Pete’s blog

Venue: Tuonela Raunich’s house – Douglasdale

Liberation party: Peter Nixon (MC), Tuonela Raunich (host), Tatiana Raunich, Belinda, Megan, Sarah

Meal: Roast lamb, roast potatoes, broccoli and cheese sauce, carrots. Cinnamon stewed peaches and strawberries for dessert.

Emergency rations: Plenty of cheese and biscuits, parma ham and chocolates supplied by Tuonela to keep everyone going.

Topics discussed: Holiday anecdotes, sea-sickness, cruise ships, careers, economics

Drinks consumed: Beer, wine, champagne

Success rating: 8/10

Critique of meal: 1 chef, 5 lovely single ladies – could have gone horribly wrong, but they seemed happy. All the food was ready at exactly the same time, everything was great – but the lamb wasn’t fully cooked!!! Bugger, lamb needed a full two and a half hours to cook, practice lamb only needed one and three quarter hours to cook. Don’t know how to get this right in future… In the mean time the gravy turned to a less appetising jelly – need to find out why this happens and how to fix it. Otherwise the lamb was fantastic. The cheese sauce was also very popular, even though I just sort of threw it together, hopefully I can do it again. For dessert should rather do pears or something – peaches were difficult to get off the pip, so they were chopped rather than halved. The strawberrys were a nice addition (thanks T).

Lessons learnt: Make sure the lamb is cooked before worrying about other stuff.