First of all I would like to wish you all a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! May all your wishes come true, health, wealth and success.

Now that we got that out of the way I can tell you the new exciting things that are happening in my life.

Last week Steven Gargano, my General Manager, sat down with me to discuss where we would like to take the restaurant in 2010. We had a few ideas, but the best one, and I admit that it wasn’t mine, was to give our guests this old Retro style, that will include new decorations for the restaurant and bar, new menus, and hopefully new uniforms.

We also decided that everything will be in a cinemaish influence.

Stuff like James Bond’s beef Wellington, and Steve McQueen’s beer batter fish will be on our menu. A Casablanca’s giant Oreo cookie and ice cream sandwich and Robert Redford’s bomb Alaska and much more of that yummy stuff. And all wrapped up in a retro art deco and a smiley wait staff. If I wasn’t scared from an OHS lawsuit, I would buy all our waiters skate shoes to even get you more in the mood.

Getting Retro pictures wasn’t an easy task. God, sometime I wish I had a personal assistant to take care of these things. I was sitting down next to my computer for maybe 4 hours choosing the right pictures that we would like to have, the right pictures that as soon as you’ll see them you’ll go “wow I remember this movie… haha I loved that guy…” and when you see the menu you’ll have flashbacks from your childhood when your mum promised you that if you do your homework, and you are well behaved when the uncles and aunties are coming, you’ll get that Delusions cookie sandwich. Mmm.

Yes, I was only born in late 70’s, but in Israel I guess the retro was a bit late, and the cookie sandwich was popular all through the 80’s. Kind of thinking of it, it still is. And on a hot day on the Mediterranean beach, you will hear a distant voice from a guy that must be burned already from the sun, walking with a white foam box hanging off his shoulder, yelling‘’…Ice cream sandwich…’’, or how we call it, Cookilida.

Oh I miss the Mediterranean beaches. Yes, the Australian beaches are good and pretty, but on the Mediterranean, it’s a whoooole different story. The water temperature is perfect, there are bars on the beach, and I mean on the beach, like on the sand. Playing chillout music during the day and as soon as the sun goes down it will switch to electronic music, in some places. PARTY ON!!!!

Smoking hot girls, playing Matkot, which is one of the most popular games in Israel. Using a wooden racket and a rubber ball we play something that will remind you of tennis.

Anyway, sorry I got a bit carried away with some old good memories.

Back to Retro, IT IS HAPPANING. Our successful Cabaret nights are also getting a retro theme, with new costumes and new shows, I welcome you all to jump in to the Cambridge time machine, feel free to dress accordingly, but just make sure that if you’re planning on wearing an afro wig, you might get complains from guests that are behind you and cannot see the funny show, cause these things are HUGE!!!!

I think I will leave you with a great recipe for a cookie and ice cream sandwich.

Hopefully it will bring some good memories and will make you come back for some more.

For the cookies, to make 20 of them.

• 125g butter, chopped
• 200g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 3/4 cup plain flour
• 3/4 cup self-raising flour
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1 cup walnuts, roughly chopped

Method

1. Place butter and chocolate in a saucepan over low heat. Stir constantly until melted. Remove from heat and transfer immediately to a bowl.
2. Add sugar, eggs and vanilla. Mix well. Sift flours and cocoa over mixture. Stir to combine. Refrigerate for 1 hour or until firm enough to roll.
3. Preheat oven to 180°C. Roll heaped tablespoonfuls of mixture into balls and place 3cm apart on lined baking trays. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, swapping trays after 8 minutes, or until biscuits are cracked on top. (Cookies will firm when you’ll cool them but will stay fudgy and yummy inside.)
4. Cool on trays for 5 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

For the sandwich, just layer good vanilla ice cream in between two cookies, maybe 3-4cm wide, wrap with clean foil and shoot straight into the freezer.

I’ll recommend you to wrap each one individually, so it will not get the flavors from your fridge, and can be served individually to your kids, of course only if they behave.

Bye for now, and hope that you’ll join us for a spin in the Cambridge time machine.

Itzhak.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 at 3:52 pm and is filed under My Life in a Takeaway Box (Itzhak Zoaretz). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.