Here’s a definate one for the diary; passing reduced jus. A jus is a reduction of stock which forms the base of many sauces. What you see here is the end product of litres upon litres of beef stock slowly cooked down with herbs and seasonings until it becomes a thickened, glossy reduction.

This is what determines one kitchen from another nowadays. Many buy ready made jus in bt I insist on making it fresh every day. There is no comparisson when it comes to the finished dish. Now the last tricky bit is passing it, as it reduces it gets thicker which makes it harder to pass. What we are looking for is a perfect sauce free of impurities which means not only passing it through a fine sieve but also muslin or cloth. A sieve alone doesnn’t do it for me, it takes longer but the end result makes it worth the while.

This is a sight I have seen for many years…

Beef Jus

This is just before the M4 motorway in England. I had the displeasure of driving on this at the weekend, bordering Heathrow and other areas in and around London this is the daily commute for thousands. Personally I couldn’t bear doing this every day of the week and my hat goes off to anyone who has it to do.

Working in the London area is not much fun, my friend used to pay £450 a month in travelling expenses in order to work a seventeen hour day in Gordon Ramsay’s kitchens. All that money and no guarantee of a seat between Cambridge and the centre of London is a joke.

This road has two kinds of travellers; the locals who drive to quickly and beep their horns at everyone and those who have no idea where they are going. How many people have gone off on the wrong exit at a roundabout or found themselves stuck in the wrong lane?
Incredibly I managed to drive it without hesitation or deviation but I put that down to beginner’s luck, I am in no rush to perfect it.

The M4

Here’s a proper blast from the past; my official World Cup t-shirt from 1978! This was bought for me by my parents in Germany when the country played in the finals in Argentina. This was the fiorst World Cup that I really remember watching and remember how exciting it all was.

I loved football back then, playing and watching and the world cup was so exciting for this six year old. Being half German gave me the best of both worlds, I supported England but Germany won everything!
This t-shirt has stood the test of time, it smacks of the seventies and I love it. Pity it doesn’t fit anymore!

I took this one to remind me of my days working in Germany when I used to make this sauce twice a day every day, and a lot of it too.

Hollandaise sauce is one of those sauces which face near extinction in my opinion. Far too often ‘chefs’ are using horrid packet versions instead of making their own and why? Well, it’s not easy to make, requires patience and strong arms, goes wrong easily and requires a degree of skill.

I very rarely use it on main courses anymore, if anything it’s a garnish for broccoli when we cater for a large function. But this photo reminds me of young chefs reduced to bags of jelly after cocking it up time and again, the chef getting irrate and ordering me to take over and sort it out. Kudos for me you might say, not really. It just meant they got out of doing the whisking!

How To Make Hollandaise Sauce

I took this image to offer a glimpse into a typical wedding day at a hotel, not my best shot but I had to be discreet. I’ve been catering for weddings for over twenty four years now and have witnessed some fun and games during that time and I wonder how many have lasted?

Weddings rely on a number of elements in order for them to go according to plan. As hoteliers we need the photographers to do their job and get finished on time, we need the weather to hold, guests to behave and external suppliers to turn up. When I look back in the years to come I’ll think of very long days, waiting around for late arrivals, families arguing, babies crying, staff getting things wrong and somehow, despite it all managing to keep the bride and groom happy on the day.

I can’t say I’ll miss them when I’m done.

Here you see part of a set table waiting to be transfered into the wedding room ‘proper’. The florists are finishing the decorations whilst the waiter in the background prepares drinks on arrival. This is about an hour before the ‘main event’. We’re calm but you probably cannot say that for the bride and groom!

Thought I’d share this one with you and include it in the diary as a means of highlighting a slight shift in the style of food I’m cooking at one of the hotels.

These will be served with some roast sea bass, they’re a great way of cooking tomatoes and using fresh herbs. All you do is cut a ripe plum tomato lengthways in half and scoop out the middle. Finely chop the flesh and seeds and reserve, Season the tomato shells with rock salt and olive oil.

Take some fresh breadcrumbs, I use foccacia or ciabatta and add to the tomato pulp. Stir in plenty of freshly grated parmesan, freshly chopped mint, basil and garlic. I add a little grated lemon zest too. Season and divide between the tomatoes, drizzle with olive oil and bake until soft.

Provencal Tomatoes

Well that’s been a couple of days to forget. Wednesday night I come home to no hot water which led onto more problems with pressure and fittings and then on Thursday morning I wake up to my fridge not working!
All of this during the worst possible week but I do have something to look forward to, more of which later..

In the meantime here is my new fridge, not quite the one I wanted but I didn’t fancy waiting two weeks for the other, plus I was already pretty irate with one sales rep so I wanted to get it over and done with. That said, given my single status and the fact 95% of what I eat is at work all I really need is a cool box!!

This was part of my bedroom I tell chefs and anyone else who walks into the pastry bay of one of my kitchens. Many years ago I lived next door to the kitchen in a lovely one bedroom apartment. When I eventually bought my own house we knocked the walls through and extended the kitchen which was a godsend in all honesty.

That said I had some happy times in there, for many the apartment wouldn’t have been considered much but for me following years of living in awful cramped staff rooms this was five star deluxe. For the first time in my life I had my own facilities and nothing can describe that feeling.

I wanted to record this after seeing an old photograph of the same kitchen taken fourteen years ago and marvelled at how things have changed. When I walk through this section the memories come flooding back and that apartment was a reminder of a period in my life when everything was good all of the time and it being the start of a special period in my life that sadly wouldn’t last.

So this small room means a lot one way or another…

Here’s one of my latest new recruits, if I had a tenner for everyone I’ve employed I’d be typing this in the Carribean. Anyway, let’s not go there! In my office I have a row of cookery books, I was flicking through one particular one the other day written by legendary hotel chef Anton Mossiman. I had, as I usually did back then inscribed my name on the front end paper along with the hotel and year. Book collectors (myself included) will howl at this faux pas but in my defence I keep all of my cookery books bar none and, back then it was the only way to prove to some thieving so and so it was yours.

Don’t worry, I’m getting to the point..so tonight one of my sous chefs says to me “Chef, I couldn’t help but have a look at the book you left on your desk” “Mossiman?” “Yes, and the year you bought it” he replied. Me: “M. Collins L.W. 1993″ With that I turned to the young man below and said “What year were you born?” “1992 Chef”….Jeez…

This is part two of a look at the salt marsh I visited recently. The first image concentrated on the picket fence which cut through the landscape and created the viewpoint for the picture. In the distance ‘two riders were approaching’ as Mr Dylan famously wrote and Mr Hendrix famously sang better. The riders, mother and daughter came past my brother and I and I liked the way they were seemingly the only ‘objects’ on the landscape.

I like the emptiness of large open spaces but photographically it makes for difficult image taking, you rely on a solitary subject such as an usual tree for it to become something more than perhaps you, the photographer particularly wanted but felt the need to record it nonetheless. The county I live in throws up these challenges regularly and I am grateful for it because it focuses the minds eye to capture an image which you know will be difficult for others to truly appreciate simply because of the regularity of the landscape.

So this is a diary entry to record those feelings; two riders, one large salt marsh…