Category: Breakfast and Brunch

pie fidelity

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Do you ever get to that stage in a recipe, when perhaps the walls of your kitchen are schmeered with sugary paste and there’s butter in your hair and a light dusting of flour coats all surfaces and you kind of think to yourself “Why did I attempt something this ambitious?” You’ve decided to make a braised dish involving seven wine-based reductions that weren’t immediately apparent the first time you scanned the recipe, or maybe it occured to you that a poached meringue topped with toffee sculptures would be the perfect follow up to a meal, when suddenly it’s 10.30pm and you’ve used every pan in the house and have internal bruising from trying to whisk egg whites to stiff peaks.

Maybe I paint a slightly dramatic picture, but the pie I made on Wednesday night more or less fell into this category. Luckily, this high-maintenance girlfriend of a recipe was worth it eventually because it tasted incredibly good, despite my ham-fisted tendencies threatening to ruin it at every step of the way…

Based on a recipe I found in Cuisine magazine (and you can find the original recipe here) the idea is to roll a mixture of grated eggplant, crumbled feta, eggs, mint and dill up into sausages with buttered filo pastry then coil them round in a pie plate, to create a pie with a difference. I’ll be the first to admit that my own wobbly, bulging pie didn’t quite match the neat-edged vortex of filo of the picture in Cuisine. This could be due to filo pastry being incredibly fiddly – I seemed to tear it every time I set my pastry brush down. Also, I replaced the eggplant with grated zucchini but didn’t bother to let them drain in a colander and – getting what was coming to me – the mixture was quite liquid and difficult to wrangle.
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I very nearly considered biffing it all and ordering in a curry, especially when the filled rolls of filo kept breaking as I laid them in the pie dish. I also didn’t factor in how long it would actually take to bake (my advice to you all: factor in the time something will actually take to bake) so we had a relatively late dinner by the time it was done. Finally, it was a nightmare to slice up neatly. But luckily it tasted amazing, and how could it not, with all the good things in life like butter and pastry and feta appearing in such proportions. Would I try it again? Yes, and next time I’d be more careful in reading the instructions. And maybe renovate my kitchen so I have enough benchspace to deal with all the filo pastry. At present our benchspace falls into the “laughable to non-existant” end of the scale.

I took a slice to work the next day for lunch and waited hopefully for people to say “my stars that looks like a complicated, deliciously gourmet pie…what – you made it? What an asset you are to this company” But no-one did. Tasted good second time round though.

I had a day off in lieu from work on Friday. Tim and I went back to the Maranui Cafe thinking that at 2pm on a weekday it might be quiet. We thought wrong. It was packed, we had the choice of only two tables, and there was a steady stream of customers entering. I must say, my nerves were feeling a little jangled by the time we got there. You see – and I should perhaps warn you about the x-rated content here – on our way to the bus stop, I noticed a cicada resting casually – leisurely even – on my chest. I sort of froze up and flapped my arms ineffectually at Tim, who gallantly came to my rescue and flicked it away. Somehow it went down my top and decided to it quite apparent that my cleavage was not where it wanted to make a permanent home. At this stage I had no other option but to more or less remove my top. I’m quite thankful that ours is a quiet road. Because of this hair-raising incident we missed our bus – luckily they are fairly frequent – and between that, and the fact that the bus we did catch managed to break down twice on the way, I had a dark feeling that the whole thing just wasn’t meant to be.

But it was. We finally arrived in Lyall Bay, climbed the stairs up to the cafe, and were seated immediately near (but not right in front of) the picture window. I ordered the vegetarian big breakfast and the very act of doing so made me feel a little more calm. By the time it was ferried to me by the charming, friendly waiter, I’d graciously made my peace with the world (but not that wretched cicada.)

Above: The vegetarian big breakfast, called the “Victory Breakfast” on the menu. It’s dangerously good. I’d walk barefoot to Lyall Bay to taste those tomatoes again. Notice the generous dollop of pesto, and the size of the dark, glossy ‘shrooms. The 5-grain bread (from Pandoro) was so delicious I nearly fainted with every bite.

Above: As you can probably surmise from the vast quantities of meat, Tim ordered the non-vegetarian “Big Bay Breakfast”. He said the bacon was delicious and I can vouch for the quality of the kransky, as I audaciously stole a piece. The waiter who brought us our dish said there had been some kind of stuff-up out back with the poached eggs and said we were more than welcome to order fresh ones, but neither Tim nor I – fairly discerning when it comes to our eggs – had a problem with them.

Obviously this alone just won’t do. We were going to buy cake to share afterwards but we were both so visibly unenthusiastic about how it would reduce the actual cake-per-person ratio that we quickly decided to do the logical thing, which was to get two cakes to share.

Above: A plum and coconut tart with a chocolate pastry base and yoghurt. It was lovely – the coconut gave the tart a delightfully dense, moist texture which contrasted with the smooth, ascerbic slices of plum dotted throughout. The pastry gave a further contrast in flavours without being too sweet. The yoghurt was nice as an accompaniment but we mostly chose it because it was offered for free and we like to squeeze out every last drop of value-juice.

Above: The caramel star cookie had the most wonderful filling. I may be a little biased since I have an intense love of caramel flavours, but nevertheless it was a nice cookie. The biscuits themselves sandwiching the filling were pleasant enough and not overly sweet which I think was a good choice.

As with last time, the Maranui Cafe has earned my whole-hearted recommendations. It’s very easy to find as well – just jump on a number 3 bus to Lyall Bay. Although I have no idea what day of the week is best in terms of being relaxed about finding a table. I’ll be honest, I was more impressed by the savoury options than the sweet, although I will stress that they didn’t taste bought in and probably weren’t. I do find it rare that a cake or pudding in cafes will knock me off my feet with its deliciousness. This could be that I’m not eating at places that are super-expensive, but I don’t think it’s that big an ask.
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Now, I don’t run a cafe or restaurant, but is it that hard to make your own cakes and desserts? Surely you are running such an establishment because you actually like making food? I hate it when I go out to dinner and the meal itself has been amazing but then the blah, blatantly bought in pudding disappoints. Don’t even get me started on the state of the abysmal muffins you get served everywhere these days (especially at airport cafes – it’s a kind of fatalistic instinct I have that whenever I’m stuck in an airport I get the urge to spend money on overpriced cakes…) What companies out there are purposefully making these challengingly dry, unloveable muffins?Isn’t that appallingly wasteful, when their time and resources could be spent making quality cakes instead? I realise I’m talking about several things at once here but…any thoughts? Am I expecting way too much? I think not.

