hah.
if only. the heatwave peaked on sunday and ensured that everyone in the area stayed home. we had the worst trading week since opening and had to endure the stress of the heat to boot. at 3pm yesterday, the kitchen topped at 56c/133f and we'd all had enough. the heat was stinging everyone's eyes and I shut everything down.
the wonderfully talented caitlin harnett performed to an audience of her family, a couple of friends and two regulars, but that was as good a crowd as we were going to get on the day:
in spite of the heat, there was a lot going on. in my other life as a musician, I debuted my new blues trio at the pub across the road on friday. after service saturday, we had a 40th birthday and a wedding down the road. sunday saw a few post-revelers drag themselves in for breakfast. I came up with an appropriate 'special' - chipolata sausages, bacon, eggs with a healthy dash of tabasco and chips with a paprika gravy.
I took a photo of one, but I can't bring myself to post it. let's just say, it appeared to have achieved its purpose. someone asked for a 'nice chicken salad with a wholegrain mustard dressing', so I threw this together on the fly:
the rocket was all I could get my hands on. my fruit & veg guy gave me the last fifteen batches they had. the hot weather in victoria killed off most of the usual supply of wild rocket, and next week, we expect banana prices to skyrocket in the wake of the north queensland floods.
it's a little cooler today, we're in the office stressing over bills and hoping that next weekend will pick up. it's amazing how much effect the weather can have on trade. at our last resto in sydney, we'd have forty or fifty covers on a typical friday night. but if it rained, we'd drop to four or five. they keep telling us that winter is the big season up here. let's hope we can hang in until then.
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