The Oven Saga, Pt 2

It's in! The beast was fitted by a nice Yorkshire chap a couple of days ago, who's done a pretty good job of it. It turns out that our kitchen wall isn't quite straight, so there's a tiny alteration to the rangehood that needs doing, and I need to plaster over the holes left by the old rangehood, but otherwise we're there.

Before and after pics:

Looks a bit ornery, doesn't it? This is what we're working with now:

5 burners of gas-fueled fury, plus a rangehood that coped perfectly with me searing a massive steak last night, and a double-width electric fan oven that will be crisping up a lamb wellington for this evening.

It's all been worth it.

The Oven Saga

I mentioned in the last post about getting a new oven installed, and I feel that for the sake of my karma I should come clean about what that whole story actually contains.

My wife (My Wife!) and I have been talking for a while about replacing the crappy four-burner electric stove that came with the house. Fortunately, it's a standalone oven / cooker, which as it isn't built into the work surfaces would be comparatively simple to replace. However, as I mentioned below, we're keen to move to gas hobs rather than the awful electric ones we have.

So a few weeks ago, we were out for coffee and a few basic errands (I was buying pants, if you must know), and whilst the Kiwi was in a girl shop doing girl things, I wandered a few doors down to where a local appliance store was having the final weekend of a closing down sale. It was like appliance deal heaven in there, and I looked further in and found a five-burner gas / electric oven for around $2,000 off, which was intriguing. I pulled the Kiwi in and pointed this out. A sales assistant materialised, and offered a number of compelling things - free delivery, interest free credit, that sort of thing.

So we bought it. Despite the following:

• We have no mains gas at our house
• The five-burner stove is somewhat wider than our four-burner one, and thus slightly wider than the gap our cupboards allow
• The addition of a differently-sized oven will require a differently-sized rangehood, and thus a new hole in the wall in a slightly different place

Carpe diem, and all that. So once the thing was safely ensconced in our downstairs spare bedroom, we set about getting quotes to have it installed. Fortunately, we found out that the current rangehood, whilst slightly offset for the new oven, was actually within compliance codes and wouldn't have to be replaced right away. This is good as they're expensive, and I imagined that cutting a new hole in our expensive cedar external wall and filling the old one in would also be somewhat costly.

So we found a gasfitter who'll pipe bottled gas in from outside, remove one of the kitchen cupboards, install the oven and put some cheap glaze over the back wall for not a reasonable sum.

Thing is, that cheap glaze was proving a bit of a challenge. The thinking behind doing it cheaply was that we're probably going to get the rest of the kitchen done sooner or later so we didn't want to put anything too permanent in. However, it's probably not going to be this year, so it does need to look reasonable. This prompted us to look at a nice steel splashback this weekend whilst we were looking at how cheap the cheap wall glaze actually was (the answer was 'very'). We decided on one, and I diligently measured it to ensure it would fit under our existing rangehood - remember we'd decided not to replace the current one.

We had my car with us at the time (two seater roadster), so we headed home to pick up the Kiwi's car (estate (sorry 'sport') wagon) and to measure up. I took the bigger car, returned, and bought the splashback. Job done.

This evening, the Kiwi asked 'did you measure the rangehood in the end?'. Cue small moment of discomfort from your author. I had not, having been distracted by a toasted sandwich on our return home.

As it turns out, the splashback we have bought is about 15cm too tall for the current rangehood, which means that not only will we have to buy a new one in order to get our oven installed, we'll have to have it fitted, which is no small task.

I suspect that our gasfitter finds this all highly amusing. As does my wife.

... and we're back

I'm not sure why I've not been at the blog lately, have been struggling with an explanation for a while now. I could say I've been too busy, but that would be a lie really, and I suppose I could say something about being happy, which I am, but none of that would seem like a genuine reason for apparently having nothing to say. Truth is, there's been numerous times over the past six months or so where I've thought 'I should blog about that', but the thought of going through the process of rekindling this blog kind of put me off. I like continuity, you see, and feel I'd need to fill in the gaps between then and now before writing anything new.

But I'm not going to. Otherwise I'd never get around to starting again. Surely through the likes of Twitter, Facebook and the rumour mill (or because you've visited recently), you know about the kitten and the wedding and all of that, so no need to post about any of that, and what a weight off my shoulders is that?

So here we are, happily married and settling into a cosy Sunday evening in our house, with a chilled weekend (involving a visit to the zoo!) behind us and a productive week of good things ahead of us. At the moment we're furiously saving to have a new oven installed, one with gas hobs, so entertainment has to be of the 'free' or 'extraordinarily cheap' varieties for a while. It'll be worth it to have some degree of control over what I'm cooking, plus we received a number of excellent cooking vessels as wedding gifts and I'm keen not to screw them up on those horrible electrical elements.

