Nimmitabel: A Work in Progress: July 2016

Well...the day had finally arrived.

I'd literally been cooking for a week. Working from home (9am-5pm) as our office was being renovated and then knocking off, exercising, and cooking for my long awaited Let there be Light Party. I had wanted to invite people who had helped us out with the house and garden ie Karen & Mark, Alex, Lesley & Chris, and then also new Inglewood and Kingower friends who had made us feel welcome

So, first I had to make up a guest list, and then the proposed food that I would make

And finally run sheets - when to buy the ingredients, and when to cook etc
I had a whole run sheet organised as to what I would cook on Sunday - through Friday nights. Justin thought I was making too much food (and as it was, I did, plenty, plenty of leftovers)

In no particular order I made fresh beetroot and horseradish cured salmon (had to cure in the fridge for at least 3 days, 2 x large onion tarts, 2 x large chicken satay flans, chicken pate, pita chips, 2 x Peking ducks, 2kg of lamb kofta, 2kg of curried chicken polpettes, anchovy sticks, and 1kg of mini fish cakes, mexican dry rub slow cooked pulled pork, falafel mixture, peking duck pancake dough, my proscuitoo, cherry tomato & mozzarella sticks, mushroom crudites milk chocolate rocky road and dark chocolate rocky road .

I also ordered 6 cases of wine - 1 case of French champagne - clean skins which Justin did Let there be Light labels for in Latin :- "Fiat Lux", 1 case of Prosecco, 2 cases of Shiraz, 1 case of reislling and 1 case of cabernet sauvignon, plus 10 bottles of soda water and 10m of lemon squash. Also bought 8 x 6 packs of wine glasses.

Yes, we were ready for this party.

As you can imagine, packing the car on the Saturday morning took quite a while, many trips to the garage. Luckily Fraser assisted. I had wanted the kids to come up for the party also, but unfortunately they both had plans in Melbourne.

Justin was flying back from Canberra that morning, so we went up separately. Luckily. As I had a very full car..(there wouldn't have been room for the kids, as I took up two trestle tables as well as the car fridge. That said if the kids had wanted to come, Justin could have taken up some of the stuff in the ute, and I could have taken the kdis

Ended up leaving later than planned, around 10am, and got there around 12.

During the drive I was receiving texts from Justin - from Powercorp - power outage - till 12 noon, then power outage til 1.30, then til 4pm.... Quite ironic for my Let there be Light (and new wiring) party. I also received two calls from concerned and thoughtful; guests - Michael and Denise....

So, I arrived to no power in Inglewood I was just getting out of the car when Karen and Mark arrived. In fact I was taking photos of my full car (for this blog)

backskeat - wine plus doona for April

front passenger seat - car fridge

boot - glasses, food, soft drinks etc

Obviously we coul;dn't do anything with power - so we moved furniture around and Mark chopped some wood for the various fireplaces.

It was a lovely day, sunny, blue sky, and relatively warm in the sun, however it was freezing in the house. Karen and I were doing some sous cheffing in the kitchen which was quite cold, actually very cold. At times we came outside to thaw our poor cold fingers; Karen was chopping cucumbers, carrots and celery for crudites, spring onions and cucumbers for the peking duck, and cabbage etc for coleslaw for the pulled pork, more cucumbers for the tzaziki etc I de-boned the peking duck, de cured and sliced the salmon, made red dip, tuna dip, tzakiki etc. It all took longer than expected.

Justin arrived around 3pm or so, and Helen & Menka, Sarah & Alex, Leslie & Chris some time afterward, Menka brought some lovely flowers, nuts, and wines which were completely unnecessary, but very much appreciated. Helen had brought some salamis (I was going to slice and fry them up with garlic and parsley as another appetiser, but decided it was too much), some Indian snacks, and some brookies (brownie/cookies) Sarah some wine and breads, Leslie an almond slice, and Karen a gorgeous cheese platter.

I had said in the invitation that we would be providing drinks and finger food, however if people offered to bring something I gratefully accepted. So I asked Helen, Leslie & Jan to bring some sort of sweet slice, and Arlene to make some mini bread rolls for the pulled pork.

The power must have come on again around 3pm (apparently someone had run into a power pole) Karen had said that Zoe had said "wouldn't it be funny if the power went out...) well yes it did, and I did think it was funny,. Luckily I had most everything prepared already, and it reminded me of the time we'd had Enzo & Ros, and Denise & Steven for dinner, and the same thing happened, no power (but once again I had been prepared) . Anyway, the power came back on, Mark noticed the lights on the fridge. So he was tasked with putting up the fairy lights outside. Had a dickens of a time, as they were terribly tangled (I'm looking at you Helen, as they were your fairy lights)

So the electricity was back up, but strangely the light in the bathroom and the light in the green room no longer worked. Go figure!!! Justin put up a explanatory note in the bathroom, and at least we had a lamp. Karen and Mark were in the green room, and they had working lamps too.

