Food review by Rober Wiggins

Reader Alert!  This does not have a review of the wines, these will come later.

As I write this from my covid induced downtime near the end of the year, it is a good time for reflection on the year that was, including the last Wine and Food lunch for the year; Bills’ Bash.

Bill threw everything, including the kitchen sink at this one. Left no stone unturned or palate left wanting.  The wines flowed freely, with Chilly doing his damnedest to empty the cellar of the wines deemed to be surplus to our requirements.  Especially in light of the moving of the cellar to a new home.

It was a very busy lunch, with Bill everywhere, including the awarding of the Chef of the Year Award at the end of the festivities.

This was a Greek fiesta from start to finish.  And as befitting both the occasion and the chef, we had close to 60 members attending.  An affair to remember!

Canapes

The requisite Greek Occopussy was delivered charred to perfection, with chunks on a spoon with a bit of Greek salsa.  Very delicious, but a bit of salt was needed for those with jaded tastes.  Bill steamed these Cephalopods for an hour, charred them on the hot plate then chopped and dried them.

This was followed by succulent, keftedes; juicy Greek meatballs, made from grated tomatoes, oregano and dried onions, then deep-fried.

This was served with a great tomato-based sauce (with rendered reduced tomatoes, basil leaves and garlic and onions. The only negative comment was the sauce was hard to pick up by the balls, (isn’t that always the case?). Possibly a small implement for dishing out would have been appropriate. You could tell how juicy the balls were, with many members having the clear juice running down and through their jowls. These little babies were hoovered up by the members, whenever they made an appearance.

The Taramasalata cups were a wonderful taste setter, smooth and creamy centre, plus some Fetta and capsicum cups.  This was a clever innovation by Bill; he used burritos, cut into shapes and pushed into the right shapes in the cup pans, lightly baked and the result was a brilliant base for the two fillings.

To round it all off, there was the requisite Dolmades (stuffed vine leaves) with tzatziki dip.

Needless to say, there were no leftovers.

Our Food Master produced all of this by himself!  Amazing.

Mains

For the main show, it was as one member remarked “delicious chicken with the best skin he ever tasted”

 It was, of course, Bill’s Slow cooked pork belly, with wonderful crackling testing both some of the old teeth in the room as well as their shiny new dentures.

This was accompanied with a fennel and apple puree, some hasselback potatoes, (cut, steamed and cooked in duck fat), sautéed broccolini in butter and a mushroom red wine reduction

For Bill, this was a 3-ring affair or more to the point a 3-refrigerator affair to keep all of the goodies cool for opening day.

Cheese

The cheese was a Holy Goat La Luna Ring.  This ring-shaped La Luna goats’ cheese is made using organic goats’ milk from Sutton Grange in Victoria. Surfaced ripened with geotrichum, which give this cheese its distinct wrinkly exterior. Runny inside the rind, curdy and smooth in the centre, this cheese is delicate, flavoursome and nutty. And it was delicious!  Good choice guys for the end of year celebrations.

Cheese accompaniment

Charcuterie; no salad but a tray of 3 different types of meat from Woollies.

Then to finish it all off, we had Baklava with the Society coffee

If we had not had enough firewater by this time, out came the Mastiha for a digestive.  Evidently, this only comes from one place in the world; sap from a tree on Mastica, which was also used for chewing gum and body lotions.

This whole affair was almost at the end when Bill presented the Chef of the Year Awards

Between the six chefs, there was only a 1-point difference, with the imitable Steve Liebeskind coming up trumps, for yet another year.  So, all of the drunken chefs were all contemplating on where they would be hiding their celebratory knives as they prepared to board public transport.  

It’s been a challenging year for all of us and let’s hope that 2022 sees us all in a much better space and time than this horrid year full of dodging, weaving, hiding, lockdowns and masking up.

See you all in 22, with possibly these write-ups from someone new.