We will remember them: Anzac Crumble Ginger Muffins

We do not gather together to glorify war - but rather to remember the men and women who served their country, and especially those who made the ultimate sacrifice.
 ~Lt Gen The Rt Hon Sir Jerry Mateparae, Governor-General of New Zealand.

Today, 25 April 2015, marks the 100 year anniversary of the Anzacs landing in Gallipoli in the Great War.

We huddled this morning with our fellow Wellingtonians at the Pukeahu National War Memorial Park in the dark before dawn and contemplated all the brave souls who lay down their lives for us a century ago and in the conflicts in-between, those away today, those who didn't make it home, and those who come home forever changed. 

It was particularly special for us: both my husband's great grandads served in World War I, his maternal grandad was a prisoner of war in WWII and our friend Curt lost both his legs in Afghanistan 3 years ago while serving for the Australian Army.  

We remember and honour them not to glorify war but with gratitude that their sacrifice means that we may never need to know the atrocities of the battlefield.

In the Governer-General's address, he spoke of "mateship" and camaraderie as enduring ideals we should aspire to. Wonderfully positive, don't you think? And boy was it in full force today.  Forty thousand strong at Pukeahu Memorial Park alone and hundreds of thousands more kiwis and aussies banding together across both countries and in Turkey.  So incredibly moving.

We carried on the mateship theme with the rest of the day by having a good goss and photo-nerding sesh with the very gorgeous Katie over copious cups of tea and these Anzac Crumble Ginger Muffins. 

Anzac Ginger Caramel Slice

We downunder celebrated Anzac Day last Friday.  It's the one time in the year where New Zealand and Australia put aside their intense sibling friendly rivalry and commemorate together the brave New Zealand and Australian soldiers who fought in WWI.

The day is marked on both sides of the Tasman with dawn parades and wreath-laying ceremonies, the wearing of poppies symbolising Flander's field and the baking and eating of Anzac biscuits, which were oaty coconut cookies sent over as provisions to the troops during the war.

This year we marked Anzac day by welcoming our lovely nephew on his first ever trip to Wellington (along and his awesome mum and dad of course!).

And instead of making my normal batch of Anzac biscuits, this year, in the Anzac spirit, I thought I would do a mash up of a few of Kiwis' and Aussies' favourite slices: Anzac Ginger Caramel Slice.

Shameless Plug: Let Them Bake Cake - A Fisher & Paykel Bake Off

Ok ok this is a total shameless plug, but the lovely folk at Fisher & Paykel Appliances sent me a super awesome goodie box and I loved it so much I wanted to share with you all in case you were keen to win one too!!

Fisher & Paykel Appliances are sponsoring NZ Hottest Home Baker and are running an online Bake Off!  All you have to do is upload a photo of something you've made on the Let Them Bake Cake gallery and let people vote on your baking creation. There is a grand prize worth $10,000 and also bonus prizes each week of these super cool goodie boxes.  They give away 20 goodie boxes a week so there's a pretty good chance of winning one! 

Happy Birthday 2013 and My First Pavlova

{fireworks bringing in the new year at corogold 2012/2013}

Happy New Year everyone and a big Happy Birthday to 2013!
(Seriously, did anyone else keep finding themselves accidentally texting "Happy Birthday" instead of "Happy New Year"?? So easy to do no???)

We've just come back from the epic eat-a-thon that was Christmas and a rowdy sunshine and gumboot filled New Years.  Aaaaaaand straight back to work. 

{how new zealand does christmas}

But during our break, I did get time to do some musing whilst lazing around in the sun: how would one sum up the year that was 2012?  The year the world didn't quite end.  A year of big changes: moving city, getting to live with husband again, having two new Hospices to our Baking for Hospice run and adding a new nephew to the clan.  And year of big sadness too, for far too many awesome people I know and also for people a world away.  A year of saying bye to good friends, saying hi again to old friends and making brand new ones.  A tornadoey Hobbity kinda year.

And, as it turned out, it was a year of Pavlovas.  Of this particular Pavlova Stack with Lemon Curd, Strawberries, and Mint to be precise. 

'Cause every little thing scone be alright: Cinnamon Currant Scones with Mascarpone & Quick Berry Jam

Some called for ale, and some for porter, and one for coffee, and all of them for cakes; so the hobbit was kept very busy for a while. 

A big jug of coffee had just been set in the hearth, the seed-cakes were gone, and the dwarves were starting on a round of buttered scones, when there came - a loud knock. 

~ JRR Tolkein,  The Hobbit.

I don't know what it is about this year but it seems like too many amazing people that I know are going through heart-breakingly horrendous times.  Just want you to know, you're constantly in my thoughts and prayers and you will always be welcome in my wee hobbit hole for a big jug of coffee and a round of buttered scones.

