Do kitchens need R&R?

And it's done!

8 hours of cooking, 10 loads in the dishwasher, 2kg of melted duck fat spilled over my beautiful Food, Fashion Friend Book, and a significantly lighter bank account - but it was all worth it.  My preparations for the dinner began in earnest late Friday afternoon. I had been to see my surgeon in the morning (side note I have homework for the school holidays - I have to spray capsicum spray up my nose 3 days on 2 weeks off for the next few months in an effort to clear my sinuses. I have been told NOT to inhale when I spray. hmmm) and then off for a meeting to discuss a research project in the afternoon. Once that was done I did a quick visit to a couple more collectables stores and The Grocer in Nedlands to buy some pomegranate molasses, Cannington Fresh to buy the remaining groceries and I was off home to start cooking and prep for the following day. 

I decided to make the blinis first - don't mistake them for piklets, they are much more fancy than that, and they have caviar on them ;-) That went smoothly so then I polished off the gingerbread and the best half of a bottle of Lost Lake Savingoun Blanc and decided to call it a night. Probably shouldn't have, but even the wicked need a good nights sleep.

Fast forward 12 hours, 2 slices on Vegemite on toast and a cup of tea later I was feeling pretty good. I needed to pop out during the morning to buy some new sunglasses (my last pair had an unfortunate end in my handbag due to an excess of essential female maintenance/entertainment equipment competing with them for room) and to get black napkins, iTunes vouchers for the music which would be downloaded onto MY BRAND NEW IPHONE 5, MY FIRST EVER IPHONE, black duct tape and fresh flowers. Before I went to the shops however I put the rabbit shoulders on to slow cook in two kilos of duck fat for two and a half hours. So feeling a little rushed but not yet panicked, I headed out with that niggling little thought that I get the day of everyone or these parties I have done 'I really should do all these little running around jobs way before the day off the party.' But then - where's the fun (or stress) in that?   

So anyway, I did my running around, got home just under two and a half hours later and ready to get into some serious cooking, so I donned my apron and got started. About half an hour into it I asked Gavin to download the music telling him 'this is the only thing I'll need you to do today.' He got started and I made a cauliflower puree, sherry puree, made the gingerbread paste and crumbs and the pomegranate dressing. 5 types of alcohol in the meal down and I was not even up to the main course.

I took a break to eat a Big Mac for lunch (hey, I know what you were thinking, I'm surrounded by all this gourmet food and I eat that..but it WAS McHappy day). After I finished my burger I quickly tossed on a load of washing to clean the new napkins and put all my new plates, glassware and overworked food processor in the dishwasher and began peeling parsnips. 7 is a lot of parsnips David (Think Love Actually) but I got them peeled, Julianne'd (to my standards anyway) and the reminder deep fried into parsnip curls. It was about now at around 2pm that I realized I had only two and a half more hours before I wanted to leave to set up the studio and I still had to make the rabbit ballontine, cook the chicken liver parfit, peel and cook the scampi tails, make the barley crumbs, make the tempura batter and fry the cauliflower florets, cook the pheasant, make the prune and Armgnac suffle, pack the car and get myself ready. I cant say how I did it (it don't remember, I was in a blind panic) but I do remember feeling like a Masterchef contestant in a pressure test on crack, and I may or may not have renegged on my prominse for Gavin to not have to do anything else. It was during this time that 2 kilos of melted duck fat that was in a plastic container resting on a raw sugar canister in the middle of my island bench got knocked, and spilt, all over my book. No time or point crying over spilt milk, or duck fat for that matter, and I got on with the task at hand. By some micacle we were ready to leave just 10minutes later than planned, and while it is hard to apply eyeliner and mascara whilst your boyfriend (who has had an automatic car for at least the past 5 years) is driving a manual car through stop start traffic and along a freeway I did that to.

We arrived at Pop Studio's and meet Julian's lovely wife Rochelle, who let us in, wished us luck and left us to it. Julian and Rochelle had done a fantastic job of getting the studio ready. Excess furniture had been moved out the way, fridges turned on an cooled for us and a freshly painted white floor and wall was waiting.

Gavin and I got straight to it using milk crates and a folding table to be the table, and I set up a makeshift kitchen bench in the kitchenette area. We worked quickly and were actually ready by 6.10pm, 50mins before the guests and birthday boy were due to arrive.

