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.

Last Supper (sort of)

I'm a simple chap at heart, and in general it doesn't take a lot to keep me happy. This sort of explains why, at 0630 on Saturday morning I was wide awake and heading for the kitchen, all wide-eyed and excited by the prospect of chopping, roasting, reducing and boiling stuff for the rest of the day. Which is exactly what I did.

The event was the last dinner party I'll cook in my own kitchen, and E&T, who I know from Oddbins days, were coming up all the way from darkest Surrey, so I thought I should do it properly: haricot bean and tiger prawn soup followed by venison with chocolate sauce, followed by the Kiwi's amazing lime mousse, and some carefully chosen cheeses from various Borough Market stalls.

Wines were Ruinart NV to start, then a superb new white Burgundy with the soup, and d'Arenberg's 'Dead Arm' Shiraz from 1998 and 2003 with the venison. We moved on to a tremendous Southern French beast with the cheese, and then, possibly ill-advisedly, continued on with Port Ellen and Ardbeg for a bit too long.

Sunday was a bit of a write-off. But it was SO worth it.

This weekend we'll be packing up all that kitchen stuff (and some other bits and pieces), because some men are coming round on Monday morning to take it all away. Ten weeks later, customs and quarantine and bureaucracy notwithstanding, it'll arrive on our (or to be more precise, some kind friends') doorstep. The interim weeks, involving London winter, Canadian snow, Australian summer, New Zealand summer, interviews and so on, we'll be living out of suitcases, which poses an interesting wardrobe conundrum.

It'll be fine. I'm sure it will.

Tarts and other diversions

What a weekend. Scouting for engagement do venues on Friday night followed by dinner at home, once round Richmond park on the Black Panther on Saturday morning, drinks out on Saturday night, Gordon's with T&E on Sunday afternoon followed by dinner & movie at home (Cloverfield, don't believe the hype), long walk by the river this morning followed by a day in the kitchen at long last. This evening's dinner worked pretty well, though I say so myself, roast lamb rump with puy lentils, rosti potatoes, glazed shallots, tomato concasse and herbed gravy.

The bit I'm really pleased with is in the photo; bitter chocolate tart, served with a splodge of sour, cool, sharp crème fraîche. The crumbly bits on the top are a result of some last minute emergency pastry trimming needed to get it out of its case. I've had a bit of a challenge with tarts lately (ho ho), as they've all refused to set properly, but this one seems to be holding its shape reasonably well. The crisp vanilla-tinged pastry is a bit of a winner too. Both recipes from Gordon Ramsay's Passion for Flavour, one of his earlier books that's still a bit cheffy and not quite so 'posh Jamie Oliver'. Sometimes you do want to spend 6 hours on dinner, rather than trying to fit preparation of a memorable meal into 30 minutes.

Sitting alongside this little lot was a bottle we brought back from Australia last time we were there, a 2002 Vasse Felix Shiraz, which I reckon is just about peaking right now, at least this bottle was. Good luck finding any in the UK though, we tend to drink all our Aussie wines shockingly young, so there's never anything of this sort of age around.

And so ends the last bank holiday of the year (I think). Three and a half days of work and we'll be heading out to southern Spain for a week in a villa somewhere near Almeria, with nothing on the agenda but reading, drinking, eating and the occasional dip in the pool or, should the effort seem worth it, the sea. I can't wait.

On the reading front, I'm currently sailing through M F K Fisher's excellent 'The Art of Eating', which I'd recommend to anyone, whether they care about food or not. It's so brilliantly written, without a hint of pretence or self-consciousness, and provides a valuable missing link between the likes of Brillat-Savarin and today's food writers, not to mention a fascinating and well-researched insight into culinary culture over the past few thousand years.

I'd take it on holiday, but it's about five inches thick.

Another bank holiday, toddler tantrum

Another bank holiday sort of crept up on me this weekend, although this time I can profess to having found out about it a little earlier than last time (Wednesday? something like that). Following a week that was a bit like wading through treacle work-wise, it was very welcome.

So, if you're interested... on Friday night I started to teach the Kiwi how to play chess, and from the looks of it she'll be beating me soundly in relatively little time. She has a naturally analytical, strategic mind that lends itself well to the game, whilst personally I struggle to have the patience. We'll see. We're both about as competitive as each other, so perhaps I'll develop a bit more aptitude for it out of sheer bloody-mindedness.

