February 6, 2007

Happy Waitangi Day!

Although we may be back in Ireland, today we are celebrating Waitangi Day, a national holiday in New Zealand, with that ubiquitous Kiwi desert - the pavlova. After bemoaning the lack of pavlovas in Irish supermarkets, the Boyfriend went off to work this morning laden with boxes of meringue nests, tubs of cream, my hand whisk and a nice pink bowl to assemble a selection of impromptu pavs for his workmates. Bron has an entertaining defence of the NZ claim to the pavlova here, along with many delectable pictures of her own fabulous Waitangi Day creation.

Posted by Caroline at 7:55 PM | Comments (2)

January 24, 2007

Cafés in New Zealand

New Zealand cafés still continue to surprise and delight me. A moist Spinach Risotto Cake at Reid's Store during a break while driving to Nelson the morning after we arrived, eaten in bright sunshine outside on the decking was my re-introduction to café cooking, NZ style on this trip. There were other days of happy eating. Marinated Lamb on a Puy Lentil Salad with lemon yoghurt dressing at Nelson's Morrison Street Café, with a glass of local sauvignon blanc; a sticky, dried fruit-packed, gluten free Ginger Slice with a long black, milk on the side (my coffee order of choice in NZ) in Muses Café, Motueka, en route to the Boyfriend's family bach in Ngaio Bay; a last Christchurch breakfast of a fresh-baked savoury Spinach and Cream Cheese Muffin followed by an enormous date-studded sweet scone outside Veronica's Café on New Regent Street, soaking up the last rays of sun as we watched the tourist trams going past.

The secret seems to lie with the fresh-baked, often on the premises, scones, muffins and slices, good ingredients - many cafés (try Under the Red Verandah or Vic's Café, both in Christchurch) trumpet their use of free range eggs and local produce - and proprietors and customers who won't accept stale, prepacked goods made at one location and shipped all over the country as is all too often the case in Ireland. One of the few cafés I've found in Ireland that comes close to the NZ ideal is Michelle Darmody's Cake Café (there's a short piece about it here) in Dublin, even down to the mismatched, old fashioned dishes and cups that feature in my favourite Kiwi cafés.

It's often the small things in NZ cafés that make a customer feel cared for - a carafe of water either arriving on your table first thing or readily available; airy toilets which look like they have been cleaned recently; piles of things available to read while you eat, often including Cuisine, Taste and Dish and a couple of cookbooks. It's always reassuring to see café staff interested in food-oriented publications! The only place I've seen something like this in Ireland is in the delectable Café Paradiso in Cork which, funnily enough, is run by a half-Kiwi couple.

There is always an exception, and on this trip it was the Cityside Café in the ground floor International Terminal of Christchurch airport. Pasty rolls were stuffed with an indeterminate green-flecked paste that went under the name of spinach and feta. A stale chocolate muffin topped with an oddly misplaced dab of raspberry jam made me feel right at home, being a good example of the kind of sweet thing on offer in many Irish cafés. My flat white was barely lukewarm and, for a last taste of NZ, it really was a disappointing experience. Next time I'll make sure I bring in my muffins from Muffin Break - a shopping center café chain that manages to get it right, albeit in (usually) horrible surroundings, with decent muffins and lots of gluten-free options. At least their coffee is made with hot milk!

Posted by Caroline at 7:04 PM | Comments (5)

January 18, 2007

Cold as...

Two weeks in New Zealand and I didn't want to leave. Being on holidays and it being summer, rather than grey and gloomy Irish winter, certainly made things harder, especially as we had such a good time catching up with family and friends on that side of the world. We thoroughly enjoyed the main reason for our trip - the Boyfriend's sister's wedding last Saturday - especially as the reception was held in a recently opened vineyard in Moutere, Woollaston Estates, and I had more than a few chances to sample their 2006 Nelson Sauvignon Blanc!

Special mention must go to the Boyfriend's mother for cheerfully catering, twice daily, for at least eight people. I've taken down plenty of recipes from her notebooks. Now all I need is a little Irish sunshine to give me an excuse to make her Rice and Chickpea Salad or maybe I could get motivated to whip up a batch of her Chocolate Chippies this weekend...

While I didn't manage to bring back as many foodie items as Heidi did from her North Island trip - the Boyfriend had to fit another rabbit trap and a new fishing rod somewhere, after all! - I still managed to squeeze in a pile of cookbooks, a couple of new purchases and a few old ones from my Christchurch kitchen shelves.

Although I picked up Nicola Galloway's Cooking for your Child as a gift for a friend, after spending hours looking through the Boyfriend's mother's copy of these commonsense recipes and advice for friends and family of all ages, methinks I'll have to spend some more quality time with it before passing it on. It is a mine of useful information on catering for people with food allergies and intolerances and, like me, she believes in using real, wholesome butter rather than messing around with those interfered-with spreads and margarines. I also brought home The Great New Zealand Baking Book by Allyson Gofton - the perfect thing to keep at the cottage for wet Saturday afternoon baking sprees and a dear old copy of that Kiwi classic, the Edmond's Cookery Book, a present from the Boyfriend's aunt to keep me entertained after I was knocked down by a courier truck in Auckland two years ago.

Some of the tempting new NZ cookbooks that I found on sale but could not, alas, justify in buying included The Confident Cook by Cuisine writer and Savour New Zealand 2007 Programme Director Lauraine Jacobs; Taking Tea in the Medina, an exploration of Middle Eastern tastes and flavours by Julie Le Clerc and and Joh Bougen; and new collections of old favourites from Kiwi writers Ruth Pretty and Jo Segar (Ruth Pretty's Favourite Recipes and Jo Seagar Cooks). Christelle Le Ru also has a second book out - French Fare is the follow-up to her Simply Irresistible French Desserts and watch out for Passion Chocolat in 2007.

Knowing that the latest edition of Cuisine is waiting at home - I'm on my second subscription now - I avoided that on the magazine racks but, as I return to the stormy Irish winter, I grabbed Taste and the new Julie Le Clerc magazine to fortify myself with descriptions and pictures of summer barbeques and salads, picnics and pool parties. It's not helping though!

Posted by Caroline at 7:48 PM | Comments (0)

January 6, 2007

Exchanging winter for summer

We left a damp, wintery Ireland last Friday morning and touched down to blue skies and sunshine in Christchurch, New Zealand, on Wednesday after a three-day stopover in Kuching with my Malaysian family. Sure beats sitting around in Ireland with the post-Christmas blues! While in Kuching we got a chance to feast on our favourite teh tarik, or pulled tea, and roti canai, layered Indian breads that are served with a runny dahl. The next day, the reheated roti are especially delicious when they reappear with kaya, an unctuous coconut spread, not unlike lemon curd. Daily feasts of tropical fruit at my aunt's house included papaya, the hairy-skinned rambutan, several types of banana, mangosteen, sweet ripe pineapple and rich, juicy-to-your-elbows windfall mangos from the neighbour's tree. This time round we avoided the durian, however!

This was my fourth trip to Kuching - the Boyfriend's second - and our laziest. Tired from the first leg of the journey, we just relaxed, read, slept, enjoyed the heat and had some quality time with the family. There was time to snack on my aunt's rich fruit cake, my cousin's sesame-flecked brownies - although we didn't go for too much of the durian cake, after our last experience with that noxious fruit - with meals of homecooked Malay curries contributed by neighbours and my uncle's relatives. Had some good, spicy, although not too hot, Tom Yam, dishes of Mee Goreng (fried noodles), Butter Prawns and Nasi Ayam, but we missed out on Laksa, Satay and Murtabak this time round. We'll have to store up those treats for the next time we return.

Now we're back in the land of numerous types of ginger beer - Bundaberg is still at number one and, we discovered on a brief explore round the city, also available in Singapore - Pegasus Bay Sauvignon Semillon, feijoas, fantastic cafés, the Boyfriend's favourite savoury meat pies, kumara and Ginger Gems...roll on the next couple of weeks!

Posted by Caroline at 12:57 AM | Comments (9)

September 25, 2006

Christchurch Hot Chocolate

My email has been acting up recently so it's taken me a while to realise that I actually have a couple of real messages amongst all the ridiculous spam that crams up my inbox. One of the more interesting mails was from the recently opened and wonderfully named Ya-Ya House of Excellent Teas (see below) which sounds well worth checking out if you're in Christchurch. For those in search of spicy hot chocolate in Dublin, Fallon & Byrne do a too-mild version which is worth trying out but it can't beat the stuff you make at home yourself and sip by the fire on a cold, dark autumn's night...

Hi Caroline,
I'm aware that your post about chocolate & chilli on www.bibliocook.com is now more than a year old, but I recently remembered reading it a long time ago. I remembered reading about someone (you) here in Christchurch being interested in hot chocolates. We just opened Ya-Ya House of Excellent Teas last month in the Poplar Street/Cotters Lane area (just a block away from the mentioned Aji) and hot chocolate with chilli is on our menu as an alternative to tea. We moved here from Europe last year and were desperate in our search for a good hot chocolate. It was impossible to find any place that served a good hot chocolate, so we decided to do it ourselves.
Jo

Posted by Caroline at 9:32 PM | Comments (5)

September 21, 2006

Slow Food Events in Dublin, Ireland and Christchurch, NZ

Whether you're in Dublin or Christchurch, New Zealand this weekend, there are plenty of Slow Food-organised events taking place. The Christchurch branch have their second "how to survive when ship-wrecked" morning by the sea taking place on Saturday 23 September. Led by Slow Food member, amateur botanist, professional fishing guide and enthusiastic forager Peter Langlands, participants will spend the morning gathering seaweeds, shellfish, crustaceans and fish from Canterbury's shoreline at Port Levy. Information on species identification, harvesting and cooking techniques will be combined with some cautionary notes. Car pooling will take place from the CPIT car park at 9:30am. You can email Convivium Leader Bill Bryce for directions and hopefully you'll avoid what happened to me last year - a frustrating hour spent waiting in the wrong CPIT car park!

Also in Christchurch, on Sunday 24 September, The Bicycle Thief restaurant will host a family-style meal cooked by chef Nik Mavromatis to raise money for Nik to attend the Slow Food Terra Madre conference and Salone del Gusto in Turin in October. The dinner will be at 6pm on the Sunday of September 24th and the cost will be $70 per person for five courses, including wine. I've eaten Nik's fantastic food at the café in the Mediterranean Food Company and he was the inspirational teacher for classes I attended there on Tapas and pasta-making. I can tell you where I'd be on Sunday night, were I in New Zealand, especially with a menu like this...

