Seasonal produce: the pear

"Seasonal produce" is a regular section from my newsletter, reconfigured here for your reading pleasure. I write it to ramp up my enthusiasm for eating seasonally—especially when I’m eating August swedes and dreaming of spring asparagus.

 

Autumn rolls around, and once again we are eating fresh, seasonal pears (i.e. not the disappointing coldstore ones available later in the year with the creepy brown centres).

I don’t love pears. As a rule I prefer a crisp, slightly tart apple.

In making that bold generalisation I add the caveat that I think pears taste pretty nice as a rule. My main issue is that they jump too quickly from rock hard and tasteless, to so ripe they’re almost impossible to eat without getting covered in juice. There is a pear-eating sweet spot that’s pretty hard to hit.*

Shannon, on the other hand, loves pears, so they feature pretty regularly in our fruit bowl—which gave me somewhere to start when we had some people over for dinner the other week (our oven is kaput so my normal go-tos like pies or cakes were out of the question). I ended up making maybe the most delicious emergency dessert ever. Simple! Light! Flavours! Pears!**

Poached pears with cinnamon sour cream gelato

The gelato is incredibly easy: I’d had the recipe in my clearfile for at least a year, and found it again recently. It’s a matter of just mixing a bunch of stuff together and throwing it in the freezer and is very, very good. The recipe is from Pear Nuallak (who writes a rather wonderful food blog).

My original plan was to serve the gelato with some fresh berries—I was growing raspberries in our Wellington veggie patch and am somewhat obsessed. However, we are kind of broke at the moment, we already had the pears, and I remember seeing Nigella poaching some peaches one time which seemed pretty easy.

Cinnamon sour cream gelato

Recipe from Pear Nuallak

• 1 can full-fat sweetened condensed milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• Couple of pinches of sea salt
• 300ml full-fat sour cream (I guesstimated this as in NZ we mostly have 250ml cartons of sour cream)

Whisk together the condensed milk, vanilla, cinnamon and salt. Add the sour cream and continue to mix until the whole melange is smooth and well-combined (I don’t think I did this terribly thoroughly as there were definitely parts of my gelato that were more “condensed milky” than others. Don’t be like me.).

Whack the whole lot in a container that can hold up to 1 litre, seal it, and put it in the freezer. Wait impatiently for 4ish hours until it’s frozen.

Poached cinnamon vanilla pears

Recipe adapted (slightly) from Taste.com.au

• 4 perfect brown pears (or, you know, whatever you’ve got)
• lemon juice 
• 1 cups sugar 
• 3 cups water
• vanilla bean, split, seeded
• cinnamon quill

Mix the sugar and water in a pan that will hold the fruit and liquid fairly snugly. Heat gently-ish until the sugar is dissolved, then simmer for 5 minutes.

Meanwhile peel the pears, leaving the stalk on them if you can. Rub them all over with lemon juice (this helps to stop them going brown—but if you moved quickly you could probably leave this step out). Put the pears and whole spices into the sugar syrup, and gently cook the lot for 15-20 minutes, until the pears are tender. Make sure that the pears are cooked evenly by turning them in the liquid a couple of times.

Next step I missed out, but: take the pears out of the liquid, and continue to cook the syrup until it’s reduced by about a third.

Finally: serve the gelato and pears together with a little of the syrup. You could reheat the pears if you’d like, but I didn’t bother (too lazy). It was *dancing lady emoji*.

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*Yes! There are lots of different kinds of pears. We seem to always end up with brown pears like Beurre Bosc though. I had a good experience with some little green crisp pears once but haven’t seen them since.

**In the event there was a delicious misunderstanding and our guests brought a delicious butterscotch nut pie-flan thing that was crazy delicious. We ate the pears and gelato over the last week. Much excellent, very recommend.

Notes: I am in Auckland

It’s just over a year since I announced my blog break. In that year my father passed away, Shannon and I bought a house in Wellington, I went freelance, and we moved to Auckland (in that order). It’s been massive, and stressful, with very big highs and lows.

And here we are, three weeks after the move north... the novelty of Auckland is yet to wear off. I’m writing this from an exceptionally beautiful cafe around the corner from our house in Herne Bay, featuring many gorgeous pot plants in eclectic vessels. It’s all very artful and well staged, and makes me want to throw out everything I own and redecorate in the “deliciously distressed Hamptons beach house” style.

As for eats: the coffee I am drinking is ok, but weirdly acidic which is not so nice. I am not eating here because it’s really expensive moving city (quelle surprise) and at the moment I’m tilting towards saving and recouping our moving expenses, with some success I think.

Life grinds inexorably onwards

I’m currently knitting two socks on the same needle. I’m not sure what you’re supposed to do when you get to the heel, so I kind of fudged it and made a mess—I’m proud to say I was able to fix without doing too much damage. I like that I’m avoiding second sock syndrome, but really need to figure out how to turn heels with this new technique.

My kitchen here is great, so much better than the one in our house in Wellington (which will be first against the wall when the renovations come). It’s inspiring me to try new things and get excited—I want to get my Ferment on, so I’m sussing out kefir and kombucha cultures; I dug up a whole heap of recipes that I’d bookmarked and am slowly cooking my way through them; we are eating homemade bread again on the regular.

Finally: I’m hustling for work! I’m best at Plain Language web content writing and am looking for contracts or part time work. I’m keen to ghost-blog also. Let me know of any leads, or hit me up if you’re keen! All details are on my website.

What is making me happy: The Power of Exercise and homemade ice blocks

Christmas party at works, 18/12/1937 by Sam Hood. From the Collection of the State Library of New South Wales.

While most of January has passed in a whirlwind of balmy days, salty swims and delicious summer food, I was afflicted by a pretty severe case of post-holiday blues after I returned to work - and it took three weeks to resolve it! I was grumpy, I was short-tempered, I suffered near-daily life-crises.

Things didn’t start to improve until last week, due to the amazing weather we were having, and my decision to start running again.

So. Running. I don’t enjoy the act of running terribly much, but I do love the effects of running. That is: increased smugness, and the ability to cope a little better with the world around me. While I haven’t found an exercise that I love since my rollerskating days, running is free(!) and encourages me to take advantage of the beach and parks near my house.

It is a total cliché to state that exercise is good for mental health, but the difference between the grumpiness of sedentary Sarah and the coping skills of exercising Sarah is marked. For me, its a good decision.

ALSO: as of this Wednesday, I started my four day work weeks - with the fifth day devoted to my own projects and hopefully drumming up a bit of copy- or web writing work. Hit me up if you like my kool style and are in need of such skills - you can contact me through my website (sarahjanemiller.co.nz).