Saturday we both caught up with friends separately, and Sunday we went to the rugby sevens at Twickenham, at which England beat New Zealand in the first quarter-final round and thus were out for the rest of the day. With that and the tennis result I'm uncharacteristically smug for an English sports fan - we don't often get the chance so I'm rather milking it. That said, rugby was definitely a secondary attraction of the day, the first being smuggling as much alcohol into the ground as possible, along with the usual results. Streakers, pitch invasions, hailstorms of plastic pint glasses, cardboard beer trays, hats and at one point, the construction of a snake of empty pint glasses being constructed that stretched pretty much from the back of the stands to the front, and the length of one whole block.

We called it a day afterwards, and came out of it relatively unscathed. I did run to a cashpoint (run? why? I don't know) and back during the course of the day, out of the ground what I reckon was about 1.5k at a sprint in my non-running shoes, which I think is responsible for every muscle and joint in my body aching today and a suspected pulled calf muscle. Hopefully this will be a learning experience.

Yesterday was hilarious from start to finish, the highlight being the sight of my Kiwi, face down on the living room floor throwing a proper toddler tantrum about having to tidy her clothes off the floor of our bedroom. Fists banging on the floor and everything. Second to this, superb food all day, with a brilliant borlotti bean minestrone for lunch (her) and good ol' roast chicken & veg & pan gravy for dinner (moi). And a short week ahead of us! Brilliant.

I am a fool

How did that happen? Where did that bank holiday come from? Seriously, I've always been bad at working out when they were, but this really takes the cake - it was 1600 on Friday (FRIDAY!!) before a colleague mentioned it to me and this was quite literally the first I knew about it. How does one find out?

Anyway, twas a nice surprise and a much-needed break in the eternal scramble that my professional life has become. Friday night I took the Hatter out for dinner cos he's getting married this weekend and I'm sort of his best man. We went to the French House, which although they always overcook the steaks I really do like, and we drank rather too much.

Saturday I took my hangover round to a friendly American's house and killed it with red wine, the Kiwi having gone to the Nuremberg Horse Trials or some such. Sunday I cooked a semi-disastrous set of creme caramels to take round to dinner with some recently-married Kiwis nearby (it literally did take all day, in between Wii bouts and screwing up the caramel-making bit. The kitchen was covered in strands and blobs of caramel in various states by the end of the day, which the Kiwi and I left to dry and then went round cracking bits off and munching on them like Hansel and Gretel).

Monday (MONDAY!!) I finally got around to getting my bike out of the wardrobe, putting it together and cleaning it.  The resultant pic of the Black Panther I posted on Facebook provoked a fair bit of response, which presumably means the respondents thought I'd actually ridden it, when in fact having cleaned it I celebrated the act by doing nothing for the rest of the day.

One step at a time, sweet Jesus...

The Kiwi's Hot Buns

Apologies for the lack of bloggery lately. The past fortnight has been a bit mental to say the least, to the point where there've been several evenings when I've not even opened the laptop (unheard of in our house). So, here we are, at the end of the Easter weekend and rather than watch Hollyoaks, I'm getting back into it.

Following on from the last post, the review went well, salary bumped up a bit and more training on the way. Feedback from colleagues was excellent, some constructive feedback but on the whole a reasonably pleasant experience. So on the work front, I'm happy.

Two weeks left to go on the seemingly interminable Irish project, and although I know I've said that before, it looks like I will actually be off it on April 4th. Looks like I'll be onto a number of things following that date, one of which might be the Irish thing but I can manage a couple of days a week I reckon.

That said, they're squeezing what they can out of me whilst I'm still full time, going to Dublin tomorrow evening, coming back Wednesday night and going again next week. Bah.

In other news, the Kiwi made hot cross buns on Friday, and they were brilliant! Here they are... very impressed with her I am.

Food, finally

Much as I really enjoyed our recent holiday and everything, sun, food, wine, friends, plans blah blah blah, how brilliant has it been to get back in my kitchen this weekend? Yesterday was spent mostly in a pub in town watching the rugby (boo) and eating rubbish but brilliant pub food. Today, I was feeling the need to get back into the cooking thing.

So, following a morning spent sharpening knives and plotting, harissa roast chicken, patatas bravas and purple sprouting broccoli turned up on the dinner table. Simple, but oh. my. god. how good. The only challenge remaining, apart from the industrial-sized clean up job to be done, is what to do with the small vat of bravas sauce we have left over. Superb cheese from Neal's Yard, too; Cropwell Bishop Stilton and Lancashire Poacher - both impulse buys on the way back from Monmouth on Friday afternoon.

Two other things of note before the week starts again:

1. This is an infallible and brilliant recipe. So much so that I managed to make it this afternoon without the Kiwi noticing.

2. The new Goldfrapp album, Seventh Tree, is brilliant. I have it as MP3, but it's well worth £7.99 - don't steal music, kids. Eagerly awaiting the next Elbow album, too...