Silo Bakery, Canberra

Saturday morning at Canberra's Silo Bakery.
Yum.....
And so busy...
http://www.silobakery.com.au/

Sampling of the bread after our visit.


Milling around waiting for a table.

Packed, behind and in front of the counter!

"French" baking...lemon tart was amazing.

Uniform shape of loaves was not a worry, or desired, here.

In spite of the how small Silo was, they fitted in a small cool cheese room full of specialty cheeses and sampled these as well as their bread.

Pictures of the Royal Canberra Show

I had fun at the Royal Canberra Show, an annual event celebrating agriculture and home crafts. Think the PNE (Pacific National Exhibition) x 10 in size. (Or Saanich Fare x 50!).

I went there as a an observer of one of the regional baking competitions, run by the local NSW Baking Association.

Most of the entries were from the standard, commercial Australian bakery. I enjoyed observing the pie judging most of all.

This one is a Dog Cake

Pie Man: Each pie took about 10 seconds to judge; crust, smell, poke chuck...there were about 11 in the box by his feet!

Taipan......deadliest snake in the world enough venom on 1 to kill 100 men

Sonoma Baking Company Sydney

http://www.sonoma.com.au/

The web site of Somoma Baking Company in Sydney tells the story better than I can.

As always I was welcomed to the bakery. The staff in the retail cafe were very friendly. The product looked and tasted wonderful (thanks for the loaf, Jordon...you nailed it!)

Inspired by Poilane

North Sydney TAFE, Ryde

This college is probably the biggest hospitality school in the Southern Hemisphere.
http://www.tafestudy.info/HTML/BL/hospitality/home_Hospitality.html


The congenial Peter Hood met me for my tour and I spent a very informative day with him. Lunch in their fine dining room was a wonderful experience.

The college has partnered with Cordon Bleu to deliver their programs as well:
http://www.lecordonbleu.com.au/index.cfm?fa=FrontEndMod.ShowWebPage&NavigationID=142&SetLangID=1

They used to run a hotel at the campus, but have had to stop that to build and renovate as more kitchen space was needed.

Demo Theater


Presentation of student chefs after lunch service. The chefs then visited the patrons to receive feed-back on their cooking and plating.

Ok....If I get any more attitude from our students about apropriate dress, you can be thankful that we don't have a dress program like Ryde. CordonBleu hospitality students, (cook and bake too) are required to wear uniforms to school as well as there whites in the kitchen. Actually....looks pretty smart, maybe we should revise our liberal dress code!

Peter Hood, head of the baking program at Ryde, and myself enjoying a fine lunch prepared by the student chefs.

Not a hospitality school without it's own barrista institute!

Bakery (one of 4)

Instructors' bench in bakery classroom with details of 'cause and effect' exercise for yeasted doughs.

More Bakery classroom.

Reception and admin desk for Cordon Bleu school within the hospitality dept. The college delivers the programs under the CB brand. Most students are from overseas and usualy sign up for 3, 12 week programs. Tuition is approx $1000 per week, not sure if this includes accomodation or not.

Successful graduates can use the Australian qualifications to suport immigration applications.

Hospitality class learning bar service.

Back to Sydney

Patsy and I had a great time in Sydney. Stayed in King's Cross this time, although the hotel advertised it was in Potts Point!
Went to Sonoma Bread, and North Sydney College, Ryde before heading off to Batemans Bay and Canberra.
Here are some classic pictures....details of Bakery related stuff will be on different posts.

Walking on top of 'The Bridge'


Opera House

Luna Park and Harbour, from the opera house...busy

Opera House

Da Bridge!

MB

Summer Kitchen Wood Fired ,Ranlegh, Tasmania

Here we are in tghe middle of Tasmania. It seems like we were destined to find another A/S wood fired brick oven.
Here are some pictures of our short visit there.

The ancient electric oven that Summer Kitchen used befroe the brick oven was built.

Red Velvet Lounge, Cygnet Wood Fired Bakery Tasmania

Cygnet, Tasmania. The Red Velvet Lounge, an eclectic bakery/cafe. Wood floors, pressed tin ceiling...and great food. Of course there is an original brick oven in the back!


The Red Velvey Lounge

Manual sheeter!

The oven, (excuse the blur)

RVL from the street

Tasmania, Pritchard Family, Hobart, Tafe and Agrarian Kitchen

I went to "Tassie" because Alan Scott the late great brick oven builder promoted it as "Vancouver Island South".

He was not wrong. I am saddened that he passed before I could tell hom personally.

I was well looked after by Graham Pritchard and his familly. Graham, and Maedi run the Sourdough Companion Web Site.

http://sourdough.com/

I also enjoyed a very instructive morning at the local college in Hobart, which run an excellent baking and pastry program.

I will upload some pictures now and edit them later.