Picnics and terrines don't necessarily mix

I have come to the conclusion of late that there are certain things in this life I don't like and probably never will...one of them being picnics. This list includes, but is not limited to, camping, incense sticks, black licorice and those denim shorts girls are wearing at the moment with the pocket sticking out of the leg.


But I digress. Picnics are great in theory, particularly when the picnic site in question is a glorious perch on Sydney Harbour with the best free views in the city. It doesn't matter if you have great people and great food - the result is always the same. A battle with the ants, ground that doesn't give, and food that all ends up blending together as one big taste in the mouth. Also, if no one brings a hurricane lamp, you get to eat the food in the dark.


I shouldn't be too harsh. The picnic was for my mum's birthday and I decided to prepare an easy terrine to take, and a moderately difficult one. The first is the cheat's terrine - a layered affair of camembert, diced apple and home-made croutons.

Yes, it is as simple as cutting a cheese in half and sticking some apple between it. My response to Mr Reynaud is this: I'm sure this is great sitting midway between French villages with a fresh baguette, breathing deeply in the French air. On a nearly forty degree in Sydney, this dish is most surely to be overlooked (and the croutons, even though fried in the morning will have gone soft), and at the end of the night, the dish is really just a dressed-up piece of cheese. Most guests thought that it was quite underwhelming and instead went for just about everything else, but mostly while enjoying this view:

The second terrine I had higher hopes for: the coffee terrine. Incredibly rich and flavourful, which takes quite a bit of work to put together. Part of the mixture is real coffee, but you also must add some chicory essence which smells divine and is sweet in itself and I'm sure will be used later in iced coffees and other goodies concocted in the kitchen.

Let me just say this: if a French recipe says that the preparation time is just thirty minutes and feeds six, it probably means that it will take you at least sixty minutes and it may feed an army. Maybe the French eat more terrine per serving. But the recipe made two terrines and served about twenty. It's a laboured process, this terrine. You must heat the egg yolk, milk, chicory and sugar mixture at a very low heat until the mixture coats the spoon. Obviously I'm not as experienced a cook as I think I am because I was ready to take the mixture off the heat in the first minute. But the mixture really does have to cover the spoon with some kind of viscosity. It will thicken. You just need to spend some quality time at the stove top.

When the mixture cools completely, you add coffee-soaked sponge fingers, so the texture is almost like a thin tiramisu, the difference being that it takes a good 24 hours to set. I want you to prepare yourselves, because in spite of having two stylists at the picnic, the only resulting photo of the coffee terrines are thus:

It didn't have the chance to be tipped upside down, or the dignity to be eaten in the daylight (thanks to the emergency photographer for taking this photo in the midst of the moment!). The picnic party got stuck into the terrine and a slice of Betty Crocker's devil's food cake in the dark - and it's possible that they were better for it. I know you will expect better things in updates to come.


Many of you have been asking for a Hank update. Hank (or Henk as they called him at the vet's - to which I indignantly replied that he most definitely is not Dutch), has a paralysed larynx but seems to be fine at the moment apart from a slight drooling tendency that he has developed. I didn't show you this photo before...but I did catch him eyeing the strawberry terrine last week.