Canapes and cocktails at 6pm, followed by:
Bagna Cauda with witloof, cardoons, baby vegetables and organic rye
bread. Wine - Cracroft Chase Pinot Gris 2005
Trio of shared pasta dishes: Gorgonzola Gnocchi, Buckwheat Pasta with
Salmon Roe and Crème Fraiche, Butternut Pumpkin and Sage Ravioli. Wine - San Silvestre 2003 Barbera D'Alba
Roast Porchetta with Cavolo Nero and Puy Lentils. Wine - Pegasus Bay 2004 Pinot Noir
Masticha-infused Rice Pudding with Rhubarb Compote. Wine - Lombardo Sicilian Moscato NV

On this side of the world, at Sunday's Farmleigh Food Market in Phoenix Park the Irish Raw Cow's Milk Cheese Presidium will launch a new label which will be used by the producers to designate cheese made from high quality raw Irish milk. The cheesemakers will be there to give tastings and talk about their cheese and Kevin Sheridan, one of the co-ordinators of the Presidia, will be giving a talk at 3pm on Irish raw cow's milk cheeses as a part of the Farmleigh culinary month. Kevin, of Sheridan's Cheesemongers, is passionate - some might say evangelical - about good cheese and about Irish raw milk cheese in particular. At a recent Slow Food Dublin evening he talked us through samples of Drumlin, Cooleeney Raw, Mount Callan Cheddar and the stunning Bellingham Blue.

The cheeses which are a part of the Irish Raw Cow's Milk Cheese Presidium are:
- Drumlin made by Silke Cropp in Cavan
- Cooleeney Raw made by Breda Maher in Tipperary
- Mount Callan Cheddar made by Lucy Hayes in Co Clare
- Dilliskus made by Maja Bindler in Dingle, Co Kerry
- Bellingham Blue made by Peter Thomas in Co Louth
- St Gall made by Frank and Gudrun Shinnick in Co Cork
- Durrus made by Jeffa Gill in Co Cork
More information on the Irish Raw Cow's Milk Cheese Presidium is online here and the Cáis (Irish Farmhouse Cheesemakers Association) website is at www.irishcheese.ie

Also watch out, the following weekend, for the Temple Bar Food Market's 10th Birthday Party on Saturday 30 September with talks and demonstrations in Meeting House Square and at the Cultivate Centre at SS Michael & John's Church.

Posted by Caroline at 9:49 PM | Comments (2)

January 4, 2006

A New Zealand classic: Ginger Gems

One of the kitchen items that I regretted having to leave in New Zealand were my gem irons. Gem irons - cast-iron baking tins, divided into a dozen small curved spaces and used to make the light spicy little loaves called Ginger Gems - seem to be indigenous to New Zealand. I had never come across this cooking implement, or the accompanying recipes, in any other country. The first few times I saw the irons at the market I hadn't a clue what they were, despite the Boyfriend's mother telling me all about what I thought were called Ginger Jams and jam irons one day. It took me a wee while to get used to the Kiwi accent!

It wasn't until I came across an article in Catherine Bell's Dish magazine that everything fell into place. With the help of the photo in the magazine I realised what the old cast iron implements at the market were. It also helped me to make the translation from jam to gem and suddenly everything was clear. So, hearing that these were one of the Boyfriend's father's favourites, I set out on a search for the irons - which, at the very time I discovered how to use them, seemed to disappear from the market. I persevered, though, and eventually managed to get my hand on a pair of lighter and more modern aluminium gem irons. Then I had to find a recipe...

While I lived in New Zealand my equipment was limited. I had no food processor, blender or mixer (although I did manage to get my hands on a Breadmaker!) so all recipes were carefully read and assessed to ensure that they were possible to make with what I did have. Dishes which involved beating egg whites to stiff peaks were ignored as were any soups which had to go near a blender. Any recipe which started off "cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy" were similarly skipped over. I've never liked developing my upper arm muscles through beating butter and sugar with a wooden spoon. And, I can tell you from experience, it takes AGES for them to get to the appropriate creamed stage. But all the recipes I found for Ginger Gems involved the creaming step so that plan, despite the presence of the gem irons, got put on the long finger for a while.

While on a trip to the Boyfriend's family bach at Lake Rotoiti, though, I came across a recipe notebook that had belonged to his paternal grandmother, a wonderful cook and baker by all accounts. Her recipe for Ginger Gems was in the notebook and, to my delight, it involved melting rather than creaming. I had fun trying to figure out some of her measurements - she mixed dessertspoons with table and teaspoons - and the method was idiosyncratic to say the least, but a few test cases later I had success.

Although Ginger Gems, served warm with butter, really belong to the era where everyone stopped for afternoon tea at 4pm, they're still good as a light desert. If you have a gem iron - and if anyone comes across one in Ireland, please do let me know! - they're something that can be mixed and baked in about half an hour. A couple of warm Gems, placed on either side of a ball of decent vanilla ice-cream and drizzled over with still-hot caramel sauce take them firmly out of the tea time bracket. A New Zealand classic, just slightly updated.

Betty's Ginger Gems
Butter - 25g
Golden syrup - 2 tablespoons
Flour - 1 cup
Bicarbonate of soda/bread soda - 1 teaspoon
Ground ginger - 1 teaspoon
Salt - a pinch
Brown or raw sugar - ¼ cup
Egg - 1
Milk - ½ cup
Butter - to grease the gem iron

Preheat the oven to 215°C. Put in the gem iron in the oven to heat.
Melt the butter and syrup together until just warm. Sieve the flour, bicarbonate of soda, ginger and salt into a mixing bowl. Add the sugar and stir until blended. Beat egg and milk together in a separate bowl and add to the dry ingredients with the butter and syrup. Mix well.

Taking the gem iron out of the oven, put a little butter into each space and, using a pastry brush, grease well. Put a large spoonful of the batter into each space and place back in the oven for about 12 minutes.

Remove from the oven and leave for five minutes before removing from the tin. Allow to cool on a wire rack.

Makes 12.

Posted by Caroline at 8:49 PM | Comments (10)

November 1, 2005

Simply Irresistible French Desserts by Christelle Le Ru

Why is it that recipe names look so much more evocative when written in French? Gâteau au chocolate et à l'abricot seems so much more sophisticated than just plain Chocolate apricot cake. Still, from the look of this slice of this moist dark cake pictured in Christelle Le Ru's Simply Irresistible French Desserts I don't think that anyone will complain if you set it in front of them, no matter which name you use. But Carrés à la noix de pécan and Crèmes chaudes aux myrtilles (Pecan squares and Hot blueberry creams, respectively) certainly do have much more of a ring to them en Français and that's a great deal to do with the charm of this Christchurch-based Frenchwoman's self-published cookbook.

In a world dominated by glossy over-airbrushed and Photoshop-manipulated food photographs, it is refreshing to come across a cookbook with such real illustrations. Like any normal home cook, Christelle doesn't always get perfect slices and sometimes her icing looks intent on flowing off the cake but when she says that that particular cake will "delight many" you believe her. After all, she's got the weight of experience behind her as all these recipes have been thoroughly tried and tested on her friends and family.

Simply Irresistible French Desserts showcases a tempting selection of Christelle's sweet creations, from traditional French charlottes (choose between Chocolate and banana, Pear and chocolate and Strawberry variations) to her take on a baked cheesecake (Fondant au chocolate). The recipes are divided between chapters entitled Chocolate Creations, Fruit Delights and Small Treats, each of which hold a selection of entirely mouthwatering treats. None of the recipes are difficult and there are plenty that have me edging towards the kitchen as I type. I think I'm going to enjoy experimenting with Christelle's Simply Irresistible French Desserts - and I will especially relish using the French names!

Simply Irresistible French Desserts by Christelle Le Ru is published by CLR.

Posted by Caroline at 11:48 AM | Comments (0)

October 30, 2005

Peter Gordon's Tomato and Chilli Jam

Before I came to New Zealand I had only vaguely heard of Kiwi chef Peter Gordon. From articles that popped up every so often in the English newspapers that I read, I knew that he cooked at The Sugar Club (still, I think, a truly brilliant name for a restaurant) and that he was designated king of what became known as fusion cuisine. That all changed when I made my first batch of his Tomato and Chilli Jam. Now he is known as the person responsible for coming up with the recipe of this addictive addition to sandwiches, sausages, noodles, patés, cheese, cold meats or just about anything that needs a little zip. I discovered it through an article in Cuisine magazine and you'll find the recipe right here.

It's not difficult to make, even if you don't have a blender. I just chop everything up as small as possible and throw it all in together. Don't be tempted to leave out the Asian fish sauce (aka nam pla). It may smell disgusting when you open the bottle but it really adds depth to the flavour. The first time I made this Tomato and Chilli Jam was during the autumn glut of tomatoes. They didn't cost too much and, most importantly, were ripe. If you make it during the winter as I did the last time (we ran out - I was desperate!) you'll be simmering the mixture for far longer than 30-40 minutes but it will eventually come together in the end. Well worth spending a Saturday morning on.

Posted by Caroline at 5:53 PM | Comments (0)

October 26, 2005

A tale of camping food and missing sleeping bags

Last weekend being a long weekend, the Boyfriend and I decided to abandon Christchurch and open our personal camping season with a trip to the small town of Geraldine. For me, camping is a challenge to see what I can cook with limited ingredients and resources and this, the first camping trip of the year, was an opportunity not to be passed up. The night before we took off, I dug out Nigel Slater's Real Fast Food - the perfect camping cookbook - and started studying the recipes. So intent was I on packing the bag of food and so concentrated was the Boyfriend on getting us out the door on Saturday morning that no one thought to pack those camping essentials - the sleeping bags.