I used that time to power nap, Gavin went to the petrol station for a coke and some water. 50mins went by pretty fast and then our first guests, my brother and his lovely wife showed up. Suitably impressed (I think?) by the venue and likeness to the book we cracked open a bottle of wine and listened to the rain on the tin roof. So far a pretty good way to spend a Saturday evening. A little while after Glenn and DJ showed up and I gave everyone a quick run down on the mission to go to the bathroom. Just lift up the roller door, try not to get your high heel stuck in the wooden stairs on your way down, jump over the wild grass and take a leap of faith shutting the door to the outside loo with no light. Easy. With that little bit of housekeeping out the way I served our Canape - Blinis with Caviar. Now I feel the need to point out here that I am very proud of DJ for eating one, he didn't look keen but I give him 10 points for effort DJ, and I hope you didn't feel the need for a Macca's run on the way home ;-). Round one down I excused myself to the kitchenette to prep our entree of Ballotine of Rabbit, Foie Gras and Capocollo with Gingerbread, Pumpkin and Pomegranate Dressing. There are no photos of the entree on the blog due to the fact it kinda looked like a nasty accident on a plate and not at all like Matt Moran's example in the book, but everyone was very polite and ate it with their very best manners. Bless.

Next was mid - Scampi Tails with Sherry Puree, Cauliflower and Barley Crumbs, and it was about this time I realized that you need to pick your priorities, either the microwave or the fridge, but not both at once. Now I'm sure when Fleur did this party originally Matt did not have to wash cutlery in between each course, chose between a microwave or a fridge and re-heat everything on site rather than cook on site, but we are talking first world problems here, so I just got on with it. Anyway, this course (I think) turned out remakably well and even looked similar to the picture in the book, so I was feeling pretty happy, and I don't think I was just the wine...

Next up was the Pheasant Roasted with Truffle, and I managed to get that up without too much trouble, and DJ even ate it without us having to tell him it was chicken. I only had one course to go, and then I was officially 'off-duty'...except for the clean-up, pack up and drive home, with a further un-pack and clean up again there...

I had to do the dessert lightly differently, due to the cooking and transport, the souffle had been cooked at home in one big dish and then I spooned it into the little cooper pots at the venue. DJ poured the cream and we were good to go. Dessert included the last type of alcohol from all the courses, so far we had consumed brandy, port, maderia, white wine, Ollo Rosso, more brandy, port, maderia and then finally some armagnac.  Underneath my stairs does now resemble a quite well stocked liquor store, but whose complaining? Anyway back to dinner and we had just finished dessert when Julian (the owner of the studio) returned from a shoot and joined us for a glass of wine. Discussing included anal numbing cream, penis shafts and other adult terms and luckily this was because Julian had just been shooting at a  'Pure Romance' party at a local hotel and not because one of my guests was being totally inappropriate.

Half an hour or so later it was time to pack up and go. I gave Julian one of the coloured glass vases with the flowers in it to say thanks for being so accommodating and we packed the car and farewelled Amy and Justin. Gavin, Glenn, DJ and I went into Leederville for a quick coffee and then it was home to bed.
 
All that's left to say now is a big thank you to Glenn for providing me with an occasion to party.

Stay tuned, the next party is booked for the 11th of January for a certain party blogger's 30th birthday...

A Menu for Glenn

Its been a long time coming, but hopefully worth the wait...Party nombres quatre happens this Saturday night, a birthday party for my friend Glenn. Someone who is so fabulous needs a fabulous menu, so I am doing 'A Menu by Matt.'

Just like Glenn, A Menu by Matt does not come cheap, courses of the night include caviar, rabbit with foie gras, scampi tails, pheasant and a prune and Armagnac souffle. Most of which I have never eaten before, let alone cooked...Piece of cake. Not.

The idea to host this party started many months ago when I felt that familiar itching telling me I didn't really need any free time to relax and it was time to host another party. I knew it had been a long time since my last post, but only when I signed on this evening and realized my last post was 9 months and a new lap top ago did I realize how long I had been pushing the next party back. I do have a reason - promise. I started a new job this year, and not at an established school, but a brand spanking new one, and take it from me - schools do not establish themselves - it takes a lot of manpower (or as we are an 70% female staff, womenpower) a lot of hours to get it running smoothly. Plus I had to fit in trips to Thailand, The Gold Coast, Rottnest, Bridgetown and Margret River. Plus I'm still trying to knit a baby dress I started months agooooo. So anyway, I decided the gap between parties was well and truly big enough, and booked Glenn's birthday as an excuse to party. 