I guess if I'm gonna be offering scones, I better make sure I can whip up a decent enough batch!  While I can't say I've had a heck of a lot of experience making scones, I do have plenty of experience eating them.

For me, the best scones are fluffy and tender, still warm from the oven, with a big dollop of whipped cream and raspberry jam, served with a strong cup of tea.  Devonshire tea at it's best.

However, unbeknownst to me, there appears to be a great debate as to what the 'proper' way of assembling ones scone is.  Move over chicken vs egg dilemma, in the world of scones, the million dollar question is: cream first or jam?

According to those far more proper than I, the Devon way of preparing the scone is to butter the scone, then add cream, and then the jam.   However the way to do it in the rival county of Cornwall, is to put the jam on before the cream.

Not being the most proper person in the world, I had no idea there was a proper way of having a scone though it looks like I've inadvertently ended up going the Cornish jam-first method.  Whichever way you like to assemble your scone, it really makes little difference 'cause after all once you eat it, it's scone.

You are worth every word of love

{curio bay, new zealand}

There's a post making its rounds on Tumblr at the mo.  Not sure where it started but it's beautiful.  I loved it so much I wanted to turn it into a picture and share it with you all.  So voila!

The original post says to:

Give everyone and anyone this message, go to random blogs, someone you don’t even know, stretch your ask limit, anon or not, tell them they are worth it. Because the world needs more love.

Couldn't agree more.
You are loved xox

Narnia, Horizontal Grass, and Close Encounters with Sea Lions: The Catlins

{waipapa point}

Wind & current, however, are mischievous
play-mates.  When a decision
is made for them to insert
a speak-easy-soke into the
sea's water wheel works then -  

O then, drama abounds for sure,
and the window to the sea-ward
side of my crib begins rattle-screeching
an order for me to ‘Come out! Come out, Sloth!
And witness this!’
‘Uh huh’, I say.
—Hone Tuwhare, Here’s looking at You, Sea.

In a far flung corner of New Zealand, at the very bottom of the South Island, is a rugged coastline known as The Catlins.  It's wind-swept, bitterly cold, and has some of the most harshly beautiful places I've ever visited.

It also has Bluff Oysters.  Deliciously-succulent, sweetly-plump, bluff oysters which pretty much gives it an awesomeness score of 'Out of this World'.  A must visit if you are ever in the south east corner of New Zealand.

I heart Sidart's Tuesday Test Kitchen

NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our *two* weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency.... Our *three* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency...and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.... Our *four*...no... *Amongst* our weapons.... Amongst our *weaponry*...are such elements as fear, surprise.... I'll come in again. 

[The Inquisition exits]

 ~ Monty Python

I got the biggest surprise this week.  No, nothing at all like the Spanish Inquisition, in fact, the opposite.  A good surprise, nay, a GREAT one.

I was having a sleep in after a bit of a late one the night before when a knock on the door wakes me up and who should show up on my door step but...my husband!!!   He had purposely not told me he was coming down and got me totally by surprise!

Best. Surprise. Ever.

{beautiful auckland from our table with a view}

The element of surprise is also a big part of the Tuesday Test Kitchen degustation menu at Sidart Restaurant in Ponsonby, Auckland.

Lest We Forget: White Chocolate Anzac Biscuits

They shall not grow old 

As we that are left grow old, 

Age shall not weary them, 

Not the years condemn. 

At the going down of the sun, 

And in the morning  

We will remember them 

Lest we forget. 

~ Laurence Binyon "For the Fallen"

The 25th of April marks Anzac Day, a public holiday in New Zealand and Australia that commemorates the day the Anzac troops landed in Gallipoli, Turkey in WWI.  The campaign was disastrous: they were under-resourced, out-numbered, and overwhelmed.  Thousands perished.  So why celebrate such a bleak event at all?

Well, while it might have been a military defeat, what was not defeated was the spirit, courage, and bravery of those soldiers fighting for their country.  So on Anzac Day we remember them and their sacrifice at dawn services and through Anzac biscuits.

As a Gen Y'er brought up in peaceful little New Zealand, I grew up going to dawn parades and eating Anzac cookies and more importantly I was lucky enough to grow up never having to live through any war of any kind.  But just because we live in a time of peace, it's still hugely important to keep remembering and talking about war and sacrifice so that we can fully appreciate the freedom and peace we are fortunate enough to enjoy.  So as my way of remembering those heroic young men and women, I made White Chocolate Anzac Biscuits on Anzac Day.

A blooming great meal: Fleur's Place, Moeraki

While in New Zealand I hope to do two things - visit Fleur's Place in Moeraki and eat Bluff Oysters. ~ Rick Stein

Once in a while you have a meal that's so good it makes your toes crinkle under the table.  That makes you salivate just thinking about it even weeks later.

