Good Food and Wine Show 2009

As LS posted on her earlier post, LS and I both excited about Good Food and Wine Show, ofcouse for different reasons. She wanted to explore the new products while my highlight 's Gordon Ramsay. We went there separately since LS had to work that day.
How excited I am...excited enough that I woke up early and did brunch since I think I wouldn't have enough time to eat at the Show. I headed to the show and arrived around half an hour before the show started but there were lots of people there and there was a long queue just for getting into the actual show area :( After the door open, I was in another queue to get a ticket for Tobie Puttock Masterclass, went to get a Gordon Ramsay book which came with the ticket, and went straight to the Celebrity Theatre for Gordon Ramsay Masterclass!!!
I 've got a seat in K row which supposed to be a good seat since it 's only 11th row from the stage but all 10 rows front of me are on the flat floor and I 'm short enough that I had to straight my neck to see what happened on stage :( But on the bright side, the seat was closely enough to get the aroma of what Gordon was cooking :)
At first, I though the show should forbid to take pictures in the theatre. But once I get in, 8 out of 10 persons stareted bringing out their camera/mobile and taking photo. So I did it as well, lol

Gordon talked fast and cooked so fiercely, it looked like he was very tired from speaking very fast and run around the stage. He joked about the swine flu since he sat next to Mrs.Piggy (a puppet) when flying to Melbourne, hahaha... mentioned that he and Susan Boyle were born on the same town, and joked that Susan 's Jamie Oliver's oldest sister, haha..

He did cook three dishes which 're Cod and Tomato chowder, Glazed Salmon with Spinach and radish salad, and Poached pears in Mulled wine, which all dishes were serving at Lindemans Early Harvest Restaurant within the Show.

The chowder 's basically a vegetable soup. All vegs except tomato should be stir-fried before simmering to get more flavour and keep theirs shape. When putting the stock into vegs, just put it to barely cover vegs and simmer until vegs are tender. After that, put Cod fillet in over vegs and put the lid on, so the vegs 'll cook by boiling while Cod 'll be steamed. When Cod 's opaque, take Cod out to shrade into flake before putting it back into the soup. This chowder also uses pearl barleys which have to cook separately. The chowder also serves with Pasley. I latered on tried the chowder, which I found it's alright but not impressive :(

His next dish 's Salmon, which has asian influence. He use soy sauce, honey, ginger to marinade the fish. The dressing 's made of sesames, ginger, soy sauce, etc. So, the dominant aroma of stir-fried spinach 's soy sauce, which reminds me of Japanese foods.


Gordon's dessert 's Poached pear. He mentioned about lemongrass can be put into the mulled wine for poaching pear, which I think quite bizzare but would love to try, lol. Actually, poached pear 's a normal dessert but it 's the presentation that make it looks interesting. The cream 's whipped with lime zests and lime juice to make it zinging. I also tried this dish at the restaurant. It 's not througly cooked since I had to use 2 spoons to help cutting the pear.

After Gordon show finished, I rushed to the signing booth since I wanted Gordon to sign his book for me. But...when I was there, there were roughly 100 people queuing up before me. How I figure this number, no..I didn't make it up.. there 's a staff there and she counted heads since she said Gordon would sign books for only 100 people. And, I was number 101 or 102, I was told. Though she was o.k. that I can queue up and depended on my luck. Fingers cross!

The clock ticked by and the book signing time was over (the schedule on a website said 30 minutes for each book signing session) but Gordon was still signing. So I was still in a queue though it was time for Tobie Puttock Masterclass. I figured out that I may never have another chance in a life time to meet Gordon in person and I wanted to take this opportunity. While, Tobie stays in Melbourne and he 'll go to A Taste of Melbourne for sure, hahaha...

Wait...wait...and wait, another hour passed..and there were only 10 persons before me, and it near the time for Tobie's book signing session. Finally, I 've got my book signed, yippie :P Gordon was so nice, he spent time making small talk with each person, that 's why it took so long for signing. His first question was 'where do you come from, darling?' bla...bla...bla... Then I mentioned that I 'm looking forward for his restaurant to open. He then told me that it 's going to open on 1st of March next year :)

Gordon was so nice and friendly. I didn't say that because I personally like him but because not only he spent time with his fans but he also extended his schedule. No one can blame him if he walked out of the signing booth when the session 's over though there were lots of people queuing up. He sticked around trying to sign for everyone until it was time for Tobie's signing session then he finally wrapped up and I think everyone got his signature on their books. (How did I know that? Because I was queuing for Tobie's signing session. So, I was there :P )

After that I went to buy Tobie's book for signing, ofcourse. My sister 's so crazy about Tobie, so I decided to get a book signed for her. I was a first on line since I went there before Gordon's signing session was over. After that I headed to a restaurant around 3 p.m. for lunch. Caramelised Brioche with Forest Berries from Tobie's are yummy. When chewing, brioche tasted creamy castard-liked.
I, then, took another session of Masterclass, the MasterChef, which LS and I both attended but didn't realized until Saturday that we attended the same session. Both George Calombaris and Gary Mehigan cooked smoothly and played with the audience. George cooked egg and lemon soup and souflaki (I think I definitely spelled not-correctly). His souflaki 's super slow made, around 6 hours, umm..I better buy one instead of cooking one. After cooking, he asked who wants to eat it? Apperently, everyone wanted it. So, he asked a new question, does his cousin 's in here? There 's a guy said 'Yes' but he appearently couldn't be his cousin since he looked totally different from George. For Gary, the only dish I remembered that he cooked 's doughnuts since he forgot to turn the frying machine on, LOL The first thing I learned from this lesson 's don't forgot to turn on the frying pan when making doughnuts.

He then had to continue demonstrating doughnuts cooking using the word it supposed to be brown after lifting from the pan...bla..bla...bla, which made the audients started another roll of laughing, hahaha... very funny..

I went back to the signing session after MasterChef Masterclass session to take close up pictures since I knew that George had a signing session there. When they came, I had a chance to take pictures with both of them...which LS saw later and called me 'a celebrity chef chaser' since I had pics with all celebrity chefs in this show except Matt Morrans, lol

Overall, I had a good time there learning some cooking tips, get books signed, and best of all I finally met Gordon. I wanted to meet him so much because he 's one of my two favorite chefs. He becomes my favorite since I never fail when using his recipe. And, if you press hard enough, I would tell you that he 's my most favorite chef.

SL's main cookbooks: Le Cordon Bleu Complete Cookbook, Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Heaven, Jamie Oliver's Naked Chef.