was woefully undercooked. I venture to say that perhaps it was still not cooked at all? I'm unsure whether the chef was going a little bit easy on me because he knows it's only my second day in the new cuisine kitchens - I hope not because it would suck to feel like you're on track only to find out they were easing you in. There isn't time to be eased in!
I messed up the lettuce a little bit but I think that's an easy fix for next time. I wasn't happy with the timing (starter was 15 minutes behind where I wanted to be, 10 minutes beyond actual service time and the main was 15 minutes behind the actual service time - a fail if it had happened in the exam). Luckily there were a few things that did go right - both sauces (the pigeon and the lettuce glaze), the vegetables (although still need to practice turning - dratted turnips!) and the glazes...and a silly oversight - the parsley chiffonade, which is a stupid thing to lose points for in the exam. Still a possibility of passing the final, which would make me so happy. I got my review back - they call you out of the room to give you individual comments - I was so unhappy on the way out but it's always good to be told that it's not bad. Especially from a chef who is as amazing as Chef EB. I'm not sure if he ever says something is good - usually he says it's ok. But then again, he may say that to other people - I just don't hear it and that's fine because the day that I hear that something is good is going to be a day when I skip out of school.
There is hope on the horizon and I just have a bit of focused work to do.
As much confusion as there was in my head today, there is hope that it will be so much easier next time. Who knows, one of these days I might even figure out the induction burners without actually standing over the silly thing.
So until next time, I wish you ease of focus, clarity of mind and satisfaction in what you do.
No pigeons
I forgot pigeons are out of season for another little while. Luckily there's a rather good butcher (reflected in the prices) just up the street. They were kind enough to order in some large quail - I figured it would be kind of similar to pigeon in size (although I didn't have to look for birdshot so hopefully that won't affect the timing during the Cuisine final). The options were to get smaller quails (6 in a packet) or the larger ones (the 4 in the packet below).
So you may ask how it went and the answer is...gloves are the answer. They keep the blood from sticking to your fingers and any worries about anything yuck being stuck under your nails - it still feels like there's crap under the nails even after scrubbing under them several times with a nail brush. Ugh. I'm ashamed to say that there was a little bit of distressed squealing when the tube-y things in the quail wouldn't come out easily and there had to be some yanking and pulling to get it out.
Anyway - there's a bit of an ick factor because you have to get all the spongy bits out of the ribs and things so that they don't cloud the sauce and make it taste yuck. The wine tonight is from a drier year - about twice the alcohol content of the one from last night, although it's the same grape and the same vineyard.
Ok - enough bitching and moaning. Back to the quails...the lucky (?) guinea pigs are my neighbors downstairs. They both had plans Friday night bu the quails had to be cooked so the plan is to have the plates and dinner the next night... the good butchers also had some duck fat - very nice, very clean - and expensive, of course. Luckily you can reuse the fat as long as you clean it so the plan is to filter it through coffee filters (I can't find the muslin cloth), then store it in the refrigerator. It's a pretty good incentive to make confit anything when you have the right fat.
It was kind of a tight fit to get the 8 legs into the pot but everything eventually settled down and the confit smelled quite nice, especially considering that I don't think quail tastes that nice.
Forgetting almost everything
So I had to check cooking times again because it's been so long since I cooked anything. The timing is for pigeon, so I have a feeling the legs are a bit over - the meat was kind of falling off the bone, which isn't quite the aim. Soft, but not falling apart...so will have to rethink the timing again. On the other hand, the rest of it seems to be on track. Somehow it's a lot harder to focus at home - so many distractions (laundry, dinner...Harry Potter and a quiddich match, etc. etc.)
Bloodless dinner
Given the blood from the quails (and having to clean out the spongy bits from inside) dinner was perch, hapa rice and broccoli. In case you didn't know, hapa rice is what my sister and I (I think we got it from in-laws) call the white rice/brown rice mix. The white rice is because it tastes better, the brown rice is a nod towards being healthy. I'm not sure how effective it actually is, but it doesn't feel so much like the husks from the brown rice get stuck in your teeth and it cooks faster.
A Saturday Lunch
I promised my friend JB that I would cook for him a while ago. It's taken us a little while but we finally managed to get ourselves organized. He tends to eat quite healthy so I had to think a little bit about what to make which would fit in the healthy, not too heavy (it was a hot afternoon) and edible meal. He said he would be happy with whatever I cooked, but since we both ended up laughing at the possibility of my making him beans on toast, a decision was made to have something that required just a little bit of technique. We ended up with stuffed mushrooms and garlic shrimp (prawn) starter, sauteed zucchini and pan fried salmon main and a burnt fig and caramel ice cream with mango for dessert. I didn't make the ice cream but I did play with it a little...
