The last minute Christmas rush

Now I know that there are not many people who have their Christmas shopping completed, wrapped and under the tree before Christmas Eve.  The last minute rush is almost traditional for some.  I remember occasionally being kicked out of shopping malls at 9 o'clock on Christmas Eve as the worn out staff tried not to lose their cool in their effort to get rid of the annoying last minute shoppers.  The roller doors came down and the big burly security guard stood stoic and grim, shaking his head at pathetic protests of desperation.  He did not look at all like a jolly Santa.  But there was that dreadful sinking feeling that the shops were shutting one after another and there were still presents not yet bought.  Someone in the family was going to miss out on Christmas Day.  Oh the nightmare of Christmas.

It's not supposed to be like that.  Maggie Beer has a new Christmas recipe book out and Nigella Lawson, Jamie Oliver and all the other TV cooks make Christmas look perfectly magical.  The preparation of food and the consumption of the feast with family and friends is supposed to be joyous and infinitely easy.  Or so we are told.  I don't think anyone of us mere mortals really believe that, now do we?  The preparation of a hot cooked meal for a host of relatives is no easy feat.  It is successfully done in many kitchens in many houses all over the world but it is certainly not easy.  And in countries like New Zealand and Australia, it is a stiflingly hot task.

I am fond of the memory of the first Christmas I spent in Australia.  It was just Roger and I.  We took a picnic basket of crackers, cheese, grapes, chocolate and a bottle of wine to the Botanic Gardens in Melbourne and sat under a tree each with a book to read.  We spent the afternoon in quite pursuit of Peace on Earth.  Now that was magical to me.  In the past the lead up to Christmas, throughout my library career, was usually full of stressed customers and the pressure of booking in leave three months in advance or missing out.  I often had no idea in September what I wanted to do at Christmas so invariably I would agree to work through and let other staff take holidays.  And every year, come the first week of January when everyone else looked rested and relaxed from their holidays, I would regret the decision.

So this year I have some advice on how to beat the end of year stress and the last minute Christmas panic.  Here it is.

Take your break now and go on a mini holiday in the last couple of weeks before Christmas.  Don't wait till after when you are already too stressed to wind down.  Avoid the shopping malls with their endless earworm Christmas music.  You will never get it out of your head.  Do your shopping in small towns rather than big cities.  There is less stress and less hype to distract and pressure you into buying in panic.  In fact, come to Lockhart.

This Friday night the town is having late night opening and a street festival to get the community out enjoying the season together.  And if you are still looking for gifts at that point, then there are a number of opportunities in Green Street to find something that you are unlikely to get elsewhere (certainly not at the price).  The Blue Bird has good books and unique handmade retro crafts for sale and the other shops, Heaven in Rags, Intuition, Ginge and Fluffs are all places that offers something quite different and special in a world full of mass produced and chain stores.  There is a relaxed atmosphere in Lockhart this Christmas, come and catch the bug.

The Taste of Summer

Last week The Blue Bird Cafe launched the new summer dine-in lunch menu.  We now serve our most popular pizza during the day all week...the Hawaiian.  As well as a home-made baked pasta like lasagna or spinach and ricotta cannelloni.  The spinach is grown in our own garden free from chemicals.  We use our own Napoli sauce and as many local ingredients as possible.  Or there's omelette - vegetarian or ham which has been going down well in this hot weather as they are light and airy.  Our nod to the classic mixed grill is still a work in progress as we work out a way to present a grill within the limits of our kitchen facilities.  We do have a tasty chicken schnitzel which has lots of flavour and is served with sweet potato (kumara to the Kiwis) wedges, corn and a herb gravy.  And last but not least we are serving the classic fish and chips dish with a tempura battered NZ hoki fillet, beer-battered chips and a crisp salad.  It's starting to sound like a real restaurant menu at last!

But best of all is the new dessert range.  How long has it been since you last had a banana split or an ice cream sundae served at a real milk bar.  Well, wait with longing no longer because you can do just that at The Blue Bird of Lockhart.  And we are making our own toppings...raspberry, real caramel and real chocolate sauces plus the Blue Bird Special Sundae with our own fresh made blueberry topping, whipped cream, and blue heaven sprinkles.  Oh, and don't forget the cherry on top!

It's the Simple Things that Make all the Difference

Let me share with you one of the heart-warming encounters that has brightened our days of late.  Since the Spirit of the Land Festival we have had scoop ice creams as part of our traditional milk bar offerings.  Selling ice cream sounds like a pretty cool way to make a living.  I mean, rows of brightly coloured flavours, sweet, cold and creamy, what could be better.  It's like being the Candy Man really and ice cream never goes out of style, not with big kids and not with little kids.  But it also comes with a degree of stress.

