Kia ora, and welcome to a special edition in honour of my debut novel Hoods Landing launching TODAY, 31 October 2025. If you’re in Wellington, please join me at Unity tonight to fete its arrival, if you’re in Auckland I will see you on 13 November, Christchurch—something’s imminent. And no matter where you are, you can order this book online or ask for it by name in your local indie bookshop! Thank you all so much for both bearing with me and being part of this momentum and this momentous occasion.

At this stage, talking about my debut novel Hoods Landing feels a bit like being a diffident British father in a romcom wedding, like, “what can I say about my child…she is a book…made of paper…about this tall…no, a bit shorter than that” and so on but look, it’s HERE, I am now literally a novelist who wrote a novel that has been published as a novel (see: the father of the bride is back.) Where words fail, food anchors, so I’m celebrating the launch of this novel the only REAL way I know how, with a recipe—specifically, the chocolate mousse that main character Rita Gordon makes for all family parties. I’d quite forgotten, but I also celebrated the launch of my 2013 eponymous debut cookbook on here with chocolate mousse; I’m not sure quite what psychological instinct has me hauling out the beaters every time I have a book published but it felt right—frothily celebratory, commendably effortful, undeniably special.

This is real chocolate mousse—real annoying that is, getting every bowl in your house covered in chocolate goo, but let me cup your face with my hands and touch my forehead to yours and assure you that it is beyond worth the hassle and the dishes and the forensic splatters of chocolate on everything within a three metre radius. I mean, this is MOUSSE—whipped egg yolks and frothy clouds of egg whites folded into melted chocolate and butter, the ambient solidity of the latter two providing load-bearing support to the trapped air molecules of the eggs, the most luscious and translucent lens through which to taste the flavour of your chocolate. No cream.

(To be clear, there is nothing wrong with adding whipped cream if you must, but it does somewhat dilute the mousse’s powerful flavour and is absolutely not necessary.)

Generally I try to avoid recipes that assume ownership of equipment, but this does become significantly more straightforward if you have electric beaters—I used the whisk attachment on a stick blender and had this ready to refrigerate in about ten minutes—but you can make it happen with an analogue whisk, just be prepared to suffer somewhat in the bicep region. The result? Puffy, diaphanous, so light yet so headrush-ily rich with chocolate.

Given that there’s a lot going on right now I won’t overload myself or you any further—all you need to know is:

• Chocolate mousse proves itself worth all the effort after but one luscious mouthful
• My debut novel Hoods Landing launches today, 31 October 2025
• If you want to find the relevant connection between these two points you’ll simply have to read the novel (I mean, the connection is mostly that the main character mentions mousse once or twice—but nonetheless!)

Rita’s chocolate mousse

Undeniably involved and process-heavy, but ultimately worth it, and each time you make it—and you will—it gets easier. And the taste? Celestial—rich yet light, stunningly pure of chocolate flavour, with a meltingly aerated texture. As always, before going shopping for these or any ingredients, I recommend checking out the Boycott Aotearoa zines so you know which brands to avoid. Recipe by myself, on behalf of Rita Gordon, the main character in my debut novel Hoods Landing. She’s taciturn, I’m not, so I’ve written this in my own words.

• 2 eggs, at room temperature
• 180g good milk chocolate
• 45g butter
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon cognac or Cointreau
• 1 teaspoon instant coffee dissolved in 1 tablespoon water

1: Best to get the nerve-wracking part out of the way first—separate the two eggs, so the whites land in one roomy bowl and the yolks end up in another. If you’re feeling unsure, use a smaller, separate bowl to catch the egg whites first, just in case you skim some streaks of yolk into it. I also find Nigella’s method of pouring the egg directly into your clean hand, letting the white fall through your fingers and the yolk safely remaining behind, to be effective if an occasional sensory distress.

2: Next, gently melt the 180g milk chocolate and 45g butter together—I shouldn’t, but I usually do this directly in a saucepan, stirring constantly and removing it from the heat just as it starts to subside from solid to woozy liquid. As soon as the two ingredients have melded together into an alluring puddle, spatula the lot into a small bowl, and set aside to cool slightly.

3: Whisking job one: Using an electric whisk, electric beaters, or a hand-held whisk and a clear-eyed acceptance of what you’re getting yourself into, thoroughly whip the egg yolks and the 3 tablespoons of caster sugar together until near-drained of their rich ochre colour, thoroughly aerated, and floppily mayonnaise-like in texture. Briefly whisk in the dampened teaspoon of coffee and the tablespoon of cognac. Set aside, and wash and dry the whisk or beaters thoroughly.

4: Whisking job two: Whip the egg whites until very firm and holding their shape, like good quality bubble bath foam. Set aside for a moment.

5: Now! You can’t muck up this stage, but I wouldn’t want to try—check to see that your chocolate mixture is still fairly pliant (if not, set it over a bowl of recently-boiled water and stir). Spoon a dollop of the egg yolk mixture into the chocolate and stir it quite briskly, to lighten the texture. Next, spatula all this back into the egg yolk bowl and fold with decisive slicing spatula movements.

6: Repeat with the egg whites, though go a bit more delicately with them. Start by lightening the chocolate-yolk mixture with a wobbly spoonful of egg whites, then fold the lot together. Be gentle-ish, but make sure there aren’t any streaks of white, either. Whatever happens now, this WILL be delicious, so fear not.

7: Decant carefully into your chosen receptacles—this will fill four coupe glasses, or a small-to-medium pretty serving bowl. Refrigerate for a couple of hours. Serve, eat, and understand why it’s worth doing all the dishes.

Notes:

• If you wish to make this go further, you can lightly whip 150ml cream until softly thickened and fold it in. It will still taste wonderful, however! I much prefer the flavour and texture you get with eggs alone—moussier, dreamier, more purely chocolatey.
• You can leave out the flavour-deepening coffee and replace the cognac with a teaspoon of vanilla extract quite happily.
• This can be doubled quite easily, though I’d definitely want to use machinery for all the whipping.

music lately:

Djed by Tortoise, honestly, sometimes 20 minutes is an optimal time length, like the opposite of diminishing returns; I could happily wallow inside a feature-length version of this fantastically odd, occasionally glitchy, warmly combative track.

Thursday Girl by Mitski, I recently saw her astonishing live concert film The Land and nearly levitated when she sung a snippet of this, my favourite song of hers; she is as enigmatic and unsettling and unexpected to behold visually in concert as she is sonically, of course! After leaving the film there’s not a single sum in the world that I wouldn’t have paid to see her live, I’m confident it would be entirely worth it.

Tonight’s the Night by Neil Young. The thing is…tonight really is the night. Neil was right.

PS: Feeling hopeless is a luxury that serves no one but those perpetrating the hopelessness. Despite the ceasefire announcement, families in Palestine need us now more than ever. You can donate to ReliefAid’s Gaza Appeal, who are connected with teams on the ground in Gaza; you can donate to Convoys of Good, another registered NZ charity distributing aid. As I’ve already mentioned, you can also demonstrate your control and power through the absence of your dollars. Boycott Zine Aotearoa has helpfully put together two comprehensive free zines so you can quickly see who to studiously avoid when buying food, drinks, household items and beauty products.