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In other news, Mum is still in Argentina and I’m loving reading about her escapades on her blog. Daylight savings has started here and while it means that it will be darker earlier in the day, I’m adoring this transition stage where you wake up in the morning and realise it’s earlier than your body thinks it is and you can go back to sleep – bliss! Finally, Tim and I are currently very, very into 30 Rock. I don’t tend to get into TV shows when they’re actually on TV as we have no reception and I prefer to just buy seasons on DVD where there are no ads, which is why we’re so late to this particular party. But it’s brilliant and densely so, with about 7 one-liners per humorous minute and Tina Fey has created a highly endearing main character in Liz Lemon.
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Next time: Not sure…although I suppose since Easter is a-coming I’ll probably try my hand at hot cross buns again.

last of the summer whine

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I can’t buy cherries. They don’t exist. They are neither on the shelf at the corner shop or on the stands at the vege market. Their season has passed. And it’s probably just as well, because had my addiction to them been allowed to continue, my future children would never enjoy things like shoes, or a university savings fund. All financially debilitating fruit-eating habits aside, it was my lack of cherries that really made it clear that summer is fast melting into autumn, like an icecream inadvertantly dropped on a hot, concrete footpath. The mornings are darker, the evenings cooler, the cardigans emerging from the bottom drawer. Waah!

Having thrown all that bleak imagery at you, I should point out that this weekend has been absolutely gloriously sunny. Yesterday Tim and I, along with my godsister Hannah who has started university down here, took advantage of said weather and bussed out to Lyall Bay to the Maranui Surf Cafe. They hardly needs my endorsement – it was absolutely packed and there was a constant stream of people through the door. We had to wait for a table, which made me feel a little nervous – after all, it was my idea to shlep all the way out there in the first place – but it really wasn’t that long before we were seated. Somehow, even with my chronic uselessness riding against us, we ended up with the best table in the house – in the centre of a huge picture window, gazing out over the sea.

There’s a reason why it’s always packed – the food was fantastic. I had the big vegetarian breakfast and Tim had the regular big breakfast (I gave him some of my avocado and he gave me some of his kransky), and I kid you not, it was the best of its type that I’ve had in Wellington. Every cafe under the sun has some form of “Big Breakfast” and they can be anything from boring to meanly portioned and soggy. But this was incredible – generous amounts of avocado and pesto, large, glossy mushrooms, softly poached eggs, wonderful grainy bread and tomatoes that were so delicious I could have eaten a kilo of them on their own. I mean, I’m actually considering ringing and asking where they got them from. I wish I’d thought to bring my camera. Personable service and not-entirely-terrifying prices means I’ll definitely be back but with my 9-5 job the weekend is my only option, so maybe try to go on a weekday if you can when it’s likely to be more chilled out.

One more thing – the big breakfasts are really, really filling. I mean, I’m quite the horse when it comes to appetite size but was forced to concede bitterly that I didn’t have any space for one of the many enticing cakes on the counter. In fact, several hours later Tim and I still didn’t really feel like much for dinner. Unusual. So while Tim did his readings for Honours, I flung together something fairly light that wouldn’t be burdensome on our constitutions.

While brown rice was on the boil, and a foil-wrapped beetroot was roasting away in the oven, I assembled feta cheese, capers, sliced preserved lemon (made by my godmother), walnuts, and grated carrot. The beetroot was chopped into chunks and along with everything else, spatula-d into the drained rice and piled into two bowls. Delicious, and the sort of thing you can basically eat a vat of without feelings of self-loathing and regret arising after. While the making and eating of dinner was going on, we listened to a greatest hits CD of Joe Cocker. I’d just like to point out that on the whole I hate greatest hits compilations, and I wasn’t entirely committed to listening to J-Cock all evening, but as it turns out I’d somehow forgotten how much I love the old so-and-so. Every song was pure gold. The man’s a genius! Who else on earth can cover the Beatles so lavishly and not only get away with it, but sound brilliant? I also like how the album ended with killer song She Came In Through The Bathroom Window, and not, like many other artists’ greatest hits albums, with an ill-advised late nineties hip-hop disco remix collaboration track.

I found this recipe on Scrumptious blog for Eggplant and Tomato Curry. It’s easy to make and tastes fantastic – I can see it becoming a regular fixture so long as the ingredients stay cheapish at the market.

Above: I added cauliflower because I had some kicking round and thought it might bring a bit more substance. I guess if you wanted you could add some coconut milk or use different vegetables, even adding meat of some kind – it’s quite a nice starting point recipe for tinkering round with. Speaking of tinkering round, I received a bottle of passionfruit vinaigrette for Christmas from my brother and apart from drinking the stuff straight from the bottle because it’s so delicious, I’ve been trying it in all sorts of things, including as a marinade for chicken breasts. If you don’t actually have the Wild Appetite vinagrette like I do, I’d use a mix of pineapple juice, olive oil, a pinch of tumeric and a splash of cider vinegar. I cooked the chicken on our George Foreman Grill, which caramelised the sugar in the marinade, imparting a smoky deliciousness.

I sliced the chicken into chunks and served it with roasted beetroot, spinach, and brown rice. I’m not sure what I was really going for but it seemed to work, and I can highly recommend the vinaigrette-as-marinade route…I’m sure Paul Newman’s dressing would be incredible!

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Overheard in our kitchen:

Tim: So really, capers are just like really small olives?
Laura: Yeah, more or less. So why is it that you like capers but not olives?!?
Tim: Maybe if you cut the olives up into tiny little pieces?
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Next time: I get old-school with Girl Guide biscuits, and bake a cake with only four ingredients, none of which are butter or eggs. Yeah, I’m suspicious too, and I haven’t actually tasted it yet so if it has all the flavour of a well-boiled sponge I’ll probably just conveniently forget that I said I’d blog about it…if it turns out well then you’ll just have to wait for the next post to see what these four mysterious ingredients are!

souperstar (do you think you’re what they say you are)

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Beetroot soup. Not the most wildly titillating words someone could whisper in your ear. Especially…lukewarm beetroot soup. But beetroot soup must have something going for it if Nigella Lawson has no less than three different recipes for it. And if anyone can bring the titillation, it’s La Lawson. I mean, I say this as a beetroot fan from way back, but this following soup is not only delicious in the traditional sense – it tastes good – it’s also visually delicious. Check it out…

This soup is the deepest crimson, perhaps what the word “love” would look like if someone threw it in a blender and added vegetable stock. Sorry, got a bit carried away there with my imagery. Look how beetroot affects me so.

