Wednesday is theory day, and it always begins with an introduction to local and European cheeses. The cheese du jour was blue - Gorgonzola, Roquefort, Crozier ... which reminds me, Chester is turning into a mould monster. He is pictured below (back right) with the other cheeses that were made on the same day and he is by far the funkiest of the bunch. Hopefully this means he will also be the tastiest.
The morning demonstration was all about canapes and finger food: Marinated feta sundried tomato and olive skewers, Anchovy and sesame seed straws, Tiny smoked salmon sandwiches, Smoked salmon spirals, Thai curry bites, Tiny shepherd's pie, Teeny Yorkshire puds with rare roast beef and horseradish sauce (has anyone else noticed that this is all just normal food with the word 'tiny' added to it?), Cottage pie with garlic butter, Spicy Indian meatballs with pomegranate and coriander raita, Sweet pea guacamole with warm tortillas, Lamb on rosemary skewers, Lamb/pork/chicken satay, Spicy peanut satay sauce, Quail eggs with cumin and salt, Quail eggs with shrimps and mayonnaise, Quail eggs with smoked salmon, Scrambled eggs with smoked salmon melba toast and chives, Tiny fish kebabs*, Cheat's tarts with various fillings, Ragged filo tarts, Fish and chip canape, Grilled sourdough bread (yes, this is actually just bread, grilled and smothered in olive oil... apparently a revelation to some people but Greek children start eating bread and olive oil moments after exiting the womb).
* These are seriously tiny kebabs - they are actually threaded onto toothpicks instead of skewers. Delicious, but frankly who can be bothered?
The morning demonstration was all about canapes and finger food: Marinated feta sundried tomato and olive skewers, Anchovy and sesame seed straws, Tiny smoked salmon sandwiches, Smoked salmon spirals, Thai curry bites, Tiny shepherd's pie, Teeny Yorkshire puds with rare roast beef and horseradish sauce (has anyone else noticed that this is all just normal food with the word 'tiny' added to it?), Cottage pie with garlic butter, Spicy Indian meatballs with pomegranate and coriander raita, Sweet pea guacamole with warm tortillas, Lamb on rosemary skewers, Lamb/pork/chicken satay, Spicy peanut satay sauce, Quail eggs with cumin and salt, Quail eggs with shrimps and mayonnaise, Quail eggs with smoked salmon, Scrambled eggs with smoked salmon melba toast and chives, Tiny fish kebabs*, Cheat's tarts with various fillings, Ragged filo tarts, Fish and chip canape, Grilled sourdough bread (yes, this is actually just bread, grilled and smothered in olive oil... apparently a revelation to some people but Greek children start eating bread and olive oil moments after exiting the womb).
* These are seriously tiny kebabs - they are actually threaded onto toothpicks instead of skewers. Delicious, but frankly who can be bothered?
 |
| Quail eggstravaganza |
This afternoon we had a guest speaker - a local gamekeeper and his obedient black labrador, Benny. We walked back into the demonstration room after lunch to find it full of taxidermy game animals - duck, grouse, pheasant, woodcock, widgeon (I thought the game keeper had a speech impediment and was trying to say pigeon, but no, a widgeon is actually a bird). Normally on Wednesday afternoons we have a wine lecture, and frankly after seeing a room of stuffed dead birds, I could have used a drink. And then things got even more interesting - the gamekeeper showed us how to pluck and gut a pheasant AND remove the meat from a snipe by cracking off the wings and pushing your thumb into its breast ... seriously. How I wished there was gin in my water bottle ...
 |
| Benny the hunting dog. |
No comments:
Post a Comment