Entries from December 2008 ↓

Just had a fabulous dinner out with our New York friend (2nd dinner so think we can move to friend status) Brian – Capitol of course (turns out it’s a favourite of his family’s whenever they’re in Wellington!) I tried the pasta this time, can’t believe I passed on the pumpkin risotto, strozzapreti with herbs and zucchini which was delicious.

We very much enjoy Brian’s stories and getting to know him and his family. He’s very inspiring and it’s incredible to hear some of the things people that he’s met in his life and work have done, what they have achieved from humble, New Zealand beginnings. It’s good to meet some different people too, people outside of work mates, family and those we come into contact with each day. Important for becoming ‘grown ups’!

Work is so full on at the moment – I’m at that stage where I feel like I can’t breathe because I don’t feel like I’m making any headway and that there’s so much to do by the next deadline – so I was a bit anxious about taking a night off but it was a welcome break into a different part of our lives. Will have to start early tomorrow!

Yaaay – she’s here – arrived earlier this evening. Will be trying very hard to see her sometime before Christmas somewhere between Wellington and Wanganui.

Can’t remember where I read this but I was surprised to learn that 67% of people called to do jury service get excused – I assume this isn’t because they’re calling a load of ‘duds’ (I don’t mean this as derogatory, I mean people automatically excused because of mental, physical or proximity reasons) but that people are actually writing in to get excused.

Long time readers of my blog will know my history with jury service … how can the same person get called 3 times in 18 months?… hence my interest in the behaviour of others when it comes to the summons.

So, looking at it in reverse, this means that peoples’ futures that are decided at the hand of a jury are in the hands of 33% of potential jurors. Does this mean that the jury is actually pretty skewed/screwed because with such a low percentage of people that go on jury service that they must all be a certain type of people? Perhaps people who can’t get out of it – majority of these would probably be public servants and by in large they are certain type of people; perhaps people who want to do jury service – likely people who are particularly staunch about their civic responsibilities or; people from the list of people who haven’t tried to get excused hence me being called 3 times in 18 months! Not really a point here, just a ramble.

Went to Nikau for the last date scone in a while. They’ll be reopening in 2009 but not sure when. Actual last day trading is this Friday and we’re going to drinks after closing. It’s been great having Nikau and the staff as part of our lives the last 4 years (and all the date scones, kedgeree and ham and salad) – as much as we love life in the city, this neighbourhood aspect is very cool.

The pohutakawa are coming out and are amazingly red this year. Ahhhh, the colour of New Zealand summer.

Marigold is now totally recognisable as a marigold, with several flowers! Still none of the other seeds in the pot have come through but this plant has practically taken over the whole pot anyway! It’s a lovely burst of orange every time I look out onto the deck.

Every year I send a few Christmas cards … the good old fold-in-half
bits of cardboard with a Christmas scene pictured on the front that you
put in an envelope and stick on a stamp. I haven’t yet resorted to an
electronic alternative and only on a couple of occasions have I written
the here’s-what-we’ve-been-doing in 200X letter … mind you having a
blog probably stands well in its place.

Aaaaaanyway, this year, imagine my excitement when I realised we were
going to be in New York right on the time of year to write and send
Christmas cards. I decided well before we went that I wanted take the
Christmas card list, get New York cards and U.S. stamps and post them
from New York. Step 1, 2 and 3 planned and executed. The posting bit
was a bit of a challenge. I wanted to post the cards in December, which
meant the day we left. I scanned Times Square (not an easy feat given
the crowds normally there) on Monday morning when we were out for
breakfast but no sign of a post box. We had to get to the airport so I
thought I could just post them from there. They’d still have a New York
post mark. Alas, no post box at JFK. Bugger. So I carried them in my
hand bag on the plane to post at Los Angeles – surely LAX would have a
post box or post office – we were still flying domestically then – all
those movie starts hopping on the plane in LA must surely be posting
stuff to fans or paying parking tickets (or whatever else you can do at
the post office) or at least have their staff do it.

Upon arrival at LAX I noticed a directory listing in the loos and YES,
there was a post office in the domestic terminal. Because of a problem
with our LA to Auckland seats I broke my own rule of ‘if you remember
to do something or see where to do it you should do it right away in
case you forget later or don’t get the chance again’ assuming that one
post office meant the presence of post boxes in other parts of the
airport. Not a good assumption. No post box in the international
terminal. “For security reasons’ the Air NZ check-in woman told us. We
had 3 hours to fill in so we walked back over to the domestic terminal.
No post box there either, and no sight of the mysterious post office.
Until I remembered that it said ‘Departures Hall’ – I now realise than
meant on the flying side of security, not the ground side. So now we
were on the ground side there was no way of going through security to
get back. God. My beautiful Christmas cards, all with messages from New
York with US$10 worth of stamps on them … I was going to have to cart
them all the way back to New Zealand, take them out of their envelopes
and post them from Wellington. The lovely Mister sensing my distress
approached the nearest security/customs officer checking passports as
you went through to be stripped and screened to cross over to the
flying side and asked if there was a post box in the airport. No. My
‘Oh’ and crestfallen look at my handful of Christmas cards must have
adequately represented my distress. She (the customs person) said
“Would you like me to post something for you on my way home tonight?”
Ommigod! Would you? Would you really? “Of course. What is it? Are they
all stamped?” Yes YES. I fanned them all out and lifted one up to show
both sides so that she could see it was a harmless Christmas card with
correct postage. “Leave them with me. I drive right by the post office
on my way home. It’s no problem.” Fantastic. And Happy Holidays to you.