More things

COOKING: Lately I’ve been trying really hard to perfect the Beef Rendang recipe in Slowcooked. My first attempt was delicious but too saucy, my second an improvement but still on the saucy side I think.

I am confused by the instruction to reduce the curry in the slow cooker. In my experience, that’s just not possible as in, the whole point of a slow cooker is to lock in the heat and moisture. Perhaps if I fiddled with the lid less, I’d reach the desired outcome?

Because of the heat, I’ve also been making homemade ice block. I made some lemon manuka honey yoghurt ice blocks based on a recipe for Creamy Lime Honey popsicles which were crazy delicious, and freestyled some soy iced coffee ice blocks using cold brew coffee as the base. If I can get a good photo I’ll share a recipe which will include some tips on how to avoid getting coffee grinds in the finished product (which I can attest is pretty disgusting).

READING: I spent most of Sunday with my face glued to my eReader, demolishing Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth. It’s silly, but I’m loving it - it has a great pace, and it’s pretty fun. The evil characters are very mustache-twirly, the good characters have just enough flaws to make them likeable but not so many flaws that they are challenging to think about.

FAVOURITE PODCAST EPISODE: As always, I am enamoured with podcasts with lots of primary sources and little narration. The Radio Diaries podcast The View from the 79th Floor, about a 1945 bomber crash into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building, had some great interviews with eyewitnesses, primary audio material from a dictation machine, and media reports from the time.

KNITTING: Always I am knitting this Featherweight, but I have almost finished the body, and I’m much happier with this size than the abortively tiny one that resulted from my previous attempt.

I have only used one skein of the five ridiculously expensive skeins that I bought. I might use another half skein, but still, it’s looking as though I could knit something else out of the yarn.

SEWING: I am actually struggling a little with the excessive number of clothes I have. I think that it would be a good idea to have a bit of a purge before I start making anything else.

LISTENING: I splashed out and bought a bunch of albums when I arrived back at work, and I currently have Sylvan Esso’s album on high rotation. I particularly love the opening track which seems to be the Mary Poppins of pop music - Practically Perfect in Every Way. When it opens it reminds me of Polka Dot Dot Dot to the extent I had to Google and make sure that it didn’t actually feature anybody from the group.

Also: very excited for a new Marina and the Diamonds album. 

Wednesday List: six delicious smug lunches

Lately I've been doing this basically quite ridic thing where I smugly take a picture of my lunch and post it on a dedicated Twitter account.

I tried to come up with some reasons but really it's just silliness that allows me to humblebrag about my lunch. Here are some best ones:

What is making me happy: Christmas week and summer holidays

Two Christmas trees are not enough. Also, please note my artful(!) use of vignette: I should not be allowed to play with filters.

I am on holiday now - three weeks of glorious me-time; cooking and sewing and knitting, and planning for Christmas and next year’s projects. Yesterday I put up our beautiful tree, I’ve made some simple mincemeat and we have a fancy free-range ham in the fridge for Christmas Day.

After New Year, Shannon and I are going on holiday for a week with the ever-lovely Nat and Mark - Taupō and then maybe Tauranga. Sunshine is nigh! Exciting because until very recently, Wellington has been proving itself true-to-type in the weather department. *Sighs as though her heart would break* *looks wistfully out the rain-smeared window at the rain with chin in hand*

Related to Christmas planning: I’m also enjoying planting succulents in teacups/stoneware goblets/dessert glasses.

READING:

• Naked by David Sedaris - I bought a copy of this for Nat for her birthday and then borrowed it off her - only to discover three essays-in that I had definitely read it before. I had a look on Good Reads in the vague hope that I’d actually made a note of it and it turns out I'd totally read it in August last year! How about that.
• The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood - long conversation with Mon after I’d read this about loving everything that Margaret Atwood represents but then not really loving the books themselves. There was so much I liked about this book, but I did feel it was a bit laboured.
• The Portable Dorothy Parker - dipping in and out of the short stories, and skipping over most of the poetry. Not keen on poetry, even the comedic rhyming couplet type.
• Always sitting in my reader and making me feel dismayed with my lack of commitment to Serious Reading - Middlemarch and Peter Ackroyd’s London: The Biography.

WATCHING: A lot (SO MUCH) of Nigella Lawson. On Saturday I watched two series of Nigella's Christmas Kitchen in a row, six episodes in all. I am totally Christmassy right now. I want Poinsettias.

Also! Last night: Home Alone which was better than I remembered.

FAVOURITE PODCAST EPISODE: Fugitive Waves (the Kitchen Sisters) - the Nights of Edith Piaf. SO.GOOD.

The Kitchen Sisters are amaze, also I am fascinated by Edith Piaf's life story. I love a mostly non-narrative/non-editorialising podcast with lots of oral history and primary sources - so: A+++.

KNITTING: I bound off a pocket of my tunic dress and have put it away until next year.

Finally, I began swatching for my Featherweight in Madeline Tosh Lace and the tiny stitches are basically quite terrifying.

SEWING: I have many plans, lots of patterns and a fairly hefty stash - but an empty cutting table. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

LISTENING: Michael Buble’s Christmas album is on high-rotation at the moment. I enjoy his unabashed cheesiness mightily at this time of year.

Pickle Pants at the Kristmas Knack

On Saturday I made the first step towards my dream of becoming the mustardress I was born to be - my friend Mon and I sold our mustards and pickles at the fancily-named Berhampore School Fair, Kristmas Knack. It was fun and also like re-visiting my time in retail – i.e. much greeting people in a cheery manner and using the same patter repeatedly (“you have to like this one, it's my Nanny's recipe” - a line that is funny exactly 0.5 times. If that).

We made a few sales, but mostly we sat behind the stall, snacked on Mon's delicious home-made cream crackers, and gossiped about all the people we knew.

Guys we are at the Knack! Buy the pickles! Buy them. pic.twitter.com/ox8ItRHlla
— pickle-pants (@gingrjane) November 14, 2014

One of the best things was the woman selling crochet across from us – she had a fabulously and hilariously broad German accent, an infectious giggle, and a pretty great sense of humour. She asked if she could enhance her cheese roll with our bread and butter pickle taster, and who were we to say no in the face of such enthusiasm? She also bought some of our wares which infinitely increased her in my estimation. There was a lot of inter-stall trading going on over the course of the day, and I ended up spending more than I earned (but nobody said this was an exercise in money-making, alright? Evidently for me mostly an exercise in pottery and jewellery acquisition).

