Boris

Today we welcomed Boris to our home.   D.O.B. 31 October, 2012.

Pantry sorted

Sorting the pantry was a mission but I think I have succeeded in getting it manageable.   It took most of the day.

Not flattering....

And at last enjoying my machine, though still only at the straight stitching stage.  It sews so smoothly, a relief after the 830 and the Elna I used at the bach that drove me insane with tension problems.

(shame about the still to be unpacked boxes and upright neighbour's trampoline, runner beans are meant to be flourishing there!)

Happy Christmas to all

The evening smell outside is reminding me of my 15 years living in Nelson.  I am unsure what makes it different from Welly summer air after a hot day, perhaps it is being close to the sea and the stillness which I did not experience in Wellington living in the Northern suburbs then in the bush in Wilton.

It has been a very hot day here today, 33C on the deck, 28C in the house.  Definitely the perfect day for reading and pottering.  We have eaten simply, though my sister and nieces (I Skyped with them in Dunners) did not think asparagus and poached egg was appropriate Christmas Day lunch food.  We had rack of lamb, new potatoes and salad with rice pudding for dessert, slathered in raspberries and cream for dinner tonight.

Lunch (not hollandaise but shaved parmesan)

I have not had the energy to shop or bake for Xmasy food this year along with trying to be gluten free means we are not tempted to overeat!

Today in the heat I did think of my childhood holidays in Nelson when we made the marathon trip from Dunedin to stay with my grandparents.  After lunch on hot days we had enforced time on our beds, we did not have to sleep but could read or draw, then in the late afternoon we would head up the Matai for a,swim and afternoon tea with all the delights that were Christmas baking in our family, green square, German biscuits and choc orange cookes. I miss that tradition.

I have finally done a little sewing, here are some of the squares that I cut out at eight this morning.  They are now sitched and pressed.

 

Christmas Eve

When I lived in Nelson I thought much over 25C was a bit hot for me, so this afternoon when I got in from work and found it was 30C on our deck I was wondering how I would manage this lovely climate.  My partner announced we could use the heat pump to cool.  Such a wonderful device, I may even end up sleeping in the sitting room, would save trying to create a draught but only succeeding in creating open home for the mosquitos.

Before dinner, after wine o'clock, we wandered down to the beach.  At seven there was not a breath of wind, the sea calm and warm.  Paddling was so much fun.  I may have to consider breaking the rule of my recent lifetime and get a swimsuit.

My daughter is having a white Christmas, even though Christmas not the same deal in Japan as here.  She said the official temperture was 1C but she said it felt like 7 or 8C.

The view from her home this morning.

Sunday

An amazingly warm day at the beach, hard to believe town has fog so bad the planes are not flying.  More boxes and sorting again today.

We have just had a Christmas dinner with Olaf and his girlfriend Danna.  I made roast chicken. It was so lovely having sage, parsley and thyme in the garden again for the stuffing.  Followed with trifle, which I had probably not made since I left Nelson some twelve years ago.  Used frozen raspberries and even made a proper egg custard gently flavoured with almond.

Between courses we opened gifts.  The kids are off in the morning, Danna to work and Olaf to work on the MR2 which is currently stored at Danna's house.  They will have Xmas Day lunch with her family before they head off to their respective Tuesday jobs.

Perhaps the sewing machine will get a run tomorrow when I get in from work.

The day that was

I should be dancing with joy that today is the first day of a fortnight's break, but sadly Friday was a huge day in the office (thanks real estate agents for making house settlment dates on the last day of our work year, NOT) so I need to do some tidying up at the office Monday morning.  Some I can do remotely but we are still primarily paper based so the office it has to be.

Saturday has passed no cooking, sewing or gardening even.. Did get to the library for a pile of fiction/browing books, a walk on the beach, some boxes emptied and a lovely chat with Xanthe.

Photos titled "what I saw on my walk tonight."

Not sure whether the trees are pohutakawas or Northern rata, but often called the New Zealand Christmas tree as they flower about Christmas time.  Our garden is full of them, fine now while they are little but not a good tree for a surburban garden.  Will have to learn how to prune them.  Wonder if they flower on old or new wood?

Productive day

We are finally full time residents at the beach, apart from my week day commute to the CBD.  It has been a hectic 15 months, selling my house, the bach, combining the contents (for the seond time in our relationship!)and now finally selling his house in Wilton and all the work that had gone with preparing properties for sale and selling them.

Whilst there is still plenty of clutter to sort and find homes for we are here and that is great.  Already I have had a productive day and Sooziesuzy is back on track to sew and cook and garden.

This morning we went the Bernina shop in Raumati and ordered my new machine.  My Bernina 830 that I bought in 1975 for $375 has served me well but I am keen to have some of the whistles and bells of a later model. It should be able to be picked up on Tuesday.  I am very spoilt to receive such a special gift.

