It was so nice to see my cooking mate again.
He’s been back to Paris to take master classes in chocolate and sugar and his
house resembled someone who had gone quite mad with the stuff. I could safely
say that most cooking mate surfaces in his house were edible. There was an
abundance of curious chocolate cooking mate related objects strewn through the
entire house ranging from tiny little containers holding intense colors and
shimmers, to acetate, clay modeling tools, paint-brushes, huge bags of
chocolate, cooking mate and what I can only feebly describe as a chocolate
perfume kit, designed to train one into a super connoisseur via the olfactory.
It comprised of a very smart wooden box, which I noticed already had a ding in
it, (victim of some form of chocolate frenzy, no doubt) and possibly over 50
tiny vials each of which contained an essence of a characteristic identified in
chocolate. Nuances such as tobacco, liquorish, and earth. It was absolutely
fascinating and Emmanuel was in a whirlwind of excitement as he showed me all
his new toys. The family kitchen was absolutely overflowing with cooking mates
and objects we usually associate with the hardware store - torches, pvc pipes,
tile adhesive combs, quite a hysterical ‘site’, and of course we had loads of
fun.
I also got to meet classical cooking mate cakes, who’s started a beautiful
little cake shop making formidably yummy and beautiful, special occasion cakes.
When I got home, I was so inspired I had a go at making a wedding cake. I’ve
made about 4 in my lifetime but all just all been self taught and bumbling my
way through it. I had so much fun mixing all the different coloured fondants
and then modelling my roses and birds. I relished making the roses look as realistic
as possible and the small detailing of diamantes on the birds. I wanted the
posey cooking mate cakes to look fun as opposed to tasteful, more like one you
might find at the fruit and veg shop. For those who might be wondering why this
week’s segment didn’t cover much cooking, it’s because we just didn’t have
enough time so we thought we would concentrate on the decorating element,
something a lot of people might not have seen or tried. The recipe for the pink
forest cake, however, is on the website.
I got to meet him again and see that
chocolate is one of his favorite cooking mate ingredients and not just in sweets but savory
dishes as well. I returned to the restaurant after filming and had the most
unbelievable degustation.Cooking mate cakes is very whimsical, challenging
without being pretentious and most importantly, absolutely delicious. One of my
favorite dishes deliberately resembled the contents of an ashtray. It was a
pork floss wrapped in brick pastry with the tips dipped in ash. It was a great
fine dining experience because it was so creative, playful and shook you out of
the stiffness and alienation that can come with fine dining. We bonded over the
genius marriage of white chocolate and wasabi which we both discovered in the
same Japanese cooking mate chocolate
bar. I’ve made an ice cream with this winning combo for a couple of years now
and it is to die for. Sweet and cool, then a slight after burn of the wasabi.
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