All happily oblivious, we were on the road at a good time. As we headed down south towards Geraldine, we took time to stop on the way to check out the Darina Allen-recommended The Store at Dunsandel. Annabel Graham of Camla Farm has turned the main post office and dairy of this wee village into a welcoming and thriving café. Tempting foods, ciders and wines are stocked alongside the bleach and plasters necessary in any village store while a shelf-full of cookbooks kept me entertained during lunch. We picked up a couple of bottles of Camla Farm cider for quaffing later and our food - crumpled Iraqi flatbread with humus and olives for me and a lamb pesto fichelle for the Boyfriend - was a far tastier option than the normal pie-stop.

After setting up the tent in the central Geraldine Holiday Park more foodie pleasures were in store for us. I browsed through the fruit juices, jams, toppings, sauces and jellies in Barker's shop, trying spoonfuls of chutney, smelling jars of mustard and limiting my spending to blackcurrant fruit juice syrup and passionfruit curd. A quick look around Talbot Forest Cheese (I was sorry to miss out on a chance of tasting their goat's milk mozzarella) and Fellmann's chocolate shop and it was time for coffee and a shared piece of Citrus Slice at the relaxed Easy Way Café.

It was only that evening, after a hearty meal of Nigel Slater's Sloppy Joes, as we ate homemade shortbread from the local market, topped with spoonfuls of Barker's passionfruit curd (a truly great combination of sweet and tart, crunchy passionfruit seeds and crumbly shortbread) that the Boyfriend suddenly realised that we had no sleeping bags. Worst still, we had also managed to leave our camping whiskey in Christchurch. Despite digging out the car boot liner to serve as a blanket, Saturday night wasn't the warmest and that was the end of camping for that weekend.

Still, without that night under canvas I might have never got around to making Sloppy Joes. Fast and intensely savoury, this is a perfect one-pot meal for camping. Make sure that you have plenty of kitchen paper to hand because, as Nigel says, this will run down your chin and up your arm. Ideal for a casual environment!

Sloppy Joes for Campsite Cooking
Minced beef or lamb - 500g
Onion - 1 chopped
Garlic - 1 clove, sliced
Red pepper - 1, diced
Worcestershire Sauce - 2 tablespoons
Tomato ketchup - 2 tablespoons
Chopped tinned tomatoes - 1 tin
Tabasco or other pepper sauce - to taste
Sea salt, freshly ground pepper (yep, I do pack the salt and pepper mills while camping!)
To serve: hamburger buns or baps - 4

Heat a frying pan if you've had the presence of mind to pack one – otherwise borrow a pan from the campsite owners or your friendly local camper - and cook the mince until it starts to turn brown. While it's getting on with it, grab one of the campsite kitchen's chopping boards and get busy with the vegetables. You will, of course, have brought your favourite knife from home.

Land the onion and garlic into the pan and fry until the meat is completely cooked. Add the red pepper, Worcestershire Sauce, tomato ketchup, chopped tinned tomatoes and Tabasco to taste. Simmer the mixture in the pan for 10-15 minutes until mixture has reduced and it is smelling good and tormenting all the other hungry campers making their dinners.

Meanwhile, put your hamburger buns, preferably sesame seed-sprinkled ones, into the oven - if there is one - to heat. Otherwise throw them in the toaster for a few minutes. Do all your washing up and pack your food. Send the Boyfriend across to the tent with your food bag and to lay the picnic rug on the ground.

With the pan in one hand and the hamburger buns on a plate in the other leave the kitchen and carefully walk to the tent. Lay out the plates and roughly sandwich the Sloppy Joe mixture between the warm buns. Pour yourself a glass of rough red wine and see how much of the Sloppy Joe you can get in your mouth before it starts pouring out the other side. Pause as you realise why the dish is called Sloppy Joe but go back for seconds before it gets cold.

Finish with homemade shortbread, passionfruit curd and the realisation that you have no sleeping bags for the night ahead.

Adapted from my well-travelled copy of Real Fast Food by Nigel Slater.

Posted by Caroline at 1:45 PM | Comments (2)

October 25, 2005

Cup conversion issues

Although I'm not a huge fan of her bare basics books, Delia Smith's website is a very useful reference point. She has a helpful table of conversions here that are especially good when you're trying to convert a recipe using American cup measurements to metric but, alas, there are no references to the New Zealand or Australian cup. I didn't initially realise that these measurements were different - a cup is a cup is a cup, right? - but apparently not.

Apparently the US standard cup is smaller than the NZ/Australian one, about 240ml as opposed to 250ml (depending on who you're reading). Also, just to really confuse matters, the tablespoon in Australia is 20ml instead of the international standard of 15ml! Unless you are baking with a very precise recipe (and mine tend not to be), these differences shouldn't cause too many problems - after all, I've gotten away with using Kiwi cups for American recipes before this - but it's just something to be aware of. I think the best way around it is to have two sets of cups. Then you've no excuse for bellyflopping cakes and the like!

Posted by Caroline at 3:34 PM | Comments (7)

October 20, 2005

Beer and food matches

One night a few weeks ago the Boyfriend and I accompanied our Scottish physiotherapist housemates to a celebration of International Physiotherapist Day. Now, going to celebrations of other people's careers is not something that we would normally do but, as this was taking place at Christchurch's Canterbury Brewery, we decided to make an exception - just this once, you understand.

Canterbury Brewery, now owned by the Australian based company Lion Nathan, is pretty old. First named Ward's Brewery, it was founded in 1854 - not long after the first settlers arrived in Christchurch. The heritage museum in the brewery reflects this, telling the history of beer making in general, as well as concentrating on the brewing in New Zealand.

The physiotherapists of Christchurch, plus ourselves, were conducted to the heritage museum first. After wandering through that our guide - a very enthusiastic brewer who occasionally does these tours at night - explained the whole process of brewing and took us around the parts of the brewery which are open at night.

As soon as we walked out onto the brewery floor we could smell that rich barley/hop scent that will always remind me of Dublin's Guinness brewery. Unsurprisingly, this is the company that also brews New Zealand's Guinness. The most interesting part of this tour - there's not actually too much going on at night time - was when our guide led us into the large room, complete with massive gleaming copper vats which contain the malted barley, where they were actually making the beer. The brewing is a 24-hour operation, with brewers working in shifts, but the bottlers seem to get nights off.

We returned to the Heritage Centre bar for what was to be the high point of the evening - a beer and food matching session. It must be admitted that we were pretty hungry at this stage, not to mention thirsty! With the group seated around a long table, a pair of glasses in front of each person, we were delighted when our guide started to pull out bottles of Canterbury Draft and six of Mac's Gold. As at a wine tasting, he spoke (for too long in a hungry/thirsty person's opinion!) on the various merits of each brew and how to get the best taste from your beer. Glasses, not bottles, seemed to be the key thing but at that stage it was getting distracted by finally having some beer in front of me. The guide told us that these particular beers go best with pizza and, to our delight, proceeded to hand out three large pizzas so that we could test for ourselves. They didn't last too long.

The next set of beers were Steinlager and Stella Artois, accompanied by a platter of salami, olives, cheese and pickles. At our end of the table the pickles and olives disappeared so quickly that you might have thought that the four of us were still students!

The guide finished off the evening by explaining the merits of Speights Old Dark and a boutique brew, Speights Porter, which he said are good companions to blue cheese and chocolate mud cake, large examples of which were then produced.

I'm not sure that I'll be changing my usual glass of wine with dinner to one of beer but the Canterbury Brewery tour did make the point that, as with wine, there are definitely beers that go better with some foods than others. My personal favourite was the blue cheese and Speights Porter combination, something which I definitely intend on trying again sometime soon. Hurray for International Physiotherapist Day!

Posted by Caroline at 3:52 PM | Comments (0)

October 11, 2005

A weekend hideaway

After a stressful week, all you want to do at the weekend is get out of the city (without driving too far), stay in a comfortable place (without paying too much) and eat some good food. In search of just such a place, the Boyfriend and I stayed at the historic Governors Bay Hotel last weekend. Although it is only about a forty minute drive from Christchurch, once you emerge from the Lyttelton tunnel, which cuts through the Port Hills directly south of the city, you feel like you're arriving in another, more relaxed world.

With the outward appearance of an old New Zealand country pub, the Governors Bay Hotel has a level of comfort and service that would shame most city hotels. The fact that the bedrooms aren't en suite may be off-putting for some but, given that their Winter Escape Package - bed, breakfast plus two-course dinner - only costs NZ$150 for a couple this is a small quibble. What's more important is that the rooms, though small, are cosy and come equipped with solidly comfortable beds, something all too rare in overnight accommodation.

We arrived in the afternoon of a miserable Saturday so the view at that time was nothing to write home about although the roaring open fire in the bar did lift our spirits. Still, the rain lifted enough to allow us a good ramble along the shoreline directly underneath the hotel before we wandered upstairs to our room, legs aching, to read several of the glossy magazines that were piled high in the corridor.

Although it wasn't a particularly cold evening, another open fire made the simple dining room into a welcoming and intimate setting for a wonderful dinner. Full marks have to be given to the waitress who, in a rugby-mad New Zealand not only turned off the television at the start of what was (apparently) an important match, but who managed to be there whenever she was needed without hovering, allowing us to relax and enjoy our food. And enjoy it we did. Beautifully presented and very tasty, the food at Governors Bay Hotel is far above the level that you might expect in a country setting. I was also delighted to find my beloved Kapiti ice cream on the menu. A few drinks and the tail end of the match (for the Boyfriend - I still don't know who was playing!) in a packed bar and that was us done for the evening.

We woke to a clear, sunny and warm morning, which was a welcome contrast to the previous day's downpour. With breakfast starting at a relaxed 9am, there was plenty of time for another walk out the elongated Governors Bay wharf before we had to face food again. Just as well, as breakfast almost topped the previous evening's efforts. Combine free-range eggs and sourdough bread and I'm happy, especially when the kitchen also makes the best porridge I've ever found outside my own house. Relaxed and content, we ate outdoors on the veranda, wearing our sunglasses to avoid glare from the intensely blue sea of Lyttelton Harbour before us. Not even 24 hours there, and we didn't want to leave Governors Bay.

