all day, all day, amazing food

I had to work at 11 this Sunday, so Justin and I tried to squeeze a bit of lazy Sunday in the few hours between waking and then. At the awesome Bourke Street Bakery. The coffee was the kind that makes you sit up and take notice. And my chocolate croissant (and, apparently, Justin's raspberry-chocolate muffin, too) was everything I'd hoped it'd be.

Patisse (like a lot of places in Sydney) is closed on Sunday, but there are sometimes events. "High Tea" on the last Sunday of each month. And yesterday, a special "French Safari Cooking Class" with Maeve of the Food Safari show on Australia's Special Broadcasting Services. So I had to work on Sunday. It was very different, however, from the daily work of display, display, mis en place, run, run, tired, tired. There were only four dishes in the "safari" demonstration - chocolate fondant, lemon madeleines, creme brulee, and raspberry souffle. Simple, yes, and I knew in theory all about these dishes (I've even watched online videos) but had never made any of them myself. So I was a bit nervous about my role in the kitchen, which was basically to do the last minute prep on the food that the participants would try after watching a demonstration.

The chef was nervous too, and couldn't quite figure out how to time things so that the souffle (which was meant to be the wham-bang piece) would come out right at the end (since I wasn't much help). The idea was to have as little down-time as possible between recipes. So he's out there demonstrating, demonstrating, cute french accent, laugh, laugh, done, and ooooo, aaaaaa, wow, here come the fondants for everyone to try. They were beautifully presented with an orange slice, raspberries and a blueberry on each small white plate next to the dark chocolate. Unfortunately, however, I overcooked the fondant (by about a minute-and-a-half, Chef guesses). So they were more like brownies than the exploding pockets of chocolate river that they're supposed to be. Sigh. I didn't have to do much with the madeleines, the creme brulee was caramelized to Chef's standards on the second go-round, and fortunately, the souffles (which I had to pipe and then smooth into the beautiful little copper pots) rose beautifully, and I only managed to puncture one of them with the handle of another pot. Here's what they look like when he makes them. (Picture from: http://www.gourmetsafaris.com.au/)

Then I met Justin at Central and we took the train to Lisa and Lee's apartment out in West Ryde. Lisa cooked an amazing dinner of 干锅鸡 and 红烧肉 for us.