Happy New Year and a Sneak Peek of my Delectable Electable Tour of Hong Kong

Happy New Year everybody! Hope your start to 2015 was as delicious as mine!

The end of 2014 and start to 2015 has been an action packed food extravaganza with Christmas, New Years, and an amazing 5 weeks of eating my way through Hong Kong.

{ice cream chocolate fondue: does a more perfect four-word combo even exist?}

Merry Christmas / Meri Kirihimete

The pav is in the oven.

The kumara salad is ready to go.

The strawberries are being cut.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Snapshots of exam delirium

It's just over a week until the finals and I'm going a little stir crazy so I thought I'd share some insanity love with you all.

I have so many Exam Time Dinner recipes sitting my on my camera waiting to be posted but I've banned myself from photo editing soooooo instead I'm going to share some of the things that have been keeping me amused this exam period.  It's mainly home stuff because I'm a little bit obsessed with The Block at the moment and it's not procrastinating if it's "necessary".

6 Snapshots of Exam Delirium

1. Highlighters light up my life

What are exams without a good set of highlighters. They're just so pretty and these are even named after me.

Merry Christmas 2013!

Make peanut butter caramel fudge - tick
Bake shortbread - tick
Bake sweet potato pie - tick
Make salad and grab meat for the barbie - tick
Wrap presents - tick
Go to Midnight Mass - tick 
Crank up the Christmas carols on the stereo - tick
Make sure tummy is ready for the eatathon ahead - tick tick tick

Now all there's left to do is to wish you all the merriest of Christmases!!

Wishing you and your whanau love, joy, and deliciousness this festive season. 
Hope you get to spend it in the company of friends, family, and loved ones.

Whatever is beautiful and meaningful for you, and whatever brings you happiness, may it be yours this Christmas.

Wishing you a togethery and remembery Christmas filled with love.

Meri Kirihimete.

Inspired: Mark Twain & Foodie Inspo

So inspired by this Mark Twain quote.

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.

7 years today

{via weheartit}

THEN a woman said, Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.  And he answered:

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 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}

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.

Happy Birthday, Airplane Chan

Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars? ~ B.O.B

Happy birthday Dad!

Today you would have been 55...still a spring chicken!

I used to s-t-r-u-g-g-l-e to think of something to buy for you that wasn't socks or a tie but this year I think I would've nailed it.

I would've gotten you a really flash bottle of merlot and a big punnet of strawberries (even though they aren't really in season but I know how much you love strawberries with french vanilla icecream and [ick] milk).

{dad was a travel agent by trade and was affectionately known as "airplane chan" by his mates and clients}
{via weheartit}

...and a Semi Final Ticket. You would have been absolutely frothing at the mouth over the Rugby World Cup and probably placed a cheeky bet or two for the All Blacks just for luck.

I would have baked you a black forest cake (I can actually bake now - no more salty chocolate logs) and we would've gone out to dinner at Canton Cafe or that steak place you love out in West Auckland.

And you'd tell me off for procrastinating rather than studying.

{via weheartit}

Sunshine and Fush 'n' Chups at Tunnel Beach

{Tunnel Beach, Dunedin, New Zealand}

What's more, if you turn over a new leaf, and keep it turned, I'll cook you some taters one of these days. I will; fried fish and chips served by S. Gamgee. You couldn't say no to that. ~ J. R. R. Tolkien (The Two Towers)

An almost wordless post today.

Am a bit of a busy bee this week, working on a monster of a post bout the wedding cake making process, it's massive, gargantuan even, a post to end all posts and also writing up articles for our med school yearbook, organising our next round for Baking for Hospice, while trying not to think about exams fast approaching...

So instead of my usual verbose offerings, here's a tranquilly almost-wordless photo spread from an oh so kiwi fish and chips (or as we apparently pronounce it "fush 'n' chups") picnic at Tunnel Beach, Dunedin, New Zealand.  Just another gloriously sunny but mind-numbingly chilly day down south.