There are a couple of things I would change when we do it again - more game for our stall, layers and levels and more beautiful things to attract attention. I also wonder if it's a better idea to have lots of small amounts of different pickles and mustards rather than a lot of the same – so, variety over abundance. The main thing, and the thing that harks back again to my days in retail - is the need to talk talk talk and engage people and get them excited.

We have no immediate plans to be at another fair, but we do have some delicious goodies that we still need to move. I will make a note here next time we have plans to be somewhere, in case you are in Wellington/super keen. We're selling under the name Pickle Pants – a phrase I coined when I got a whiff of my jeans one Friday at work - they were the same jeans I'd worn when we made 43 jars of bread and butter pickle and they were very whiffy, like stale vinegar and cucumber.

Nothing sexier than pickle pants.

Spend less, save more: eating your income

Lately I've been committed to recording my weekly spend, and one thing has become painfully obvious - I eat or drink most of my money. Between grabbing a coffee and a scone on the way to work, and buying my lunch or dinner, I spend about a third of my mad money on food each pay period.

Food is good and food is important, and it's important to buy food and eat it. At home we put aside a good amount of money each week to buy food for the house and we eat really well - something for which I’m always grateful.

What I'm trying to address here is the additional money I spend on food each week, which is nearly always frittered away on snacks and food that I don’t really need. I want to avoid that feeling three days before pay day when I realise that I have have three dollars of spending money left and nothing really to show for it - not even a super fun night out. And I want to help you avoid it too. We can do it together!

So, while acknowledging that food is my one weakness, here are some suggestions - some of which I follow on a semi-regular basis, and that maybe you could follow more frequently - to stop us eating our money.

Fancy coffee is a treat

While cutting the coffee will not kill debt in itself, making a decision to drink less fancy coffee can make a difference to the amount you can save or repay. It's terrifying to think how much money I must have spent on coffee over the years. As an individual I'm sure that I've effectively propped up the entire Wellington coffee industry*, or at any rate, drunk the equivalent of a house deposit.

These days I try to make sure that I always have the makings of delicious coffee at work. If you're working for a more generous employer than I am, you'll probably already have some kind of coffee banging around the staffroom. But even if you're bringing in your own bag of fresh roasted beans, making coffee - rather than buying it - makes for a substantial saving.

Because being completely puritanical about espresso doesn't work for me, I get a coffee from a cafe once or twice a week. My work-local has a surcharge for takeaway coffee cups which encourages me to remember my Keep Cup, and thus, save the planet as well as 30 cents a pop. The upshot of this is that if I have to go back to the office to get my cup, I will stop - think about the coffee I already have available - and choose not to buy the espresso. At least, that’s the theory.

Better still, I use the infrequency of bought coffees as an excuse to take some time out and have a sit down before work or at lunch time. Not only do I get the caffeine, but also the atmosphere, the comfy seats, the access to glossy magazines, and the people watching. More bang for my buck, and makes it a treat rather than a habit.

Bring the basics

Keep the basics in your bag: fill a water bottle, bring a piece of fruit and a small container filled with nuts or some other kind of sustaining treat. We’re just aiming to make it from lunchtime to when we get home without blowing ten dollars on afternoon tea or buying a drink that we don’t need.

I’ve just started making Bliss Balls which are crazy delicious, but in the past I’ve also made muesli slice or biscuits that I take to work as an afternoon treat. Dried fruit and nuts or bought muesli bars are easier to keep on hand, and something that’s kind of fun if not actively completely macrobiotic is a small container of sprouts - I’m really into sprouting at the moment and sprouts are crunchy and delicious, so, win.

A moment too, to appreciate how annoying it is to buy a bottle of water - creating waste and paying far too much money for something you can get for free? Ugh.

Leftovers and freezer food

Three bean chili, rice and accoutrements

The big daily spend on food is buying lunches during the work week. I love sandwiches, but it can get boring when you’re bringing cheese and bread everyday.** I try and remember to bring a big container of leftovers, and keeping this in mind can dictate what I’ll cook at home - we eat much more bowl food and things that heat up and travel well.

I try to allow for days where there are no leftovers available by making a slow cooker pot of dal or chill beans once every fortnight or so, dividing the food into lunch size portions, and freezing these. In winter, soup is a good option - I used to work with someone who’d make soup with leftover veges (i.e. whatever was left over from last week) and then freeze the soup in resealable bags.

The problem with this plan is that you need to be fairly organised, and if you’re having a super busy weekend it’s just not going to happen. But I find cooking really relaxing, so I’m happy to prep and potter on a lazy Sunday.

These are the slow cooker recipes that I’ve used lately

• Smitten Kitchen: three-bean chili
• Cafe Johnsonia: Slow Cooker Red Lentil Dal

These Budget Bytes home-made frozen burritos and quesadillas also make good, simple lunches to keep in the freezer.

Dinner out is a social exercise

In another attempt to control my spending, I’m trying to make any dinners and lunches in cafes and restaurants social exercises. I get to enjoy both delicious food and delicious company!

Once again, the plan is to move away from considering expensive pre-prepared food a necessity and towards thinking about eating-out as an event on which it’s worthwhile to spend my money. That is, I want the experience to be one I savour and that is memorable. Not too much to ask?

Spending less on food is an ongoing project for me - do you have any suggestions to help?
Also, here is a 2010 post about the same thing: Money and the fine art of Not Frittering It Away on Food.

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*Only a tiny bit of hyperbole. Really.
**This is a lie. Cheese and bread are two of my main food groups, and I can happily eat variations on them every day. For the purposes of this blog post, however, let’s pretend that it can get boring.
***I really love doing this.

Pickled mustard seed

We eat a lot of mustard. Despite a full shelf of mustard in the fridge, we seem to be constantly using up and buying more of the stuff (that golden-yellow, deliciously tangy stuff).

Imagine my excitement when I rediscovered a bunch of mustard recipes in my recipe folder. These were recipes that I'd found on Design Sponge about two years ago, in a post that had first sparked my interest in making mustard - and indeed, my dream of artisan mustard-making.

But it wasn't until a fortnight ago that I decided to actually make some damn mustard. Of the three recipes I had printed off, I only had the ingredients or easy access to the ingredients for one: 'Pickled mustard seed’. I assumed this was some kind of funky American name for whole seed mustard.

This proved incorrect.

The mustard seed looks fairly adorbs (and actually a lot like standard wholeseed mustard) in this jar.