For instance, about this time last year we received our first delivery of ice creams.  The intention was to sell ice cream alongside the drinks fridge we had recently parked in the doorway of the shop.  Just remembering back to our first form of revenue, a mere year ago, reminds me of how far we have come in twelve months.  I remember too, the constant stream of customers, frustrated puzzlement crossing their faces as they realised that they were blocked by a tall fridge and would only get inches into the cafe.  "Do you do hot chips?"  They asked peering around the fridge into the construction site that had once been a cafe.  There was no floor, the walls were only half plastered, tools and paint pots were scattered everywhere.  "No, sorry we are under restoration."  "Oh, okay.  How about a spring roll then?"  Yes, truly that was a genuine question that made us laugh.

But I digress.  I started to say that selling ice creams had its stresses.  That first day, in 30-something heat and high humidity, we took receipt of a freezer full of ice creams and felt optimistically that all our cash flow troubles would be over now that we could trade a bit.  That afternoon was stormy but the break in the sultry weather held off until the evening when lightning lit the sky and unbelievably cut the power.  An ice cream freezer newly stocked was melting fast and we were plunged into despair.  See, the stresses of ice cream.  That episode did have a happy ending by the way.

However, ice cream brings joy to many people and it has truly been a pleasure these past few weeks to be the Mr Whippy of Lockhart.  And here finally, is the heart-warming story.

About two weeks ago an older gentleman came into the shop.  He pointed to his wife sitting in a wheelchair outside and said that she would like to have an ice cream.  "What flavour?" I asked and added.  "Would you like to bring the chair inside so she can choose?"  He shook his head, they were out for their walk and weren't stopping.  He pointed to the Hokey Pokey tub.  "That one will be fine.  Just a single scoop will be enough."  As he left he said: "See you tomorrow."  I watched him take the cone out and hand it to her.  They continued on their way and his wife happily licked her ice cream.  He has been in every few days ever since and it's always the same.  A small cone of vanilla ice cream, not too big, her heart is content with just the simple pleasure of a wee taste of ice cream.  I am afraid that I haven't learned their names yet but my day is always brightened meeting the needs of this lovely couple.  And it seems to me that a life where satisfaction comes as a small scoop of vanilla ice cream in a cone, like when you were a kid, is the best one to have.

Prize-Winning Tomato Sauce

In October The Blue Bird entered some of our secret recipes in The Rock Show.  Roger entered his own creation called "Cumin-side there are oranges in here Tomato Sauce" and took out not only First Prize but Champion in the Men's Section.  It was his first attempt not only at the sauce but also at competing in a show and he was tickled that he did so well.  We are now considering bottling our prize-winning sauce and selling it in our shop.  So watch this space for the chance to sample some.

I entered my Hummingbird cake in the Ladies Cake Section.  It competed alongside a number of cakes of all varieties and won Second Prize (the competition was strong).  As it is the first time I have entered a local show, I was proud of my achievement.  And the prestige has opened all sorts of future possibilities for products available at The Blue Bird.

Gluten Free Lockhart

Do you eat gluten-free?  The Blue Bird Cafe has been offering our customers gluten-free options for a while now in our own handmade pizza bases and sandwiches.  The response we have has inspired us to expand our menu for those on special diets.  That means that we need you to help us create fantastic and tempting dishes.  We are inviting the gluten-free, dairy-free and diabetic communities to contribute your suggestion or better still a recipe that you enjoy and want us to make.  Through the Blue Bird you can share your favourite dish with other foodies in the same boat as you.  Your ideas can help make Lockhart a destination for gluten-free, diabetes and dairy-free lovers of good, fresh food.

If you have a suggestion or a recipe to contribute, please send it to: bluebirdlockhart@gmail.com.  We would love to hear from you.

NEWS FLASH!!!
We now make our own Gluten-Free bread and it has already been given the thumbs up by customers.  We are happy to make you a fresh take-home loaf on request (please give 24 hours notice as we are not making large quantities at this stage).  So come in and try one of our sandwiches made with our own bread.

From the Cafe With Love

When we bought the cafe a year ago we made contact with Peter and Barbara Veneris to learn more about The Blue Bird.  They invited us to afternoon tea and we spent a few hours picking their brains to hear stories about the cafe during their long reign.  I remember Peter's first words to me on the telephone when I introduced myself.  "Oh, we have been so worried about what would happen to the cafe", he told me.  I set his mind at rest that we had nothing but the best intentions to restore and revive The Blue Bird and continue the tradition that the Veneris and the Matis families had begun all those years ago.