Governors Bay Hotel is situated on the Main Road, Governors Bay, Lyttelton. Phone: 03 329 9433

Posted by Caroline at 4:41 PM | Comments (0)

October 6, 2005

Pumpkin heaven

My only experience of pumpkins while in Ireland was at Halloween during my first year in Dublin. One of my then housemates bought a pumpkin and carved it into a grinning Jack O'Lantern to sit in the window. I had only ever made Jack O'Lanterns from turnips before and was amazed at how easy it is to hollow out a pumpkin rather than spending ages digging your difficult way through the tough flesh of a turnip! With touching (and undeserved) faith in my cooking abilities, he set the pumpkin flesh aside and informed me that it was my job to turn it into something edible. I failed the challenge, I must admit. Every time I opened the fridge the watery yellow flesh rebuked me and it wasn't too long before it made the trip to the dustbin. Since then I've seen pumpkins appearing in Irish supermarkets in time for Halloween each autumn but I've never even been remotely tempted.

However, it's an altogether different story over here in New Zealand. In autumn, pumpkins in every kind of shape, size and colour are piled high at the markets and, due to their superior keeping abilities, they linger happily on in kitchens long after the first harvest. There are many different varieties, but the Crown Pumpkin - a medium sized round pumpkin with corrugated grey skin and, unlike that Halloween one, sweet orange flesh - is one which I've used most.

Despite that bumpy past introduction, I've really enjoyed eating and cooking pumpkins here. I love roasted pumpkin - toss it in salt, freshly ground black pepper and olive oil and cook at 180°C for about 40 minutes - to accompany stews, especially a recent Bean and Pork Hock one. Any leftovers brighten up a miserable wintery day when converted to Spiced Pumpkin Soup, there's an interesting-looking Pumpkin Salad here and it can be used in curries, with pasta, for a tortilla, to make gnocchi, or in pies. It has a great affinity with kumara, the Maori sweet potato, and the Boyfriend's mother recently cooked us a rich and delicious Pumpkin and Kumara Soup. In short, the humble pumpkin is an entirely versatile vegetable that can be used in either sweet (Govinda's Pumpkin Pie, for instance) or savoury dishes and has an affinity with either spices (cumin, coriander, cinnamon) or herbs (rosemary, sage). I wonder if I'll be able to get pumpkins that taste this good when I'm back in Ireland?

Spiced Pumpkin Soup
Olive oil - 1 tablespoon
Onion - 1, chopped
Garlic - 1, chopped
Turmeric -1 teaspoon
Ground cumin - 2 teaspoons
Ground coriander - 2 teaspoons
Garam masala - 2 teaspoons
Roasted pumpkin - 1kg
Chicken stock - 1.5 litres
Coconut cream - 200ml
Fresh coriander - a small bunch, chopped

Heat the oil in a large saucepan and fry the onion and garlic for a few minutes over a moderate heat, until softened. Add the spices to the pan and fry for a moment until the mixture smells fragrant. Tip in the roasted pumpkin and chicken stock, bring to the boil then reduce the heat and simmer for 15-20 minutes.

Purée with a hand-held blender or use, as I do, a potato masher for a more textured soup. Add the coconut cream, warm briefly then serve, sprinkled with chopped fresh coriander.

Serves 4.

Posted by Caroline at 6:34 PM | Comments (6)

September 28, 2005

Cooking classes

One of the things that I do enjoy about living in New Zealand are all the cookery classes that are on offer. Not only the usual night courses at the various schools around Christchurch, but also food shops offering classes in the use of their goods à la the Mediterranean Food Company and Café and tonight I'm looking forward to a class with Judith Cullen of Judith Cullen's Cooking Classes fame.

That cookbook is particularly focused on cooking with seasonal produce, something that I've found much easier to figure out by buying my vegetables at Christchurch markets rather than having to depend on supermarket permaseasons. Apparently Judith is going to cook her September menu, "full of great North African flavours". Sounds good to me! And then, if I'm not all cooked out, there's a pasta workshop tomorrow night at the Mediterranean Food Company and Café...

Posted by Caroline at 5:12 PM | Comments (0)

September 9, 2005

Fair Trade spices in Oxfam

My local Oxfam Fair Trade shop here in Christchurch has started stocking Fair Trade spices, including ground ginger, cinnamon - ground and sticks, whole cloves, whole and ground black peppercorns and chilli powder, all from Sri Lanka. I've only bought the black peppercorns so far - they're really pungent, after they spent a night in my handbag it all smells of pepper! Each little package comes with a little flyer giving information on the origins of the spice and some ideas of how to make the most of it in cooking.

The Oxfam Fair Trade shop also stocks many other Fair Trade products including Thai jasmine rice - not my beloved basmati, alas - tea, chocolate, coffee (beans and ground as well as, I was interested to see, an instant version), hot chocolate and a huge variety of handicrafts. All prices are very reasonable, my peppercorns were only $2.95, for instance - a small price to pay for a clear conscience.

Find out more about Fair Trade here.
Oxfam Ireland have their website, including information on where your local shop is situated, here.

Posted by Caroline at 4:16 PM | Comments (7)

September 8, 2005

Taste: Baking With Flavour by Dean Brettschneider and Lauraine Jacobs ****

Taste: Baking With Flavour is the third book from the partnership of professional baker Dean Brettschneider and contributing food editor at Cuisine magazine, Lauraine Jacobs. Their first two books - The New Zealand Baker and Baker, The Best of International Baking from Australian and New Zealand Professionals - were perhaps a little too technical for home use, although it was evident that they were fantastic resources for anyone in the baking business.

Without dumbing down in any way, the authors have redressed this issue in Taste and the book is packed with more than 50 recipes that will have even the more inexperienced cooks making a beeline for the kitchen. This time round, the authors have broken the method down to manageable steps plus, beside each recipe, are useful Keys to Success, which draw your attention to variations, substitutions and suggestions to make the recipe easier.

There are several unusual taste and texture combinations - Plum, Almond and Fennel Tart or Rosemary Rice Pudding Tart being just two of these - and plenty of gluten-free options, Lemon and Blueberry Polenta Cake and Poppy Seed Bread, for example. There are also recipes for those interested in taking bread baking a little big further and the Chardonnay Loaf, topped with a hand-moulded bunch of grapes (instructions and pictures included!), is a fine illustration of this.

The book is divided into three chapters - Pastries, Pies and Tarts; Breads; and Cakes and Cookies - each of which starts with basic techniques and recipes to enable you to get the best out of whichever recipes you decide to cook. Ending with supplementary information on ingredients and equipment, Taste: Baking With Flavour is an essential addition to anyone's baking library.

Taste by Dean Brettschneider and Lauraine Jacobs is published by Random House New Zealand.

Posted by Caroline at 6:00 PM | Comments (2)

September 4, 2005

A wet day at the farmers' market

Even though yesterday was a miserable day in Lyttelton, it looked like the farmers' market was successful. The Boyfriend, his sister and I made our way out there around 11am and the Supervalue Carpark was pretty busy by that stage, with a few of the suppliers already running out of supplies. We wandered around for a while, tasting Ground Foods delicious dips and observing the huge queue at the Tuahiwi Organic Produce stall but the cold wet day ensured that we had little inclination for dawdling. We did manage to pick up a few things, however, before we legged it to the warmth of a local café.

12 - eggs from Annie's Free-Range Eggs.
9 - beautiful handmade chocolates, three of each Baileys, peppermint and Cointreau/orange, from a woman called Victoria who had the biggest and most desirable-looking chocolate and carrot cakes on her stall as well. Perhaps next week...
2 - small punnets of mustard and rocket seedlings for planting in the garden.
1 - pot of mizuna salad leaves for the same purpose.
1 - bottle of Brayburn apple juice from Annabel of Camla Farm who assured me that she will be there next week with real cider.
1 - bag of wild walnuts. All we need now is a nutcracker!

Posted by Caroline at 5:32 PM | Comments (2)

September 2, 2005

Lyttelton Farmers' Market

Although there is no shortage of small weekend markets in and around Christchurch, the one thing missing is a proper farmers' market. A couple of weeks ago, however, I read an announcement in local newspaper The Christchurch Press - which does a fantastic food section every Thursday - about a farmers' market starting up this Saturday, 3rd of September, at the Supervalue Carpark, which is just off Canterbury Street in Lyttelton. Lyttelton is a harbour community, just about half-an-hour's drive from Christchurch, and was one of the original ports of entry for English settlers arriving in New Zealand in the 1850s.

The farmers' market will take place from 10am till 1pm and will sell locally grown and locally made produce, direct to the public from the producers. Apparently the goods for sale must be either grown or produced by the seller - no middle men - and no craft stalls are allowed. A recent email I got from the Christchurch branch of Slow Food detailed a few of the producers, some of whom will be familiar names from these pages:

Athena Olives, Vic's Bread, Ground Foods - quality spices and dips, Tuahiwi Organic Produce, an egg producer, a honey vendor, a flower grower, a small goods manufacturer, a garlic producer, a patisserie maker. Fresh fish will also be sold separately from the fishing wharf.

As you may have noticed, I was recently involved in Jen's Eat Local Challenge during August, and, although the month has finished, it doesn't mean that the challenge is truly over. As an avowed lover of markets, to the Boyfriend's frequent exasperation (I tell him that he can't complain too much - at least he gets good meals out of it!), this is the perfect place for me to stock up and meet some more small local producers. For anyone based in the Canterbury region, it should be well worth checking out.

Posted by Caroline at 5:12 PM | Comments (1)

September 1, 2005

Eat Local Challenge: Final words...for now

Even though I came late to the month-long challenge - think last week! - I've really enjoyed having to focus on Eating Locally. New Zealand, and especially Canterbury, is a particularly good place to be doing this.

Earlier this year I interviewed Tina Duncan, who has a catering business, runs cookery classes and is also one of the founders of the international food and wine masterclass Savour New Zealand. She said that one of the reasons for locating Savour NZ in Christchurch was because of the great local produce that comes from Canterbury. "Once we discovered we could make great wine then the emergence of boutique producers followed on because they're all part of the industry," said Tina during our chat.

"You want the olives to go with the wine and the olive oils are just getting better and better. We're growing the best saffron in the world here in Canterbury and we're making fantastic wasabi. We just wanted to celebrate the fact that we've such wonderful produce." Wine, olives, olive oil, saffron and wasabi are only the tip of the food iceberg produced in Canterbury and during the interview Tina pointed out that this area can rightly be called the pantry of New Zealand.

Here are a few of the variety of local producers in the Canterbury region that I've come across:

Athena Olives
Based in Waipara, North Canterbury, the Clausen family produce award-winning olive oil as well as a gorgeous extra virgin olive oil lavender soap.

