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General Stuff

The power of advertising …. Fake or otherwise

The power of Advertising is huge , be it good or bad especially when it comes to food advertising.

There are some really good bits of food advertising  and then there are loads of really bad or false advertising.

Advertising comes in so many different formats or media that bombard us the consumer with all kinds of messages on a regular basis. Everywhere you go or look you see things be they foods, cars, houses, products of all different kinds .

One of the worst  for Fake or misleading Advertising is that land of the Golden Arches “Mcdonalds” They regularly show images of these giant sized burgers and fries , and we all know and accept that what we get in that little brown bag is going to be 100 times  smaller than the picture but we still accept it as being ok … why is that?

My Husband and I were driving through the bottom part of Parnell in Auckland a few weeks ago and stopped at the traffic lights and to our left was this huge poster for Mcds showing a meal deal that had small fries with it , while sitting there we worked out that the size of the fries on the picture  would have been equivalent  to six of the small size fries you would normally get. Now I know that its just a poster and that its only aim in life is to encourage you to buy this meal,  but its still lying to you , giving you false hopes even though your rational mind knows your not getting what the poster says size wise.

There should be  strict laws in place to ensure that what your looking at on a visual level is the same as what your getting on a physical level. Its a bit like labeling laws they have to be fairly precise and true to the product so that you the consumer are actually getting what it says on the packet.That that mcmuffin with the big strips of bacon and a gorgous looking soft egg and cheese you see on the board is the same as that tiny lump of muffin with the single rasher of bacon and that hard solid egg and plastic  cheese that you get wrapped up in paper on your order.

An Example of a really good piece of advertising is at my local fruitworld vege store  in New lynn , they have a picture on the outside of their shop of this gorgous deliciously soft poached egg on wholegrain toast topped with ground black pepper and flat leaf parsley. I have had to stop parking in that particular spot as every time I see it it makes me want to lick the poster and go straight home and have poached egg on toast. The size of everything on the poster is realisitic and it just looks so delicious and inviting.Now if Mcds and other food advertisers can take a leaf out of the people who made this egg posters book the food would be presented more true to what it is and people subconciously wouldnt feel cheated.

Categories
General Stuff

I have started my own business

This is why I havent posted much on here recently

I have been studying for my Diploma in Culinary arts  This year and that took up a lot of time , it also inspired me to put my ideas for my own business in to action.Last week saw the launch of  Sweet Expectations

This is a gourmet baked goods industry , selling hand made biscuits/cookies , decorated cup cakes, muffins, and other tasty little goodies , all made from scratch and using free range eggs. I am currently selling at Farmers markets and hope to sell to cafes and also online as well. I also will be doing some gluten free products and am thinking of some heart freindly diabetic freindly lines as well as there has been a fair amount of interest in those areas from customers at the markets.

Im currently at Wesley market in Sandringham on Tuesdays and Fridays , and at the Auckland farmers market in Alexandra park on sunday mornings just look for the lady in pink

www.sweetexpectations.co.nz

I will post pictures , Im just having problems loading them up at the moment

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General Stuff

Fragrant Feijoas

ohh my gosh I just adore these fabulous fruit , to the rest of the world they can be known as pineapple guavas to Every single New Zealander they are the humble feijoa. A true sign of Autumn is this fruit, along with passionfruit, tamarillos, persimmons, are gracing our tables right now.

Feijoas grow really prolifically in Auckland ,. You travel around and you can see so many of them lying on the ground just going to waste which is so sad and to see people actually willing to pay for them at $10.00/kg I think is just criminal.