While tasting mostly unlike whole seed mustard, pickled mustard seed certainly has its place and - most importantly - is completely delicious.

After I'd made the pickle and discovered that I had something quite different to what I'd intended to make, I did some research to figure out what on earth you were supposed to do with it. Tossing the seeds through leafy greens was recommended, so we've been having pickled mustard seed with brussel sprouts and bacon as a side dish (Shannon's invention, and the logical extension of "leafy greens"). The pickle is supposed to be good with charcuterie too.

The pickled mustard seed looks very pretty in the jar, and the recipe is easy to make - so it could be a good thing to make for presents if you're planning ahead. I will add though, that if you're going to do that you'll want to go to the trouble of properly sterilising and sealing the jars (of course).

I just popped mine straight in the fridge. Don't be like me.

Here it is on the stove! Why not admire my saucepan too.

Here's the recipe, cadged pretty directly from the original Design Sponge post.

Pickled Mustard Seed

Makes 2 1/2 cups

• 1 cup yellow mustard seed (I used half brown and half yellow mustard seed)
• 1 1/2 cups cider or white wine vinegar & 1/3–1/2 cup, divided
• 1 teaspoon coarse sea salt
• 2 Tablespoons honey
• 2 teaspoons turmeric

Rinse mustard seeds and quickly drain. Pour into non-reactive saucepan (I used an enamelled one), and add vinegar and salt. Allow to soak overnight or longer, uncovered and at room temperature.

The next day, stir in the honey and turmeric. Apparently you can add different flavourings here.

Bring the mixture to a simmer over a medium-low heat. Cook, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, for 15–20 minutes. The seeds will expand and the mixture will bubble and sputter like polenta, so stirring is important.

4. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature uncovered. Mixture will become thicker and denser.

5. Finally, stir in 1/3 to 1/2 cup more vinegar to thin the mixture and to freshen the flavor.

6. Store pickled mustard seed in jars, refrigerated, up to a year.

Note: Mustard seeds typically continue absorbing liquid for weeks. If the mixture becomes too dense, simply stir in a few spoonfuls of vinegar.

Wednesday List: podcast recommendations

I play podcasts any time that I'm sewing, walking around, doing something that doesn't require much brain power at work, commuting, shopping at the supermarket, cooking, cleaning... I like the radio, I like human voices, and I also like self programming. 

Of course, most podcasts are only issued at intervals - once a week (if I'm lucky), bi-weekly or monthly. This means that my listening capacity far exceeds the capacity of creators to make content and so, I am constantly discovering, subscribing and re-listening.

Gentle reader, I have listened to MANY podcasts, and now I would like to share some recommendations with you.

Some awesome stories

I think that actually attending a story-telling night would be a little bit too much like going to see stand-up comedy (true story: I pretty much hate stand-up comedy). However live story-telling makes great radio.

• The Moth podcast is a well produced show of live recordings from story-telling events in the US and Canada. There is some variety in the awesomeness of the stories, but as a rule the podcasts themselves are well-curated and have a good spread of experiences.
• RISK! is Moth-esque but about 300x more risqué.
• Spark London is a story-telling podcast from - obviously - London. A bit more raw in production compared to the other two.

Podcasts that are centred around telling stories outside of the context of a live story-telling event make up the core of my listening. Even better: when they include primary sources (be still my beating heart).

• The entire catalogue of the Radiotopia network. I am especially in love with The Stranger, Love + Radio and the Radio Diaries (see: the Radio Diaries Strange Fruit episode which is disturbing and a truly amazing piece of radio).
• This American Life (a given).
• Radiolab has been in constant rotation since my earliest days as a podcast junkie. It's a blend of science and story-telling and, like many of the Radiotopia shows, has some really interesting sound work.
• Everything is Stories has amazing content and is beautifully produced. This is one of my favourite podcasts at present and I am extremely excited because as I started writing this I discovered a new episode had just been released. 

Je suis un History Geek

I listen to many history podcasts, some of which are very hit and miss and very geeky and some of which have terrible sound. In an effort to respect that your geekery may not be as well developed as mine and to preserve your sanity (such bad sound!) here I suggest the better ones.

• Sawbones is a comedic look at medical history presented by a married couple - moments of genuine hilarity. Also! History!
• Stuff You Missed in History Class, which is can be really interesting and is always well researched. The hosts tend to do a very broad sweep so the relevancy of a particular episode to your interests may be hit and miss. Also, in recent years I think the episodes have become too short and with farrrrrr too many advertisements. I recommend using your powers to skip these.
• Last Stop to Nowhere covers the more obscure aspects of Australian history (Somerton Man!) but isn’t afraid to look at the more difficult and painful aspects of Australian history like the Frontier Wars.

Radio drama

Listening to old Agatha Christie radio dramas lead me to the love of Golden Age detective novels. Current favourite radio dramas include

• Welcome to Nightvale, which is simultaneously completely left field and utterly formulaic. I think it helps to listen to the series from the beginning as oppose to jumping in halfway through, because of character development and understanding of in-jokes.
• BBC Homefront - which is an ambitious attempt to create a four year long radio drama dramatising life in England during the First World War. Extremely gentle programming, the episodes only last a few minutes each. Soooothing. Also, we're only a few episodes in so it's not too late to listen to the entire series!

Special mentions

Too good not to mention, but falling outside of the categories above.

• The Call Your Girfriend podcast, which makes me miss Bex, but also feel like I'm living inside The Toast or The Hairpin. Feminism! Robyn! Rants!
• The Sporkful is hands down the best food podcast that I listen to, and makes me think about eating delicous food but not also agonise over the kind of oil I'm using (which is a very real problem form me)
• Finally, shout out to Pocket Casts, my podcasting app of choice, which is so much better than iTunes.

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Brief life update

Right now I am writing this in bed, in advance, on a Saturday. The weather is fairly shit, and I'm not really loving my job at the moment so the weekend is a blessed relief. 

 

Also: drinking my second cup of coffee and obsessed with Thomas Tallis's Spem in Alium piece which is an English Renaissance choral work for 40 voices singing 40 separate parts.

Let me tell you about this Victorian Dinner I made in the weekend

Delicious desserts: lithograph from 'Beeton's Book of Household Management', 1879 Photo: THE BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY.

A couple of months ago I changed jobs. In the inbetween time, I immersed myself in geeky Victoriana – Lark Rise to Candleford, Victorian Kitchen, and Victorian Farm.