Anyway, now that the electricity was working we could use the food processor (for the dips) and the electric frying for the peking duck pancakes.

Menka rolled up her sleeves and wanted to help, so she chopped up the mozzarella into little pieces for the mozzarella, proscuitto & cherry tomato sticks. She then started frying up the peking duck pancakes while I rolled and formed them, and then Karen pulled them apart. Actually they were quite ingenious (so I thought). I'd found the recipe on the internet (where else), Didn't want to make a batter so found this dough recipe that made 30, so I doubled it, and used thermomix back in Melbourne. (actually used the thermomix for a lot of the food)

doing the Peking Duck pancakes #1

doing the Peking Duck pancakes #2

Rolled three cylinders from each batch and was supposed to cut 8-10 peices from each roll - therefore theoretically 60 - but I think I made more, as I wanted them small. Remember finger food only, serviettes, but no plates or cutlery. Sure we could have used paper plates, but I didn't want to

Anyway the recipe called for each little piece to be rolled into a small circle, then a smear of oil on top, and another rolled circle placed on top of that. Then into the frying pan, cooked on both sides, and lastly pulled apart by Karen. Sounded a bit strange, but worked really well, Karen was impressed (wanted the recipe) which was high praise as her Mum had been a whiz at Asian food. Anyway, this took ages, I was getting heartily sick of it. Helen had disappeared early on upstairs to have a beer, and we didn't really see the boys either. We were a well oiled (and laughing) peking pancake making machine. Lesley was also with us for moral support Actually we were kept watered or champagned by Chris, but couldn't really drink that much as we were busy with the pancakes. Helen tied to come and "rescue" Menka from this drudgery, but Menka stayed with the workers.

We finally finished around 6.30 or so. I was somewhat exhausted, so went and sat in my room for a little bit to just chill and relax a bit.

Damo and Nicole arrived early -around 7 or so, had been to the pub, finished their meal, and so came on over. It would have been madness to go back to Kingower. The others started arriving in groups after 7.30.

It was FAB!!!

The boys had lit the fires in the dining room and the big upstairs room. We greeted guests with a glass of champagne or wine. There were 3 x drink stations :- the front hallway, the back hallway, and upstairs

The welcoming hallway

And we had 2 x large food stations. We'd flipped the dining room table around to the width of the room, and had the library table upstairs. Unfortunately I don't think I took any photos of the food...In fact, I didn't tkae any photos on the night really at all (or at least not with my phone). Most of these photos are from Justin's camera (might get some more from Menka when she sends them)

Anyway we had about 40 people or so - upstairs/downstairs, gave some of them the tour of the house, as they may not have seen it for a while.

And Fraser had also made me a slide show of the house as it was, when we bought it, what we had done to it, and the good times we'd had in it and around the area with many of our guests here tonight. He had also put it to music, so quite a few of us enjoyed watching it.

Justin had also set up a bit of a music corner with guitars, microphones etc in case anyone felt like singing or playing.

Now maybe because the fires had been lit for a while, or maybe because of all of the people, but it didn't feel cold...and I think everyone had a great time

Sarah, Helen & Mark

Chris & Alex

Menka, me, Mark x2, Helen

Samuel

Helen & Menka

Michael & Michelle x2

Franceen, Denise & Pat

Nicole & Chrissie

June & Alex, and part of the food table

Terry & Karen

Phillip & Arlene

Damo & Anne

Steve, Jim & Gordon

Mark, Jamie & Karen

Karen & Michelle

various

Steve, Jim & Gordon #2

Damo, Nicole, & Chrissie #1

Damo, Nicole, & Chrissie #2

Terry & Sarah

Phillip & Arlene #2

Denise & Pat

Steve, Jim & Gordon #3

Let there be Light #1

Let there be Light #2

various

Damo

Terry

Justin

Me & Terry

Helen

Karen & Samuel

Anyway, finally got to bed close to 3am......

Had a rather late start on Sunday, it was dull and drizzly. Helen & Menka went to Melville caves,

Menka's photos

and we had a morning fire in the dining room and had my cured salmon with sour cream & dill on Arlene's bread rolls for breakfast - delicious!

Breakfast/brunch

Tidied up, although there wasn't much mess, (and everyone was very helpful) a load of glasses in the dishwasher, and quite a bit of regular dish washing.