Made Blenheim fritters again for dinner tonight – spurred on a bit by Julia we accompanied the fritters with asparagus and some homemade aioli. It was very VERY delicious.

Just saw the movie Julie & Julia – I read the book a few years ago and really enjoyed it and the movie was fantastic. The story is of government agency temp Julie cooking her way through The Art of French Cooking by Julia Childs in the year of her 30th birthday. It’s a great story of cooking and how Julia Childs became the household name she is.

Must have a rat through Mother’s stack of cookbooks to see if she has a copy, I don’t think she does, but I probably can’t consider myself any kind of cook if I don’t try something from the book. And the recipe I should try should probably be boeuf bourguignon although all the red wine and mushrooms puts me off. Perhaps I’ll do it for The Mister.

The story was lovely. Meryl Streep always does such a brilliant job of taking on the characters she plays and her portrayal of Julia Childs was wonderful. Had me in tears a few times and now The Mister and I are doing our best Julia Childs impression every time we make eye contact “Helloooooooo!” Which turns out to be fairly often!!

We’re going “to beeeeeee a part of it! New York! New Yo-ooorrrk!”

YIPEEEEEEE it’s official. We’re off to live in New York next March for 4 months. It’s a dream come true. We’ve been working on plans with Xero for a while now to find a time when we could work from home and we choose that home to be an apartment somewhere in Manhattan. And we’ve finally made it happen.

We’re going in March so that we get 4 months before the height of summer, and so that we have a decent amount of time there during baseball season. It’s going to be freezing in March, and quite changeable – I’ve been looking at the temperatures over the last couple of years – anything ranging from daytime highs of minus 7 to 25!!

We’re in the throes of organising airfares and investigating furnished short term rentals. It’s going to be a big change for us and our teams – although we have quite a few people working remotely now so I’m sure we’ll all just adapt.

It’s just so great Xero can let this happen for us. I can’t explain the breathless excitement and bursting feeling in my heart sometimes when I realise it’s going to happen. Not quite counting the days but definitely watching our spending – obviously this will not be a cheap exercise and the last thing we want to worry about when we’re there is running out of money. And trying not to think that we WILL have to come home.

We’ve added a Canadian to our urban family and she holds a Thanksgiving feast each year – Canadian Thanksgiving is mid-October and she has her dinner at Labour Weekend, so off we went last night (man, 3rd night out in a row, feeling very tired and grainy today!) It was pot-luck which I just can’t remember doing for ages and ages so we picked carefully – something that we know we can make, something to feed 13 people, something with a kiwi touch and something orange or could be served in an orange dish in order to make an orange impression on our new friends. Yep, you guessed it – Mother’s Kumara & Orange Bake in the big orange casserole dish!

Finally got the knack of the mandolin for slicing the kumara – it’s a rather dangerous utensil for one to loose one’s temper with (… ahem …) and ever since it bit The Mister last year there’s no way I’m going to let it get the better of me so that I have to pass it over to him because I don’t want him to get hurt again! But I was on a roll yesterday – must’ve been more than a hundred slices of kumara!

Actually we have to admit it turned out great! We thought it might have a bit much cream in it but it was cooked perfectly and rested for about 45 mins after cooking because we had to wrestle the searing hot dish into a sturdy bag and transport it along Cuba Mall to the dinner venue. So all the cream was nicely soaked up before we served it. Everyone was so impressed and there were mumblings of ‘Wow, who made this? It’s SOOOO good.’ Yaaay!

It’s Mother’s recipe from the Awakeri Community Complex Cookbook 1998! Check it out.

So now we turn our attention to our 4th Thanksgiving dinner in late November. Each year it gets a bit bigger, I think this year will be too, so even though we love the idea of everyone around the table we might have to go for the buffet and sit where you can approach. Here are last year’s photos for a trip down memory lane – prep time and dinner time.