Well, the plum pudding class went off nicely.  Only had a few participants, so it was a very exclusive group and we did have fun. First up we made the Dee Cee Traditional Plum Pudding in calico.

One of the attendees shared a story with us from when she was a child. Her mum always made the traditional pudding and wrapped it in calico. One year she had it out the back hanging from a branch on a tree. When her brother came home later that day, he saw the pudding had ants crawling all over it, so he got out the very potent “Mortein can” and gave it a very generous spray. Needless to say her mum was not pleased as the pudding had to be disposed of, or risk being poisoned by fly spray!

Once we got the puddings boiling on the stove top, we moved to the next recipe which was trying out the Queen Elizabeth Jubilee Celebration Plum Pudding recipe. This one had enormous amounts of fruit, nuts, candied peel, apple, carrot, suet stout and brandy!  This gave me the opportunity to use some of my very own PCH candied fruit peel. This rich and dense mix was put into pudding bowls and set upon the stove top to steam away. 

We then shared a “Zuccotto di Panettone”, I had made the evening before for afternoon tea and shared stories. Great class and lots of fun! Some good photos taken for the PCH website.

The next day was a glorious and sunny day, so I thought I would put the cloth puddings out on the back table to dry out so I could then hang them in the cellar for a few days before delivering to them to the class participants.

I checked them a few times and they were drying off very effectively, perched in the middle of a 4m x 3m square table on the back deck. When I went out a while later to bring them inside, they were gone. As the place-mats they were sitting on had been placed back where they belonged, I assumed Tez had moved them. I called him and asked him where he had put the puds? He claimed he had not touched them….Again, I said – “don’t muck around where are they?”  “I have not touched them!” he said, again. Getting a little irritated now, I said “stop mucking around where are they?” “I have not touched them,” he exclaimed!

So, where are they I wondered?  OH NO, have they been pinched?  (Another story for another time, but have had my cooking stolen on other occasions, so it was not a ridiculous thought!) I thought I would take a quick look around the garden. Low and behold, I found one of the puds under the citrus trees, with a small perfect shaped hole, with a small piece of pudding missing. I walked a bit further to find the next calico bag, again with a perfectly shaped “nose hole” and this time the entire pudding gone! MAX the dog ate the puddings!!! I could not believe it. As I looked at him looking very contented and satisfied, I did not know whether to laugh or cry. 

When sharing the detail with Tez his response was “did he have cream and brandy sauce with them?” As I pointed out, the time for humour…..was not right then!!!!

DC

So I finally have the classes for Jane Webster and Lloyd Morse confirmed, menus agreed and promotion started via Facebook, Twitter, fliers and any other way I can get the message out to people. Of course, as this venture has no funding, sponsorship or “rich aunt trust fund”, I am seeking ways to do things as economically as possible. I sure am hoping that the good old word of mouth helps spread the story!

Given it is coming up to Christmas, a friend has offered to do a “Plum Pudding” class. We have organised some fantastic recipes which includes my good old traditional recipe, that I have been using for a very long time. My personal preference is that I still like to do the old fashioned calico pudding hang for a while to allow a hard skin to form on the pudding.

Hope we get some interested folk to join the class, so they can start making their own family traditions. 

DC

(Only Tez, Max and my names are real – other names in this post have been changed to respect privacy – but the story is true). 

As a paramedic, people often say to Tez “Gee you must see horrible things”. He usually responds and states that most of the work is routine, but sometimes “jobs” are tough, sad, dramatic or challenging. Interestingly Tez does not come home and download very often. Most days I would have no idea what sort of “jobs” he did at work. Of course, when other paramedics are around they seem to all love sharing the “war stories”, but again, not much detail settles into my conscious brain space. In fact, in the last year there have probably only been three jobs he has come home and “downloaded” that I have any recollection of. The three of them all involved young people, this bit of background is significant for later in the story!