Having said that, I didn’t entirely follow Nigella’s recipes, I sort of did a cross between the one from How To Eat and the one from Forever Summer. To clarify, the soup from HTE is basically boiled beetroot blended with stock, while the FS one is roasted beetroot blended with stock and sour cream. I roasted the beetroot but didn’t add sour cream…wait, are you still interested?

Roasted Beetroot Soup

2 large beetroot (I’m talking actual beetroot, not anything from a can)
1 teaspoon ground cumin (I actually used ras-el-hanout because I am a bit addicted to it)
1 litre chicken or vegetable stock
Optional:
250g sour cream (which I didn’t use but I’m sure is nice)
Feta and capers to serve

Wrap the beetroot in tinfoil and bake at 200 C for 1 and a half hours, or until you can plunge a cake tester into them easily. Unwrap partially and leave to cool somewhat, then carefully peel by rubbing off the skin (seriously, that’s what you do) and chop them roughly. Biff into a food processor and whizz till kind of pulpy. Add the stock…maybe in batches…and blitz once more until it resembles soup. Add the sour cream if you so wish, ladle into bowls and sprinkle over feta cheese and capers.

While you’re making soup you might as well get some bread on to go with. To be honest the beetroot soup doesn’t really need a carbohydrate chaperone, but if you’re making something a bit more lentil-and-vegetabley the following would be perfect. And it doesn’t even knead needing. I mean need kneading. Excuse me.

Above: And it’s nubblier than a sweater on The Cosby Show. It’s funny, the words ‘seedy’ and ‘grainy’ aren’t so attractive when used in conjunction with darkened streets and online video quality respectively, but when used to describe bread they become highly desirable adjectives.

This recipe comes from Nigella Express and is not entirely unrelated to a recipe from How To Be A Domestic Goddess, only simpler. It’s also a good example of why both books are so marvelous…

Lazy Loaf

200g best quality sugar-free muesli

325g wholewheat bread flour

1 sachet (7g) instant dried yeast

2 teaspoons sea salt, or 1 teaspoon table salt

250mls (1 cup) skim milk

250mls (1 cup) low-fat water (just kidding y’all, they haven’t invented that yet)

Mix together the dry ingredients. Add the water. Mix all that together. Tip into a silicone loaf tin (or a normal one, lined with baking paper and flour). Put into a cold oven, then immediately turn to 110 C and leave for 45 minutes. After these 45 minutes are up, turn it up to 180 C and bake for a further hour. Unorthodox, yes, but once you have completed these simple tasks you’ll have a loaf of real bread.

If you don’t have actual muesli to hand, you can just use about 180g rolled oats and make up the rest (and then some) with any dusty kibbled bits you have to hand – wheatgerm, amaranth, linseeds – in this modern age I know you have something like that in your pantry. I basically threw everything at it – all of the above plus poppy seeds, ground linseeds, kibbled rye and bran. Which is why I wasn’t in the slightest bit stressed that I only had plain white bread flour. You should also know that this is wonderful the next day, sliced and grilled and shmeered with avocado (which is what we had for breakfast this morning).

Above: And like everything in life, brilliant with butter.

Cultural roundup time! Are you ready to absorb my recommendations? On Monday, Tim and I went to see a singer called Jolie Holland. That’s right, the word Jolie is being used without “Angelina” preceding it. She was absolutely stunning, with a kind of old-school blues vibe about her. I’m talking 1800s old-school. She had an absolutely gorgeous voice, she bantered generously with the crowd and, non-insult to non-injury, she did a cover of a Leonard Cohen song (the ever-stunning Lady Midnight, for those of you playing at home.) She played guitar on many songs but we were lucky enough to see her play a kind of rough-hewn violin-fiddle thing (yes, that would be the technical term) and for her lengthy encore she invited the warm-up act, a man whose name eludes me, to sing with her. And it is a shame that I can’t remember his name because he was quite a gem – if some of his songs did sound a little similar to each other it didn’t matter because the voice he sung them in was so rich and lovely.

Last Saturday we went to Te Papa museum to see the Monet painting exhibition. If any of my readers are passing through Wellington I heartily recommend it, I’m a bit of a geek for the Impressonists and have been since I was a child (it’s no wonder I was so popular) so it was a genuine thrill for me to see some of the exemplary works of this period up close and personal. And, be still my beating heart, included in the mix were two Degas sketches and a sculpture…

On Thursday I had a double-bill night, beginning with Tick…tick…Boom! at the Garden Theatre which was everything I’d hoped – ie, it didn’t suck – and followed by the band of Montreal. It was, for reasons mentioned last time, hugely exciting for me to see TTB live, and the cast seemed to be as happy performing in it as I was watching them. They all sang gorgeously, had sparky chemistry, and really seemed to get the characters as opposed to just singing the lines with their faces forming the appropriate expressions. Erm, I could go on. I actually saw it again on Friday night, which should tell you a lot about me as a person. But truly, I can’t say enough nice things about this production. Hearing those fantastic songs live – magic.
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of Montreal were brilliant live, lead singer Kevin Barnes all enigmatic and urchin-like with his blue eyeshadow and orange sparkly tunic. Although light on banter they were heavy on theatrics – including a fellow who came out wearing an impressive array of animal masks and a grey-leotarded person who would swing from bars on the ceiling – and the music was a ton of loved-up swirly-electro fun. The audience was painfully hip (lots of carefully chosen vintage dresses, arty tshirts, canvas shoes and disdainful looks) and there is, in my heart, a special dark hatred reserved only for the bloke in front of me who was not only tall and bouffant-y of hair, but, insult upon insult, wearing a large trilby hat, the circumference of which completely blocked my view as he swayed intuitively from left to right at the very same time as me. May his view one day be obstructed in a similar manner. Hopefully by someone in a sombrero.
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Finally, speaking of soup – and back to food now – after purchasing a half-price can of chesnuts, I made the lentil and chesnut soup from How To Eat. Friends, it is extraordinarily good. It’s also not that photogenic. But I wanted to throw it open wide to you all, you foodie types, what would make a good substitute for the chesnuts? Because they’re too expensive to make this soup a regular option. I tried substituting potato, which was pleasant enough but too similar in texture to the cooked lentils to be really delightful. Any thoughts?

don’t you courgette about me

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If I have been quiet lately it’s only because every time I try to talk it sort of comes out as “lksjdflkjsdkfjjjjjblaaaaarg,” on account of the fact that I saw Neil Young and Leonard Cohen in concert within five days of each other. These two musicians have been such an important part of the soundtrack of my life, so to see them live? People, it was intense. I was pit spitting distance from Neil Young, due to some assertive and judicious manhandling of myself to the front of the audience. I barely sang along, I didn’t shriek, I just stood there, transfixed during his set. My obscenely expensive Leonard Cohen ticket yielded – mercifully – a very decent seat, and I actually cried when he sang “Hey That’s No Way To Say Goodbye” and “So Long Marianne.” But every time I tried to properly describe the concerts to someone, I simply couldn’t form coherent sentences. I couldn’t describe it. For someone as, you know, excessive with words as I am, this is something. Even now I’m just talking around it, so my basic summary is: they were both sublime. I can’t believe that I managed to see Rufus Wainwright, Leonard Cohen and Neil Young within the space of a year, in New Zealand of all places.