Barrys Bay Cheese
Cheesemakers near the French town of Akaroa.

Karikaas Natural Dairy Products
Organic cheese- and butter- makers in North Canterbury. I use a lot of their buttermilk for my Brown Bread and in Date Scones.

NZ Bio Grains Ltd
An Ashburton mill which supplies organically grown grains, flours, pulses, nuts to Piko, my local wholefood shop. Their Stoneground Organic Wholemeal Flour is especially good for Brown Bread.

Pure Wasabi
Amazingly tasty wasabi paste grown and processed in Canterbury. Much nicer than anything you'll ever have tasted normally with your sushi. Most wasabi pastes are apparently adulterated with horseradish.

Eight Moon Saffron
Beautiful stigmas of saffron - the most expensive spice in the world, apparently - are harvested by the wonderful Errol Hitt who also makes saffron infused honey, chocolates and marinades.

And that's not to mention the people that sell at the markets in English Park and Riccarton Racecourse. I also have high hopes for this weekend's Lyttelton Farmers Market.

As you can see, shopping locally wasn't too much of a challenge for me here. In Ireland, where the vast majority of fruit and vegetables are imported it might be a different story. If I'm back in Dublin this time next year it would be interesting to try the 2006 Eat Local Challenge.

I don't think that the effort to Eat Local changed my shopping and eating habits very much overall. Since I arrived in New Zealand, I have more time and less money than I had in Ireland. This has meant that I've made more of an effort to patronise the small local stores rather than the big, supposedly convenient, supermarkets. I've seen butchers and greengrocers fall by the wayside in Ireland and would hate to see that happening here. My week of Eating Locally definitely accentuated my efforts to use small local producers - all in all, a very enjoyable experience. Thanks Jen!

Posted by Caroline at 5:32 PM | Comments (0)

August 30, 2005

Eat Local Challenge: Your daily bread

Bread is very important to me. I love it fresh, I love it stale and ready for toasting, l love it with cheese, I love it in particular - fresh or toasted - with good salty butter. I love the way it mops up your plate after you've had a particularly tasty tomato pasta dish. I love the yeasty smell from the breadmaker as it cooks yet another loaf of homemade bread. I love making my own Brown Soda Bread and, most importantly, eating it. In short, I can't fathom a life without bread. That was why it was so important, after I moved to Christchurch - before the coming of the breadmaker - to find a local source of decent bread. The only time I ever use slice pan or a sliced loaf from the supermarket is when I'm temping and need something quick and easy to make my sandwiches for lunch. But it's not something that I'd chose as part of my normal daily life.

Part of Eating Locally is very supporting the small shops and producers of the area, something which I'll do as a matter of course - as long as their product is up to scratch. And for a while there, the bread that I was getting from a few bakeries around Christchurch wasn't much better than the "luxury" bread that you'd pick up at the supermarket. That was, however, before I discovered Ma and Pa's Bakery. They have a shop at in the Christchurch suburb of Richmond but, even more convenient for me, they have a city centre outlet just off Cathedral Square, on my way to the library. They make a variety of different breads and, even when well stocked, it's a habit of mine to walk past - just in case there's one that I might need. We've eaten our way through much of their stock at this stage - their nutty and sour Californian Sourdough, the very different Pain au Levain, a dense Rye Loaf, the wholewheat and wholegrain Wild West Grain Loaf, an intensely savoury Parmesan and Red Onion Focaccia, a delicious nigella seed-scattered Turkish Flatbread and, most importantly, their Maori Rewana Bread. A sourdough with a potato starter, the Rewana Bread is a solid loaf which is very happy to be eaten with one of my chunky Vegetable Soups. It's also a great basis for cheese-on-toast and lasts very well so that there's never a scrap thrown away.

Another café/bread shop that I've recently discovered is Vic's Café and Bake on Victoria Street. Vic's puts great emphasis on making all its food with vegetables from an organic supplier and it uses organic free-range eggs for its sumptuous brunch range of French Toast, pancakes and Eggs Benedict. The café is a great place to spend some time in the afternoon with a coffee and something sweetly delicious - and there are many decisions to be made about what loaf of bread should accompany you home. So far I've only managed to try their award-winning Wholegrain Bread. The loaf is packed with linseed, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, polenta, oats and rye and is a nutritious meal in itself. Match that with some cheese from the local range stocked by Canterbury Cheesemongers around the corner and you've a fantastic locally sourced meal. Is it time for lunch yet?

Posted by Caroline at 1:05 PM | Comments (0)

August 28, 2005

Eat Local Challenge: Spanakopita

There are so many things that you can't go near when you're trying to Eat Local. I had written this piece about Spanakopita ever before I started this challenge but, pressed for choice on Saturday night, it was something I happily turned to. I had spinach and onions from Canterbury, feta from Karikaas, ricotta from Zany Zeus (North Island but still New Zealand!), nutmeg, couscous for the accompanying salad and local free-range eggs from Piko, our brilliant local wholefoods/organic shop but I must admit failure with the pastry, which was Australian. If I had been a bit more organised ahead of time I could have made my own but still, it didn't turn out too badly!

When I was in college in University College Cork, one of our greatest treats was to go out for dinner to the Quay Co-Op. As well as a wholefood and organic shop, rather like Piko, it was also our local vegetarian restaurant. Although none of us were in any way inclined towards giving up meat, we all loved the food (good and filling), the prices (very reasonable) and the fact that they welcomed you bringing your own wine. I think there was a ridiculously cheap corkage of about £2 (this was way back in pre-Eurofication times) and we took full advantage of it for birthdays and other celebrations. I can even remember a party of us turning up with a bottle of wine apiece on Holy Thursday to do our pre-Good Friday drinking in comfort.

One of the dishes we most loved was their Spanakopita - a Greek dish of spinach and cheeses, enclosed in a delicate filo pastry case. One member of the group, who particularly had a weakness for this particular dish, prevailed on the chef on night to give her the recipe. It was something we often cooked for parties or get-togethers while we were in college and, especially as I have a spinach-loving boyfriend, I have regularly made it since then.

Sometimes it can be difficult to get your hands on filo pastry - and not so easy to manage - so, among other things, I have adapted the recipe to use a puff pastry crust. When made with puff pastry it really is a most obliging recipe, always happy to be made well before it is needed and sit around to be cooked at the last minute. I'm sure it wouldn't even mind being frozen for a while and cooked direct from the freezer, although I have not yet lived with a freezer big enough to take a whole Spanakopita. Besides, if the Boyfriend sees that I'm making it, there's no way that I would be allowed to save it for too long.

A word about feta cheese before I move on to the recipe. I always cut it into small cubes and fold it through the spinach and cheese mixture at the end as I like getting little pieces of it scattered throughout the dish but you can blend it more thoroughly, if you like. Also, always taste your feta before adding it. The cheese I used in Ireland was much saltier than the feta I find here so you may need extra salt to compensate. Don't forget to season the spinach and cheese mixture well. It is too late to be thinking of adding seasoning when it is cooked. In the summertime I normally serve this with a salad of diced vine ripened tomatoes and red onions, tossed with balsamic vinegar, and either Tabbouleh or some variation on Couscous Salad.

Caroline's Spanakopita
Puff pastry - two large sheets
Spinach - 1x 300g bag
Ricotta cheese - 200g
Onion - 1, finely chopped
Eggs - 2 plus 1 for glazing the Spanikopita
Freshly grated nutmeg - ¼ teaspoon
Pine nuts - 25g, toasted
Feta cheese - 150g, cubed
Sea salt, freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 200°C and place a baking sheet in the oven to heat.

Roll out half the puff pastry and line a swiss-roll tin with it. Wash, dry and chop the spinach then combine it with the ricotta cheese, onion, eggs, nutmeg and seasonings. When well mixed, fold in the cubed feta cheese and put the mixture into the lined tin.

Roll out the rest of the pastry to make a lid and, using beaten egg, stick the layers together. This is when you can put the Spanakopita aside, leaving the glazing and baking until later.

Brush with more beaten egg and cut three slits into the top of the Spanikopita. Place into the oven on top of the hot baking sheet - to ensure that the base of the Spanakopita is cooked - and cook for 40-50 minutes until well-risen and golden brown.

Posted by Caroline at 9:03 PM | Comments (4)

August 26, 2005

Eat Local Challenge

I've just discovered the Eat Local Challenge posted by Jen on her life begins at 30 blog. She invited fellow food bloggers to make the commitment to eat locally produced food during August. In her own words:

"For the month of August, I would like to invite all bloggers to join me in taking a challenge to eat food local to where you live. You will be able to build your challenge parameters yourself, and set reachable goals for the month. Ths goal of this time is to eat as much local food as possible, and to really pay attention to where your food comes from."

Typical that I should discover this as the month ends but it did put me thinking.

In Ireland, my main source of food was the local Tesco. I'd go there a couple of times a week, without a list normally, and pick whatever caught my eye or was on special. Since moving to Dublin, I've never lived more than 10 minutes walk from the supermarket so there was never much pressure if I forgot something or I decided to make a dish for which I didn't have the ingredients. I just ran up the road and collected the necessary - and several other things which I didn't need but which came to hand at the time!

I rarely went to the butchers, there were no nearby greengrocers and, since I didn't really eat much fish at the time, I didn't need a fishmongers. As my favourite meal normally involves bread and cheese - but the bread has to be good and the cheese fabulous - I did need a cheesemongers. Some of my nicest meals involved something savoury that I picked up from Sheridan's Cheesemongers around the corner paired with a baguette from the gorgeous La Maison des Gourmets. I did make an effort to eat Irish cheese (Cashel Blue, I miss you) but you could hardly call a baguette, even if produced in Ireland, a local food.

For me, eating locally is all connected with shopping locally and I'm doing a lot more of that here in New Zealand. Maybe it's because I've a bit more time on my hands in Christchurch but I think it's also because this city is much better supplied with great shops. Where I live is within walking distance of two butchers - Peter Timbs in Edgeware and Verkerks on Manchester Street. There's a fishmongers a few doors down and a really nice cheesemongers just a few minutes walk away. All of those do make life a lot easier, especially if you're trying to buy and eat local. Now the supermarket stop is just once a week, complete with a proper list, and almost all our veggies come from the local market or direct from the growers. I discovered yesterday that Christchurch's first farmers' market takes place in Lyttleton next weekend so that will increase the Eat Local scope still more.

