Vinnie you can live with us

because Vinnie you have all the best friends (like Oli), and a father who gives us his very own wild duck salami

A certain advantage to offspring

some of them bring home crayfish.
Oh yeah, oh my, oh boy.

 Charlie thought she had a new friend

 and then she licked it

and then we did.

Chargrilled with horseradish and lime, served with Caesar salad and who could ask for anything else!?

persimmons

Just in case you never saw a persimmon tree in fruit.

High Tide Tea

When one holds a High Tide tea - as you do - there are certain visitors who must be expected, and they didn't disappoint.

Maintenance session at the rowing club turned into a bit of a do. Shared breakfast...yum!

Those Apple Strudel scones from Baker's Delight were awesome - cinnamon and sugar, lovely apple flavour.
Bacon. Maple Syrup. French toast. Orange Juice. Fresh coffee. Fruit. Luxury.

 Porridge with Evan's amazing stewed rhubarb

No rowing today, but who could resist coffee in a great big mug down on the water-line with scones and lashings of butter?

 The date scones are pretty darned good too...

Charlie Royal

Love the name...

Charles hails from my neck-of-the-woods, Rotorua. He's a celebrity Maori chef dude.
Ann sent me a pack of his KawaKawa herb, which smells delicious. Might combine it with the next fresh snapper haul.

Go have a little look at his website. I think his range and his tours sound amazing. What a great concept, so pleased to see someone commercialising this Maori food idea with taste (get it? Taste... hahah) and sensitivity.

luxury in the suburbs

How many of you can match my breakfast this morning - WHITEBAIT fritters. NZ Whitebait fritters. Oh the indulgence!
My Mum gave me some - Dad must be forgiven for throwing it in the green bin... fortunately we were wise to his tricks and found it there amongst the poppy trimmings and with a blowfly circling. Once that was all brushed off we were in business.

Take your 257 whitebait...

Add them to a bowl with eggs and a little flour - a very little please!

Mix.....

Fry in butter in groups.

The egg sets around the fishies.

And once it's brown, you EAT them.

Do NOT believe those West Coasters who say that they only work with mint sauce.

Parcel in the Mail

Look what came with the courier today...

I know, you're wondering what this has to do with food, but bear with me!
This courier parcel was from Wellington where we have a child (21 - but still called a child....) who likes to dive. In  the sea. For things like this.....

Sydney food trail

Just back on Thurssday from Sydney where we saw lots of things we couldn't identify

I think the picture above was dried paua or abalone - there were abalone shells in the window...

some kind of citrus

I know the persimmons... but had never seen them dried as below.

Wonderful variety of mushrooms

I've seen the Pie Face brand before, but I still like how they describe the contents with an emoticon piped on the top with gravy.

and we were intrigued with the sugar cane juice machine. Wouldn't want your hand stuck in there...

Urban Foraging - Guavas

never knew what to call it - but I love hunting down all this free food.
Last opportunity was when we went to Ohope in the Bay of Plenty and found guavas at the ready...

Stew lay in the last of the summer sun and then....

was much braver than me

Paua for Dinner

We had a surprise visit last night from my Uncle and Aunt, long time no see. Which reminds me - Lou always talks about being on the seafood diet - what he really means is that any food he sees, he eats... He and Robyn have travelled a lot around the world and within New Zealand and he had an interesting food story last night from the Chatham Islands - reminded by the eating of these gorgeous paua fritters generously supplied by the incorrigible Steve (hails from Croatia) and his lovely better half Raewyn.

Here's Lou enjoying the food 

and my better half (actually three quarters..) Stew

Minced paua, a little flour and minced onion, and 3 eggs. Fried very quickly and eaten even quicker.

Don't put other stuff in there, or they become something else.

So the Chatham Island story - apparently there are so many wild pigs over there that when Lou visited people for a meal they first went to shoot the pig for dinner... in little under an hour they had their weaner. And as the story goes the locals are inclined to castrate the boars, give them ear tags and release them as and when they have the time just to keep the population under control. 

Quinces for Free

Hey hey! Always a bonus - food for free on the roadside. Imagine that, wild food on suburban streets of Remuera.

Quinces - I imagine I'll need to wait until Autumn for these beauties to ripen but then I"ll be in!

Hunting & Gathering in New Zealand

It occurs to me that we in NZ are very lucky to have the ability still to eat off the land. Most of us would have friends or contacts or knowledge which allow us to gather food directly from the great outdoors - the oceans, the reserves, the skies, the farmlands. Over the past few months we've had fish we caught (enough that we threw some back), fresh paua from a son who gathered it in Wellington and frozen from a friend who has Chatham Island connections, beautiful fresh vegetables from another friend who grows them and home-made limoncello, again from the Chatham Islands friend. To say nothing of the trout fishermen and the plum, lemon and grapefruit trees we have connections with. And a highlight of our South Island trip was picking cherries and eating them by the kilo still warm from the sun.

Darling Adie pickled some and gave me a jar for Christmas. With friends like these who would ever go hungry!

We need to protect these privileges - it's hard to afford fish in the supermarkets because so few people own the rights to the commercial fisheries and the price for it is better off-shore - but we can (and should!) still access personal quantities wherever and whenever we can. Make sure you look after your hunting and gathering network - this stuff has value beyond the monetary! And please please do it legally and with regard for other Kiwi New Zealanders.