That long afternoon tea turned into the first of many opportunities that Peter had for reverie about the cafe.  Once we took possession and started work on the building repairs, he began popping down to the shop whenever he remembered something important he wanted to tell us..about the original colour scheme, the dates of the alterations, the names of tradesmen he had forgotten, the old menu.  At first I was apprehensive when members of the family arrived to take a look around.  The cafe had been closed for so long and of course the first thing that we did was pull much of it apart before beginning to restore and reassemble it.  I was concerned that they might be distraught over the state of the building but as they arrived over the next few months we showed them around.  It was lovely that they saw beyond the state of disarray.  They remembered instead when they were children growing up here and later, adults returning after time away.  They instantly understood us in a way that others may not yet.  We are not from Lockhart and we did not grow up, as others did, at 'The Cafe', but we felt an instant rapport with the place from our first encounter and we have its best interests at heart.  The memories of the Veneris and Matis families are helping us piece together a jigsaw of history before our time.  It is a story that we are keen to know more about. 

Peter was an inspiration to us.  He came down to see us when he was able and was never distressed by the shambles of the reconstruction work.  He had already seen so many changes to the shop over the years.  Changes he and his brother had made, repairs, re-modelling, adaptations to keep the business alive in times of adversity and competition.  None of what we were doing phased him.  He offered us his full support.

When we opened the doors Peter and Barbara came down to the cafe as customers rather than workers.  We have had to work on getting our coffee just right for Barbara's tastes and Peter suggested that we get her to show us her technique.  Whenever he visited, we noticed that Peter was still keenly aware of the needs of the customers around him.  A habit not easily forgotten.  His eyes twinkled when the children came in for their lollies, watching with fondness the process of them counting out their small fortune and working out what they could get for their money.  One lolly from this jar, one from that one.  High finance.  He graciously shouted friends a cuppa and a piece of cake while he chatted on about the old days and he enjoyed a milkshake like he was a kid again.

Last week Peter passed away.  We were honoured to have met him and extremely grateful that we got the chance to share the cafe with him, open again for business, before he went.  We are indebted to have heard some of his stories first hand and have done our best to record them.

A tribute to Peter and Jack and the Veneris families is currently on display at the cafe.

Photograph courtesy of the National Museum of Australia exhibition "Selling an American Dream: Australia's Greek Cafe"
http://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/selling_an_american_dream_australias_greek_cafe/the_exhibition

One Year On...

Here we are at our second Spirit of the Land Festival.  We moved to Lockhart just three days before the 2012 festival and set ourselves up with scoop ice creams and slushies outside the shop.  This year's festival came around and we concluded that despite having participated last year, we still had no idea what to expect this time round.

Of course that is because this time, the cafe is open for business.  As we planned for this year's festival we reflected on how far we have come in that one year.  In December, financial necessity prompted us to open the front door with a drinks fridge and an ice cream freezer parked in the entrance.  That confused people a bit, not being able to get beyond the front door I mean, but it meant that we had a small income to keep us going while we painted and hammered and worked hard inside.

At the end of January, we started with a small menu of toasted sandwiches and seating just in the front window along the bar side of the shop.  Everything else was still barricaded off, a work in progress.  In March, we made a push to get more of the cafe ready to go on show.  We wanted to accommodate more people at the Antiques Under the Verandah weekend.  By that point we had about a third of the cafe open for seating.

Over the long, hard, slow crawl of winter, surviving our first year in business, we launched the Blue Bird Bookshop side of operations and the Blue Bird Pizzas.  The entrepreneurial spirit saw us through the winter months and prepared us for the spring season.

So now we have again made a concerted effort to, this time, open the restored milk bar for Spirit of the Land.  As a result we are pleased to have two thirds of the cafe open to customers.  At this year's Spirit festival we were able to use the bar as a milk bar again serving ice cream, milkshakes, fresh juice, spiders and coffee from behind the counter.  A new internal freezer has meant that we can use the ice cream/milk tubs as they were intended.  It has been a while since the bar has worked and as far as we know we are one of only a handful (if not the only) working milk bars left in Australia.  It is hard to imagine that once upon a time there was one in every town and now the genuine thing is an almost extinct breed.  But it was marvelous to step back in time and be a real Greek-Australian cafe again.  My huge thanks to all the helpers we had over the big weekend.  It was the teamwork, their enthusiasm and their tremendous efforts that made the weekend such an easy success and I know that they all enjoyed themselves immensely as I hope the visitors did.

So now we are recovering and settling in to the new set up, fine tuning our routine in the new look cafe.  We are looking forward to creating a new menu for summer.  So on that note, meet you at the Cafe for coffee and an ice cream...see you there soon.