There were two immediate results: I became obsessed with knitting Victorian-style crossover shawls and I decided that I wanted to make better use of my copies of Mrs Beeton's Every Day Cookery and Housekeeping Book and Mrs Marshall's The Book of Ices. (These were gifts from members of my family who clearly know me pretty well to have anticipated this.)

AND SO IT WAS that in the weekend, after much planning and shopping and preparation, I had my almost Victorian dinner party with a hand selected bunch of fabulous people. It all went down pretty well! The reviews have been good, at any rate.

What was actually eaten

I aimed to make dishes that were representative, a bit weird for the modern palate, but basically pretty delicious.

I made four courses altogether :

• Julienne Soup 
• Beef a la mode with Potatoes a la Maitre d'Hotel and beetroot and onion salad
• Cucumber Ice Cream 
• Muscovite of Oranges 

And then Stilton and port to follow.

Dinner on the table, photo courtesy Katherine.

Also! Lashings of red wine

Shannon and I bought a couple of bottles of the ubiquitous Victorian claret which is evidently just a Bordeaux red, so, less exciting than previously imagined.

Shannon made a Claret Cup which was actually pretty dull, partly due to the ambiguity of the recipe and partly because Claret Cup is basically red wine and fizzy water. I think it would be improved by having rather less soda water than claret, as oppose to Mrs B's half and half approach. Or perhaps by replacing the soda water with lemonade. At any rate, we live and learn.

Also also! Disasters

Things I would do differently include trying to achieve some kind of dinner party service zen - I get strangely panicky during service, and end up making silly decisions designed to save time but that rarely pay off.

On this occasion I made a series of terrible rush decisions that ended with my “Muscovite of Oranges” - a kind of orange jelly - collapsing spectacularly all over the bench. Unmoulding a jelly is hard and I if I was to meet, say, Mrs Patmore, I would be worshipping at the altar of her jelly-unmoulding skills. Because O-M-G.

Bonus recipe

The Cucumber Ice Cream was the star of the show. It's possible that it was made wrong - it's not entirely clear whether the cucumber should be pureed with it's cooking liquid or not...

From Mrs Marshall's The Book of Ices (1885)

Cucumber Ice Cream

Peel and remove the seeds from the cucumber and to 1 large-sized cucumber add 4 ounces of sugar and half a pint of water; cook until tender. Then pound and add to it a wine-glass of ginger brandy and a little green colouring and the juice of two lemons; pass through the tammy, and add this to 1 pint of sweetened cream or custard. Freeze and finish as usual.

My book has modern conversions written in for the ingredients and methods:
1 large cucumber
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/4 cups water
Pound: Puree in blender or food processor, or with finest grid of food mill
2 Tb ginger brandy (I actually steeped some fresh ground ginger in regular brandy and then strained it)
The juice of 2 lemons
2 1/2 cups of cream or custard*

*I used the 'Very Rich' custard base:
1 pint of cream, a quarter of a pound of castor sugar, and 8 yolks of eggs.
Put the cream in a pan over the fire and let it come to the boil, and then pour it on to the sugar and yolks in a basin and mix well. Return it to the pan and keep it stirred over the fire till it thickens and clings well to the spoon, but do not let it boil; then pass it through a tammy or hair sieve, or strainer. Let it cool; add vanilla or other flavour, and freeze. Mould if desired. When partly frozen, half a pint of whipped cream slightly sweetened may be added to each pint of custard.

Modern measurements:
2 1/2 cups of cream
1/2 cup sugar
After boiling, cool cream slightly
7 egg yolks
Optional: 1 1/4 whipped cream

I went away on holiday and all you got was this shitty blog post

 

I am so free with the feelings of what few readers I have left. I disappear for months at a time (my most recent post was on the last day of July), and when I resume, four months later, I refuse to even give an excuse.

Yes indeed, no excuse for you all - except - that for six weeks of that four months, I was traipsing around parts of southwest England, Berlin and Paris and was simply unable to post. This was the trip for which I began my abortive Savings Tower.

Suffice to say: I saved the money, I booked the trip, I went. Was the trip fabulous? Yes. Yes it was.

I am also very smug as I came back with less than a thousand dollars worth of credit card debt. This is due in no small part to the generosity of Shannon and Nat, who sent me some money-presents while I was away. I also managed to negotiate (with Shannon) a hiatus on the power and internet bills.

Although no debt would have been ideal, the amount I've come back with is completely manageable, given how long I was away, and that I didn't especially watch what I was spending. I'll pay it back in no time!

Best things about my holiday:

• Seeing and staying with friends and family who made me feel welcome, and wanted, and spent a lot of their time entertaining me and feeding me and driving me around the place.
• Riding the trains in South-West England: I'd love to do a holiday where I spend the whole time just doing this. My train journeys took me to Winchester, Portsmouth, Penzance, St Ives, Salisbury and Bath before returning me safely to London. And that was over just three weeks!
• Berlin: Ich liebe Berlin! Berlin is the best and I want to move there. I loved the slightly deteriorating splendour of the palaces at Sans Souci, and the general awesome vibe of the city. I did not do a lot of clubbing, before you ask. This is mainly because I am not any kind of clubber, nor have I been since I was about 21 but partially because I didn't like the idea of going out, a single female, to bars and clubs in cities which I wasn't familiar with. I don't have any regrets about this.
• Rediscovering how much I enjoy visiting art galleries. I adore museums, and art museums but I must confess I had gone off art galleries a little since with the Melbourne Episode (of over seven years ago now, ye gods). Maybe, since it was an overseas experience that had caused the ambivalence, it took a positive overseas experience to reverse this.

 

 

I have many pictures, but I don't think that anyone enjoys it when someone posts one million pictures of their holiday on their blog - and my photos are as a rule kind of awful. I have created a Picasa Google+ album with some of the better good shots and captions for you to view, if you are so inclined.

Finally, a disclaimer: I have seriously toyed with pulling this entire blog down and having done with it. Since I apparently just can't make the break, we'll just have to live with my erratic and irregular posting for the time being.

Just love me the way I am. x

Cooking from blogs: pulled pork, Hungry and Frozen-style

Confession: this is not the first time that I've made Laura's pulled pork recipe. At some point during the three weeks I was riddled with glandular fever I decided that all this lying around wouldn't do at all, and pulled my disease-ridden body out of bed to make pulled pork, a fact that in itself vouches for my deliriousness.

Predictably, I was unable to eat it; in fact, the smell made my stomach turn. As I was vomming frequently at the time, this stomach turning had predictable results. This was, indeed, an ill-fated pulled pork-making venture.