As soon as I get a party confirmed, just about everywhere I go I look for things that I need for the next party. Lucklily for me, on the last school holidays while on a trip to the south west of Western Australia, Gavin and I went to Manjimup, and popped on in to the Wine and Truffle to by some truffle. We had just missed the fresh truffle season, but managed to buy 40g of frozen truffle for $50. As soon as I buy my first purchase for any party, I get excited, and that purchase got me excited. Gavin will attest to this as we drove around the south west for the next two days every half hour or so I would remind Gavin that 'I got truffle!'

Because I had managed to buy double the amount of truffle I needed I decided to listen to my boyfriends advice from the previous party a practice the most difficult recipes for the night well before the party. It began alright, I ordered the meat from the butcher, invited Glenn around to taste test and help and made sure I had all the right utensils. I had even read through the EXTENSIVE recipes and had a bit of an idea about what I needed to do. The next few hours are a bit of a blurr, but there was squealing (from me) when I had to touch dead rabbit and stuff truffle under the skin of pheasant, and more squealing (from Glenn) when I put my cold wet hands on his neck. At the end of the day though, all I can say is, its obvious I am NOT a trained chef. I tried my hardest, but my results looked nothing like Matt Moran dishes.

So lets leave that disaster for a minute and I'll tell you about the fabulous photography studio I have hired for the evening. It couldn't be more perfect. It looks and has exactly the same equipment as the studio in the book, and Pop Studios in West Leederville's owner Julian has been fabulous. I have hired the studio and as he is out on a shoot that day he is happy for me to pick up the key, let myself in to party and then return the key afterwards. It's all starting to really come together (probably a good thing as the party is in 48 hours...) this morning Australia Post delivered my latest eBay purchase of a gold cutlery set, and I have spent the last few afternoons after work trawling second hand shops and old ladies lounge rooms (with their permission) for coloured glass vases. I have the next two days mapped out in precision order like a bride on steroids, so fingers crossed and I'll let you know the result.

p.s. I have joined the world of iPhone owners so there will be more pictures this time too! 

You can't always get what you want...

Just under two weeks ago I had my third party. It was the 'Summer Storm' party. In the book it is set on a beach, overcast sky, beautiful Indian hand-carved four poster bed (minus the inner spring mattress) with wooden geese attached to each pole, and meters and meters of beautiful lace, printed chiffon and voile billowing and flowing over the top of the bed frame. Models looked carefree and comfortable sitting on rocks eating mouth-watering crispy crab burgers. All was beautiful and effortless. This is not what my party looked like.

Let me explain...in further detail. Before I even got to host the party, I had to decide on an occasion to have it (my 29th birthday) and then a venue at which to host. I really wanted to host the party on Western Australia's holiday island home - Rottnest Island. There were many reasons for this. One - I would be on the Island for the whole week on which my birthday fell as I managed to secure accommodation on the island from the Monday to the Friday. Two - It has lots and lots and lots of lovely beaches. Three - err, umm, actually no I can't think of any more reasons...I must have just had two. So this is where the difficulties start. One - My birthday fell on the Wednesday, which is of course a weekday. Now I was lucky enough to be on holidays on my birthday, but many of my friends and would be guests for my party were not. Two - All luggage gets on the island via ferry. Which would then mean a rather large four-poster bed (assembled or dis-assembled) would have to be part of my luggage. Three - no cars are allowed on the island, therefore all props, food etc would need to be transported to the location to the party by bike - and when I say bike, I mean PUSH bike, and that's a lota stuff to take by push bike.

This meant that there were now more reasons on the against rather that the 'for' so I axed the plan for Rotto and choose another location. Perth has lots of lovely beaches, all very pretty and all that, but also very busy. Especially right bang smack in the middle of summer, and not at all like the deserted expanses of sand in the book, so I decided to cheat a little. I would still have the party on a beach, but instead of an ocean beach, I choose a river beach. The beach I had in mind is across the road from my good friend and gym buddy's house. This I was hoping to be an advantage as if nature called, Jan was ever so helpful and generous in allowing my guests to use her rest-room.