Time to put the thinking cap on and see what else I can manage in the line of local food before the month is up. But there are a few questions that I have to answer first:

1. What's your definition of local for this challenge?
I was going to be cheeky here and say all of New Zealand but then I realised that I generally eat more locally than that, especially as there are so much fruit and vegetables grown around the Canterbury region. So, Canterbury it is, then.

2. What exemptions will you claim?
I think the list of exemptions could be longer than the things that I'll be able to use so I'll just hold off on answering that one for the time being!

3. What is your personal goal for the month?
Well, as I said, it's a bit late that I'm starting but I'll try to increase my usage of food from the Canterbury area, discover new suppliers and be more imaginative in my use of the good basic Kiwi veggies.

Posted by Caroline at 2:17 PM | Comments (0)

August 24, 2005

Yoga - and Pumpkin Pie

Govinda's in Dublin - a vegetarian restaurant run by the Hare Krishnas - has a great reputation and was one of those places that I always intended to go for dinner. Somehow I never managed to make it there but, when I was searching for a yoga class in Christchurch lately, I discovered that they run them in the Christchurch branch of Govinda's. not only that but, for $15 you get an hour's yoga plus your dinner. How could such an offer be turned down? Last week I tried the class and I think I'll be returning every week for the food, as well as for the yoga. After working hard for an hour, the delicious meal is truly well deserved.

Over the last two weeks we have been served a dal-type soup with mustard seeds and then a plate of rice, curry, fritters, chutney and salad. All vegetarian, of course, but - more importantly! - tasty and filling as well. But the real highlights have been the deserts. Last week we got a glorious Apple Crumble which I, the crumble connoisseur, could not fault and this week an amazing Pumpkin Pie appeared. The lads at my table were very pleased to see it coming out, telling me that it's apparently the best Pumpkin Pie in all of Christchurch. Pumpkin Soup is no longer a novelty to me but this pie was a surprise - I had only heard of Pumpkin Pie for American Thanksgiving. Curious, I tasted it and it wasn't long before that special little slice disappeared. It was an open pie, with a smooth, velvety, cinnamon-scented filling. The texture was more akin to a mouse than a pie but no delicious for that. Well worth stretching for!

Posted by Caroline at 3:55 PM | Comments (0)

August 18, 2005

All things chocolate

Beer drinkers, as wine drinkers, are pretty well catered for in New Zealand. There are plenty of microbreweries and brew pubs about - Brew Moon, the Dux de Lux and the Twisted Hop are amongst some Canterbury favourites - but even the big breweries have pretty decent beers. One of the biggies is Speight's Brewery. Known as "The Pride of the South", it is based in Dunedin and produces a very tasty dark beer called, in an obvious move, Old Dark.

Normally, given my preference for wine I don't get to taste too many new beers but, as Bealey's Speight's Ale House opened around the corner from us in Christchurch recently, it seemed churlish to ignore their obvious speciality. Especially so when I discovered that they have a limited edition Chocolate Ale (Dunedin is also the home of Cadbury) on sale at the moment. I demanded a pint and spent the next hour drinking it - it's certainly not something that will go down fast.

Despite a few initial doubts, it was a fine flavoured, although sweet, drink. It had a true dark chocolate taste with a cherryish aftertaste. Immediately it reminded me of the Black Forest chocolates that were my childhood favourites from the Christmas box of Cadbury's Roses. That was, of course, before Cadburys decided to replace them and the yummy marzipan ones with some of those manky praline-centred things. The information on the bar suggested pairing the Chocolate Ale with rich chocolate deserts but it is a perfect after-dinner drink on its own. Maybe there should be an Irish version - Chocolate Guinness, anybody?

Posted by Caroline at 4:43 PM | Comments (6)

August 9, 2005

Savour New Zealand: Dean Brettschneider

New Zealand baker Dean Brettschneider was one of the people that I encountered at the recent Savour New Zealand in Christchurch. Together with Lauraine Jacobs, a Cuisine food editor, he has recently published Taste, the third in a series of quality books on baking. At Savour New Zealand, when not signing stacks of Taste and his other books, he gave an eagerly anticipated class called Kneading the Dough in which he made a loaf of my favourite sourdough bread.

With sourdough, you don't use yeast from a packet or jar. Instead you just use the natural yeasts from the air, making a starter that ferments over time to raise the dough. I was particularly interested in this bread as the Boyfriend had tried a series of sourdough experiments in Dublin with not a huge amount of success. Getting one useable loaf of bread out of about ten can't be seen as a good statistic in anyone's books!

Dean emphasised the simplicity of sourdough during his class and, when I talked to him afterwards, I asked him if he saw his role as taking the mystique out of breadmaking. "There's people that do create that mystique. All the hidden secrets. What is it? Just flour, water and salt," he says. "The books are about giving people the confidence, giving them photographs, giving them explanations. Some good information that works. I try to unlock the secrets. Nothing is complicated. It is simple. It's about the little things."

In the notes that accompanied the class, he stated that his baking philosophy was "back to the future", a statement that he enlarged on later. "It's going back to the past for the style of product," said Dean, "but we're using futuristic knowledge and modern ingredients to bring it forward."

So why sourdough? As I've discovered myself, it's not the easiest bread to make. "Sourdough is what everyone is interested in," according to Dean. "That's what everybody wants to know. People either get scared about it, they get enthusiastic and passionate about it or it's too hard. It's one of those things that I'm going to focus on for a while because it's not so hard. But what I like about it is that flavour and that natural feel."

Despite the fabulous bakeries that you can find scattered around New Zealand and the success of his own baking books, Dean doesn't believe that there's any major new interest in baking. "There's a resurgence within a particular group, within the group that is passionate and excited about good food. But it's not going to take the world by storm. The majority of people don't really care. They want white bread."

In his class he encouraged people to bring a loaf of their own sourdough around to a dinner party instead of a bottle of wine. He sees that as "throwing a few seeds out and they're springing up here and there." Dean is firmly convinced of the importance of introducing people to truly good bread and then "they're going to have an appreciation for good bread, good baking. So they're going to go and search for that good loaf of bread. That's what the books are about, creating a demand. They discover where a good bakery is and they go there and they get a good experience. That's the secret. Lauraine and myself educate these people, passionate food people, but I also have a task on my hands of educating the bakers about delivering the experience to these type of people. You get mediocrity all the time. Take the time, learn, learn, learn. Most bakers are not wanting to learn really. It's a long, long mission."

This can occasionally be discouraging, but it doesn't seem to have taken its toll on Dean whose youthful looks belie the fact that he has spent the last twenty years baking. I asked him if they ever feel like dog years: "It has its toll," he says ruefully, "but if you have the enthusiasm it's kind of magic. It just lifts you. So if I want to get a bit enthusiastic I just bake. You can be in the worst mood but it just lifts you."

This enthusiasm comes across in his demonstration as, while demystifying the whole sourdough process, Dean shows how baking can be fun. But, as he also noted during the class, "the simple things in life are not always easy" and, while I may have had good intentions while the glorious sour nutty taste of the sourdough bread was still on my lips, I still haven't got round to making it. Maybe, with my newfound knowledge, it's time for further experiments...

Posted by Caroline at 9:19 AM | Comments (0)

August 7, 2005

Pies in New Zealand

Pies truly are a New Zealand classic. Maybe it's because of the British influence and their Pork Pies, although colonisation of Ireland didn't leave us with any such culinary heritage. As I mentioned the other day, pies are eaten by Kiwis on long road trips - the guarantee of a good pie will encourage people to take major detours - and they are apparently the traditional accompaniment to a rugby match. The national pie is bacon and egg and, every summer, magazines and newspapers compete to give the perfect recipe for this picnic standard. Apparently a good Bacon and Egg Pie is dependent on you not breaking the egg yokes as you add them to the sliced bacon in the pastry case. Hmm...another recipe to try out at some stage in the future!

When I was small I remember my mother regularly making a deliciously savoury Lamb's Kidney Pie encased in shortcrust pastry. It was never steak and kidney, for some reason, not that I ever minded. For me the Kidney Pie, with bacon and sometimes mushrooms, was the height of culinary sophistication although, if I took a piece of it for lunch at school, I was bound to get someone going "urgh...kidney...disgusting!" I think I put them off their lunches more often than they managed to put me off mine.

But, back to my pie-fest for the Boyfriend's birthday dinner, the Beef and Chorizo Pie was topped with a thick homemade scone-like pastry so I decided that the pastry for the Chicken and Mushroom Pie should just be plain (bought) puff pastry. I must admit to not being particularly precise about how the pastry fitted across the top of the pies as, for me, the nicest part of a pie is where the gravy bubbles up around the pastry.

A search online for Nigel Slater plus Chicken Pie brought up this recipe for Deep-dish Chicken Pie which I adjusted to my own needs. The filling is fabulous, much richer by being made from stock than it would have been from milk (although I couldn't resist adding a little cream). Thickened a little, it would make a great filling for a Chicken Lasagne or you could use it as a pasta sauce or on top of rice or...

Chicken and Mushroom Pie
For the chicken:
Chicken thighs - 8, skinned and boned
Carrot - 1, chopped into rough chunks
Onion - 1, halved
Bay leaves, thyme and parsley stalks

For the rest of the filling:
Onions - 4, chopped
Olive oil - enough to cook the onions
Smoked streaky bacon - 200g, chopped
Mushrooms - 350g, quartered
Butter - 70g
Flour - 70g
Chicken stock - 2 litres, from simmering the chicken pieces
Cream - 100ml
Peas - 150g, fresh or frozen
Thyme - a few sprigs
Puff pastry - enough to top your ovenproof dish
A little beaten egg for glazing

Put the chicken pieces in a heavy-based pot with the carrot, the onion and the aromatics. Cover with just over two litres of water and bring to the boil. Turn the heat down and leave to simmer for about 30 minutes until the chicken is cooked and the water has become a tasty stock.

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a heavy pan and cook the onions slowly until just starting to colour. Add the chopped bacon and mushrooms. Continue to cook over a low heat for about 15 minutes until everything is soft. Remove the chicken from the stock and chop into rough chunks. Add to the mixture.