Shannon, who ended up being the sole eater of the pulled pork, vouched for it's deliciousness*, which encouraged me to have another go - and YES, it was totally worth it. Please don't let the discussion of my illness put you off making delicious pork.

Second confession: I made a LOT of changes, but I don't think quite the extent that I didn't make this recipe at all (willing to hear arguments to the contrary). Here are the changes, listed in suggested order that they might affect the success of this recipe:

1. I had no fennel seeds for the mop, so I used whole star anise instead (it made sense when I did it but seems kind of whimsical now).
2. I had no ground ginger for the rub, so I had to leave it out.
3. I couldn't find pork shoulder or belly at the supermarket, so I bought a leg instead. 
4. I made the pulled pork in the slow cooker, using guidance from Beth at Budget Bytes.

Annnnnd despite my thorough bastardisation of what was undoubtedly a well thought-out and tested recipe, everything turned out well! Slow cooking the pork left me with no bark (the crispy bits on the outside of the joint), but the meat itself was delicious and not horribly dry. The bits on the bottom of the joint that were sitting in the mop during the entire cooking time - these certainly had more flavoursome deliciousness. But, I think because I marinated the pork overnight, the rest of the meat had plenty of flavour too.

In conclusion: DO IT. Make some pulled pork! We ate ours with flour tortillas, and coleslaw with smoked paprika and almonds, but it was also good two days later in a market baguette with melted cheese.

Would you believe this is the best photo I could get? Pulled pork is difficult to photograph. Probably a topic about this at a food bloggers' forum somewhere.

*Writing that sentence gave me the opportunity to reflect on how amazed I am that he ate the pork when I made it while I was SO ill. He basically ate my disease. Ew.

Have you ever made pulled pork before; and what's your favourite way to cook it and eat it? I want to eat all the pork.

Cooking from blogs: Smitten Kitchen's Coconut Bread

... which is also a Bill Granger bread via the Wednesday Chef via the New York Times, evidentally. Here it is on the Smitten Kitchen site.

I've wanted to make this bread since I read the recipe back in March. But then things kept coming up - things like, but not limited to, lemon sour cream cake, maple syrup tart*, and this bee sting cake. Besides, I was given a food processor for my birthday and tried an an all-food processor baking lifestyle for a while, a lifestyle in which this loaf just wouldn't fit, darling.

Luckily, I have an extremely tech-savvy filing system for future recipes which involves me: favouriting a recipe post, waiting a fortnight, printing out every recipe that I've favourited over that fortnight, and then filing the printed recipe in either my green "cooking" clear file, or my black "baking" clear file. Or indeed, my white "soups" clearfile. Cooking blogs are the way of the future, dudes. My nana wouldn't have recognised my system at all.

At any rate, I made this delicous sweet bread on Sunday. I had to use regular dessicated coconut because I have no idea where I would even find sweetened coconut (can I get such a thing in NZ)?

In saying that, for my palate it's just sweet enough...

... TO HAVE FOR BREAKFAST! Yay for cake for breakfast!

I'd make it again, but not in a fan-forced oven as the crust was too crusty for my liking. Deb's loaf clearly has a golden brown soft crust and here I have a dark brown hard crust which is less than ideal. The inner bread bit tastes pretty awesome though. I have discovered that it is best eaten when spread it thickly with butter.

*I WILL post this recipe, because you all need it *nods sagely*

What is making me happy this week: family lunches

Miners and Their Families Gather to Talk and Enjoy the Outing at the Tennessee Consolidated Coal Company First Annual Picnic at a Tennessee Valley Authority Lake near Jasper and Chattanooga, Tennessee. They Ate a Barbecue Lunch, Participated in Sports, Watched a Greased Pig Contest and Heard the Company Officials Explain Health and Retirement Benefits 08/1974 via Flickr Commons

I like to listen to an NBC podcast called Pop Culture Happy Hour, and my favourite bit is at the end of each podcast when the presenters talk about what has made them happy that week. It's like, Things I Love Thursday without an entire list of twee or including compulsory pictures of beautifully iced cupcakes.

This week, what is making me happy is: family lunches.

I had my mum and my three brothers around for lunch on Mother's Day, which involved me cleaning my butt off on Saturday and then cooking what remained of the aforementioned butt on Sunday.

I made a huge pot of French Onion soup with requisite gruyere croutons, and then a lemon and sour cream cake for dessert - I imagined that it would be the sort of lunch that a character in a PD James novel might serve. (I cannot tell a lie: I went to the trouble of actually imagining a PD James type menu and then carrying it out. Could become a hobby (proposed next lunch: a Harry Potter menu of treacle tart and steak and kidney pudding)).

At any rate: my family is loud and talkative and loud and somewhat exhausting. They are also MINE, and funny. I struggle sometimes with getting family balance right (which I can't explain without saying - too much) but when it works, it works so well. I want more fabulous family lunches in my future.

And quickly, my pop-culture consumption for the week:

READING: The Confusion, Neal Stephenson and Liar's Lullaby, Meg Gardiner. The first: epic, fabulous, funny. The second appears to be basically quite trashy and I'm looking forward to rotting my brain cells with it (I have only read about ten pages so far).

RECENTLY WATCHED: I'm working my way through the 2003 series of Time Team, after watching the 2012 series in one sitting.

FAVOURITE PODCAST EPISODE: The Radio 4 Nature doco series on the poetry of Edward Thomas, The Pursuit of Spring. Much inspiration for my proposed toddle in the UK.

LISTENING: I've been scrounging singles from the new Vampire Weekend album on Grooveshark - planning to listen to the whole thing next pay day.

Cooking from blogs: Smitten Kitchen's lentil soup with sausage, chard and garlic

During our summer months, I like to read all about the heavy soups, casseroles and puddings that people in the northern hemisphere are eating. While existing mostly on barbeque food and salad and summer fruit, I have no issue with reading about rib-sticking, heart-warming meals. I like to print them off or book mark them, save them up for a colder time where I will have the need of such dishes.*

Smitten Kitchen's lentil soup with sausage, chard and garlic has been on my mind since Deb Perelman posted the recipe back in January this year. While I've made lentil and sausage soup before (I mean, really, haven't we all) I'm always game to ruin a good thing, change things up and try something different. A change is as good as a rest and all that.

The recipe was, as they always are, easy to follow. The dish itself had many parts but was simple to put together. I thought the finishing furbelow of olive oil and sizzled garlic probably wasn't entirely necessary despite reassurances to the contrary, but perhaps I have a totally pleb palate.