So courgettes are incredibly cheap at the markets right now, and they’re not only cheap, they’re big, substantially cucumber-esque in size. So over the last week or so they have been featuring heavily in what Tim and I have been eating.

Firstly, in the form of a George Forman-ed dinner (we received a grill from Tim’s parents for Christmas and have already used it a ridiculous amount), where I discovered the joy of tiger-striped grilled vegetables. Seriously, all you do is slice up the courgettes, slam them in the grill for a bit, and they’re done. No dishes, no fat, but those glorious stripes…To go with we had grilled chicken, that I’d dusted with ras-el-hanout spice mix, some wild rice, roasted capsicum, and a kind of salad – more of a sprinkle than a salad though – of kalamata olives, feta cheese, and chopped preserved lemon, from a stash that had been kindly made for me by my godmother. I’d never tried preserved lemon before but I’m quite addicted – they belong to that same sharp, salty taste family as capers and olives but with an intense, salty lemon hit that’s pretty exhilarating when paired with the quieter tastes of chicken and courgette.

Courgette risotto was the next night’s dinner, nothing revolutionary in the mix here – just garlic, arborio rice (I can’t afford anything more authentically Italian-sounding than that), vermouth, diced courgettes, vegetable stock. It has been a while since I’ve made a risotto and I forgot how long they take but I don’t mind the constant stirring, and the finished result was rich and toothsome. With more grilled courgettes on the side, because they look so profesh.

Obviously you can’t move at cafes these days without bumping into corn fritters, but I think there’s a good case for the courgette version being the superior of the two be-frittered vegetables. I found this recipe in Nigella Lawson’s seasonally appropriate (for me in New Zealand, anyway) Forever Summer and decided to make them after discovering that I actually had all the ingredients. Once you’ve got all the boring grating out of the way these are pretty straightforward, and so delicious, knocking the beyond-ubiquitous corn fritter into a cocked hat.

Courgette Fritters

Approx 750g courgettes
3-4 spring onions, finely chopped
250g feta cheese
handful each of fresh parsley and mint, chopped
1 T dried mint
1t paprika
140g plain flour
3 eggs

Grate the courgettes. This is annoying, I grant you. Also somewhat annoying is that you then have to put the grated shreds of courgette onto a clean teatowel and let them sit, so the towel can absorb excess (and there is indeed excess) courgette liquid. It’s not like it’s difficult, but you will end up with a green, damp teatowel, and no matter how hard you shake it over a bowl, some flecks of courgette will remain stuck to the towel fibres. Anyway, put the spring onions, crumbled feta (and you should probably know that I left out the onions and used about half that amount of feta because that’s what I had) and herbs into a bowl. Stir in the rest of the ingredients till combined. Heat a little oil in a frying pan (although I didn’t use any because I have a good nonstick pan) and drop heaped spoonfuls of the raggedy green batter into it, flattening with the back of a spoon as you go. Cook for about 2 minutes a side, I find those silicone spatulas really useful for turning them over. As these are lovely room temperature, don’t fret unduly about getting them to the table now.

Nigella recommends lime wedges to squeeze over. To which I say, go right ahead, if you don’t mind paying $19 per piece of dry, unjuicy fruit or whatever it is they’re charging for whatever is masquerading as the humble lime these days.

Full time work is keeping me busy, and it was in a flurry of excitement that I received my first ever business cars last week. I don’t know if it means I’m institutionalised or what, but it was so exciting seeing my name on the index card.

I’m hugely tired and I have – naturally -work tomorrow so here endeth my song. Next time: well, I bought a huge watermelon at the markets on the weekend and eagerly turned it into slushy, rose-pink sorbet, so that may well feature.

Macaroon-age Daydream

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Apologies for the long gap between posts but I’m sure everyone else is just as busy as me if not wildly more so, what with the approaching Christmas and economy and global warming to worry about. Not helping is the fact that my computer has been monstrously slow of late. It took about five goes to upload my photos without the entire thing having a nervous breakdown, and you don’t even want to know how many frustrating minutes it took to even get to the point where I can type here. Using that same excuse, I apologise deeply if I haven’t been reading as many blogs as I should – I wish I could keep up with them all but my computer would require smelling salts and a cold compress. Now, seeing how this is the time of year that office parties and such become more prevalent, why not gaze upon this bowl of antioxidants as inspiration for what to do should you wish to engage in a little, um, oxidanting?