It's been a good weekend for food, even with our crappy oven. As the weather here's turning cooler, my thoughts have turned to comfort food (although it's still around 20C at the moment), and so on Friday evening I made tartiflette, that amazing French Alpine concoction of potato, bacon, onion, white wine and cheese. It was phenomenal, even with raclette substituted in place of the traditional reblochon - the latter being entirely unavailable in Auckland and the Kapiti Cheese Co making a great raclette.

I'm slowly getting my head around the food here. It helps that we live close to the Westmere Butcher, one of (if not THE) best butchers in Auckland. The Auckland Fish Market is also just a small detour from my journey home from work, so that helps too. The Kapiti shop is across the road from my office building, and I'm beginning to build a list of places that usually have what I'm looking for.

Funnily enough, that list is potentially not what you'd expect. Self-styled 'speciality' food stores like Sabato and Nosh tend to fail me every single time, with shelves groaning under the weight of super-priced olive oils and comedically useless condiments, but not a single hard to find ingredient in there I couldn't have bought in Tesco in the UK. They seem to exist solely for fabulously wealthy people to spend a whole heap of cash whilst not buying any actual food. What bugs me the most is the cynical pricing, basically an attraction in itself to a certain type of customer. I'm still deciding whether or not to continue this rant over on Eating Auckland.

Anyway, the long and short of it is that stuff is good. We're headed back to the UK for a visit over next Christmas, and the knowledge that that's there helps a lot from day to day. The days straight after the wedding were weird, with no 'big thing' on the horizon involving seeing friends from the UK, but Christmas has taken its place. Here's looking forwards to that...

New House, New Bread

So, if you remember, a little while ago we bought a house. A little while ago (about two weeks now), we moved in, and since then have been slowly sort of synchronising ourselves with it. For me, meshing with the new house has involved things like unpacking (of course), going for a run, making stock, baking bread, planting a lime tree and (eventually) blogging about it all. Feels good.

The bread in question is currently cooling on a rack in the kitchen, and despite being a bit of a funny shape I think it's ok. I was worried about how the starter would cope with being moved, but it seems to have managed. I think that sometimes I'm a bit overprotective of it. On the stock front, we managed to defrost the freezer a while ago (not on purpose) and so what better reason to make a full five litres of chickeny goodness? Beef stock this weekend coming, plus possibly some Spanish-accented pork rillettes if I can be arsed.

Work, then. Work is mental. I'm wondering if I've not bitten off a bit more than I can chew, as what started as a relatively simple website re-platforming has turned into the mother of all heaving, beastly complicated program of work, encompassing CRM, contact centre applications, claims management and a fair bit more besides. Add in to that a healthy dollop of intra-group politics and a business that's totally unaware of how to take control of the technology development process, and you have something of a challenge.

It's an enjoyable one though, and so far we seem to be making progress. I'm still confident we'll deliver something by the end of the year; I'm just not totally sure what. It'll be fun finding out though.

Feeling old

You know that saying about how when you notice how young policemen are these days, it's time to start feeling old? Well, I don't know about policemen, but the recent news of the passing of Keith Floyd has certainly made me stop and think.

Before wine, food was one of the first things I got really excited about for more than a month or two - an obsession that has stayed with me. Two things promoted this: Robert Carrier's phenomenal Robert Carrier's Cookbook, and Keith Floyd's book Floyd on Fish (plus the occasional TV appearance), both of which owned by my mother. I would pore over these books for hours, reading recipes over and over, imagining the meals I would cook, how I would plan the preparation, and the way I would serve them.

I loved Robert Carrier's tone, his slightly camp flamboyance tempered with a staunchly cheffy and classically-trained firmess and detail. Floyd though, I loved for his portrayal of the only sort of Englishness I'd been able to admire - the sort of enjoyable, cultured, slightly damaged and helpless charm, and above all the knowledge not only of how to have a jolly good time but how to prepare one for others. I remember promising my 13-year-old self that I too, on my 40th birthday, would crack my way through 40 fat oysters, just as Keith had. You watch - only 8 years to go.

So the passing of the second one (Carrier died in 2006) makes me realise that most of the people in the culinary world who I most admire are dead (these two along with MFK Fisher and Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin). This makes me feel old.

Added to this, the Kiwi and I are about to move into a house on Tuesday, a house which we, thanks to the munificence of a local bank, own. Although this is a truly terrifying thought, I'm excited enough about the prospect to make up for it - far from making me feel grown up, it makes me resent that cash paid out ever month for rent a bit less; now it's a mortgage payment it's actually going somewhere sensible for a change. Aged 32, it's about time.

