Canned

My husband's getting sick of hearing about yoga so here's my attempt to change the subject - yet I'm sure he will point out that I couldn't even refrain from using the 'y' word in the first sentence. Habits, eh?

So, it's been chilly in Hobart. On Saturday night we had dinner in front of the fire:

The menu was inspired by the south of France - even better, each course actually came from France, admittedly in a jar or a can.

It doesn't look particularly appetising yet, trust me, it was delicious and so incredibly simple to prepare. Entree was Foie Gras with brioche and toasted fig seeds:

Again, a big thank you to Nicole from Espondeilhan for providing us with the goods!
Followed by main course of Cassoulet with Toulouse sausage and confit de canard:

My husband likes to make this yet it consumes almost three days of work by the time you cure the duck legs in salt and then cook it submerged in duck fat, make the Toulouse sausage with the sausage making attachment on the Kitchenaid, and slowly simmer it all together with white beans. Or you can just open the tin and cook it in the oven for half an hour. If you are tempted and you live in Hobart you can buy it at the Wursthaus Kitchen at Salamanca - where else - and Peter will even probably sell it to you speaking French if you ask.

I have been obsessed with reading this tale of a Melbourne family who bought a chateau in Normandy:

So I made the French Flourless Chocolate Cake on page 280 for dessert:

I wish there was a recipe to follow for acquiring your own chateau in France. Sigh.

Needless to say we ate a lot of fruit and vegetables on Sunday to compensate for what we had done to our constitutions with this typically French feast.

Have you been admiring my Laguiole cutlery with the distinctive bee on the handle:

Did you know that the Laguiole bee is not trademark protected and that it can legally be manufactured anywhere in the world? That means that Laguiole cutlery that you buy at Your Habitat or Peter's of Kensington almost certainly doesn't come from the village of Laguiole in the Midi-Pyrenees famous for making knives. Ours does, we subjected the children to a day in the car to get there, ate the local speciality aligot in a restaurant in the town, bought the cutlery and Felix, who gets car sick, had the obligatory vomit down the windy mountain road to prove it.

On Monday night the whole family went to the boy's school art exhibition:

Our children over the years have been dragged around to so many exhibition openings of other artists work - yet on Monday it was their turn as they both had work included in the show. This was Felix's piece:

And Toby worked on this.....along with his whole kindergarten class:

On Tuesday there was no more posing around at art exhibitions, there was cross country to be run:

It was a long way.

R

Nine.

Felix's turned nine on Monday. It seems like only yesterday Kim was holding him just after he'd been born and we were joking that he looked like Mr Whippy as he was so thickly coated in vernix.  He doesn't look anything like Mr Whippy now.

So we celebrated with two days of birthday festivities. I had heard a rumour about the existence of a chocolate fountain in the Cafe at Wrest Point Casino - in all places, in the change room at Bikram Yoga. Felix is a notorious chocoholic. The last chocolate odyssey we took him on was to have the famous Chocolat l'Africain at Angelina's in Paris. For the uninitiated it is liquid drinking chocolate into which you stir whipped cream - utterly delicious and worth a trip to Paris alone. So for Sunday lunch in Hobart, we put aside all of our prejudices against Casino's and went to Wrest Point in search of the chocolate fountain. Ta da:

Over the last couple of years we have had to go to the Casino for various events held in the main function room - like school Speech Night and the TSO Ball. It has never really registered on our radar before as a dining destination of choice. And now I know what it's like I won't be rushing back there. It brought back vivid memories of an awful family holiday that we had aboard a P&O cruise ship. All that patterned carpet and all you can eat buffets send a shudder down my spine. Yet, the boys did have a lovely time with the chocolate fountain. Here's Toby having a turn.

Before:

After:

After lunch we indulged in another of Felix's favourite things to do and went ice skating:

Our children learnt to skate having spent winter in Europe - where ice rinks pop up in towns and cities and it is an inexpensive and to Australians, novel thing to do. The ice rink at Glenorchy is the polar opposite being expensive and seedy. It plays terrible music very loudly and is mouldering away in a time warp. As a visual comparison - here's Felix ice skating on the rink outside the Hotel de Ville in Paris:

 And Felix ice skating on the rink in Glenorchy:

We are not totally disheartened by the current daggy state of ice skating in Hobart as we recently heard a rumour that there is talk of the possibility of a winter ice rink in the forecourt outside the new Princes Wharf. How lovely would it be skating with a snow capped Mt Wellington and the sandstone warehouses of Salamanca Place as a backdrop. That wintery Hobart wonderland would give even Paris a run for it's money don't you think? Fingers and toes crossed it eventuates.

Seeing this on the wall of the rink on Sunday brought memories of my adolescence flooding back:

I actually saw them at the Silverdome when they came to Launceston, way, way back in the day, where they did their signature Bolero routine.  I asked Mimi what she thought of Torvill and Dean to which she predictably answered - 'Who?'

So on Monday Felix had a party. Kim took him and his friends to the movies and they all came back to ours for a homemade pizza lunch:

This was an incredibly easy way to entertain so many young boys - there was no slaving away at organising a full on party. Kim picked up THE BEST and THE EASIEST ice cream cake recipe from Jo at his office - if you are reading, thanks Jo and I hope you don't mind if I share the recipe? And I use the term recipe loosely as all you do is mix different flavours of ice cream with different fillings in a spring form cake tin - Kim went vanilla with Toblerone, boysenberry with M& M's and cookies and cream with Maltesers. Then you put it in the freezer and forget about it.

From the outside it looked quite sedate:

Yet once you cut into it, it was every young boy's dream:

Afterwards, one mother sent me an sms with a quote from her son...'that ice cream cake was the best ice cream for a long time - seriously!!'. You'll have to try it.

Happy birthday Felix!

R