#95 - And so ends the year of food...kind of...

I am finally back in Sydney and getting settled back into my "normal" life.


The flight back to Sydney was uneventful, preceded by the usual countdown of "last"s whenever  I am getting ready to leave for somewhere (last brunch, last sunset, last dinner, last night in front of the TV with my sister)...she records The Game of Thrones when I'm home and we watch it together later at night, when she has time for herself.  Of course, there's no way she's going to wait for me to come back to watch the rest of the series so hopefully they won't get erased off the recorder when she's finished.

My flat is a bit of a shambles - half unpacked suitcases in the hallway by the front room, paperwork in piles on my dining table and a complete lack of enthusiasm to put anything away with the spectre of another 11 boxes to arrive from London with the remaining bits and pieces for the kitchen.


Chatting to friends has revealed that quite a few of us are returning to our jobs and hoping to balance that with opportunities to keep up with what we've learned.  Perfecting anything will be difficult when we don't do it every day but hopefully my notes will be good enough to get me through it.  Or else there will be lots of awful experiments which I can't inflict on my beloved family and friends.

It turns out that quite a few people have been practicing various things.  I had another run at my dessert from my final, taking into account the chefs' comments but without the sauces and glaze or tempered chocolate.  I used the reduced syrup from poached pears in the salad above  (poached pear in Lambrusco - an Italian sparkling red dessert wine, infused with cloves, cinnamon - with beets, goat cheese and mixed baby greens in a vinaigrette) because I didn't have a sauce but my parents seemed to like it.  All I could thing was "coulda, woulda, shoulda" and how things might have been different if this is what I had done during the Patisserie finals.  However - as a good friend says, a pass is a pass and at least I managed to get this done at home which is nice.


As I said to one of the chefs - I don't have what it takes to work in a restaurant kitchen, but I'll be an acceptable home cook.  Well - maybe occasionally able to make something a little bit more fancy than a muffin or cupcake should the occasion demand.  Generally home cooking still stays in the realms of comfort food but at least I have the recipes, notes and pictures if I want something a little more complicated.


So until next time - happy eating.