Strain the stock and discard the vegetables and herbs. Melt the butter in a pan and add the flour, cooking it over a moderate heat for one minute. Pour in the stock and cream and stir well, then simmer for 10 minutes or so until it thickens into a rich sauce. Add the onion and chicken mixture with the thyme and peas and season well. Pour into a deep oven dish and allow to cool.

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Roll out the puff pastry and lay it on top of the pie. Brush with egg and cut two or three holes in the top to leave steam out. Bake for 20-30 minutes until the pastry is golden and puffed and the filling audibly simmering.

Adapted from a recipe by Nigel Slater.

Serves 6.

Posted by Caroline at 7:49 PM | Comments (8)

August 3, 2005

The Boyfriend's birthday dinner

Yesterday was the Boyfriend's birthday so I decided to throw a small surprise birthday dinner - just us, three of his sisters, one sister's boyfriend and our two Scottish Housemates. The plotting and planning for this has been going on for a couple of weeks but, after pondering various options, I only decided on what we were going to eat fairly late in the day. My first idea was for a kind of Chinese banquet, heavily influenced by the fact that I'm reading a cookbook by Chinese Australian chef Kylie Kwong at the moment. That, and the fact that it contains a recipe for Sung Choi Bao of Pork. We loved this when we had it for the first time - and the second - at Indochine restaurant and it looks like a good dish to try out at home. I think I'll still end up cooking it at some stage but it looked like a difficult dish to make for eight. So, eventually, I decided on another of the Boyfriend's favourites - the good old Kiwi meat pie.

Pies are big business over here. You can get them at any local corner store or garage shop and they, rather than the plastic Irish sandwich in a plastic box, seem to be the food of choice for anyone travelling a long distance. Why I don't know. The only way they seem to differ from that typical 'hang' (otherwise known as ham) sandwich is that they're usually served hot. Other than that, the pies that I've had seem to be a matter of indifferent pastry enclosing mysterious meat filling and dried up gravy. Not necessarily a culinary classic - but, when well made, pies can be delicious. Never being one to cook a single dish when two will be too much, I decided to make a Beef and Chorizo Pie, adapted from Julie Le Clerc's Simple Café Food, as well as a Chicken and Mushroom Pie, inspired by Nigel Slater.

Simple Café Food and its successor, More Simple Café Food, were the origins of my accompanying salads for the meal. Fed up with my usual tabbouleh and couscous salads, I branched out with slight adaptations of Julie Le Clerc's Orzo with Spice-Roasted Carrots, Currants and Pine Nuts, Cracked Wheat with Lemon, Spinach, Herbs and Seeds and Roasted Purple Onions with Dried Sour Cherries. Although not a very extensive menu, I would have been lost without the help of one of the Boyfriend's sisters, on the salad-making side of things, and one of our Scottish Housemates who got stuck into the washing-up with a will and a way so that we were finished - just! - before the Boyfriend and the other Scottish Housemate (deputised to distract Boyfriend from preparations) returned from the local pub.

For desert we had a dense Chocolate Birthday Cake with cinnamon and chilli. I had just purchased this fabulous Kashmiri Chilli Powder from Aji in Christchurch and, being a fan of chocolate/chilli combinations, couldn't resist using it. Although both the cinnamon and chilli did add a depth to the flavour of the cake, it was not enough to satisfy me. More chilli the next time, methinks, and I might even pop back to Aji for some of their 'Triple A grade' cinnamon to give it an extra richness.

Beef and Chorizo Pie
Pastry:
Butter - 50g
Plain flour - 2 cups
Baking powder - 3 teaspoons
Salt - 1 teaspoon
Milk - 1 cup

Filling:
Olive oil
Stewing steak - 1 kg
Chorizo sausages - 3, sliced
Onions - 2, peeled and sliced
Garlic - 2 cloves, peeled and finely chopped
Flour - 5 tablespoons
Red wine - 1 cup
Water - 3 cups
tomato paste - 3 tablespoons
Thyme - 1 tablespoon, chopped
Green beans - 300g, chopped into 2cm pieces
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Egg - 1, beaten, for glazing

Start by making the pastry. Rub the butter into the flour until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add milk and bring together to make a smooth dough. Wrap and refrigerate for half an hour before using.

Heat some oil in a heavy based saucepan and brown the meat and chorizo in batches. Leave to one side while you cook the onions and garlic over a medium heat until beginning to brown. Stir in the flour and cook for one minute. Remove from the heat and add the red wine and water, stirring until smoothly combined. Return to the heat and boil until mixture thickens. Stir in tomato paste, thyme, meat and chorizo. Simmer slowly for 45 minutes and season well. Transfer to a large ovenproof dish and leave to cool then add the green beans.

Preheat oven to 180°C. Dust work surface with flour and carefully roll out pastry to 3mm thick. Place on top of pie and glaze with beaten egg. Bake for 35-40 minutes until pastry is golden brown and the gravy is bubbling.

Serves 8.

Adapted from Simple Café Food by Julie Le Clerc.

Posted by Caroline at 9:14 PM | Comments (3)

July 21, 2005

Too many lemons?

Enjoying Moroccan food as much as I do, I am a big fan of preserved lemons. Years ago, when I was living in a flat in Dublin, I made a jar of preserved lemons which I didn't have the nerve to use. So they just sat there and sat there on top of the cupboard looking like, as one visitor put it, preserved babies heads - I really don't know what he was drinking at the time!

That batch of preserved lemons ended up the dustbin but I'm not a person to let one failure cause me to stop trying, especially when I had a lemon tree outside the door. Before we moved, I gathered a selection of ripe lemons and, using a variety of methods from a variety of places, made myself a jar of preserved lemons. They're currently sitting on the top shelf of my pantry, happily maturing away (I hope), getting ready to be chopped into couscous, tagines, risottos, stews...

Preserved Lemons
This isn't really a recipe so much as a hope document as I don't really know how they're going to turn out until I open the jar and start using them!

Lemons
Sea salt
Cinnamon sticks
Bay leaves
Freshly squeezed lemon juice
Olive oil

I gathered about 10 small ripe lemons from the tree. Apparently it's important to use unwaxed lemons or to wash them before you start in order to get rid of the preservative wax that's normally sprayed over them.

Cut them into quarters and toss them with several fistfuls of sea salt. Layer the lemon quarters, with plenty more sea salt, a couple of halved cinnamon sticks and a few bay leaves into a sterilised jar.

Pour over enough freshly squeezed lemon juice to cover and top with some olive oil. Place in a cool, dark place for a couple of months to mature.

When using the preserved lemons, scrape out the flesh and only use the skin.

Posted by Caroline at 7:44 PM | Comments (2)

July 15, 2005

Wandering in New Zealand

Those of you who are regular readers may have noticed that it's been quiet on Bibliocook over the last week or so. The reason for this is because I have recently returned from a road trip up the East Coast of New Zealand's South Island with my mother and aunt who were visiting from Ireland.

After a few nights in Christchurch where we introduced them to New Zealand foods like silverbeet (in the form of a Pasta and Silverbeet Bake), lamb (Braised Lamb Shanks with Chickpea Mash) and kiwifruit (Apple and Kiwifruit Crumble - the crumble obsession continues!) while keeping them topped up on Irish foodstuffs (Brown Soda Bread, Ham and Pea Soup), it was time to hit the road. Just because we were touring didn't mean that we had no time for food. On the contrary. Food assumes an even greater importance when you're on the road for several hours a day and we weren't even an hour out of Christchurch when we stopped off at the Brew Moon Brewery and Café for tasty refreshments.

We spent a couple of nights at a bach at the township of Oaro near Kaikoura with the aforementioned Ham and Pea Soup, supplemented by the traditional New Zealand fish and chips on the beach. Leaving Kaikoura and travelling north, we kept our eyes open for the only building on the right hand side of the road - The Store at Kekerengu. On last year's miserable Christmas Eve, after a rude awakening in our Kaikoura hostel, the Boyfriend and I had had a large morale-boosting cooked breakfast here. This time round, even though it is mid-winter here, the weather was warm enough for us to take our food outside and eat in the sun, although it wouldn't be any kind of hardship to eat indoors in the airy rustic surrounds of the refurbished dining area. Although The Store is just off State Highway 1, you're a world away from any kind of driving stress with great food, good coffee and a view to die for. It wasn't too long after breakfast but we couldn't pass up a piece of the Kiwi classic Ham and Egg Pie to share. Always good to have something sweet with the coffee/tea so we also chose a Tan Slice (like a shortbread-caramel-chocolate layered Millionaire Square but without the chocolate).

That wasn't all the eating done for the day as we decided to stop at the Mud House in Marlborough for some wine tasting and purchasing. Although it's rather like coals to Newcastle, turning up at a New Zealand house with a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, we still chose the 2004 Marlborough White Swan Reserve Sauvignon Blanc - and it was well worth it. After my mother had been tempted into another tasting and was considering buying a bottle of Prenzel's Butterscotch Schnapps, I judged it timely to adjourn to the MudHouse Village Café. More tea and coffee were consumed, this time with the addition of a very tasty Venison and Merlot Pie - never let it be said that I spared myself when trying to give my family a wholehearted New Zealand culinary experience!

We stayed at the very lovely Garden Motel in Havelock for a night before continuing on to Nelson where we had time for a wander around the Saturday market and its foodie delights (harissa paste from Hellish Relish, Dutch apple doughnuts Olie Bollen, beautifully packaged dried lemon rind, yet another bag of Braeburn apples) before staying with the Boyfriend’s family for a couple of nights. When it came to food, we were spoiled there as the Boyfriend's mother cooked us several feasts, introducing the Irish visitors to roasted kumara (a starchy Maori vegetable rather like potato) and pumpkin, neither of which I've yet been brave enough to cook. We also travelled to their bach by Lake Rotoiti for a night, once again supplied with food courtesy of the Boyfriend's mother (a delicious Chicken and Asparagus Soup and Lasagne) which went down very well after a few walks which, I can tell you, we needed at that stage!

Although my mother and aunt only had a short time to spend in New Zealand, we certainly managed to eat our way around the small portion of the South Island that we visited - proof that there's plenty of good eating in New Zealand, wherever you may roam.

