#122 - Afternoon Tea (aka further research)

In which we go to afternoon tea and call it research
LM and I are continuing on our quest to have afternoon tea in as many places as we can.  We put it under the heading of "research" but this is the only kind of research which comes with snacks.
LM had been to a couple of the afternoon tea options available, so today we went to the one at Orchids at the Halekulani - gorgeous setting as always and a beautiful afternoon to match.


Tell me what seems a little off about this picture:  the self-professed owner of the sweet tooth (LM) had a blueberry rooibos tea sans sugar.  The self-proclaimed owner of no sweet tooth whatsoever (yours truly) had the Golden Assam with sugar.  Somehow in the excitement, I forgot to take a photo of the "Tea" portion of our Afternoon Tea.  Loved the scone and madeleine (the shape, for us, determines whether or not this is a madeleine, so as delicious and buttery as it was, this was a Not-Madeleine).

Tea Sandwiches with a twist
We started with the savory because...well, because we wanted to have the sweets as desserts.  I started from what sounded like the least strong to the strongest flavors.  There was the traditional cucumber sandwich with a twist, the twist being cream cheese, not butter.  Then the ham and watercress rolled sandwich - actually not bad.  The chicken and horseradish sandwich has the peanut crust (top of the photo) - there was some apricot (dried?) in the mixture as well - with the peanuts, almost a peanut buttery flavor - initially odd until LM said it was close to satay chicken.  And finally the smoked salmon with capers on...rye?  The sandwiches were interesting but couldn't top the scones which came with a lemon curd, a strawberry (?) jam and clotted cream.

We have been blessed (or is it cursed?) with standards which aim for perfection - standards which even the Chefs who taught us occasionally do not meet to their satisfaction.

Pretty is as pretty does
I have a feeling our very kind waiters thought we were crazy.  We looked, we oohed, we ahhed, and then we took the food apart.  We did the tasting by individual elements, then as a whole.  Of course top marks for presentation - the desserts were so pretty that I have vowed I will probably try some of these presentations.

However - yes, there is always a "however".  There seemed to be an awful lot of gelatine in the desserts - both in the lemon curd of the layered blueberry thing (left) and the lavender cream of the violet topped dessert (right).  Whether it's a matter of making sure the desserts set correctly so that they didn't run all over or not, the consistency of somewhere between a custard/curd and a jelly was just slightly off-putting.  Or perhaps there has been a new trend in texture of which neither of us was aware.

In any case, discussion about the technical elements led to stories about the things that went wrong in class (yes, we are still haunted by Ghosts of Classes and Bad Exams Past).  Also discussions of LM's forays into more stable creams or what we want to try again or our nightmare desserts which we will never attempt again.  (For instance, I will never attempt a sugar sculpture again, for obvious reasons.)  We sorely missed some members of our little posse.

The good thing about doing a tasting with a friend is that I felt no shame in not finishing my desserts.  Or the sandwiches.  Or picking out all the raisins (currants?) in my scones with my fingers.  But we do have more ideas of things for each of us to try and a cooking date since today we ate - the change in schedule dictated by the days on which afternoon tea was available.  It also made us feel like we didn't do such a bad job with our student tea (or at least, speaking for myself, I felt like we did ok despite my large screw up with a huge batch of chocolate mousse for the raspberry and chocolate Galaxie).

So until next time, may you find that your best is good enough and hopefully, better than good!

#96 - But the meals go on...

Apologies for the long silence, but here are photos...not much commentary, but hope you enjoy the food...


Sunday night dinner with the family...

 Breakfast omelettes 

A cupcake made on the iPad followed by an afternoon tea...

#75 - Preparations for finals (again)

So handy...
I have evidence of having assisted in putting together a bookshelf.  The assistance was mainly of the moral support variety although I did hold some of the pieces together while putting them together...as you can see.  It looks so simple, but somehow it always takes longer to put furniture together.  Such was the case here.



Then I got spoiled - friends made me lunch.  It's something that you always appreciate and I agree with others that somehow it always tastes better when someone else cooks.  It must be the TLC because I have had meals at restaurants that I hated, but on the whole, food made by friends (or family) just tastes better.  Sometimes people apologize for something being "really simple" but I don't think they realize that what we cook isn't necessarily something we want to eat.  I think even Jamie Oliver says in his shows that what he cooks at home wasn't what he made when he worked in restaurants.  I'm not sure anyone could possibly eat those quantities of butter, cream, sugar, white flour, etc. etc. on any kind of frequent basis and be able to adhere to any kind of healthy eating plan.


Another High Tea

Went to High Tea again over the weekend - one of the girls organized it and I went - for research purposes, of course.  An observation was made the other day that I seem to love High Tea.  Well, kind of - I like the little sandwiches.  Generally the sweets aren't my thing, although the past year has been more of an exercise of tasting.  There was a certain amount of critiquing based on what I am hoping to turn out for the exams.  Not these...these weren't shiny and the white chocolate was pretty thick on the shell.  I didn't taste the filling that much because I didn't like them, so couldn't tell you what they were.

The chocolate centrepiece was quite pretty - someone saw me taking a photo and when I told her I thought it was chocolate, she touched it.  Apparently it was.  Anyway - I liked the bending of the sculpture and the twigs they made out of it.  The rose isn't as pretty as the one Chef NH does in Patisserie, but it was still pretty.  I couldn't tell if it was marzipan or something else.


Exam Prep
Got my emails from LCB - I got the finals papers and plane tickets are booked - after several emails.


How do you make sables again?
Have started preparations for exams.  I don't have all my equipment here so the practice is limited - that, and the fact that once again, I am London bound in the not-too-distant future.  The only thing is, I seem to have forgotten how to cook.  Oh dear...

I haven't figured out why these cracked - maybe I should have turned on the fan in the oven.  Something to do for next time.  Also - the scales must be off a bit - the weight of salt looked like a lot and the biscuits actually tasted quite salty.  Amazing when you consider that it's only 2g compared to the 100g of sugar.

They are still nice and crunchy - but a bit on the salty side.  Panic has started to set in as it appears that things I thought I had worked out are now having problems.  They're not kidding -  you need to do this several times to get it down.  Oh well - if we haven't gotten things worked out, hopefully I'll find out during the skills tests in 3 weeks.

So until next time - happy Valentine's Day for those of you who celebrate / observe it.  And happy Un-Valentine's Day for those of you who refuse to put pressure on yourselves and your significant others by letting Hallmark and commercial hype dictate when you should be loving to each other.  After all - a just-because present is better than one that is given because an occasion dictates it.