And so, in honour of Mr Floyd, whom everyone I've ever cooked for should thank (or curse, depending on how well I did on that occasion), I'll be raising a glass this evening. He did a huge amount for food culture in the UK, but more importantly for me, he helped show me that a carefully-prepared meal, of good ingredients, can lift you out of your day-to-day life and into somewhere very special indeed.

Snow, hard work again, honeymoon

Our last holiday until our honeymoon has just happened, and as most of you will already know from emails, Facebook and Twitter, it was an incredible four days spent at Mount Ruapehu, snowboarding, eating, drinking, snowboarding, and generally not being at work. This last bit was good, as it's been a fairly intense three months (only three months!!) and I was beginning to fear a little bit of burnout approaching.

So, for those of you who're not in New Zealand, Mount Ruapehu is an active volcano in the North Island, about four and a half hours' drive from Auckland on a good day. We were boarding at Turoa, and staying in Ohakune, about 20 minutes' drive down the hill and a genuinely lovely little town. The mountain's profile might be recognisable to some as Mount Doom from Lord of the Rings - it's more covered in snowboarders in real life.

To save a bit of time, we headed to Hamilton on Wednesday night, to stay with the Kiwi's sister and other half, which shortened the morning's drive by an hour or so and provided a great lasagne courtesy of the younger Kiwi. Stupidly early on Thursday we headed south, and some time after breakfast we could spot the mountain in the distance. We were on the hill by mid-morning, my initial nerves about having forgotten how to do it long gone by the end of the first run. That said, it was only December we were in Whistler.

Thursday was good - Friday was better. The snow was some of the best I've seen in all my three snowboarding trips; as good as Whistler at its best. They'd had 10cm on the Wednesday, and the perfect balance of clear, sunny days, cool temperatures and cold nights ensured it stayed deep and soft until we left. Saturday was good, but busy - obviously word had spread and the world and his dog had made the trip to the mountain. Sunday we managed a good breakfast before making an unhurried journey back home through stunning scenery.

Work, which we temporarily escaped, is intense. I can't speak for the Kiwi, although I know she's mentally busy, but for my part the pace and strain are fantastic. I've just convinced the business to hire another member of staff to support me, which should help, and with another project workstream about to kick off I'll need it, I think. Development is moving slowly even so, which is a bit of a concern as I'm burning through my credibility with every extra dollar I spend without showing a result. Hopefully I've built up enough of it to last another six weeks or so.

As for the last point - we have booked our honeymoon finally. Torn between heading from a southern hemisphere summer to the UK in February, and going to a beach not far from here, we chose the latter. We're going to Aitutaki, a tiny island north of Rarotonga, in the Cook Islands. Following a long time without any time off, and a wedding to boot, I think a week spent on a beach doing as close to nothing as possible will be just the thing.

Blending in

HOW good is this? I've been meaning to mention it for a while, only just got round to it. A friend of mine makes wine in Marlborough under his label Fiasco, and we've become friends, like many people he and I know, mainly through Twitter. He and his wife blog fairly enthusiastically too, and they both have a fair amount of highly intelligent stuff to say, not only on the subject of winemaking, which they live and breathe, but on the marketing and distribution of wine too.

Now, Aaron (for that is his name) is full of excellent ideas. They spend precisely $0.00 on marketing, and yet he's properly out there, and it seems to be working for him. The man has an innate understanding of social interaction online, and whilst his work in this space is defiantly non-commercial in content, what he's managed to do is something most marketers can only dream of - he's built a genuine dialogue with his customer based on a mutual understanding, and based on a very good product indeed.

Anyway, Fiasco's most recent ruse involved the blending of their 09 Sauvignon Blanc. Only being a small vineyard, Fiasco don't have the latitude of some larger concerns of being able to blend from multiple vineyard sites. In order to get a bit of complexity into the wine, Aaron's used three different yeast strains to deliver three distinct wines from the same grapes from the same vineyard, a not uncommon practice.

We've been following the fermentation for some time, as the wines develop their own characteristics and Aaron's been video blogging like a crazy person. Literally.

So the plan he came up with a while back involved getting his online acquaintances to sign up for a blending experiment. Some time after signing up, three bottles arrived in the post, labelled A, B and C. The instructions were simple: try a couple of different percentage blends, note down your favourite, and email the results back to Fiasco. The average across all the results they get back will be the final blend. A genuinely user-generated thing - brilliant.

So not only did we get the chance to experience the blending process first-hand (it was amazing to see how three wines mixed together produced something so much better than any of them individually), we had a hand in creating a Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc that will be on the shelves of our nearby wine merchants in a few months' time.

What a brilliant thing to do.