First kitchen news of the year and it’s already week 5, ooh la la!
Talking of which, we celebrated le jour de crepes on Tuesday here in the cottage with 5/6P & flipped up a revolution with spinach & goats’ cheese pancakes with ratatouille and pikelets with lemongrass syrup and vanilla mascarpone – served up with our ever-morphing salad, now with green beans, bush tomatoes, nasturtiums & tarragon vinaigrette…
I’m also continuing my introductory talks with the children, recapping on safety issues and expectations of being in the kitchen and what I can promise for the year… those classes have been heavy on discussion (with plenty of arms raise for comment!) but we’ve managed to fit in some fun cooking at the end too – pounding loads of basil to make pesto; rolling out rosemary flatbreads to cook off in the pan; infusing vegetable oil with garden herbs to pop corn in (and exploding out like a never-ending volcano in Ms Hamblin’s class 3E!); squeezing garlic & juicing lemons to wilt with spinach… lots of great cooking noises & ending in delicious dishes that we’ve all loved!
And I must say huge congratulations to all the students in classes 3E & 3H for gaining their Knife Licences! Each student demonstrated how to pick up & hold a big Santoku knife & show how to do the ‘Bear Paw’ (raaaahhhhh) and then pick and up and hold a small Paring knife and slice gently through a (very squashy) bush tomato without all the seeds oozing out. They all passed with flying colours with each student being awarded their own named licence – and will able to experience even more with each recipe from now on.
So all in all, lovely work these last weeks, and with the dappled sun shining through the trees and the birds singing their song, and the beautiful new deck and landscaping looking like they’ve always been here, life down here in the cottage is good! A big thanks to all the huge amounts of volunteers that have turned out to support the kitchen & garden classes so far in 2012 – we are so impressed and hope that you enjoy your time here!
Bon appétit! And don’t forget to check out the recipes on bondikitchengarden.com
Melissa
The Bondi Cook 