Oh what a night, Birthday factor the results

Well, the weekend is all done and dusted, and would love to post a long list of pictures and comments now, but have to report that the whole day didn't go exactly to plan and as for photos, well they never stood a chance.

So will sum the day up quickly as promised and then soon move on to something more visual.

Let's start with the not so successful, beginning with waking up, not a happy moment in my day, was sick as a dog, to the point of very nearly calling the whole event off, I spent the fist couple of hours wandering round (and occasionally running for the smallest room in the house) in a complete daze.

But eventually pulled myself together, finished off the last touches and got my mis organized, most things were fine except for a quick change of plan with the spherification.

The evening before I got distracted by my kids and left the spheres in the fridge setting, and of course forgetting until the next day, I was left staring at a completely set alginate baths of olive puree and strawberry juice, many things crossed my mind including cutting them out but in the end decided to drop the introductory olives and make a fresh strawberry jam for the semolina, off to the shop I went.

As for the rest of the menu, all went as planned, the whisky sour knocked everyone for 6 to start, the surreal moment of piping my meth cel potato underwater to set them was a new experience (and quite a warm painful one) but the dish pulled off well, and most importantly my sorbet flamed up a treat.

There were a suitable number of 'oohs' and 'ahhs' in all the right places and everyone had a great evening, I was glad to see the cheese crackers and petit fours go so I could finally sit down and join in but was satisfied to pull off this menu in my shoebox of a kitchen, and bless my eldest boy Cameron for digging me out with the washing up the next morning, thank you son.

Anyway, back to work and whilst we don't have a huge amount of time to play the next post should be a more visual affair with more playing and much less working.