Hong Kong Honeymoon: Foodies Highlights Part 2

{prawn and spinach dumplings? why yes please}

Before I get into the post proper I need to vent just a little....I was an unfortunate victim of a manky computer virus that had my poor laptop down for almost a week (a week!?) and requiring a lot of TLC to cox it back to life.  People who make viruses = not cool.  Grrrrr.

Ok, now that I got that off my chest...back to the foodie posting!

Now, how could I possibly blog about the wonders of Hong Kong food without talking about yum cha?  Yes, my friends, the 4th wonder of this Hong Kong Foodie Top 10 is not a dish but a whole way of eating.  In fact, this whole part 2 post chronicles uniquely Hong Kongese styles of chowing down.

Of course, this is by no means all the wacky ways of getting your eat on in HK...this is after all a top 10 from our trip and 6 days does not a comprehensive foodie tour make.  But even in 6 days we managed to rack up an impressive repertoire of eating styles, so without further ado, let the Hong Kong foodie good times roll.

{daikon cake? don't mind if I do}

Wedding = love Part 3: My big fat Chinese banquet reception

{all photos by Jel Photography unless otherwise stated}

Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast. ~ William Shakespeare

It's finally here!  The last installment of my Wedding = love album!  

Having had a white wedding, our reception was a Big Fat Chinese Banquet.  And yes I mean really do mean big fat banquet with a whopping 12 courses!  

No sirree, we don't do nothin' by halves down here.

{Menu with all 12 courses of our banquet complete with the meaning behind each dish! Photo taken by David Chan}

Hong Kong Honeymoon: Our Top 10 Foodies Highlights Part 1

{That, my friends, is A Foodcourt With a View.}

So sorry for neglecting my post as of late, blog post that is.  It was the university hols and we were lucky enough to get to spend some of it in the shopaholic/foodie's dream city Hong Kong for our sort-of honeymoon.

Why sort-of? Well, it was our first trip away together (and first full week of seeing each other) after getting married which is very honeymooney.  But the main purpose of going back was to have dinner with and catch up with my relos in HK which is less honeymooney.  And my Mum came with us - not that honeymooney at all. 

So while it was technically our honeymoon, hopefully we'll get to go somewhere later on and lie on a beach for days with just the two of us (hint hint darling husband??).

So as a blogapology for the post-tardiness I present you our Top 10 Hong Kong Trip Foodie Highlights.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of what you should eat when in HK.  That would need to be a top 100 at least!  No, no, this is a much less ambitious venture: a round up of the tasty meals and morsels we loved most on our trip back this time.   I'd probably need to go back for months to get a more definitive must-eat list...which I would LOVE to do sometime, so if you're reading this Harper Collins - call me??

Wedding = love Part 2: The Chinese tea ceremony, hair combing ritual and other wedding traditions

 

There are seven necessities related to the starting of a family's life: firewood, rice, oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar and tea. ~ Chinese proverb 

Chinese weddings are steeped in tradition and symbolism, superstition and folk lore.  I'm not usually a sticker for tradition,  I really wanted to have Traditional Chinese Tea Ceremonies at our wedding.  There's just something wonderfully romantic about wedding traditions, don't you think?  Knowing that my mother, my grandmothers, their mothers and generations of Chinese women before them have followed the same rituals at their weddings for hundreds of years, made even little old kiwi me feel connected with my heritage.  A link to the past on the first day of our future together.  What an incredibly moving and humbling experience.  

Having said that, since ours was an East meets West kinda wedding, we didn't stick exactly to tradition and cherry picked the things we had time for.  I'd like to think of it as Chinese culture meets Kiwi ingenuity.

 {All photos taken by Jel Photography unless otherwise stated}

Wedding = love Part 1: Getting ready, the ceremony & arty shots

{by jel photography}

A photograph is memory in the raw.  ~Carrie Latet

 
Our photos are here, our photos are here!!!

The DVD arrived yesterday and I am so so excited bout sharing them with you all!

The very talented team of Eleanor and James at Jel Photography, were our wedding photographers and we had an absolute blast with them!  So easy going, so happy and smiley and boy can they take gorgeous photos!

So without further ado...here's our Wedding = love Album!

(All photos taken by Jel Photography unless otherwise stated)