Above: You know that fruit that you get at markets sometimes that they sell for reeeally cheap because it needed to be eated ten minutes ago? Well I bought myself a bushel of the stuff on Sunday and using Nigella’s Antioxidant Fruit Salad from Nigella Christmas as a starting point, made myself an incredibly gorgeous breakfast. A slightly wilting mango was sliced into a bowl – the whole thing – followed by some strawberries, sliced and tumbled over, chopped mint from the garden and a handful of pomegranate seeds, lovingly harvested from a tupperware container in the freezer. Not pictured, but unbelievably essential, is a sprinkling of pistachio nuts, which gave the most fabulous contrast in textures and tastes, their waxy, almost chocolatey creaminess next to the zingy acidity of all that fruit. I added them at the last minute as an afterthought, but they completely made the salad.
Such are my mad domestic goddess skillz that I managed to whip up these chocolate macaroons while making the Christmas Dinner last week, obviously they aren’t the echt article from Pierre Hermes, you know, faint-makingly light, requires 19 egg whites, only 3 people worldwide know the recipe – these are rather unchic, stumpy little biscuits, but no less delicious.
I guess it’s fitting that such a quick and untaxing recipe comes from Nigella Express. I took them into the office the next day for a colleague’s birthday morning tea and they were, I’m immodestly proud to say, enormously popular. Of course, maybe people were just saying they like them because I was sitting right there. Who knows, they’re certainly easy enough to make so why not find out for yourself (although rigorous quality control in my kitchen proved that they were in fact fantastically good.)
Chocolate Macaroons
2 egg whites
200g ground almonds
30g cocoa powder
175g icing sugar
Heat oven to 200g C, and line a baking tray with paper or a silicone sheet. Mix the egg whites in a bowl with the rest of the ingredients till you have a sticky chocolatey mixture. As I said, this is very easy – no intrepid egg-white beating here. Roll the mixture into small balls and arrange on the baking tray. Bake for about 11 minutes although I took them straight out of the oven at about 8 or 9 minutes, that’s just because I get a bit nervous around biscuits – they always carry on cooking even when removed from the heat. They will be solidly chewy and densely chocolatey once cool, if you can wait that long, and are marvelous with coffee, ice cream, anything at all really.
On Monday, Tim and I went to the local Italian restaurant, Red Tomatoes, because with us both working full time and travelling round the place we’ve hardly seen each other. Red Tomatoes was recently on a New Zealand version of that Gordon Ramsey TV show where he goes into restaurants and swears a lot and then sorts out their problems. I’ve been to this place before a couple of times and it has definitely improved, in terms of decor, clarity of menu and staff attentiveness. The menu itself is not terribly adventurous, but this is not a bad thing, what is there is familiar and done well. The meals are still a little on the slow side, so don’t go there on an awkward first date. With Tim and I nattering away we barely noticed.
And the pizza is divine.

Thin, crisp, slightly chewy base…generous, piping hot toppings…lots of cheese…brilliant. Tim got the Meditteranean chicken and I got the Puttanesca and we swapped pieces as we went.

Can’t bond and connect emotionally, too busy eating own body weight in cheese.

As if cheese wasn’t exciting enough in its own right, the current economical crisis which had resulted in astronomically high prices for dairy means that eating cheese is now a hedonistic, decadently luxurious experience. They do say absense makes the heart grow fonder (and probably less clogged too, in this case.)
Next time: Who knows. Christmas is hot on my heels and I’ve barely done the dreaded but necessary shopping at all. I need a buffer month between November and December – who do you go to see about getting this sort of thing organised? And what could we call it – Lauratober?

Visions Of Sugarplums

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Occasionally, in the middle of the night, I’ll lie awake possessed by such thoughts as: If the year 2006 was two years ago, and I started uni in that year, how can I have finished my three year BA course this year? Don’t even try to work that one out or your brain will dissolve like baking soda in milk. But wait, there’s more. I possess an extensively vivid imagination, which is lovely if I want to write an allegorical children’s tale about a rabbit that falls in love with a whale, but it’s not so merry when I’m losing the battle with my brain which is thinking all sorts of things when I’m supposed to be asleep: New Zealand’s worst earthquake being moments away, Tim being hit by a bus, never seeing Wicked, killer pelicans enforcing their fascist regime upon us all.

At times like these, the only thing that really soothes – nay, distracts the mind, is thinking about baking. During a particularly awake moment recently, I came up with making the Breakfast Bars from Nigella Express. I had a tin of condensed milk kicking round and wasn’t sure what to do with it – caramel slice seemed too arbitrary, and for me there’s something rather seductive (culinarily speaking that is) about rolled oats, which the breakfast bars have by the truckload. And before you conclude that I’m totally batty, trust me. We’ve all been there, you know, watched the late night news, bogged down by everything going wrong in the world, unable to sleep in case you should be bottling your own urine because of the inevitable global shortage of water…just think about making cupcakes, or indeed any kind of sweet thing. It’s a bit like saying “happy place” over and over but more practical…and with cake at the end.


Breakfast Bars

1 can of sweetened condensed milk (roughly 400g)
250g rolled oats
75g shredded coconut
100g dried cranberries
125g mixed seeds (sunflower, linseed, pumpkin, etc)
125g unsalted peanuts


Preheat oven to 130 C, and oil a 23x33cm baking tin or throwaway foil tin. Warm the condensed milk gently in a pan till it is more liquid than solid. Remove from heat and then add the rest of the ingredients, stirring carefully with a spatula so everything is covered. Even out the surface, then bake for about an hour. Let cool for about 15 minutes then slice up. You should probably know that I left out the nuts, swapped the expensive cranberries for a cheaper mix of chopped dates and dried apricots, and that these do indeed make a brilliant breakfast on the run.

Above: They get better the longer they sit too. So if you can, try and hold off for a bit.

Something else keeping me up at night – but with happy anticipation – is the annual flat Christmas dinner which is going to be this Sunday. I cook the whole thing, the flat gets together with a few other usual suspects and we have a jolly meal before inevitably going our separate ways. It is always fun coming up with the menu, which this year needs to be both gluten free and vegetarian friendly as keeping with the needs of various people who will be attending. This isn’t a problem, you’d be amazed at how diverse Nigella’s recipes are…Here’s my menu concept so far:

2 roasted free range chickens
Cornbread stuffing (from Feast, with flour omitted to make it gluten-free)
Pear and Cranberry stuffing (from Nigella Christmas)
Roast pepper and pomegranate salad (from Nigella Christmas)
Involtini (eggplant dish from Nigella Bites as vegetarian main)
Honey Roasted Parsnips (from How To Eat)
Steamed new potatoes with mint from the garden
Peas
A big lettuce salad (ie, buy bag of salad leaves, upend into bowl)
Bread rolls (So Tim can have his requisite amount of carbs)

Pudding:
White Chocolate Almond Torte (Forever Summer)
Dark Chocolate, Walnut and Fruit Torte (basically a pavlova with all manner of good things stirred into it before baking…I’ve adapted the recipe from a few different places)
Sugar Free red and green jellies (which Tim will be in charge of)
Fresh fruit

I’m also going to try my hand at Poinsettia, a mix of white sparkling wine, Cointreau, and cranberry juice…the recipe is from Nigella Christmas and sounds completely drinkable…But you’ll hear more about all this later on in the week. It’s a lot more simplified than last year’s menu – just one meat course, veges which don’t need roasting (the fact that EVERYTHING needed oven space last year was a logistical nightmare) puddings that can be made in advance, and stuffings which are both vegetarian so I can roast whatever doesn’t fit inside the chickens and serve to everyone. We rarely eat chicken – probably once every 6-8 weeks, if that – well, I want to get the proper stuff when I do eat it but it’s soooo expensive – so I’m pretty excited about that.

