Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is not a New Zealand holiday, but it's one of my favorites so I decided it would be a New Zealand holiday this year. So I picked a date, invited some friends, and made a menu. When I asked one of my friends if he'd like to come, he looked at me like I'd just asked a silly question and said "of course I'll be there, there'll be lots of food there. America's got it right, having a holiday about eating. NZ should adopt that."

The menu was slightly non-traditional in that we didn't have turkey. We had planned to but when I went to the supermarket and saw that a 10lb turkey would be $70, I thought I'd look for a cheaper option since there were 15-20 people planning to come. Next I thought I'd buy a ham, but it turns out ham was even more over-priced than turkey. So we had yummy oven roasted chicken! In other respects I'd say it was a pretty normal Thanksgiving menu. Everyone said the dinner rolls I made tasted like traditional Maori bread, which was cool :)  I made a pumpkin pie and a butterscotch pie. Pumpkin is used as a vegetable here, and pumpkin pie is a foreign idea so this was the first time my kiwi friends had tried it. The general opinion was that it's quite yummy :) For a traditional NZ dessert, we had pavlova. Not sure how to best describe it...it's sweet deliciousness. I'll use a picture and recommend that you try it if you get the chance. Deviled eggs is another menu item my kiwi friends hadn't tried, but the recipe has been requested several times :)

Despite a bit of rain in the early afternoon, our randomly selected Thanksgiving day was quite nice. It was warmer than I'm accustomed to but it was nice to not have on too many layers. The evening was like any proper feast should be, lots of food and laughter with friends/family.

About half the food

Dessert, before the cheesecake and pavlova arrived

pavlova

Taranaki Garden Spectacular

Every spring there is a local garden festival. I'm not entirely certain on the required criteria to be a part of the festival, but I did have the pleasure of seeing two lovely gardens. The festival was over two weekends. Various locations in town and the surrounding rural area were open to the public for viewing. I performed at Hurworth Cottage and a local winery both weekends of the festival.

Hurworth Cottage is a settlers cabin that was built in the 1850's. It is a part of the local historic society now and has been restored to excellent condition. It is open on the weekends for viewing, and has a lovely garden/yard surrounding it. I performed there with the orchestra both weekends of the festival. It is the New Plymouth orchestra's annual fundraiser to perform there in small groups while selling tea/coffee and cakes. It is positively delightful to have a cup of tea and a yummy treat while sitting in the garden listening to a string quartet. Or brass ensemble. Or piano solos :) I performed with a french horn player, with a violinist, and some solo piano sprinkled here and there to fill time. I found it just as relaxing and enjoyable to perform as I did to sit and listen to the other musicians. Somehow playing in a garden made me feel sophisticated :)

Coming up the drive

The Cottage

The garden, taken from the corner of the porch

One side of the yard/garden

The living room in the cottage

The second weekend I also had the pleasure of performing with a cellist at a winery. It is a lodge used for company retreats and also has a wine shop where it hosts wine tastings and small community events. It was another delightful piece of paradise in New Zealand. I hadn't performed with a cellist prior to this, and other than a slight technical difficulty (we had the keyboard plugged in but were missing the amp to actually get any sound, so we had to wait for it to arrive), it was a lovely Saturday afternoon full of French, English, and German classical music.

The Lodge

The backdrop to my garden gigs :)

Food

Since I've had four months to adjust to any major differences and sample some of the local fare, I thought I'd should some thoughts on what there is to eat in this lovely place. There aren't tons of differences and it is quite possible to find most "American" food. There is also plenty of Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Thai, and Indian food. Unfortunately there isn't much Mexican food, but if you are willing to pay $4 for a very small jar of salsa and $5 for 6 tortillas, you can create your own Mexican feast :) There are some local yummies though, and I've found a few things which I quite enjoy.

Meat pies, yum yum yum. As an American, I think of pie in terms of apples, chocolate, lemon meringue, coconut cream, cherry, etc. etc. etc. and the occasioanal Shepherd's pie. In New Zealand, there is a much wider range of options. You can find yummy meat pies at supermarkets, gas stations, convenience stores and bakeries. They are usually mini-pies, probably about four inches in diameter. There is black pepper steak, steak and cheese, mince and cheese, steak and mushroom, mince and onion, and other yummy options. The potato-top pies have a ground beef mixture with mashed potatoes on top. You can buy them already warm for about $3 and it's a perfect afternoon snack :) You can also buy them in bulk, frozen, to keep at home if you can't be bothered to go the store!