Early last Saturday morning a young brown pup wandered into our yard and started to play with our Max. I have renamed the brown dog Rover for the story. Of course our big gentle black Labrador, Maximillian (Max) welcomes any dogs into the yard, shares his bones, bed and toys with them all. He likes to welcome guests, just like we do, apparently! Well Rover stayed all day. He spent the night and then enjoyed the art of conviviality the next day with 15 other people and four other canine visitors. By Monday morning, Tez thought it wise to take Rover to the vet to see if he was micro-chipped and his real home could be located. He was (micro-chipped), the owners were located and the vet arranged for Rover to be collected from the surgery. “If the owners want to call you, are you OK if I pass on your contact details?” the vet asked Tez. “Sure”, he said “I would like to know he got home OK.”

Several days later, Tez was leaving for a night out with mates and as he was leaving he commented that he was a bit surprised he had not heard from Rover’s owners. Oh well, we lamented, we know we did the right thing taking him to the vet and that was important. A few hours later I answer the front door bell and a woman introduces herself to me as Lorraine (my name for her) and she has a lovely young woman with her named Sami (my name for her as well!). Lorraine was holding a gift bag in her hand and told me she wanted to say thank you to us for taking Rover to the vet and that he had been returned to them well cared for and they were very relieved. She gave us a lovely big box of choccies and many thanks. It turns out that he had wandered a few km’s to reach PCH and we chatted about how he found his way, as it was not a direct or obvious trail.

Of course the conversation flowed from one thing to another (as I have said before, that often happens with me) and she recognised me from when I worked at LRH etc., etc. The dialogue eventually reached the cooking school story and Lorraine suggested that Sami might like to know about the classes. I grabbed a piece of paper and pen for Sami to write her details down for me. As she started to write, I noticed she seemed to have a little trouble holding the pen. As I thought to myself, “this young lady has some motor skill deficits”….Lorraine said to me “Sami has some trouble writing sometimes. We almost lost her not long ago, in a car accident!”. “OMG,” I exclaimed, “I know your story.” As I shared the details of what I knew, it became apparent this was one of the “jobs” that Tez had shared with me. A young woman in a car wreck that was a tough job, she was in bad shape and had to be air lifted to Melbourne. Tez had periodically followed up to see how she was doing and told me each time he had some news. “My husband, Tez was one of the paramedics who attended to you,” I told her. I showed her some photos and not surprisingly she did not remember much or his face.

We chatted for a while and I marveled at the tenacity of this young woman to survive and overcome her injuries. As they drove off, I found myself wondering why did Rover find our place out of all the houses around, to come and stay for a few days??


DC

Two amazing things happened last weekend.

Firstly, my talented and generous friend Tony came to visit to take a few snaps of the house, garden and kitchen for the website. Peter came along for the styling and directing of the “production”. To say I am pleased with the results is an absolute understatement ….. OMG, Tony and Peter, I don’t know how to say thank you – the end result is so beyond my expectations. It happened to be my birthday weekend, so there were a few folk around for a quiet BBQ lunch on the Sunday and they unwillingly became the props and extras for the production – including a few extra dogs hanging around the garden with Maximillian! It was a glorious day and the end result, just simply wonderful. Of course my own criticism of myself will be never ending, only to be surpassed by my praise and gratitude to Tony for working his magic! Hope you can look at the website and enjoy the images.

The second amazing thing was the delivery and construction of “Wilma Weber”, my very own BBQ. I have for a long time lamented the virtues of a “girl only zone BBQ”, as there is no doubt that males and females have very different views on how a BBQ should be cooked and what should actually be cooked on the grill. I won’t argue the gender politics here and now, suffice to say the best solution was for me to have my own. She arrived and I am already besotted. I am so looking forward to getting to know her and sharing culinary moments together in the future. I do think she has a rather ‘sci-fi’ look about her. Shane (our second boy-child/grown-up man) was down for a few days visit from Qld perfect timing, so thanks to Shane and his mate for taking care of the assembly for me!