I can’t believe it has been a whole year since the last Christmas dinner. I can’t believe it is a month till Christmas. Time to think of cupcakes again…

Banana O’Rily

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I’ve started full-time work this week, so you’ll have to forgive me if I get a little drunk on my own power and come over all megalomaniacal at you. I’ll try to keep it in check. Leonard Cohen tickets were selling on Trademe today (NZ’s Ebay-lite) for over $600, so as yet it looks like I’m really not going, and thus my dream of seeing my Canadian triumverate (Leonard, Neil, Rufus) is not quite going to come to fruition. No need to go listening to “Who By Fire” on constant loop just yet however, because I found out on the weekend – care of a certain lovely father of mine – that I’m going to be seeing The Who in March, and I am just ridiculously excited. For those of you who have been so unfortunate not to have had your ears blessed by their music…think of the CSI theme tunes. The original and the Miami and New York spin-off themes are all Who songs (who? I hear you say…)
We went to visit Tim’s parents over the weekend and they sent us back to Wellington with a large bag of ripe bananas, with which I decided to do the obvious thing and use them in some kind of cake. I made banana bread using a much-repeated recipe from Nigella Lawson’s How To Be A Domestic Goddess, a book so imbued with the spirit of baking that its very pages, were you to lick them, taste of cinnamon and nutmeg. Although that could well be because I’m so messy and schmeer batter everywhere.

It’s a non-threatening but diverting recipe, the batter spiked with luscious, rum-soaked sultanas (although I use Marsala al’uovo for preference, it’s flavour is impossible to better) and irregularly sized chunks of chopped chocolate folded through at the end. Rustic but elegant, easy to make but looks like you put in lots of effort…

Banana Bread


100g sultanas
75ml bourbon or dark rum (or Marsala, which makes it smell heavenly)
175g plain flour
2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
125g melted butter
150g sugar
2 large eggs
4 small, very ripe mashed bananas (about 300g when peeled)
Optional – about 60g dark chocolate, chopped roughly



Put the sultanas and chosen alcohol in a small saucepan and bring to the boil, then let cool. Or, if you’re lazy like me, just zap them in the microwave. Mix the butter, sugar, eggs and bananas together, then fold in the dry ingredients. Finally, fold in the drained sultanas and chocolate and pour into a well greased and floured loaf tin. Bake at 170 C for about an hour, although it may need longer. I reserved the remaining dribble of Marsala that the sultanas had been warmed in and poured it over the cake as soon as it emerged from the oven.

Eat by the generous slabful. Not that I’d know or anything, but even if you overcook it slightly so it’s a bit too dark on top, it doesn’t seem to do any harm. In fact this cake stays serviceably moist for a couple of days after baking.

Surprise! A short, succinct post. It’s so short and lacking in banter that I don’t quite know what to do with myself, but since I’m not feeling overwhelmingly zany right now I might as well not try and force it. To be honest I’m pretty exhausted from travelling two weekends in a row and then starting full-time has been taking a lot of my brain-space. (“just because I get around”) I haven’t had any time to cook from the gorgeous Nigella Christmas yet – have hardly had time to cook at all to be honest – but I can’t wait to start chutneying it up – her chapter on homemade gifts is seriously inspiring!

Grainspotting

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It has recently occurred to me that while I frequently wax lyrical about rolled oats and quinoa flakes and kibbled dust and the like, I rarely consider them in their most natural state: porridge. I have a few childhood porridge-memories – my late maternal grandfather making it for me when I stayed with him, having a bowlful at Nana’s place and bemusing her (I distinctly remember this bit for some reason if you’re reading Nana!) by sprinkling over white, instead of brown, sugar. To be frank I wasn’t the biggest fan of its blandly creamy flavour, I ate it more out of an early-indoctrinated sense of politeness than anything else. But, as you may have gathered from my endless praise, I’m having something of a porridge revolution. I guess that would make this Revolution 1 (as opposed to “number 9…number 9…” get thee to the Beatles White Album if you don’t know what I’m on about. Not that I know what they’re on about.)

Even though it sounds faintly vile, I tend to have cold ‘porridge’ in the mornings – just oats, and whatever other kibbled and ground bits I have to hand, with cold water stirred in, and a dash of cinnamon. The oats soften remarkably quickly – I usually leave them sitting wetly for about five minutes – and the fragrant cinnamon makes me feel like I’m actually eating something more than paste. The ratio usually goes something like; 2 1/2 T oats, 2 1/2 T quinoa flakes, 1 T wheat bran, 1 T ground linseeds, 1 shake cinnamon, water to cover. What you see in the picture above though, is actual porridge…after a Swiss Ball class at uni on Wednesday I felt like something a little sustaining and warm, as it was inevitably raining again. So I microwaved the bowl of oats for a bit and added a swirl of golden syrup – perfect! It’s funny, even though I was not, as aforementioned, a massive fan of it as a child, there seems something so wonderfully comforting about eating it now.

Forget what the Milo and Cornflake and Nutella ads tell you about sustained energy for today’s kids, oats are so filling it’s ridiculous. When I wasn’t having them for breakfast, I always would end up feeling all light-headed and incompetent around 10am, and now I just feel incompetent (sh-k-boom!) but in all honesty, I can putter along quite happily till 1 or 2 without really needing to eat a thing, I realise this is hardly a new revelation – I’ve mentioned it before on this blog in fact – but until you try – she says wide eyed and evangelically – you have no idea of the difference it makes.

Before you run away in fear from my Flanders-like enthusiasm (“it’s less fun that way!”), I present you the dairy-laden spectre of cheesecake.

In the name of journalistic integrity, I can’t tell you toooo much about this cheesecake, as I made it for the September issue of Tearaway magazine. I was getting a bit freaked out because it has been raining nonstop here in Wellington (and most of NZ in fact) for the last couple of weeks – oh, you think I’m exaggerating. I’m not. Utterly, utterly mercifully, it eased up on Tuesday afternoon and I had a window of opportunity to take some photos in natural light. Thank goodness, otherwise who knows what I would have done (my deadline is a-looming!). Anyway, I won’t show you all the rather nice photos I took, because they’re for the mag, but I couldn’t resist just one, especially because it is such a great recipe, and absolutely fuss-free – no gelatine to deal with (which, in my case, inevitably turns into gooey strings instead of folding coherently into the mixture) and no baking. Five points if you guess who the recipe is from. Oh that’s right…

Cherry Cheesecake from Nigella Express.
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By the way, this is only ‘cherry ‘ by way of the conserves that she specifies you heap on top of the finished cheesecake. I’m sure you could use anything you fancy without the Cheesecake Police coming after you.
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Base:
200g plain sweet biscuits (Nigella says 125g but friend, I like a thick base)
75g soft butter (I tend to trust Nidge’s instinct for butter, and didn’t add any more)

Blitz the biscuits in the food processor with the butter, press into a 20cm Springform.