I kept any changes, additions or substitutions to what I thought was a fair minimum. I never know what "Italian sausage" is when I read it in an American recipe - I did use an Italian sausage but it was a pork and fennel one (from the Park Ave butcher in Lower Hutt which is well worth the trip). I have a heap of great home made chicken stock that I used instead of plain water because why wouldn't you if you had it?, and I had some tomato paste so I added a little of that. Sadly, I didn't have any chard or silverbeet (is chard not just a fancy way of saying silverbeet?) but I did have a bag of baby spinach that needed using up and I thought that given they were green and leafy it was all much of a muchness.

After simmering, tasting and then scoffing in record time, I concluded that:

• The dish makes a good hearty weeknight meal if you can wait about an hour (I had a cracker-snack before I began cooking to keep the worms at bay).
• I think the soup will transfer well to smug lunches and I fully intend on wafting the smell around in the kitchen at work. 
• The ingredients are easy to find in NZ if you aren't precious about the exact kind of sausage you're using - although of course a good quality one is a must (and why would you eat a crappy sausage anyway I don't know). 

And finally:

• It would be very worthwhile using silverbeet (or chard tra la la)** rather than baby spinach because the poor bubbas just didn't stand up well flavour-wise. They were like sad wilted wisps of green in a sea of delicious and hearty. Even regular spinach would have been better because the soup does just needs the final leaf to have some kind of body, y'know?

The eaters appreciated it. I will probably make it again. You can make it too! And it's easy enough to be vegged or veganed - there are a couple of options in the recipe.

And now, a photo of my food:



*The reverse, however, makes me so sad - when people start writing about asparagus season and cherries I am sad and in the midst of cold-stored apples and the fourth month of pumpkin.

**I mean, but - they are the same thing, right?

This weekend

 

Sewing

I read a blog post on Tilly and the Buttons, reporting back on some kind of online sewing-geek discussion where someone had introduced the concept of setting aside (or finding) just fifteen minutes each day for sewing. Finding time to sew is defo proving to be a problem, so this idea was exceptionally timely and appealing. This weekend I finally FOUND that fifteen minutes, and made myself one of my tunic tops out of some remnant fabric that I picked up at Arthur Toye's for $5.

Bit difficult to tell here but the stripe is navy blue and white. I ran out of fabric for the back, which necessitated as substitution and meant I did something even better - making the back panel from a leftover piece of fine white silk/cotton. The top took longer than fifteen minutes to make but because I'd let myself have that little amount of time, I actually managed to sew, for the first time in weeks! I also have plans for some new skirts. I'll make fifteen minutes to start those some time this week.

Baking

Christmas mince pies! The mincemeat is leftover from last year (!) but given that it is entirely preserved in oodles of booze and has been living in various fridges throughout its lifetime, I'm taking the risk and rolling with it. I had Ange and her daughter Bluebell over for afternoon tea and plied them with the pies; I think that Bluebell maybe ate three altogether? Which isn't bad for someone with a single tooth. Every mince pie convert is a-ok as far as I'm concerned.

I also made some chocolate butter cookies from the Smitten Kitchen cookbook. Great book incidentally - and extra good because I actually tend to have most of the ingredients. Not in love with the cookies themselves so much, but Shannon was a fan - I figure probably because they're simple and straightforward. Like him.

Looking at the pics on the blog, I think half the issue is that I didn't roll out my dough thick enough. Will try again next time.

My sewing room/office/library

This didn't happen this weekend but I'm still kind of settling in the new space- which makes it new and exciting ALL THE TIME. Gloriously, I have a room that's completely set aside for MEEEEE and my projects, and (because we have no cupboards of any kind) all the linen. I'm going to make it amazing before I share pictures though (I tried to take a photo before but OMG embarrassment, that will not pass any Pintrest tests).

Staycation week

Today is Saturday; I've been on Staycation since Monday (or indeed, Saturday last week, if weekends are counted when considering annual leave). I took a weeks' annual leave in an effort to get some sleep, some rest, and to re-route my sanity which was somewhere quite far west of where I am currently residing.

The hands down best thing about the Staycation is that I didn't have anything planned at all, although I organised my annual leave so that it coincided with Shannon's. We could say, in terms of my plans, that I'd intended to be Chilling with my Dawg. Yep, indeed, we be chillin' (and watching a million* episodes of the Wire**).

TV series consumed in mass quantities:

• The Wire Series 4
• True Blood Series 1 and 2 (a solo pleasure; also hands down some of the silliest television I have ever watched)
• The Sopranos Series 6

I love reading about characters/actors/series on Wikipedia but I have the worst habit of reading in advance of the episode that I am currently watching; read - spoiling it for myself. (Warning! This episode synopsis contains spoilers!)

 

I was the worst at this when I decided I wanted to 'check up on something' in True Blood and then found out about the shape-shifting guy waaaaay too early on in the piece. No more Wikipedia checking on True Blood for me. Wikipedia is the reason I never finished watching the second series of Twin Peaks.

 

Let's over-analyse this impulse: is it because I hate surprises? Can this spoilering-impulse be twinned to my reasons for favouring TV dramatisations of classic novels over watching 'real' movies? And why I re-read/re-watch? Is it the fear of the unknown...? Do I constantly crave safety in my entertainment life in order to make up for the uncertainty in my life-life? Thoughts?

Staycation Cooking

Staycation cooking has involved filling the freezer (in the days when we lived with flatmates it would have involved more baking; as it is, Shannon tends to eat what ever is in the tins so slowly that it goes stale before it's all been eaten , and I have the inverse problem: namely, EAT ALL THE CAKE).

I made Budget Bytes' black bean quesadillas and roasted vege burritos and the shelves in my freezer look exceptionally happy. (Related: I cannot roll burritos.) I am SO excited to go back to work and eat delicious black bean tortilla things for lunch.

Lots of free time has also mean reading a heap of blogs. Hence Smitten Kitchen's (/Ottolenghi's) baked orzo with eggplant and mozzarella, and blackberry and apple loaf as posted by Bex. I made this into a cake because I have no loaf tin, and with blueberries and lemons because that's what I had lying around. And in an effort to avoid the stale/eat all the cake issues: lots of this cake has been moved around Petone, to Nat and Mark, and to a fabrication workshop that let Shannon use their big presses. Giving baking to other people is pretty great.

Final food efforts: chicken stock, slow-cooking dried pulses and then freezing them, brioche in the bread maker (the hugest loaf ever) and baked oatmeal - the Super Natural Every Day recipe. Incidentally, the baked oatmeal is also killer for dessert.

