LCB.  Le Cor­don Bleu.  Learned culin­ary bestowers. Legends of cre­ativ­ity and bon­homie (yeah yeah enough already…).

The LCB WOAP Haute Cuisine du Terroir on Fri­day night was pretty impress­ive (not least for being nearly five hours of imbib­ing instead of the planned three!).  Sev­en courses of French food matched with each an old world Bur­gundy and a new world Mar­tin­bor­ough tipple (after the first two courses), and wine­makers revolving around the tables; this was always going to be some­thing inter­est­ing.

LCB cheese platterThe food included delights such as warm goats cheese gougeres, ham hock ter­rine, con­fit pave of sal­mon lar­ded with smoked eel, lamb sweet­breads with a fri­cas­see of wild mush­rooms, roast breast of quail on duck bal­lontine, and more.

The wines provided some inter­est­ing com­par­is­ons, with a French Bour­gogne Blanc Clos du Chat­eau chardon­nay beat­ing the loc­al one for me, a couple of pinot noirs that were hard to dis­tin­guish between terroirs, and a delight­ful Pal­liser Estate Meth­ode Tra­di­tion­elle with dessert beat­ing the French sticky (and that’s say­ing some­thing from a sweet-toothed gal like myself – but just a bet­ter com­pli­ment over­all to the bav­arois and macar­on, whod’ve thought).

And you can tell from the pic­ture that the shared French cheeses went down a treat – includ­ing a beau­ti­ful ripe and lus­cious camem­bert, a soft and sump­tu­ous chevre, and a very pal­at­able blue (I might nearly be con­ver­ted).  Served gooey and at room tem­per­at­ure, with not a whiff out of place, just how they’re exper­i­enced best.

If they hold this event again next year, def­in­itely one to snaffle a tick­et to.

Alas the bur­ger at TK (Ti Kouka) was sold out by 1pm Sat­urday so the WOAP dine menu it was instead.  And that didn’t dis­ap­point either.  For this kid, the Wair­ar­apa Eco Farm Jer­u­s­alem artichoke soup with pulled Long­bush pork and Zany Zeus smoked yoghurt  (a cun­ning plan to still get one’s mitts on some of that georgous pork), and Pear and ”Wil­lis Street” sticky honey pud­ding with Pin­nacle Grove wal­nut crunch.   And then a cup of tea and a lie down (at home, not at TK!).

StroopwafelsAnd last (but abso­lutely not least), a new stall at the City Mar­ket this Sunday – Eloise van Wyn­ber­gen of Mont­foort Wafel Co with her great aunt’s stroop­wafel recipe.  Now I’ve had stroop­wafels cold, but warm fresh from the machine with warm gooey sticky car­a­mel glu­ing the halves togeth­er, I’m still sal­iv­at­ing (and I may nev­er eat a cold one again – although Eloise had a very tempt­ing array of pack­aged sizes to take away).

And delightly, she gave me a loy­alty card with my first few stamps now ticked off (prom­ise, I didn’t eat ALL of the ones stamped myself), so I’m well on the way to a free one some Sunday soon.

Now what bet­ter way to round out the week­end.