Hal Epstein was in the kitchen today serving rabbit/lapin/coniglio. In the function notice I had mentioned that within recent memory no one had served rabbit. I have been corrected on that point on a couple of occasions now and am pleased that we are still serving food that many of us remember from our childhood, albeit not always fondly. Hal was assisted in the kitchen by the ever present Foodmaster, Bill Alexiou-Hucker.

Canapés. Two canapés today, the first being a hummus and chickpea combination on a salad leaf. Simple and very enjoyable. The other was bottaga on some Iggy’s bread. That salted fish roe really packs a punch and cut through the aperitif wine.

Aperitif wine. Our Winemaster, Paul Ferman, was back in the building today after an overseas trip and served us a New Zealand white, Wairau River Albarino. Most found the Albarino very unlike its Spanish and Portuguese counterpart, as it was a little sweet with insufficient acid and a touch of sulphur. It was not a bad wine, but Paul observed later that it was not showing as well as it did when he bought it earlier in 2018 as an aperitif wine for a lunch. It certainly ticked the educational quota box!

In Spain and Portugal, Albarino is known for its intensely aromatic and redolent character of peaches, apricots and almonds. An everyman wine from budget to high quality.

Main Course. Every member has their own stories of eating rabbit. Many of them not good. Ray Kidd, for example, has said that he ate so many rabbits as a child he cannot bear to eat it again. I can concur with mothers who had no idea of cooking rabbit, but recently having spent some weeks in Piedmont I had five excellent examples of rabbit from roasted to stews.

Hal’s rabbit was in the latter category here with tomatoes, Belgian beer and other ingredients (including rosemary taken from the Double Bay Park). The rabbit was wonderfully tender and each of us has had a different cut of the rabbit from legs, ribs, et cetera. The overall deal was wonderful. Comments around the room were so positive that it was suggested that the dish should go on the shortlist for Chef of the Year.

The Wines.

• Guigal Cotes du Rhone 2009 (cork, 14.5%)
• Balnaves Shiraz 2008 (screwcap, 14.5%)
• Framingham Select Riesling 2016 (screwcap, 8.5%)
• Andrew Buller Cannobie Tokay NV (cork, 18%)

The two reds with the rabbit provided a stark contrast in styles. For those who like Southern Rhône with its spicy Grenache body, it was the winner with the main. Certainly not a light wine but was very elegant, compared to the Balnaves which was in the rich Australian style, and unfortunately over-oaked, over-extracted with an abundance of tannin at 10 years of age. It was the lesser of the two wines.

Matching wine with a Roquefort is an interesting exercise. Paul chose to go down the classic French route with the New Zealand Riesling with substantial residual sugar and an alcohol content of only 8.5%. As is common with the style of wine the room was divided. Some don’t like the style, no matter what it is served with but there was a proportion, including me, who loved the richness with the salty, sharp Roquefort. The Tokay from Rutherglen was as expected, and its richness also matched the cheese. The Society is about education and this was a good example.

Cheese and coffee. At the final barrier before lunch today, our Cheesemaster, James Healey, was struck down by a dreaded lurgi and left before lunch started. It was a case of physician heal thyself. In any case, James had picked the Roquefort from Papillion (presented by James Hill) which was course unpasteurised. It was smelly, powerful and delicious.

The salad was a last-minute exercise in the kitchen by Hal and Bill and was cabbage with a Dijon mustard, white wine vinegar and olive oil dressing. Very tasty.

Spencer Ferrier had dropped off the coffee in the morning and once again we enjoyed a high-quality Kenya AA which Spencer described as medium bodied. My dosage of the French presses may have been a little high and we ended up with a wonderfully powerful end to the meal.

Hal spoke to his meal and genuinely seemed to enjoy his first experience in the kitchen at REX. Hal spoke of trialling wild rabbits which produced a good shoe leather replacement and he finally settled on farmed rabbits which of course the room enjoyed. We hope to see him back in harness sometime in 2019.

This was the second consecutive week in which we had a new chef in the kitchen and the VP, Nick Reynolds, presented Hal with his Society apron.

An excellent lunch.