A Call to Cater

The past week or so has been a flurry of first classes and catering functions. My new job, as catering assistant to the Dean's office, kicked off with a hiss and a roar on the Friday before classes started. With some input from my boss, Lynne, I planned and catered for the faculty and spouses dinner at the start of the academic year. An 'old' friend, April, and a 'new' friend, Amanda, helped me prepare and serve a three course meal. Talk about pressure to perform! Not only my lecturers, but also their spouses, had their first taste of my food, and formed ideas (and expectations) of my offerings for the remainder of the year. I hope the bar hasn't been set too high.

For those who want to know, the menu was as follows:

Appetisers - creamy dip with carrot, cucumber & celery sticks, and pita crisps
- crackers with a selection of cheeses (French brie, goats, & various shades of cheddar)

Main/Entree - chicken thighs, stuffed with roasted red capsicum & wrapped in bacon
- lettuce salad & pasta salad (both laden with vegetables)
- a wild rice medley
- fresh bread and butter

Dessert - chocolate and lemon yoghurt cakes
- vanilla icecream
- fresh fruit platter


All the planning came together smoothly and it was deemed a success by Lynne, my helpers, and the faculty. One of the most enjoyable parts of the job, apart from the good food and great help, was the privilege of interacting with the faculty in a social setting. Another highlight was being hosted in the home of Phil & Polly Long, having free reign in their kitchen and access to all their beautiful (possibly antique) dinnerware and their handmade pottery servingware.


The food must have made an impression because it resulted in an 'on the spot' request for me to cater for a library function this past week so a lemon and a chocolate cake were duly dispatched. This then expanded to an order for 120 chocolate chip cookies, advertised as the incentive to attend library orientation for new students! Apparently they were well received also.


When the cookie order was placed the caveat was "no nuts please". Thinking chocolate chip cookies and chocolate chip biscuits were one and the same, this came as a bit of a surprise. Further research, however, revealed quite a difference in recipe and result. I used this recipe, and found the accompanying story rather sweet. Be warned: the recipe yielded 3 dozen cookies, not the 4 dozen promised... thank goodness I had enough extra ingredients!


These two extra jobs have been perfectly timed by God. The money was provided just as we had to purchase a new electric kettle/jug. We discovered the stove-top kettle was rusting from the inside out, so two days of boiling water in a pot for the numerous cups of tea we (well, one of us) consumes was getting a bit tiresome!


My more regular catering duties were also fulfilled during the week too. The faculty meeting coffee & dessert consisted of baby lemon meringue pies and chocolate zucchini muffins. The faculty at coffee break enjoyed savoury zucchini muffins and cheese and crackers left over from the faculty dinner. As you may have guessed, there were a few zucchini left over from the dinner too!


Some more focus on the actual reason for being here (i.e. study!) is needed now, as my call to cater has eased off for a wee while at least.

Coconut Cupcakes

This recipe was adapted by our friend, Tien, from an online coconut cake recipe she found. She made cupcakes instead, and they're scrummy! We had them with fruit-salad-icecream from the Filipino bakery around the corner from Tien's place.

2 c all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 c butter
1 c sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla flavouring
1 c coconut milk
1 c flaked coconut

Preheat oven to 350ºF (175ºC). Prepare cupcake cases in muffin tins.

Mix flour, baking powder and salt together, and set aside.

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well between each addition. Mix in vanilla. Alternately add flour mixture and coconut milk, mixing well between each addition. Fold in flaked coconut.

Spoon batter into cupcake cases. Bake until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. The original recipe for a cake says 1 hour, but start with 15 minutes and check after that.

Bible (Edmonds Version)

Being a New Zealander, living on a student budget in Vancouver, Canada, has a tendency to lead one to nostalgia for familiar food. Not that Canadian food is that much different overall, but the influences of Quebec and U.S.A. are obvious to me! Croissants in a can, anyone?!

The first item to enter the suitcase on the big move over was not my Holy Bible (shock! horror!... a theological grad student without a Bible?) because I knew I'd be able to find plenty of those when I got here (and after 8 months we have 5 versions). It was, in fact, my Edmonds Cookery Book - the NZ cooking bible. This wise decision was verified not long after we arrived when, within a week of meeting them, two different Kiwis over here exclaimed, "You have your Edmonds! Can I borrow it?"

This lead me to thinking... I wonder if it is online in any form? and Can you order it from Amazon, etc.? A quick search reveals an even better gem than my 1999 edition - the 3rd edition from 1914 - facsimiled and typed out at an online archive here. I haven't tried anything from it yet, but it reveals the change in NZ culinary history when compared to my copy.

My edition has been put to use tonight. I made the short pastry for a bacon and egg pie that isn't really a pie. It doesn't have a pastry lid so it's more of a quiche. Then again, the eggs aren't beaten with milk, just cracked over the onions and bacon and topped with grated cheese. We've come to the conclusion that it could be a 'piche'. It isn't that glamorous to look at so there isn't a picture, but N did have seconds so it can't be bad.