Hobart’s 3rd birthday cake. She growled at everyone, hissed, hated the cake and scratched the woman who made her this plate, drawing blood:
In my imagination, it is completely acceptable to dress like the people in these images on a day to day basis.
These pictures are all taken of African people in masquerade outfits by photographer Phyllis Galembo. They are published in a brilliant book that I got in the mail today form Amazon called Maske. Galembo has published a number of books documenting different types of “fancy dress” in different cultures – like Halloween Costumes for example. Again, a number of dream outfits for me in there.
In other news we will be back to “normal” in Booyah Towers shortly, there will be more cake and less fashion as it is Hobart’s birthday month and there is a little party on Sunday afternoon for her so of course she will be having well documented birthday cake treats that she isn’t allowed to eat and perhaps some she can.
P.S. It is the G.A.’s birthday tomorrow. If anyone feels like disappearing into the night pissed off, lonely, looking to drink a bottle of whiskey and crawling home barely able to speak and yet some how the next day manage to laugh it all off with some crazy story, the 28th April is definitely the day to do it. :)
This year for my birthday, I wanted to go to Paris and have a really nice dinner somewhere incredible and scoff the lot. I was thrilled when I saw that The Hidden Kitchen was going to have an event on December 1st this year. So, on the basis of that, we emailed. And waited. And waited… Hobart lost some weight… We gave up refreshing our inbox…
So back to the drawing board.
The week before I went to Hong Kong, Anthony and I were flicking through food blogs looking for inspiration and found out all about what has been going on – The Hidden Kitchen is now Verjus, which is a restaurant and wine bar on rue Richelieu. Well the wine bar looks like it is in a different location, but the space is split level with a front door on either side of the little block. Anyway, while I was away, Anthony arranged it and we got a table on their “opening” night, my birthday all rolled into one. Yippee.
So through a fug of jet lag, I had an amazing tasting menu birthday dinner in a really beautiful little dining room (thought the alley from the Kitsune Shop) all light up with the Christmas lights from the theatre nearby:
Round 1: citrus tofu, wild rice, bone marrow, mussels, smoked curry. Forgot to take a picture and the first time I enjoyed tofu in my life.
Round 2: sea scallops, grapefruit, poppyseed, onion ash, chipotle, chive
Round 3: monkfish, red cabbage raviolis, seaweed, red pepper, seafood broth
Round 4: house smoked salmon, beets, quail egg, herbs, buttermilk
Round 5: buckwheat cracker, winter pickles, greens, pine nut butter, ricotta MY FAVOURITE!!
Round 6: duck breast, white miso labne, cauliflour, nori crumbs, micro basil, kimchi MY SECOND FAVOURITE
Round 7: pork belly, celery, chicharron, cilantro, heirloom carrots, ricotta
Round 8: chocolate ganache, pineapple habanero sorbet, chevre custard, graham crumbs
We could have had an additional wine menu to go along with the meal but opted just for one bottle of red. A pity you can’t even see the label.
Two thirds of the way through, the service got slow and you could see the girls trying to get into the swing of it all. The first few rounds were brought out of the kitchen by the chef Braden himself. That was really cool because the way he was describing each dish went into great detail and he had a moment to answer questions. Later on of course the place was jammed so not possible. But I bet that being able to talk with every diner is something the chef misses. Anyway the dinner was EXCEPTIONAL. Everything I could have dreamed of – except I got a little bit more… I almost don’t want to say because I dont want to spoil the dream when everything else was so perfect – There was bit of cling film in the ganache. There is no excuse for that, opening night or not. I don’t even like ganache anyway so no tragedy. So lets concentrate on the fact that the pineapple habanero sorbet was out of this world!
Next time, I would like to go to the wine bar and sample the bar food menu and some of the great wines.
Oh Hai! It’s me! Having my birthday in Paris!
A brief report:
First meal in Paris – le petit menu de Mc Donald’s AKA TONIQUE AKA Egg and Bacon McMuffin. Then had a whole gang of stuff from the supermarket with Anthony at the hotel for lunch. Dinner was my birthday dinner treat – we went to the opening night of Verjus (the people from The Hidden Kitchen) and had the first tofu of my life I actually enjoyed. 7 courses later and a bottle of wine I was ready to pass out with jet lag. Today has been a mother of a bloody burger at L’Estaminet and cakes from Aoki Sadaharu eaten in Jardin du Luxemburg – black seasame eclair and matcha eclair with a selection of 7 macarons – violet, matcha, wasabi, yuzu, black sesame and two japanese tea flavours I can’t be bothered getting up off the chair to find the pamphlet. Then to the Viennese Patisserie for a famous Hot Chocolate with cream. And then a long walk home from the 6th to the 3rd past Patisserie Pain du Sucre to discover that the shop has expanded next door as well! So the old shop is just savoury stuff and the new shop is all the sweets.
Dinner has not yet been decided on.
Yes all we are doing is eating – and farting in Anthony’s case.
Pictures of everything but the farts later.
THE JOHN DAVIDSON FAN CLUB
April 28th, 2010 | Posted by in The John Davidson Fan Club - (0 Comments)
Happy Birthday Pops.
Look at that face! So happy.
As I said to Philippa “This cake for Valeria is going to be like Phantom of the Opera crossed with the Olypmic Games opening ceremony and the first few chords of Teardrops”
Drum rolls til Sunday!
xx Lektrogirl
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I learnt how to cook rock cakes from The G.A. Mum used to cut up her old clothes for me to wear to school discos when I was 8. Miss Guidici taught me French. To be continued.