Broccoli & Feta Harissa Salad with Spicy Roasted Pepita for Lucy

 

Every intern wants to perform their first surgery. That's not your job. Do you know what your job is? To make your resident happy. Do I look happy? No! Why? Because my interns are whiney. You know what will make me look happy? Having the code team staffed, having the trauma pages answered, having the weekend labs delivered and having someone down in the pit doing the sutures. No-one holds a scalpel until I'm so happy I'm Mary Freaking Poppins. ~ Dr Miranda Bailey, Greys Anatomy.

Before we started our surgical rotation, I thought I had a pretty good idea as to what it was going to be like.

I've watched Grey's Anatomy.  I knew how it was going to go down.

But I'm no Meredith.  I never ever thought I'd want to be a surgeon.  High stress, long hours, super competitive people and lots of yucky stuff.  Did not sound like my cup of tea.

AND I was bracing myself to be that girl. 

Boy, was I ever wrong.  I have absolutely loved it.  Surgery is amazing.  Sure, I probably won't get to even look at a scalpel for about a million years but it's enough just to be there and get to watch it up close. Gah so much awesomeness.

One of the downsides of watching surgeries though is that you're on your feet for hours on end, so if you haven't eaten a big enough meal beforehand your face-plant risk is pretty high. 

My friend Lucy and I pondered this very dilemma: what would be a good pre-surgery lunch that's filling enough to keep you on your feet but refreshing enough to not give you a food coma?  My answer: Broccoli & Feta Harissa Salad with Spicy Roasted Pepita.

Maple Sweet Potato Pie / Maple Kumara Pie

"I feel like a pie" has a completely different meaning in New Zealand than it does in the States.

When a Kiwi talks about pies, we're most likely thinking about savoury meat pies: the kind with delicious mince and gravy wrapped in flakey short pastry.  All buttery and greasey and just what you feel like on a Sunday morning after the Med Ball a late night out.

But from what I understand, in the USA, "pies" are generally sweet, like pecan pies, pumpkin pie, peanut butter pie.  Drool.  I've only recently been introduced to this magical world of American sweet pies thanks to Sweet Mothers Kitchen.  Ermahgerd how good is that place??!?  Totally obsessed.

So to further fuel my obsession and because it was becoming embarrassing how often I go to walk past the place and find myself walking out with a slice of pie, I decided to create a Kiwi-ized version of the southern Sweet Potato Pie - a Maple Kumara Pie.

Just as a side note, in New Zealand we tend to call sweet pies "tarts".  But I guess "I feel like a tart" has a double meaning also...

Review: Crab Shack, Baby, Crab Shack

If you see a faded sign by the side of the road, that says 15 miles to the Crab Shack! Crab Shack yeah! ~ modified from the B52's

My review posting needs a bit of a review.  I haven't posted any reviews in ages.  Over a whole year, would you believe?

Think it might be a combo of things: being a poor student again and not going out much, it being really tricky taking photos in a dim restaurant so fusspot me not being happy with the photos, and my long suffering husband getting all embarrassed at me taking too many pictures of meals.  What you would call first world problems.

So despite having lived in the Capital City for a fair six months, this is my very first Wellington review.  Outrageous.

But what better place to break my review dry-spell, than with the recently opened, Simon Gault owned, eating establishment: The Crab Shack.

 

Inspired: Mark Twain & Foodie Inspo

So inspired by this Mark Twain quote.

Chocolate Dairy Food a.k.a. Chocolate Pudding

Happy is he who still loves something he loved in the nursery:  He has not been broken in two by time; he is not two men, but one, and he has saved not only his soul but his life.  ~ G.K. Chesterton

There are some foods from childhood that are best appreciated only as a kid: Hubba Bubba Bubble Gum, Fruit for Yonks and Roll Ups a.k.a. plastic fruit leather, lolly pops that make your mouth go blue, fake cheese slices. 

And then there are childhood favs that I'm pretty sure I will still love when I'm 80: fairy bread, marmite and chip sandwiches, and Chocolate Dairy Food.

Now those not in New Zealand, what we know as "chocolate dairy food", you know as "chocolate pudding", a creamy cold treat made of milk, cocoa and cornflour.  They were the quintessential lunch time snack for the average kiwi kid, sold in little plastic pottles in packs of six, so you can hang them conveniently on the edge of the supermarket trolley when Mum and Dad did the grocery shopping (I still do that...).  Nowadays, it's marketed as a kiddie snack that's a source of calcium but every now and I buy a pack as a treat for myself...of course since calcium is good for adults too and all.

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! 

Mint and Coriander Zucchini Ribbon Salad for one

We should look for someone to eat and drink with before looking for something to eat and drink. ~ Epicurus

I love cooking. 

Before this weekend, I thought I knew why I loved cooking.  Turns out, I had no idea.

I thought I loved cooking because of the process of turning raw ingredients into something delicious. A love for the magical alchemy of spices, heat, and seasoning.   See when I lived on my own in Dunedin, the reason I lived off eggs on toast and frozen meals and didn't cook myself proper dinners, I told myself, was because I didn't have a proper kitchen and all my gadgets.

However, when my husband went away on a boys trip this long weekend and I found myself cooking for one again. And despite having a perfectly equipped, well-stocked kitchen, I reverted to the old eggs on toast for dinner.  Sacre bleu! 

Talk about a revelation.  Cooking for one is no fun.  Looks like, my love cooking isn't for any poetic enjoyment of the art itself, but simply a love of sharing good food with people I love.   Food and kisses are made to be shared no? 

The Quintessential Quince 2: Quince Paste, Jelly, and Pickle

The jelly- the Jam and the marmalade,
And the cherry and quince "preserves'' she made!
And the sweet-sour pickles of peach and pear,
With cinnamon in 'em, and all things rare--!
And the more we ate was the more to spare,
Out to Old Aunt Mary's!
~ James Whitcomb Riley, Old Aunt Mary's. 

I read an hilarious article the other day that analysed why Gwyneth Paltrow seems to be the celebrity that people love to hate at the moment.  In a nutshell, it's pretty much because she's drop dead beautiful, filthy rich, talented at acting, writes cookbooks, has gorgeous children, famous friends, and a hugely successful business.  It's just so thoroughly unlikable that there is nothing this woman is not good at.    Dreadfully tall poppy I know but there it is.  Us mere mortals have to contend with having lots of things we are not good at.

Of the many things I suck at, singing in particular has never been a strong suit.

As a kid, when I was into tap dancing competitions, there was one routine where I had to sing and dance at the same time.  What I lacked in on tune-ness, I made up for in loudness.  I remember axe-murdering those high notes so loudly and so badly, my dancing teacher had to stifle belly laughs.  Yes, I would've been one of those auditions on the X Factor.

Another thing I've never been good at is jam making. When I got given these gorgeous quinces from Catherine at work, I had imagined spending a sunny afternoon channeling domestic goddesses of old like Old Aunt Mary, lovingly stirring pots of gorgeous ruby red quince paste and jewel-like crystal clear quince jelly.  How it ended up was with me standing over an angry spitting pot of liquid hot quince magma at 2am in the morning that refused to set.  Delicious tasting mind you, but less paste or jelly like and more what you would imagine hot molten lava to look like: a cloudy, lumpy, muddy red gloop. 

{The good quince jelly, the bad quince jelly}