Tonight’s (or, by now, last night’s) scaled down trial tasting menu went off with nary a hitch in sight, and I’m quite pleased with myself. In spite of the scalded palm and lack of gas, I even managed to get everything prepared - apart from the stuff that needed to be done on the spot at least - slightly over an hour ahead of schedule. :)

I also seem to be getting better at estimating portions, so if all goes well, none of you will go home needing your stomachs pumped next week when the full-fledged gastronomic mayhem ensues.

Anyway, I’ve posted a couple of pictures on flickr, including one of my impromptu volunteer taste-tester looking very happy halfway through her mini-burger (pictured right), and another one of my mixed berry pavlova (which you guys won’t be getting next week).

Next weekend, I hope to have better photos since I think Ashwin’s going to help me shoot (I’m assuming that I’m going to be more stressed since the number of portions I need to plate and serve will be twice as much as today, and there will be a couple more items on the menu which I couldn’t figure out how to scale down enough to include today) and since I shouldn’t be making the same presentation mistakes that may have occurred today.

Alrighty, the previous 24-hour-cooking-marathon has left me completely exhausted so I’m going to go crash.

Over and out.