And I have just mixed a brew of gluten free flour, potato starch, tapioca flour, rice flour, xanthan and guar gums.  The pictures in the two new cook books I received this week look fabulous so am hopeful the recipes will bear tasty food.  I baked a date loaf using the flour mix and it is cooling.  I am still battling this oven, a thermometer says the oven temperature is perfect but it cooks so unevenly.  My preference is fan bake but I may try some baking without the fan.  The photo makes the loaf look as though the edges are burnt, they are not but the it is definitely a different colour to the recipe book.

 
 Time to find the Christmas tree and decorations and get a teeny tiny bit festive.

My weekend....

And now the weekend is nearly over...what a weekend it has been.

 Friday evening after my daughter returned from the Japanese Ambassador's farewell function.

 Saturday late afternoon at the airport with my two dear children. (and some of her friends)

 Proud mother.

 Waiting for carry on baggage check....enjoy your year in Japan.  We will miss you and your antics:-)

 A surprise in our beach garden when I opened the blinds this morning.

 Yet another surprise!  All the brocolli has gone to seed.  This batch of plants produced teeny tiny heads of brocolli.

A sick lemon tree planted in an odd place (squashed against a compost bin) has rewarded me with fruit.  I have tended it lovingly since we moved here in March.  Possibly should not have let it fruit this season.

Back to town soon and the reality of the new work week.

My recipe collection dilemna

My Recipe Book

Heat damage

The sad state of my recipe book
that was started more than forty
years ago.  I cannot quite pin point the date but judging by the style of my printing I was 12 or 13 years old.
My journalist father always had a portable typewriter at home and I loved typing so sometimes I typed the recipes.

This book has been my faithful companion up and down the country, Dunedin, Wellington, back home to Dunedin, Christhchurch, Nelson and now Wellington again. Also backwards and forwards on holidays to family as a teenager, and latterly to the bach and now between town and our other home at Waikanae Beach.

Tonight I came home and made date loaf, Aunty Alice's recipe. Aunty Alice was my Nelson grandfather's sister, my great aunt and she lived in Dunedin.  The recipe had been given to my mother when she moved to Dunedin from Nelson in the fifties to study.

 
I decided very early on that the book would only have recipes that I had actually cooked or tasted.  It is stuffed full of pages from magazines and newspapers waiting to be tried.

This book was started in the days when purchasing too many cookbooks was beyond our budget and of course way before the internet.  I seemed to stop adding recipes about the time I discovered Usenet and rec.food.cooking in 1996. 

Each page is a trip down memory lane.  Caramel square, (above) something I have not made for many years, was  one of my Dunedin grandmother, Tiny's specialities.

And now the book has collasped totally, the pages have fallen of the spirals.  What am I to do?  Even though I refer to the net for new recipes, spend far too much money on magazines and cookbooks, this recipe book is still very much needed.  I just wish I could figure out the best way to preserve it.

Saturday 16 June, 2012

The title reminds of morning talks at primary school.

Living in a new area makes exploring compulsory and there are always things to learn about the locality like the whereabouts of the tip and the op shops.  Today we joined the local library and can borrow next week when our cards are ready.  I finally found the local bottle store (after asking my boss its whereabouts yesterday, local knowledge is always good) so I could get some brandy.

I had a quick visit to my LQS.  It is very cool, packed with so many fabrics. (and wool, and embroidery items, patterns and helpful ladies)  I needed some children prints as I am making toy cubes for a work gift for someone having a baby.

We then headed up Reikorangi Road where we found a nice view of the snow that is making outdoors so cold today. Mostly covered by clouds to the right of the picture.

Further up on the side road we stopped at this cafe and were greeted in the muddy and wet carpark by

By the way these are phone pictures but seem to be okay.

Reikorangi Cafe is fun if like me you love pottery and enjoy a blast from the past. It was like stepping back in time to the seventies. Lots of pottery, and fabulous macrame lampshades, one craft I never did master and a lovely garden area though in the rain not explorable today.  I had fabulous tomato soup, served in a beautiful pottery tureen, by the roaring fire, with an elderly cat sitting on a chair beside me.

We headed up Mangaone South Road and found the start of the Mangaone Walkway  Fascinating countryside as there is lots of regenerating native bush.  Further up Ngatiawa Road we found the start of the Kapapkapanui Track

On Terrace Road I filled the boot with pony poo, fifty cents a bag, a bargain as often it is one dollar per bag.  And I presume this friend watching as Chris loaded the bags in the boot is who provided us with this garden nutrition.

 Home via the super to this

We had been thinking Devonshire scones at lunch but decided to make them for afternoon tea

Time to feed the drier and perhaps sample the brandy.

I like this sort of a Saturday!

Long weekend

I seem to have lost my sewing and knitting mojo again:-(

Made a simple bookmark with and tried to stitch some ribbon with the words "New Zealand" on but it went wonky.  Perhaps I need to use the walking foot.  Trying to come up with cost effective little, light gifts for my daughter to take with her for your year in Japan.