On our fruitful trip to Moeraki a couple of weekends ago, we were lucky enough to have lunch at famous Fleur's Place.  I say lucky because you usually have to book in advance and we just rocked up and managed to nab ourselves a table with only an hour waiting time - just enough time to check out the Moeraki Boulders up the road.

{moeraki boulders: rocked my world}

My blackberry is not working: Rhubarb & Wild Blackberry Crumble Bars

Ronnie: I bought something from you last week and I'm very disappointed.
Shopkeeper: Oh yeah? What's the problem?
Ronnie: Yeah, well, my blackberry is not working.
Shopkeeper: What's the matter, it run out of juice?
Ronnie: No, no it's completely frozen!
~ BBC One, The One Ronnie 

It's a sign of the times when you tell people 'we got free blackberries last weekend' and they think you scored a new mobile phone.

I remember going fruit picking all the time as a kid: getting scruffy knees from kneeling down in strawberry fields in the height of summer, getting prickled by boysenberry brambles when bush walking and coming home with ice cream containers filled with ruby gems and purple fingers.  A whole day of entertainment for us kids.  Free child labour for our parents.  Wins all round. 

Nowadays, all the strawberry fields in Albany have turned into subdivided suburbia and most of us get our berries in clear plastic punnets and our veges all hygienically dirt free from the vege aisle in a fluorescent lit supermarket.  So what an absolute treat it was to find wild blackberries growing on the side of the road on our way home from a trip out to Moeraki Boulders last weekend.

A week in para para paradise: The Piha Cafe, Piha

We'll get there fast and then we'll take it slow ~ The Beach Boys, Kokomo

Ahh Dunedin.  I've been back down south for a whole week now and already it feels like I'd never left.

Not without the initial adjustment pains mind you: adjusting to going to lectures, adjusting to the freezing cold, adjusting to doing the whole long distance relationship thing again.  It's been like getting back into a pair of jeans that have just gone through the dryer.  A bit tight and uncomfortable to start off with but comfy again with a bit of wearing.

It definitely helped that we hit the ground running.  Lectures, labs, and miserable weather galore.  In fact, it was just our second day back and we were already performing our first craniotomies.  I was literally holding someone's brain in my hands.  Once the centre of their personality, all their thoughts, hopes, and dreams.  Incredible, awe-inspiring, just wow.

Despite all that excitement, I couldn't help but long for the balmy summer days back in Auckland.

Just before I headed back south, C and I took a week vacation at his family bach in Piha.  It was the one week over the entire summer when Auckland had amazing weather.  Score.  A whole glorious week of lazy mornings, nana naps in the arvo, and strolls through the beautiful Waitakere Ranges.  It was our little place like Kokomo.

The boys came and stayed for a couple of the days and since some of them were heading back to the UK and Australia, for their last morning in Piha we treated ourselves to brunch at The Piha Cafe.

Originally, there was a bit of controversy over the opening of the cafe.   Local Piharians are staunchly protective about keeping their slice of paradise pristine and uncommercialized.  Awesome for us visitors wanting to admire the scenery, not so awesome for businesses wanting to get a foot in the door.  After years of wrangling with resource consent shenanigans, fast-forward to 2012 and The Piha Cafe is a firm fixture on the Piha scene, offering some of the best views a cafe can offer, along with great tucker at very reasonable prices.

{via thepihacafe.co.nz}

Ice ice baby: Ambrosia Ice Cream

All right stop.  Collaborate and listen.  Ice is back with a brand new invention ~ Vanilla Ice

Amazing sun-drenched holiday in Piha last week.  Like.

All of a sudden being in my last week in Auckland before I head back down to the chilly south sans husband.  Dis-like.

My, my, how fast time flies when you're having fun.  

Just to prove how fast we are scurrying over the hill these days, my very dear friend Tuxy came back to NZ for the first time in four years since moving to the UK.  Four. Whole. Years.  But it feels like she'd only popped away for a couple of months and as we yakked away in the sunshine it felt like we were 12 year olds again gossiping about boys, wearing scrunchies, making mixed tapes, teeny-bopping to the Spice Girls and vowing to marry Leo.

Yes, we were children of the nineties.

{ambrosia ice cream: a brand new invention}

Being a child of the 90's also meant we grew up on kiddies birthday parties with delightful party nibbles such as fairy bread, cheerios with T sauce, and of course that creamy dreamy fav: ambrosia.

If you didn't grow up in New Zealand, you might not know what ambrosia is.  The concept is deceptively simple: take yoghurt, mix with whipped cream, add marshmallows, berries or other fruit and crumble in some meringue. Very much like a slightly healthier version of Eton Mess.  It's light and creamy and on a hot summer's day it's what definitely what you want, what you really really want.