There was a moment of panic when the acetate wouldn't come out of the mould with the ice cream and I could see the ice cream slowly starting to ooze. Luckily we got it out and took off the acetate (I remembered this time). Normally I don't like mango, but it went surprisingly well with the ice cream and the mint.
We ate on the balcony, looking down to the water - sorry, somehow I didn't manage to get a photo but a lot of sailboats were out. The sun has since moved on and the clouds have rolled in. Perhaps the forecasted rain will still arrive.
Dinner
It seems the reheating can take quite a while - the fondant potatoes were giving me conniptions. It seemed to take at least another 15 minutes longer than I expected. The guinea pigs (AC and VB) were good choices - as they are both familiar with French food, I got a nice comment that it tasted like France. There was a bit of panic over the confit legs because the flesh kept falling apart so that I had difficulty getting a nice piece for presentation. Baby onions weren't available so I didn't plate them (or the green - parsley? - garnish) and I forgot to buy green olives so it wasn't an olive sauce. So far it seems like the dish will be ok - except the timing needs a bit of tightening up. Or a lot of tightening up...
I'm not sure if you've ever smelled duck fat. If you haven't, let me just say that it's quite a strong smell - so much so that before I was even finished cooking, I didn't feel like eating much. The result - some vegetables, confit potato (turned for mine) and a quail leg - for a taste. Actually it tasted quite nice, but I still didn't want anything heavier. Lucky for me, AC made a delicious salad and I ended up eating most of that instead. Then grapes for dessert - I think such heavy scents made the salad and fruit seem much more appealing because they are so much lighter.
Verdict - could be better, could be worse. Timing needs a bit of work and a few details need to be refined. Hopefully it will be a smooth run for the mock exam.
So until next time - may you be able to enjoy the meals you prepare with your friends and loved ones (instead of just meal times).
I went to my first (and only?) rock concert / band thing...one of my brothers was touring with a band, "Bad Astronaut" through Australia - a tour called "Hits and Pits".
It was a very cold Sunday night in November when I met my Mom outside a venue whose name I have now forgotten. We were the most unlikely duo there and if you did the old "one of these things isn't like the others" game from Sesame Street, just by looking, we would have been those people.
Funny enough, most of my family seem to be foodie types. AC is a really good cook so when I offered a home cooked meal, his eyes lit up. Of course he pooh-poohed the chili which everyone else requests (my sister having done so only last night or so) since he can make his own. The result: a menu we cobbled together backstage.
Dinner was set for after work. Australia has influenced me in several ways - shopping (I can no longer say that I don't care what my bags and shoes look like, though I can say I don't care much about the label) and food - beetroot no longer appears to be the root of all evil but I will never come around to lamingtons or vegemite. Anyway - the starter (left? it shows as "above" as I write the post) is 3 layers of crispy biscuit type things (1 plate is gluten-free), 3 layers of goats cheese, baby heirloom tomatoes and peeled grapes.
The main: duck confit with jus, pan roasted duck breast with orange reduction, rice (as a nod to the Hawaiian part of the meal, and to go with the Hawaiian Seasonings salt which I used as part of the marinade for the confit) and steamed vegetables. You can't see the sauces very well and the jus was over reduced - but luckily most of those little details were only things I noticed.
I've always hated snakes. We do not get along, but when you go to a function where an opportunity presents itself, you have to grab it with both hands. Or in this case, touch it very gently with one hand. In this case, there was an exhibit opening at the Taronga Zoo so my Mom and I went on behalf of someone else so that they could give us (and about 100 other people) a little preview. We did not know that the preview would include live animals, including this spotted python, Sputnik. Sputnik was very happy and relaxed, according to his handler. He was warm and he felt very odd as I touched him. The baby lemur was much less intriguing after touching the snake and he (the lemur, not the snake) was asleep so I thought I wouldn't disturb him.
And then there was a flying visit from a friend from Le Cordon Bleu days - I got a surprise message on Facebook from WP who said she would be in town for certain days. We ended up having sushi at Hemmesphere after work one night and chatting away until we were both yawning more than the occasion warranted.