Potato Top Pie

Mince Pie

"Friendly Helpful Employee: 'Welcome to Burger Fuel, what can I get for you today?'      
Hungry Customer: 'Hi, I would like kumara chips please'."
Burger Fuel seems to have the most legit burgers in town, and kumara chips are their tasty sweet potato fries. A common topping for your burger, along with gerkens (pickles), tomaaaatoes (NOT toe-mate-oes), lettuce and cheese, is beetroot. I have tried a burger that had beets on it and it was surprisingly yummy. While beets aren't my favorite food, I have nothing against eating them, but I must confess it never occurred to me to put it on a burger. I think I'll stick to beetroot-less burgers from now on, but I did give it a go :)

Steak pie for lunch, burger with beetroot and kumara chips for supper. What about breakfast? How about crumpets? Best description I can give is that crumpets are an English muffin pancake. The bottom looks like a pancake, the texture is fairly similar to a pancake, but the top looks like an English muffin. Pop it in the toaster and when it comes out put some butter and syrup on it and there you go. They're pretty tasty :) If you prefer normal toast, a topping option is Marmite or Vegemite. I've been told you like either one or the other but not both. So far I have tried Vegemite and once was enough. I haven't tried Marmite yet but have been told it's milder. Vegemite looks deceptively yummy, it looks like chocolate peanut butter. But oh it's not. It's a bit bitter, and to me was very salty. So not really what I want on my toast :) If you go out for breakfast, a common item on the menu is sauteed mushrooms. Not sure how they make them but they are very yummy with some sausage and fried eggs.

Crumpets

One thing that is disappointing to my taste buds is tomato sauce. If you're out and order french fries (I mean chips) then you'll get tomato sauce with it. It looks like ketchup so you happily dunk your fry, anticipating the flavor combination of ketchup and french fry and then BAM! You're eating tomato sauce with your fries. You'd think I'd have learned after the first couple times but I still get fooled nearly every time. I guess I just always hold onto a little bit of hope that somebody somewhere will have the sense to serve ketchup and not tomato sauce :)

If you'd like a tasty local beverage, try some L&P, Lemon and Paeroa. It's soda made in NZ, rather similar to sprite. You can even find white chocolate with L&P in it. It's like eating chocolate, but also eating pop rocks at the same time, crazy :)

One item you will not find here is biscuits and gravy. You will get an amusing reaction if you ask a kiwi whether they like biscuits and gravy. Biscuits here are actually cookies. And it seems they normally only use brown gravy, so you can see the train of thoughts going "wait...biscuits and gravy...a cookie with gravy on it??? Yuck!!!" I've done my best to describe it but since they don't really have biscuits (the American kind I mean), it's somewhat hard to accurately communicate. I reckon I'll have to make some up at some point and see how they like it.

There is a traditional Maori dinner called a Hangi, which I have not had an opportunity to try yet. But whenever I do I'll be sure to share :)

Final thought. When in NZ, don't say "I cut up a kiwi to go with lunch." If you do it means you are a cannibal. Say kiwifruit, it makes those around you much happier!

Green kiwi fruit

Golden kiwi fruit

Whakatane

Last weekend was Labor Day so I took an extra day off to get a 4-day weekend and went for a weekend adventure with one of my friends. We had planned to go to the city of Napier because her older sister lives there, but when that fell through we had to pick somewhere else to go. So I asked where she'd like to go and she said "Anywhere!" Not helpful, since I was of the same opinion. So I pulled out  my trusty North Island of NZ map, made a quick note of where I have been and then thought "OK, Whakatane, haven't been there, that's where we'll go." PS, that is how most of the trips I've taken so far has been determined. I see a place with a cool name or I close my eyes and point and see where my finger lands, then I go there. So far so good :)

But anyway, so Whakatane. For those of you who wish to be culturally aware, the "WH" is pronounced like "F."

It's a beautiful place. We stayed at a lovely hostel run by a couple who wanted to do something different. It was by far the nicest I have ever stayed at, and for an incredibly reasonable price. Our hostess was delighted that we noticed how she color coordinated the rooms, and we were thankful for the comfortable lounge room to relax in after a day outside.

Whakatane is a small town, so was easy to quickly get a feel for where everything is located. The best breakfast was at the Bean Cafe. Best smoothies are at Poppy's Cafe. The grocery store was just around the corner from the hostel and Pizza Hut was just around the corner from the police station. And it's a beautiful place to be outdoors. We spent most of one day biking/meandering down the water front, finding beautiful seashells and people watching and enjoying the fact that it was both warm and sunny all in the same day.

Our other full day there was devoted to hiking. There was a lovely trail (which we'd mistakenly thought we could bike on day 1 and quickly found out otherwise) which led to Ohope Beach. So we packed a lunch, grabbed some water (and sunscreen) and off we went. It was a delightful hike, up a mountain, or probably just a really big hill, and around the the top of it so we could see the town and then the bay and then we came to this lovely little cove thingey where we found more seashells. As we continued on from there it was only a short way further to Ohope Beach. We had a picnic and walk along the beach before making the hike back.

I'll let you look at pictures now because it's easier than trying to describe what we saw :)

Island in the distance is possibly Whale Island, not positive

He just about let me walk up to him :)

Ohope Beach