Food for a city

The last few weeks have completely been about my latest and last big production for RYT - BigSmoke, a play made with and for 5-9 year olds in the Riverland.  Everything else has been put on hold, pretty much, as we rehearsed, teched, toured and performed 8 performances across four venues for 14 schools.  BigSmoke was a wonderful production, it was amazing fun to work on and i got to play with a fabulous creative team and 5 very talented and inspiring young RYT members.

our audience sat in the middle as the story unfolded 

around them on three sides and through the centre.

The lovely emma and hew who played Bethany and Jimmy

we discovered so much by having them in the team.

With long days of rehearsals and shows we needed much food to keep up energy, concentration and the creative juices flowing.  Lots of lunches were sandwiches but I made the most of having a crowd to bake for to add to the mix.  I went back to many recipes I hadn't made in years, made up a few new ones and tackled a few allergy issues in the mix. The evening cooking extravagance included: corn bread, pumpkin scones, banana and blueberry muffins, gluten & dairy free anzac biscuits, tomato, chorizo, capsicum and pumpkin pasta bake, tuna and mushroom pasta bake, gluten, dairy and egg free chocolate birthday cake, chocolate slice, & scone scrolls - cheese, pizza & blue cheese, apple & walnut.  I also had some of the crew for dinner and we had a pastry extravaganza including my favourite lentil and spinach en croute, beef, halomi and sweet potato pies and apple & honey tarte tatin. Finally last night was apple crumble for a celebratory dessert with my friend and stage manager Jess on her last night.

In the midst of the season we had a public gala performance with lots of guests and friends from the Riverland and Adelaide.  My lovely friend Alice, 'the biggest maker of special occasion cakes in the Riverland' helped me out by taking care of most of the party catering.  we had her famous sausage rolls, fabulous cupcakes authentically decorated by 8 year old Lucy and 10 year old Sally, plus a very special BigSmoke cake.  in the play it is described as being a mixture of smoked salmon and smoked almonds and when you bite into it smoke comes out of your nose.....

The cupcakes went fast, so bright and sugary they were very popular!

The BigSmoke

this version was strawberry cream with flaked almonds and so so sinfully good to eat

The BigSmoke Season is over and I am exhausted but happy.  I have no flour left in the house and have used up many other ingredients out of the pantry which is good.  I have two & a half weeks left in the house, 10 days until the removalist comes and three & a half weeks until I leave this job and there is so much to do.  I better start.