Filling:
300g cream cheese (At room temp, unless you have serious guns)
60g icing sugar
Juice of a lemon
250mls cream

Beat the cream cheese, sugar, and lemon juice. In another bowl, whip the cream, then fold, about quarter at a time, into the cream cheese. Pile onto the base, smooth…refrigerate for 3 hours or overnight…and that’s it. It does hold together, despite not having much to it, and is coolly, creamily, tangily delicious. I don’t know if it’s just me – do all family parties have a buffet table? – but it is just begging for a can of drained, crushed pineapple to be folded through the mixture too.
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By the way, thanks for the suggestions regarding the brisket, I cooked it tonight (didn’t photograph, as I still find it difficult to make stews look anything other than sloppy), slowly with canned tomatoes, garlic, onion, cumin, nutmeg, a pinch of…tumeric…twas delicious! As I said before, natural light is a bit of a rarity here. Not only does it rain whenever I leave the house, it also seems to be particularly deluge-inous whenever I leave the house for Swiss Ball class at the uni rec centre. Maybe someone up there is trying to say something. We don’t have it so bad though – Mum and Dad have been repeatedly without power, their driveway was flooded and a tree fell over, and Tim’s parents’ farm is a complete mess, with several sheds absolutely smashed. It’s scary how quickly it all happened.

Next time: might be a little while off as I am getting freaked out with assignments for uni. However, I absolutely excelled myself as far as time management goes by mixing and kneading a loaf of bread this morning before work (at 7.30am). I left it to rise in the fridge, and baked it to go with dinner when I got home at half five, and I will blog about it when I get the chance, should the photos be useable.

Finally – finally – Tim and I splashed out on tickets to see the marvelously hilarious Bill Bailey (of the intensely funny Black Books show, etc) when he comes to New Zealand! They were pretty expensive but we run a fairly tight ship most days of the year and it will coincide with his birthday. Tim’s, not Bill’s. And we are totally going to wait at the stage door for him! Squee!

Pink Goes Good With Grain

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If anyone can tell me what is behind the (admittedly forced) pun in my title you win a million dollars.

Not. But, I would be kinda tickled if anyone can work it out.

Mum got me a bag of quinoa – something which I have, nerdily, been quite wild to try for some time now. I never thought I’d come across something more virtuous than lentils, but here I am. Life sure can take you on some interesting journeys. The Incans called quinoa the “mother of all grains” and are you going to argue with that recommendation? It contains forty squillion different vitamins and minerals and has more protein than any other non-meat product, and with all this you’d expect it to be kind of high maintenance, right? But no, a two year old could cook it. All you have to do is let it simmer for ten minutes, no pre-soaking or anything. As if all that weren’t thrilling enough, it actually tastes really good. Closest in texture to couscous, but much lighter, it has a somewhat nutty flavour which lends itself nicely to having chunks of roasted vegetables folded through…


Of course, adding roasted beetroot instantly turned the entire bowl of quinoa bright pink. Also in the mix was roasted carrot, walnuts, chopped spinach, and a perhaps-slightly-toooo-generous spoonful of ras-el-hanout. I thought about drizzling in some olive oil but the quinoa is so light and fluffy that I didn’t want it to be bogged down with gluggy oil.


Above: I did something very similar with some wholewheat pasta – more roasted beetroot, spinach, etc, but this time I included some mashed cloves of roasted garlic. The sweet nuttiness of the beetroot complemented the nuttiness of the pasta (I really need a new synonym to describe nuttiness huh?) and the garlic was a perfect addition. Again, as soon as I gave it a stir, the whole lot turned irrevocably, gaudily…pink.

Above: Once more – with organic burghal wheat. You probably don’t need me to point it out, but this inexplicably became tinted the pinkest of them all, which contrasted pleasingly with the snowy feta (added at the VERY last minute here for photographic purposes.) After that I kind of cooled it on the beetroot front but look, they’re really cheap and good for you, okay? And sometimes you have to take what you can get.

So it has been a bit of a wholegrain orgy in my kitchen lately. I know I’m smitten with them, but trust me, they’re more alluring than their earnest, hessian-weave image would suggest. And it’s not all roasted beetroot, for example, witness rolled oats cleverly disguised as pancakes…

I made these following an old recipe of Alison Holsts’s. It doesn’t make a lot, so is suited nicely to a cosy, lazy Sunday breakfast for two. They are surprisingly filling, but aren’t stodgy or lumpen at all.

Oaty Pancakes

3/4 cup rolled oats

3/4 cup milk

1/2 cup flour

1 t baking powder

1 egg

2 T sugar

2 T butter, melted

Pour the milk over the rolled oats in a good sized bowl, and leave to sit for 5-10 minutes, perhaps while you potter round getting the rest of the ingredients. Stir in the rest of the ingredients without overmixing, and add a little more milk to slacken if the batter looks too stiff. I did. I also melted the butter in the pan I planned on cooking the pancakes in, before tipping it into the batter (thus saving on dishes! Like a true student.) These work best as smallish cakes, about the size of one of Jennifer Lopez’ hoop earrings circa 2002 (meow!) and need flipping once bubbles appear. Don’t leave them for too long though as the bubbles aren’t as obvious with all those oats in the way. Eat however you want, with butter, with golden syrup, whatever.

All these various foods – oats, quinoa, burghal wheat, wholewheat pasta – are not only delicious they are also incredibly good for you. They are filling – when I used to have toast for breakfast I would not only be intensely hungry at lunch, I would also have that horrible empty-head-empty-stomach feeling. This is why I eat so much of them: So that I don’t end up buying chocolate bars at 10.00am, and so that I don’t feel bad about the big ol’ chocolate cake that I made this afternoon (and will blog about soon…)

In other news, I’m really enjoying all my papers so far this term. I may not feel that way when I’m wading neck-deep through assignments but so far, so enjoyable…however I am being positively haunted by advertising for Wicked in Melbourne, even long-suffering Tim pointed out a poster in excitement to me before – “oh” – realising it’s an Australian performance. Nevermind, these things all happen when they’re supposed to and it wouldn’t be so bad to see it in the West End even if I have to wait a while…Speaking of Broadway I am currently in love with the Spring Awakening soundtrack, if you don’t mind a little salty language and teenage angst the songs are utterly gorgeous.