So the location (and date, the Sunday after I returned home from Rottnest) were set. The next step was to find an antique-four-poster-hand-carved-Indian-bed. Now I do have a lot of stuff in my shed, as most people do, but unfortunately I did not have an antique-four-poster-hand-carved-Indian-bed. Hmm, what to do...what to do...Do I spend an absolute fortune purchasing such a bed for a one-evening event? I think not. Short of winning a multi-million dollar lotto draw I thought I would have to be more creative than that. The next best idea? Bunnings. No, I know they don't sell antique-four-poster-hand-carved-Indian-beds, but they do sell wood...and this is what antique-four-poster-hand-carved-Indian-beds are made from (I assume). So Louise (my boyfriends sister) and I put our wood working thinking hats off and headed to Bunnings. Here we had a stroke of genius. I knew that Bunning sold pre-turned table legs, so we headed to that section of the store. Indeed we found roughly the right shaped legs, and got two for each 'pole' of the bed, so when joined together they would be the correct height. Next we went round the corner to the lengths of flat cut pine and got four of those, to form the top boarders of the bed. Success, I thought and we left happy.

Next we went to Spotlight, where I spend the vast majority of my pay when left unsupervised. I headed straight to the paper machie section and lo and behold, they had paper machie duck shapes. Not geese, but 'ey whose going to be pedantic about that? We put four in a trolley and headed round to fabric. Here is where I normally start salivating and dreaming about all the beautiful things I could make...but this day I remained focused on the task at hand. Firstly we found some printed chiffon that looked very similar to the print and colours in the book, so that went in the trolley. Next, not wanting to spend half my next months mortgage payment on the required lace, we wondered off towards the lace curtaining, which went in the trolley to. Last we asked the constantly helpful team leader for sewing which fabric he would recommend for the 'white billowy stuff' (as I put it) and he showed us some voile which was on special. Perfect. We had the fabric cut and headed home with our ducks, fabric, wood, and some paint to decorate our 'bed frame' as per the image in the book.

Here are pictures of the fabric, Louise and the ducks and wood and and one of my cats - Duke - sizing up the newest 'animal' members of the household.

Over the next few days we set about painting the wooden poles and cutting out triangles and parallelograms out of silver card board to glue onto the posts with PVA glue. Philip - the lovely husband of my friend, cut out the rough shape of the top boards of the wood with his jigsaw, AND gave them a first coat of paint. He even dropped them back off to me! I made him a tray of home made marshmallows to say thanks. We started off with the preparation quite well, but quickly began to run out of time. Louise was not able to help as much as she had planned due to situations beyond her control, and in two days I was due to board a ferry to Rottnest at which point all preparation would have to cease, and then when I returned it would be less than 48 hours before the party. So, working until all hours amongst preparing for a 5-day Rotto jaunt, I did manage to get some more of the painting done and cut out the rest of the shapes required. I left for Rottnest feeling a little worried about the lack of preparation, but the second I went for my first snorkel on a sun-soaked beach...all thoughts of the party vanished.

Fast forward five days and post amazing Rottnest vacation: I had a lot to do. Purchase the groceries, make all the food and drinks, finish the bed frame, sew the 2 pieces of chiffon fabric together (as I could not get one continuous piece) pack the car, join the bed frame together, set up the party site...And whenever I am faced with this much work in a short period of time, I think the best thing to do is just to get into it! On the Saturday I purchased the food, made the punch so the flavours could develop in the fridge overnight, cooked the chilli relish and garlic aioli and worked a little more on the bed poles joining them together with wood glue and clamps. I went to bed exhausted but my head still spinning with how much I had to do the next day.

The Sunday started badly. I removed the clamps from the pole and they immediately fell apart. I left that problem with my boyfriend and set about doing the rest of the cooking. I realised that although I had read through the recipes a lot earlier than for previous parties, I had not thought about how I would actually cook the crab meat on site. I rang two of my friends and arranged for them to bring camp stoves to the party. Then I made a monumental amount of food, 20 individual vanilla slices, 30 or so lamingtons, mixed up the spices for the Chai tea, chopped the vegetables ready to fry and prepared the salad for the burgers. I then strained the punch and sampled it (YUM!!).