And they have the most delicious slightly floral fragrance and flavour, you can eat them straight out of the skin, orhave them cooked . They make a great marriage with so many other fruits and flavours, especially apples, pears and apricots, and they go lovely with nutmeg and cardamon. These are my most favourite fruit in winter

If ever you get the chance to try them you must ,. I would put it on one of the must dos in your life timefeijoa1.jpgfeijoa2.jpgfeijoas3.jpg

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Restaurant Reviews

The Angus Steak house

Dont go there if you’re vegetarian or have a small appetite. The meals are absolutly huge ,but incredibly tasty. Its definatly a carnivore/manly restaurant with giant size slabs of good looking steak. The Angus is an Auckland institution that has been around forever, which has not long moved from its long term home on the corners of Swanson Street and Albert Street right in the heart of the city to its 8 Fort lane which is off Fort street. Its gone from being a bit squashed and cozy to big and open and roomy in a great old brick building with high ceilings… just gorgous building. The Service was incredible and the food matched. There was a great selection of salads, loved the israeli couscous and the potato salad was plain but excellent.I had a scotch fillet with garlic mmmmmmmmmmmm perfectly cooked and delicious.

You can contact them on (09)3797-815 or by going to their website

www.angussteakhouse.co.nz

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General Stuff

I Won A Bronze Medal

I entered a food and wine matching competition at the Salon Culinare 2007 ….. www.salonculinare.co.nz This is a national hosptality competition with over 1000 competitors in most aspects of the hospitality trade. This was my first live competition in over 20 years and I won a bronze medal . I was so pleased , I was competing against people from hotels like Skycity and The Hilton so it was really a big deal for me.

The vineyard was Dogpoint Vineyards

The wine I chose was Section 94 Sauvignon Blanc and to go with it I made oven baked pork cutlets with a orange vinecotto and grapefruit marmalade , served with crackling, steamed asian greens and udon noodles done with garlic bolt and julliene carrots.

Here are some photos of the show, me with my medal and my dish which is in the last part of the pictures, all the other pictures are just stuff that i thought was amazing

http://picasaweb.google.com/tessa.shoebridge/Hospitality2007

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General Stuff

Wow new beginnings

I have gone back to school and am studying to be a Pastry Chef , Im so excited about it . Course started in the beginning of October 2007 and will go for 1 year then i hope to go on to a higher level and do another years worth of study.

I have been very slack in posting so hope to rectify that over the school holidays.

I have so much to write about , so much to catch up on so bear with me as it will all steadily be updated.

I am in a very international college , the students are mainly from china but also from afew other countries as well . In my class I was the granny of the class:O)

we did a restaurant project where in groups we had to design a restaurant from the ground up, which was a lot of hard work but it was really challenging , I will be talking about that in depth further down the track.

Next semester our practical classes start which Im really looking forward to doing , I will be changing classes to the mornings from the afternoons and will have to get to know a whole new class

http://www.nsia.ac.nz

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General Stuff

Christmas cakes for Christmas 2007

This year I have made 17 christmas cakes for people for christmas. I have been doing cake decorating for a hobby now for about a year now , and just loving it

So here are some of my gifts , im still learning this amazing art , some are good and some not bad but each one was made with love

All of these cakes were deep rich fruit cake with plenty of brandy and then covered in marzipan and fondant icing , everything on the cakes is edible

here is a link to the photos http://picasaweb.google.com/tessa.shoebridge/ChristmasCakes2007

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other foodie sites and bits and bobs

A Chocolate Fantasy Dessert

A few weeks ago I entered my first professional chef competition in over 20 yrs .This competition is run by the Culinare Institute , its a competing arena for the hospitality industry. I didn’t win anything but I gained so much experience and insight in to what was expected and what I need to do in the future. I entered A Chocolate Fantasy Dessert and the dessert that I entered was A Chocolate Turkish Delight Brownie it was a rich dark rose flavoured chocolate brownie layered with soft decadent turkish delight and then it had rose sugar syrup drizzled over the top and served with a rich truffle of chocolate ganash on top and roasted pistachios and toffee shards as decoration.

Iwill upload the recipe and a picture fairly soon,

I am teaching myself some new skills as a result of this competition, things like sugar art and chocolate sculpture and art and also brushing up on some old skills that haven’t been used in a while