Posted by Caroline at 5:19 PM | Comments (3)

July 13, 2005

Newsflash: Marigold Swiss Vegetable Bouillon Powder available in NZ!

I have just been informed that Marigold Swiss Vegetable Bouillon Powder is actually available in New Zealand. As you may have noticed from past posts, it was my stock powder of choice in Ireland and I have been moaning about its lack of availability over here! In Ireland it is available in both supermarkets and health food shops but, despite my searching, I haven't come across it here. Apparently it is distributed by an Australian company who contacted me to let me know that it is sold in NZ. Fingers crossed I can track it down soon in Christchurch.

Posted by Caroline at 6:09 PM | Comments (0)

July 10, 2005

Brew Moon Brewery and Café

When you're driving the long distances that are necessary to get anywhere in New Zealand, good quality rest stops, with coffee, cakes - and clean toilets - become very important. That's why it breaks my heart to discover one so close to my current hometown of Christchurch. I've often spotted the enticing entrance of the Brew Moon Brewery and Café (situated about 50km from Christchurch) but, as it is normally too close to either the start or end of a journey it has never been a place for stopping. This week the prolonged start of a road trip with my visiting mother and aunt (nicknamed Thelma and Louise by my sister) gave me an opportunity to sample the facilities.

By the time we reached Brew Moon, it was already time for a toilet stop and, naturally, it would be rude not to sample the local delicacies. Alas, being the designated driver - and the fact that it was only midday - meant that the brew side of things could not be tested. Instead we opted for coffee and tea, ordering a blueberry muffin, piece of carrot cake and that Kiwi classic, a Ginger Gem.

Despite the fact that it was midweek, there were another three tables occupied, keeping the lone waitress busy and delaying the arrival of our order but as we were in no hurry, having plenty of family news to catch up on, this was not a problem. And we weren't complaining when the cakes arrived. Fresh and delicious, my Gem was a little larger than usual but, shared among three, it didn't last long. The muffin had the crunchy top of baking that had recently left the oven and the carrot cake was an shining example of its kind. Pieces were swapped, crumbs swept up and fingers licked. The bathrooms didn't leave the side down, making up in size for what they may have lacked in numbers on a busy day. On this quiet Wednesday so there were no queueing problems.

Brew Moon Brewery and Café is a good place to start your journey or to revive spirits before you reach home. Well worth visiting for the range and quality of sweet treats.

The Brew Moon Brewery and Café is located at 150 Ashford Rd (SH1). Phone: 03 314 8030

Posted by Caroline at 5:40 PM | Comments (0)

July 7, 2005

The loss of the lemon tree

Having thought that there wasn't too much different between the New Zealand and Irish climates, I've been amazed to discover that lemon trees grow here. And, what's more, they actually fruit too! While living with the Boyfriend's parents in Nelson it was a great treat to go out and pick some lemons from a tree that fruits year-round but, as we live in much colder Christchurch, I didn't think that we would have that option ourselves.

Our first home in Christchurch was a unit - basically a flat on its own land. After years of apartment living it was great to have a garden of our own, albeit a two meter square lawn and some hedges that rapidly got out of hand. I didn't realise until much later that the green oval berries on one of the garden shrubs were actually nascent lemons and, even though we've moved into winter a while ago, they continued to grow and turn yellow until they were small, but perfectly formed, lemons. The tree itself was rather small, with lovely glossy evergreen leaves and, when it was covered with lemons ripening at different stages, it was a magnificent sight indeed. The first batch I harvested got made into preserved lemons - more Moroccan influences! - and they're sitting curing in the cupboard at the moment.

Alas, my lemon paradise didn't last for long. Last weekend we moved into a new (to us) house which, although gorgeous, is sadly lacking a lemon tree. But it does have an even bigger garden and I have plans for a sunny North-facing wall - in NZ some things get turned upside down - out the back. Having done some research it seems that the elusive, and beloved of New York Times columnists, Meyer Lemon is the best adjusted variety to the Christchurch hot summer/cold winter balance. Although Meyer Lemons - a hybrid cross between a regular lemon and either an orange or a mandarin - have gotten good press for their sweeter-than-an-average-lemon juice, they don't have the best skin when it comes to zesting. There might have to be a pair of lemon trees purchased, if I have my way...

Posted by Caroline at 3:41 PM | Comments (2)

July 2, 2005

Vegetarian cookery - not just for vegies!

I spent Wednesday night last week at a cookery demonstration by the Christchurch branch of the New Zealand Vegetarian Society. No, I'm not going over to the dark side - I love meat too much - but their description of the evening intrigued me. Vegetarian Cuisine for the Non-Vegetarian sounds just like my cooking style in Ireland. That was, of course, before I landed in New Zealand and discovered that meat is cheap, there are several good butchers nearby and even the supermarket meat comes with a sticker indicating what it should be used for. Still, I am always open to new kinds of cookery and the line-up of dishes, which included Mushroom Nut Croustade, Savoury Polenta, Cinnamon Pear Cream, Vegetable Pakoras and Puris was very tempting.

So I took myself along to the Canterbury Horticultural Centre on Riccarton Avenue on Wednesday night and had a fascinating evening. There were a total of ten dishes demonstrated by three people - Yolanda Soryl, who runs an eco-friendly B&B by English Park, an Indian lady called Janaki Kandula and Vanya Maw of Wyenova Organic Farm. There were about 30 people there, many who seemed to know each other well, and it was all very relaxed and informal.

Yolanda was up first and she started with Mushroom Nut Croustade which she said was based on a recipe from famed vegetarian cook Rose Elliot that she got from the radio some years ago. My first misgivings arose when she used olive oil margarine and soya milk. Coming from a farming background - I was even an occasional milker of cows at my grandfather's farm in Oldcastletown - I am a lover of dairy products, especially butter. However, as Yolanda had told us that we would have the opportunity to taste samples of all the dishes at the end of the evening, I decided to wait and see how it actually tasted before making snap judgements.

An entertaining demonstrator, Yolanda has been doing this since 1988, and she had plenty of tips to offer. I discovered where to buy cheap sacks of nuts in Christchurch, a replacement for my beloved Marigold Swiss Vegetable Bouillon Powder (Rapunzel Vegetable Bouillon), that Brazil nuts are always organic and that my local health food shop - Piko Wholefoods - stock organic homemade peanut butter. It was also interesting to learn that you can make pesto with silverbeet - seeing as the Boyfriend is a devoted lover of silverbeet this could be a new dish to try out on him!

Janaki Kandula runs a series of Indian cooking classes at nighttime in Riccarton High School. After the mustard seeds that she cooked for her Tomato Chutney tried to asphyxiate us, the demonstration went off smoothly and we learned how to make Puris - a type of Indian bread - Date and Tamarind Chutney and Vegetable Pakoras. During Janaki's demonstration she passed around jars of her own pungent-smelling ginger-garlic paste and fragrant all-spice powder and told us how to make these ourselves. (ginger-garlic paste: blend 100g ginger with 50g garlic and 25g salt; all-spice powder: crush together 2 teaspoons of coriander seeds, 6 cloves, the seeds from 6 cardamom pods and 1" cinnamon stick).

Vanya Maw was last up and in her demonstration she strongly emphasised the nutritious value of food. We were treated to conspiracy theories about the dairy and beef industries, a diatribe on the evils of sugar and positive tofu propaganda. I have to admit that tofu is something I despise but, as with the soya milk and olive oil margarine, I decided to go with the flow and let the proof of the pudding be in the final tasting. And pudding was what we got from Vanya. After she made a batch of Savoury Polenta, she moved on to Chocolate Nut Brownies, with the aforementioned tofu, and a Cinnamon Pear Cream which was a simple (and surprisingly tasty) blend of liquidised tinned pears, cashew nuts and cinnamon.

In the tastings, I have to say that I was hugely impressed with my piece of Mushroom and Nut Croustade - although I think it might be even nicer with butter, milk, and perhaps a bit of bacon. Heresy! It was definitely the nicest dish of the evening, although the Puris and Vegetable Pakoras were also compeditors, and something that I definitely will be cooking at home. I also hope to make Vanya's Cinnamon Pear Cream as it had a richness which belied the simplicity of its ingredients. The Brownies? Well, let it just be said that tofu and I are still not on good terms!

Posted by Caroline at 9:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 30, 2005

Judith Cullen's Cookery Classes ***

New Zealand cook Judith Cullen used to run her own café in Dunedin before she changed careers to become a successful teacher of cookery classes, many of which are run from her home. Judith Cullen's Cookery Classes is her first published book but she has a fresh and simple approach that many more seasoned cookbook writers would envy.

Staying with the format of her cookery classes, Cullen has opted to divide the book into monthly menus with a seasonal slant - picnic ideas for January, mid-winter slow cooking in July. An introduction to each chapter gives some background on her choices as well as plenty of useful tips and ideas. One thing that I loved about the book was the way in which Cullen made the most of seasonal fruits with her emphasis on relishes and sauces.

This is fusion cookery without fuss. Cullen uses an eclectic but judicious mixture of foods and flavours, with influences ranging from Asian, Middle Eastern, Mediterranean and North African, introducing and demystifying unfamiliar ingredients, from pomegranate molasses to tamarind and sumac.

The one fault that I found with the book is the fact that no recipe states how many people it serves. Although on further investigation I found a line in the introduction saying that most of the recipes feed four to six people, I shouldn't have to go searching for it. Nor does this better inform me of the number of biscuits/cakes that I will get from the recipes for Blue Cheese Biscuits or Ricotta Cakes.

That aside, Judith Cullen's Cookery Classes is a beautifully written and photographed introduction to modern New Zealand cooking.

Judith Cullen's Cookery Classes is published by Longacre Press

Posted by Caroline at 4:47 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

June 28, 2005

Breakfast at Formerly The Blackball Hilton

We weren't very well organised for the last bank holiday weekend so it was Sunday morning before one of the Boyfriend's friends and his girlfriend came over and we tried to figure out where to go for the night. Despite fears that all accommodation would be booked solid for the weekend, a quick scoot through the Rough Guide to New Zealand and a few calls later and we had rooms for the night at Formerly The Blackball Hilton in the wee town of Blackball on the South Island's West Coast.

The historic hotel - it dates back to the early part of the last century - used to be known simply as The Blackball Hilton but, when the representatives of a certain Hilton hotel chain discover