My friend Jan had called me a few times during the day to give me an update on the KSS (Kite Surfing Situation). The KSS is how many kite surfers and quantity of related equipment is taking up room on the beach.On any windy day all the Kite Surfing enthusiasts converge on this section of the river and, well, kite surf. The news was not good, but ever the optimist we finally  packed the car and headed off. Gavin (my boyfriend) had sorted out a plan to assemble the frame on the beach and then we could drape the fabric over the top.

We arrived safely, and the weather was actually a summer storm (which I was incredibly pleased about) and in my eyes that was the last thing that happened successfully. For starters, there were kite surfers on the river and beach, a lot of kite surfers. After a bit of searching we did find a spot on the sand, and began unpacking the car. Much to the bemusement of the kite surfers and other people enjoying a brief evening stroll along the river front, we pulled out of the car four poles (very hurriedly joined together), four planks of painted wood, eskies, glassware, bags of food and a lot of fabric. As I mentioned earlier the weather was actually perfect for the party. Overcast with dark clouds and a nice warm evening. However, it was windy...Together Gavin and I attempted, unsuccessfully to join the frame together. We would get one section joined together, walk around to the other side and the first side would fall apart. We would try again, think we had it, and then it would crumble yet again. (and our not so shy onlookers found it highly amusing) Finally after much battling, we had all parts together, and tried to turn it up the right way on to the beach. We did, it fell apart and then we decided we were beaten. Now I am extremely grateful for Gavin taking on the job of joining together the bed frame, but as a Financial Planner, he is not so much the Do-It-Yourself-Type, and therefore wood work is not his forte. The nails were to short, the hammer not good quality and the screws and brackets were not really suited to the purpose. But babe, I love you, and thanks for trying! So  instead of an assembled bed frame we ended up with four poles (one slightly crooked) sticking out the sand with a duck at the foot of each post. Obviously there was no way we could drape the fabric over the frame, so we tied it to branches on nearby trees. At this point (struggling to hold my dress down with the wind, worried I would not be able to cook the food, upset over the bed frame not working out) what I would have liked to have done was put everything back in the car, go home and down a bottle of wine. But my mother and father brought me up better than that. Whenever something would not go the way I planned, they would always remind me that there are a lot of people out there, that at that very second that had it worse than it did, and that whatever the catastrophe was, it was not nearly as bad as world famine, or my house burning down, etc etc. They are of course, right. By now my guests had started arriving so I began serving them the peach and ginger punch. Now if you don't wish to purchase Fleur Woods book 'Food Fashion Friends' for any other reason, it is still worth it for the punch recipe. I loved it, my friends loved it, nuff said.

It was now time to tackle the next problem, frying the potato chips, herbs and garlic and crab and vegetables for the burgers. One camp stove down Russell (my friends fiance) set up his stove and we crossed all our fingers and toes that it would work (and be safe to use) in the wind. It did eventually heat the oil enough to cook the potatoes, herbs and garlic, although certainly not to the fried quality that is depicted in the photos in the book. I also had not thought to pack a small table to cook on, so I was trying to do everything on a wooden board on the grass. I served the chips with the aioli and relish and people did find them tasty.

Next I set about the mammoth task of trying to fry enough vegetables for 20 people with one camp stove and pot, and light fading...Judging by how long it had taken to cook the potatoes, I was hoping the vegetables might be ready by my next birthday...So two cans of butane later, I surrendered to the camp stove and served COLD crab burgers with salad and no fried vegetables. I also had difficulties with the music. While lovely people had loaded the music on to ipods prior to the party, and I had speakers ready to link up, due to the wind, you could hardly hear it, and so it did not really add to the atmosphere. 

Finally I brought out the lamingtons and vanilla slices and profusely thanked my guests for sitting out a party in quite windy conditions. Again without a table to prepare on, it was too hard to prepare the lamingtons as per instructions, put they still LOOKED delicious with all the berries piled on top of the board. I think that it was roughly at this point that my friend Shani said she greatly admired my spirit in being able to prepare and host parties like these. In my head (or perhaps I said it out loud I can't remember) I said 'hmm, my 'spirit' certainly did not feel cool calm and collected earlier in the day while preparing for the party.

With the party now winding down after watching a pretty sunset, I gave up even making the chai tea and there was no gas left in the camp stove or me. People began to leave, so we packed up, and a slightly sun-burnt, and very tired boyfriend drove me home...