Adventures as a Grown Up

Cooking with Gas

Saturday night a group of yoga teachers from the Yoga Instructors Association of Australia checked in here at the Continental House. The came from all over Victoria and were incredibly nice.

While I was washing organic potatoes for dinner, Zalan (one of the managers) was setting out afternoon tea. This means it was about 3pm. Suddenly all of the lights go out and the zen-like music went off. I didn’t really think anything of it and kept washing. It wasn’t until someone came into the kitchen and asked to heat up water on the stove for tea that I realized the power was actually off.

Ok. Not a big deal. I know how to use a candle and a torch (Australian for flashlight) however, I didn’t being either with me and we were supposed to be preparing a vegan meal for 23 people very shortly! Well, since we were not having any meat-how hard could this be?

Zalan and Alexis (the contracted chef know for his Weed Walks exploring the bush out here) went right to it! We had to work fast as candle light wouldn’t do as much as the remaining day light. I set to work chopping veggies, slicing tofu, mixing sauces (plum sauce and pickled lime are amazing). And when we were done we has a feast consisting of stirfried buckwheat, corn and broccoli with gluten free spy sauce, tofu with carrots, corriander, seaweed (or Chinese meat as Alexis called it) green salad, fennel and olive salad, fresh sliced tomatoes, baked potatoe and carrot chips and soup! For dessert we has drag mango and banana with a coconut cream and cashew sauce with fresh dried almonds! All cooked/prepared via candle light and on a gas stove/oven!

Next is to try baking… Vegan. Zalan and Ostii say it can be done.