Pâté please

Good Lord, it’s been nearly two weeks since my last post. Apologies. Where has the time gone? I have been busy celebrating, walking and playing with my new toy.

Let me elaborate – we celebrated my Birthday last week with a wonderful trip to Guillaume at Bennelong. This was a surprise meal organised by J and was one of the best meals I have ever had. Would you believe, on the day, I couldn’t find my camera anywhere so I have no photos to tempt you with (except this one I borrowed off their website). I have always wanted to try out the restaurant at the Opera House but never got around to it. I hadn’t actually mentioned to J that I wanted to go there so it was a coincidence that he had chosen it. The service was absolutely perfect. The staff were friendly and informative but not in the slightest bit intrusive. Of course they won me over when the waitress arrived with an extra plate of my favourite cheese because I had gushed so much about it on the cheese plate. To be honest I had a few too many glasses of red wine to remember what the cheese was called but it was divine. It was all runny and gooey and full of cheesy goodness. I’ll just have to make a return visit so I can find out what the cheese was called.

I have been walking like a demon recently. In work we have signed up for the Global Corporate Challenge. The idea is you have teams of seven people and you all wear pedometers every day for 5 months. Each member has to try to get the maximum number of steps each day. They recommend aiming for at least 10,000 steps every day. We have ten teams participating in work and the competition is making everyone do lots more exercise. I constantly hear people talking about how they are going to rack up more steps in a day. My competitive nature is killing me though. I have an absolute walking machine on my team and I am determined to get more steps than her. The other day I did 33,000 steps in one day. That’s nearly 21km. It was great exercise but I was shattered by the end of the day. I slept like a teenager that night.

And then there is my new toy. I have decided that after 18 months and almost 6,000 photos using a simple point and click Canon Ixus 55 it was time to upgrade. J did all the research for me. He loves that kind of thing whereas I just want to walk into the shop and walk out with the best product, no homework done at all. I’m a lazy consumer but he is the complete opposite and loves to check every option out before he makes a purchase. We decided on the canon 400d with the image stabilising lens. This lens is going to be the making of me. I seem to be constantly taking photos in dim light. Now there will be no more blurred shots because this fancy pants lens takes care of this. I love it. No idea how it actually works but I love it. My next plan of action is to do a photography course so I can learn all about f-stops and aperture.

Right so, back to the food. I received the most beautiful Pâté knife from my very good friend B. And when one has such a lovely knife then one really must make Pâté to use it on. I had no idea Pâté was so easy to make. I found this recipe. Tweaked it slightly by adding a little more brandy and a little more of the herbs and ended up with a delicious smooth Pâté that tasted great. For lunch yesterday we spread it on some fresh bread and added a little Fortnum & Mason Cumberland sauce for contrast. With a glass of crisp white wine it was just perfect for a lazy lunch on a public holiday Monday. If only all weekends were three days long.