Then opened a little scarf kit with wool and pattern.  Says use 3.5mm and 4.5mm knitting needles but in New Zealand we have 3.25mm and 3.75mm.  Which do I use?

Perhaps I will unpack a box of pottery and forget crafts for a bit.

The week that was!

It has been a busy week.

My daughter graduated with a Batchelor of Design on Tuesday night, in what was a very moving ceremony. It would have been moving even if she was not graduating, as her university still follow the 700 year old traditions which I believe are based on those of the University of  Cambridge in England.  The stage was filled with staff wearing colorful robes and academic caps of various shapes.  A Maori welcome, some musical interludes, speeches which were interesting and lovely seeing my daughter rewarded for her four years of study.

 Taken after the ceremony.

The following day at my office before the parade, which ended up being cancelled.

As it was graduation week, there were lots of parents from out of town and I was able to catch up with three friends from my Nelson life at different times. Somewhere in there I fitted my birthday and office job.

A fun week but I am not very used to lots of chatter and socialising so happily exhausted and planning a quiet weekend here at the beach at my sewing machine.

I need to learn and there is fear in the camp!

It is nearly 12 years since I gardened in Nelson and my memory has faded on how helpful a decent climate is to even the most challenged vege gardener. 

Growing veg amongst the native trees in Wilton and the wind swept hillside in Johnsonville was a mission, even with the finest compost and TLC.

As a result I have become sloppy with my distances between seedlings and planted quite closely much closer than the 40 to 50 cm commonly suggested.  Now even with it being autumn and pure sand beneath the compost my veges are growing so well  that I have a crowded patch and this is where the fear in the camp arrived.  I suggested we cook something with bok choi.  The response was "I feared we were going to have to eat those greens."

Will he develop a taste for fresh vegetables that come with the odd hole from a pukeko peck and consume homegrown with pleasure rather than seeing greens as a necessary evil.  The jury is still out.

And my lesson will be to follow the instructed planting distances between seedlings. 

Food from my childhood

Twice  in the last fortnight  I have made "Little Brown Balls."  These were a lunch box or top off treat when I was growing up and I have been making them for about 47 years.  They were made long before I knew about brandy or rum truffles or other exotic chocolate balls.  In recent years there have been adaptations but the basic recipe is just as good.


Little Brown Balls

8 Weetbix, crushed (over the years the size has decreased and it is possible to add another one or two)
2 heaped tablespoons cocoa (dark Dutch cocoa is excellent)
1 can of sweetened condensed milk (lite is fine)
1 and half cups of sultanas
Mix all ingredients together well.
Roll walnut sized balls in desicated coconut (I tend to make them larger because I get tired of the process!)

These days I add up to about 2 cups of dried fruit, sultanas, chopped dried apricots, fruit cake mix, or currants, one or other or a mixture.

My sister sometimes adds a generous number of chocolate chips which makes them extra yummy.  I added about 3/4 cup to the the last batch I made.

 (I need to learn how to photograph food properly!)

Weeding and planting...

Look what I found hiding beside the silver thyme....

Emily, the cat who used to live here, but lives next door now had been playing with a mouse yesterday and I suspect this was the same one.  Chris was able to dispose of it easily.

Today I planted drunken women lettuce, an Italian heirloom one with bright green leaves and frizzy bronze edges,  (some speculation on how this name came about!), some spinanch and also purple sprouting broccoli.  We had some from my aunt's garden last year and it was a delicious change from our usual broccoli fare.

Pukeko caught stealing tomatoes

 Sneeking in to steal tomatoes.  Is she looking?

 Tomato in mouth.

 Getting ready to fly off with the tomato.

The photo does not capture the juice squirting as he pierced it.

Our new (house and) garden...

We moved two weeks ago to a house at the beach and will be sharing our time between here and town for a few months, then the beach will be our permanent home, yay!

I started gardening as soon as we arrived, the first week, some herbs and silver beet, last week lettuce and this week pak choi and rosemary.  I also found two cheap fuschias at the garden centre for a shady spot at the back door.

We have different tastes, he likes native trees, and I like veges, herbs and flowers to pick.  I am keen to keep fences to grow beans and sweet peas against, he is keen to open the section up and just have shelter cloth.  Hopefully our small section will accommodate us both!

There is an exisiting black passionfruit vine, strawberries, lemon tree (nice not to have to start growing yet another one) tomato plants still producing and I just picked one large pumpkin.

Gardening in sand will  have it's challenges, but between purchased compost and the three compost bins, plus endless grounds from all the coffee we drink and various other organic means (pony poo, sheep pellets, shredded newspaper etc) I am hopeful I will have a productive garden.

Pukeko's will also be challenging I suspect.  They visit often and being called "swamp hens" their behaviour is very hen like, pecking and foraging in the ground constantly.  Perhaps coffee grounds will keep them away as they did cats at my last garden.