I couldn’t believe it! Leaving mysterious white envelopes with someone
at the airport I would’ve thought was a definite no no. And I
wouldn’t've thought customs/security guards would encourage it.
However, she took the little red box the cards were in and popped it up
on the bench near where she was checking people’s passports and wished
up happy travels. To be honest, I had no idea whether she’d remember to
pick them up again or whether she’d bin them thinking that she was just
playing along but in her mind was really thwarting a terrorist event. I
wondered for days.

And then yesterday, I had 3 elated thank yous from friends in New
Zealand, the States and Switzerland that they received a lovely
Christmas card from me. So she did it! That lovely lady actually went
out of her way to drive by the post office on her way home and post my
cards. I have no idea who she is and how to thank her but I am
thrilled. These acts of human kindness make up for all those dicks out
there – you know who you are the drunken idiots throwing beer bottes
off our apartment building on Saturday night and the drongos that have
been trekking up to the top of Mum and Dad’s property over the last few
weeks and bit by bit destroying and stealing the trigg station (that’s
right, a trigg station. If you’ve ever seen one up close then you know
they are enormous and not easy to take away and anyway, why the HELL
would you?).

And if you didn’t receive a lovely Christmas card from me, don’t worry.
There is a list and you’re probably not on it. It’s a relatively closed
list, quite small, and there are criteria to get on it – the main one
being that you don’t live in Wellington (Kaitoke counts as outside of
Wellington!) and I don’t typically see you around Christmas.

After seeing lots of Christmas things in New York and lots of Christmas food, I decided I’d try and do some Christmassy baking in the lead up to Christmas – besides fruit mince pies.

My first effort was gingerbread … spurred on by the taste of Canteen Lady’s gingerbread I used the same recipe. It was very like making pastry from scratch (which we know I’m not very patient with) and when I scratched around in the drawer I didn’t have Christmas cookie cutters, just the round ones but never mind. Turned out pretty well! Bit like ginger shortbread.

However, not as well as Canteen Lady’s gingerbread creations – these are photos of some of the treats she brought into work before we went away that I’ve been meaning to post for ages. She must spend hours doing it.

Went for a stroll over to Moore Wilson’s yesterday as they’d just reopened the Fresh Market in their new building. Much bigger and more open and for Moore Wilson purists, perhaps not so crammed and fresh-from-the-farm looking as the previous building. It reminded us somewhat of Wholefoods in the States. I’d say they’re going to have to employ more staff as well – in the old place there was a central island of glass cabinets that could be staffed by a couple of people at a pinch running to whatever side was required to serve a customer; in the new place there are several islands – bakery, cold cuts, fresh meat, cheese, sweet bakery, coffee that all seem to need a dedicated staff member.

However, we found everything we needed for our take on the divine salad I had at Henry’s End restaurant in Brooklyn on our second night in New York. Over the last year we’ve seen a definite increase in the beet root/feta (or more usually goat’s cheese) match and every time we’ve been served it, it’s been unexpectedly delicious. Perhaps this combination is tried and true but the first time we had it was the delicious caramelised onion, beet root and feta tarts that Julia made us last Christmas in Washington that we’ve made several times since.

So, the challenge was: WARM PISTACHIO GOAT CHEESE SALAD: Goat cheese crusted with pistachio nuts, mixed with a citrus vinaigrette and garnished with roasted heirloom beets (from the Henry’s End menu).

And the result was INCREDIBLE! I made a standard vinaigrette (no citrus); we added avocado and The Mister concocted a crust of breadcrumbs and pine nuts in the mortar and pestle. I whole-roasted the beet root so it was lovely and sweet and he patiently coated and baked the slices of goats cheese (yes, patience was definitely required hence him being on that job!) which browned nicely on the outside and were melt-in-the-mouth delicious on the inside. YUM. And a lovely something to serve for vegetarian friends (… except forgot to check for the presence of rennet on the cheese packet although being soft cheese I’m assuming there was none).

The guy in this picture from stuff.co.nz who is not Beckham is the guy that The Mister was sitting next to on the flight home.