Anarchy! Revolution, Justice, Screaming for Solution…(and Buttercream)

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I realise, looking back, that the last post was bordering on being unbearably wordy, so kudos to you if you made it to the end without vowing never to return. As anyone who had received one of my emails from England knows, once I start typing about stuff I’m a bit excited about, I find it hard to stop.
In order to appease you, this post is largely made up of pictures. Soothing pictures. (Especially if there are any Generation-Y kids reading, I’ve seen how, bless you, growing up amongst all this technology has stunted your attention spans!) The reason for this is that the Auckland posts took ages to do but in the meantime, dinner kept happening and needs blogging about.

Before I launch into it though, I have news that is potentially exciting to me only! The Levin Performing Arts Society is putting on a production of Rent! Okay, it’s not the damn Nederlander theatre in New York, but Levin is only an hour from Wellington and if it looks like it won’t be entirely rubbish I kinda want to go. It’s odd though, I’ve passed through Levin on the bus before and it doesn’t look like the sort of place that would take on such a production. Shouldn’t be all judgy though, as I know nothing about the company…I just hope the actors are decent. Because – Rent!! Opportunity!


Above: Nuts! When I was up home (for less than 24 hours, can you believe) I made Mum some more of Nigella’s muesli from Feast, which she has taken a real shine to (mercifully, as I gave her some for Christmas. I don’t think she’s just being polite.) It is very plain, simple, and good breakfast fare: Rolled oats and raw nuts, toasted in the oven for a bit, stirred with sultanas and a spoonful of brown sugar. That’s all. You could add whatever dried fruit or seeds you want. It may sound dull, but let me tell you, there is something quietly Zen about making one’s own muesli.


Above: Don’t you feel all warm and wholesome just looking at it?


Above: This may well look like baby food…which is what I suppose risotto is, in a way, baby food for grownups. What I mean, is that it is so mushy and comforting and formless that it is rather like…well I’m not entirely sure what I mean, I just don’t want to insult any Italians that might be roving by. That is, if they aren’t already offended by this dish’s Anglo title of “Cheddar Cheese Risotto.” Now I didn’t actually have any proper cheddar to hand, so I used a pleasantly golden mixture of Emmental, Parmesan, and er…Edam. This came from Nigella Express and we ate it for dinner when we got back from Auckland. Despite some trepidation about whether normal cheese and risotto belonged together, it was seriously fab-o.


Above: While in Auckland, I got a cookbook from Borders by a guy called Vatcharin Bhumichitr, called Healthy Salads From Southeast Asia. It was, apparently, one of Nigella’s top ten books of 1997 – is there indeed a higher recommendation? This book looks stunning, I want to make everything from it. But I started off with this bean salad. Very simple flavours of soy, lime, garlic – not the first things I’d think to pair with beans but simply delicious.


Above: This is a chicken salad from the same book, and let me tell you, this photo doesn’t do it justice (do any of my photos, come to think on it…) This salad was soooo good, I was almost disappointed that I had to share it with Tim.


Above: For some reason, whenever I hear someone say “Ratatouille,” I always want to say “Rata-three-ee” just to be facetious. Anyhow, I had the opportunity to do so when I cooked it for dinner the other night. Tomatoes, capsicums and zuchinni are cheap and plentiful, and after Auckland we really oughta eat some vegetables. So it all worked out rather nicely. I didn’t use a recipe, just kind chopped and stirred and simmered stuff together with tomato passata.

Above: Okay, so there have been salads and the like but I know what people reeeally get excited about is the sweet stuff. It was Waitangi Day on Wednesday, and I don’t know why that equated to butterfly cakes in my mind but that’s what I really wanted to do with my time. I used the recipe from Nigella’s How To Be A Domestic Goddess, it couldn’t be easier. I also used these nifty silicone cupcake-holder thingies that I got for Christmas from my godparents, not only are they useful they also suited my colour scheme!


Above: Now, I’m not one of those girls who is all “Pink pink pink pink! Everything must be pink!” But you know as well as I do that it is the only colour right for the buttercream.

You don’t know how hard it has been not to eat the entire lot in one sitting.

As well as that, I made up a cake recipe. That’s right- I’m actually super excited about it, as I have massive admiration for people who just make recipes out of their heads. Now that I’ve started, I want to make more – it is rather intoxicatingly fun. Or weird, depending on how you look at it.


Above: As you can see, I had a pink icing thang going on that day. This cake doesn’t as yet have a name, although I was inspired to ice it pink with walnuts by a description of a cake I read about in Anne of Avonlea (what is it with me and Canadian cakes? “What’s your business in Canada” indeed!) Anyway, the working title is “Coffee Cinnamon Sour Cream Walnut Cake’ although I concede that it is a schmeer cumbersome. I can’t pretend that this is the only cake in the world with these flavourings, but I haven’t seen one recently, and I didn’t use any recipe books.

More importantly, the cake tastes gooood. I got Ange and Tim to give me harsh feedback, but they had nothing but praise. And good thing too, or it would be a bit of a waste of ingredients. Anyway, I might make it a few more times before I settle on the ur-recipe, but trust me: it’s an exhilarating experience, making up a cake recipe. Do you know how finite and precise baking has to be? Do you realise how imprecise and unmathmatical I am?

Okay, so in the manner of Green Day in the Simpsons Movie – “We’ve been playing for three hours now, but we’d just like to take a minute of your time to talk about the environment!” They were booed, and eventually killed. Please hear me out though- it’s a little serious and political, but to be fair, I am so rarely either of these things. For what it’s worth (as it were):

The country village I grew up in – Otaua (always fun to spell out over the phone) – is being threatened by a company called Waste Petroleum Combustion. They want to put massive oil silos – for more than a million litres of oil – and start a treatment plant. Across the road from my parents’ house. Next to a whole swag of farmland. A stone’s throw from a school. I can’t speak on this with too much authority, but as it would happen, we got on the national news show – you can read the story here – but I wanted to say something, to use my blog as a kind of platform. I realise that this will probably only reach a few foodies in Australia and England, and my mother, but then look what happened with the Rufus Wainwright video below. I have mentioned this here before on my blog (if nothing else, I got a really pleasing Rent analogy out of it) but it seems to be getting serious so I thought I might as well mention it again in order to make people aware. I’m not sure what we are going to do about it but my Dad is now the President of the Otaua Village Preservation Society (“We are the village green preservation society…”) which is a promising start. If nothing else, we could try feeding the people of Waste Petroleum Combustion some pink butterfly cakes – if that can’t win someone over, I’m not sure what could.

Damn the man!