Dinner

I am very full. I write this almost immediately after eating Sunday night dinner, a meal one shouldn’t miss. Tonight we had beef short rib, slow cooked for 9 hours with red wine, mushrooms, carrots and smoky bacon. The rib was tender and left the clean, sleek bones behind in the slow cooker. We had […]

It takes me a while sometimes to recall the good food I ate as a child. If prompted for fond food memories I probably couldn’t tell you a great deal but over time moments from the past come to mind. Sometimes I forget it’s been a fair few years since I was seven and there’s […]

I remember how I began 2012: in Central Otago, the peak of summer, drinking local wines and eating freshly picked stone fruit. We all sat outside on the first day of the year, in short sleeves, probably drinking rosé, rolling the number around on our tongues, 2012. It sounded good, clean, even. It was going […]

There is a beauty in a salad that you will never find in a roasted leg of lamb, or a chicken curry, or a pasta dish no matter how good and how well made they are. There is a freedom of spirit in a salad. You can free wheel in the kitchen. Salads can be […]

So those hands you see up there peeling garlic belong to the man about the house, so to speak. He likes sushi, no avocado though, bread, potatoes any which way, and chilli, hot and fiery. Perrin loves the movement of cooking – the chopping of onions and other vegetables – feeling the sharp knife move […]

A couple of weeks ago, in the middle of a 50 hour working week, I went home to my parents for dinner. I walked in the front door and was immediately taken to the kitchen, being handed a glass of water and an iron pill en route. Mum pulled out of the oven her black […]

Tuesday was a miserable night, calling for slow cooked and warming food – a venison ragoût. On nights like we have had this week; where the wind shakes the windows in their frames; there are metres of freshly fallen snow in some parts of the country; we’ve had thunder and lightening and unrelenting rain, it […]

A vegetable drawer clean out prompted this soup; a stray spring onion, a half leek, spinach just shy of becoming limp. It was late when I began cooking, nearly 9 o’clock, and the slow steaming of leek and onions sounded so appealing. My soups very rarely follow a recipe. I go by ingredients on hand […]

It is hard to keep up with Wellington weather. What to wear? What to eat? Should I take a raincoat or sunscreen? What to eat gets me the most. I never know if I should be bunkering down with the comfort foods of winter or holding on to those fresh, clean tastes of summer. Winter […]

My mother always says that if there is a can of tomatoes in the house, there is a meal in the house. I know this to be true. I would now like to add my own little kitchen adage, that maybe my children will remember one day. If there are a few onions in the […]

A pork and sauerkraut stew for the New Year… New Book Random Recipe Challenge from Dom at Belleau Kitchen. The book is Austrian Specialties – possibly the most obscure cookbook I have ever bought: a pocket size, glossy paged book that looks to be a relic of the 1970s, but, in fact, was published in […]

I once read that food writing should really be called writing about eating. The food is only one part of what is the overall eating experience. It is the people we are with, the weather, the location, the sense of occasion, or lack thereof. It is our frame of mind; what, in that moment, or […]

I am going to tell a story about rice pilaf, or risotto. I can’t promise it to be very interesting, in fact, I suspect it to be rather dull. A story to sigh and roll your eyes at and think, “Oh dear, Harriet.” This story started several months ago, in France, during a determined search […]

Last week on a quiet Sunday afternoon spent lounging in the sun, I read Stephanie Alexander’s book Cooking and Traveling in South-West France. It is a beautiful book with stories of the people she met and the meals they shared. The south-west is quite possibly my favourite region of France with its rich culinary history […]

I don’t feel I have ever given Italian food a real go. I like pizza and tiramisu as much as the next person but I have never been to Italy, nor a frequent eater at Italian restaurants and our cookbook collection is dominated by french cuisine. In spite of this I believe Italian food to […]

When I lived in France I didn’t really live the culinary dream many expected. I didn’t dine on foie gras or steak frites or cassoulet each day, drink a bottle of Bordeaux or Burgundy each night, and buy new cheeses and interesting cuts of meat from the market each week. I did most of my […]

Saturday night, a family dinner to Vista Café in Oriental Bay. A casual dining experience where all the elements of a wonderful night came together beautifully. The service was exceptional, the food simply delicious, the wine a perfect match. We ordered a bottle of Spanish bubbles to start and were presented with a complimentary dish […]