And just how did I get from ambrosia to ambrosia ice cream?  Well, now this is a story all about how ambrosia got flipped-turned upside down, and I'd like to take a minute, just sit right there, I'll tell you how ambrosia became Ambrosia Ice Cream.

A study in lanterns and dumplings

The lantern festival marks the 15th and final day of the Chinese New Year holiday and every year the Asia New Zealand Foundation puts on the Auckland Lantern Festival: a lavish three day long extravaganza with glorious techni-coloured lantern displays filling Albert Park and street stalls of delicious asian food lining the length of Princes Street.

You really get the sense you're in some exotic bustling marketplace in South East Asia rather than the immaculately colonial Albert Park next to Auckland University.

Me and my girls from high school went last night on a beautiful if somewhat muggy Auckland evening and ate our weight in dumplings, noodles, donuts, and steamed buns.

{$4 for 6 pork dumplings. I kid you not. Make sure you get plenty of soy sauce and sweet chilli on these bad boys}

Chinese New Year Feast at One Dream, Mt Wellington

Kung Hei Fat Choi!  Happy Year of the Dragon lovely people!

Chinese New Year is THE most important event in Chinese calender.  It marks the start of the lunar year and starts with a family feast on Chinese New Year's Eve, followed by another massive feast on Chinese New Year's Day and ends with a feast for the Lantern Festival on the 15th day of the lunar calender.

For our New Year dinner we went to our family's fav little Chinese restaurant in Mt Wellington.  It's a gem of a place.  Family-run and tucked away next to Harvey Norman on Mt Wellington Highway, One Dream specialises in home style Chinese cooking that's authentic, delicious, and incredibly reasonable.

They are usually closed on a Monday but the lovely owners open just for us for Chinese New Year Day.  Legends.

Merry Christmas & fairy lights ♥

What is Christmas?  It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future.  It is a fervent wish that every cup may overflow with blessings rich and eternal, and that every path may lead to peace.  ~Agnes M. Pahro

Victory

{photo by Paul Estcourt via nz herald}

'Cause we are loyal.  Keep it that way. ~ Dave Dobbyn

All Blacks 8 - France 7.

You beaut.

Paint it black

{via mr vintage}

I look inside myself and see my heart is black  ~ Rolling Stones

Big day today.  HUGE day today.

Today is the day New Zealand has been waiting for, for the last 24 years.

Yes, my friends, today the final of the Rugby World Cup 2011 will be played at Eden Park by New Zealand and France.  A complete carbon copy of that very first RWC finals clash in 1987.

Same bat-venue, same bat-teams and hopefully, same bat-result.

A cookie paradox: Anzacesque oatmeal raisin cookies

Such welcome and unwelcome things at once
'Tis hard to reconcile
~ Macbeth, Act IV, Scene 3, William Shakespeare.

Riddle me this: how is it that a cookie can be so average but so damn addictive????

I am hesitant to even blog about this less-than-ideal recipe but it is a complete cookie paradox that I feel compelled to share.

They came out of the oven and one bite told me:
a) the texture was blah: chewy-tough rather than chewy-good; and
b) the taste was blah: somehow both too sweet and too bland.

A pretty darn average cookie.

But I found myself going back for another and then another and another.  I could not stop eating these things.

I tried them on C.  Same effect.  He ate one and diplomatically said well they aren't your best batch of cookies darling.  But then, sure enough, he came back for seconds, thirds... fifths.

Which brings me to ask once again, how is it that a cookie so av could be so good?

All Black Sesame Macarons with Coconut Buttercream for Baking for Hospice

Rugby is a wonderful show: dance, opera and, suddenly, the blood of a killing ~ Richard Burton

I'm baaaaaack! It was study break last week and I was up in Auckland spending lots of quality time with family.  A happy sad week, witnessing the beginning of a brand new life and the twilight of another.  Reliving old memories, making new ones.  Lots of laughs, lots of tears.  It might look like I abandoned the blog for a bit but I was baking up a storm so watch this space for all the baking shenanigans I got up to!

Well, if you're in New Zealand, unless you've been living under a rock, you will know that little old NZ is hosting the Rugby World Cup 2011.

It's kind of a big deal.

Rugby is our national sport.  Kiwis live and breathe rugby and the All Blacks are national heroes.  But despite the All Blacks being favourites to win practically every Rugby World Cup since it's inception, we unbelievably haven't won or hosted the prestigious Webb Ellis Trophy since the very first RWC in 1987.

But this year is THE year! I can feel it in my bones.

So naturally, to show our support for our men in All Black, the Baking for Hospice theme this round was The Rugby World Cup round.  And for my contribution I made All Black Sesame Macarons with Coconut Buttercream.

Go ABs!

{Paint the town black, all black}