It was my turn to cook yesterday evening and - you might be surprised to discover - I had cooking fatigue. Something simple with tofu for dinner tonight.

Wellington is getting that "good-looking spring"-thing

Wednesday Shannon and I went to Eastbourne and walked around in the sunshine and wind, and ate weird-but-good sandwiches. I threw pebbles at large logs (and repeatedly missed). Shannon picked up dead botanical things and what he thought was an abandoned sea-animal skin. The beach we were on (on the way to Pencarrow Lighthouse) is gloriously barren and windswept and there was no-one around.

Eastbourne bus terminal is pretty cute. Art deco?

I have only three more days before I go back to work. Yesterday I watched a crazy huge amount of television (in an effort not to deal with something annoying) so I suspect that if I've got to that point it's probably time to go back to work and do something insanely productive. Like update web pages.

*hyperbole

**Also, I've recently read (and re-read) this article about the top 25 outdated rap slang words. I still have no idea what 'chickenhead' means. 

Ugh. My scones.

Hello, my name is Ginger, I suck at making scones.*

 

I'm posting after my first Baking Club meetup. There are lovely people and tasters in my group, and we get to meet for tastings at a beer bar, so in all ways IT RULES. However, our first task was scones and scones are my Baking Nemesis. No matter how hard I try, no matter how many different ways I approach it - I end up with something mostly disgusting. Dry, or hard as a rock, or unrisen. Nobody likes flat scones.

In the weekend I had a trial run, incorporating all the tricks I'd been told by Fran and that had been mentioned in Baking Club emails. I feel my trial run, although in noway resulting in a stellar scone, wasn't incredibly  bad - room for improvement perhaps.

My actual scones - made at 6am this morning, after an extremely hungover Sunday which had finished with a visit to A&E for the Boy - were TOO FREAKING DRY. Ugh, embarrassment.

Of course, the best thing about having a hangover is, of course, the day of self-loathing that you get afterwards (squee!). So today's post-hangover day of self-loathing finished with me getting the worst score for my horrible scones and then resenting myself for being a terrible baker and embarrassing myself in front of other people who make better scones than me.**

I texted my self-loathing and disappointment to Shannon who neatly put everything into perspective: "So, you suck at scones. Meh." 

This was effective because the guess the point is that I do suck at making scones. I am resigned to it: I will shout it to the World!

My name is Ginger and I am terrible at making scones.

I have tried, but I just don't get it. To be frank, I don't even like eating scones that much unless they're super hot and fresh from the oven. From this day forth I'm going to resign myself to the fact that although I believe I am a fairly accomplished baker, I do indeed suck at making scones. And I shall make them no more.

 

 

 

 

 

*Young Ladies Cake Baking Contest, Francis Miller, 1953 via Google Life Photo Archives. 

**Also, I am really competitive which I sometimes forget - or maybe its more a case that coming off the anti-anxiety meds has allowed my competitiveness to re-emerge?

Making some Majorcan Soup

We had something of an excess of cabbage, which was causing issues in our refrigerator - and nobody likes excessive cabbage issues. During the weekend, I decided the only thing to do was to make some DELICIOUS CABBAGE soup.

To say that Shannon was sceptical would be understating the issue. I too had some doubts. The whole concept of cabbage soup conjured memories of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and pantomime 19th Century poverty. However, I was committed to making the soup delicious and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

So, my starting recipe was 'Majorcan Soup', from the book Soups by Hannah Wright. I picked up a copy of this book at the library about four years back and photocopied a few recipes out of it. With the exception of Lettuce Soup, the recipes I've made from the book have been winners. I'll often make them a bit fancier - Hannah Wright will use water in a lot of soups while I think that as a rule, any soup without stock or ham or bacon bone is a sucky soup.

This recipe was a case in point. I replaced the water with the chicken stock I had sitting in the fridge, and also got a little wacky, adding some left over roast chicken. Otherwise, I stayed true to what Hannah had going on.

The soup begins with a simple base of onion, garlic and if I had had them in the house, green and red peppers. Fry up the onion and a couple of cloves of garlic in a good amount of olive oil. Add chicken, chicken stock, a can of tinned tomatoes (Hannah asks for four fresh), dried basil, salt and pepper. Bring to the boil and then simmer the lot for ten minutes.

After this point you can add your finely shredded cabbage. You really only want to simmer the cabbage for five or so minutes because OVERCOOKED CABBAGE IS THE DEVIL. No hyperbole.

 

This is what a huge pile of cabbage looks like
 

It was at this point that I had to do some adjustment with my liquid. I guess the rule here is the same as always - keep tasting your soup and make sure that you've added enough salt.

As an accompaniement, Toast was perfectly adequate, but the recipe I was using also suggested making some large garlicky croutons. Doesn't that sound heavenly?

In conclusion: no Grandpa George or Grandma Georgiana in sight, this cabbage soup is moreish. A++ would trade with again.

 

Soup! In my Crown Lynn Tam O'Shanter bowls, on my Formica table. Seventies much?

Eating Some Food in Wellington, a review: Uncle Mike's Kansas City BBQ

In which I go on a 'hot date' to a barbeque rib house and am kind of disappointed.

Beef ribs!

One of the most exciting sounding eating establishments on the main road of Petone is Uncle Mike's Kansas City BBQ. Although, it doesn't look super amazing from the outside, the novelty of a ribs restaurant in Wellington is not to be sneezed at! Shan-dawg and I decided to grab life by the hairy bits and have a hot date at Uncle Mike's. Tragically, we discovered that all that glitters is not gold and that this rib restaurant was just not as awesome as might be hoped.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with Uncle Mikes's. All in all, the issue was not that the meal or decor or service was actively bad - just that nothing was really that great.

Shannon had beef ribs and I had pork and in both cases they were perfectly adequate - they weren't dry and the rib sauce and seasoning were good. The ribs were served with smokey beans and hand cut chips, which were also quite good individually. As a whole, however, the combo of the ribs, beans and chips was somewhat lacking - too many smokey flavours, not enough fresh flavours for the smokiness to play against. We ordered coleslaw on the side which readdressed the balance of the meal and I would recommend additional coleslaw as a course of action to any potential Uncle Mike's diners.

Pork Ribs!

Uncle Mike's is licensed but not BYO. I had a $10 margarita which I was quite pleased with, Shannon had a $9.50 Little Creatures beer. I have no recollection of the wine list whatsoever, I'm afraid, but why would you want a glass of wine when you can have a margarita?

"Decor"

Decor and waiting staff: decor is nothing to write home about and the lights are freakily bright, but the waiting staff were really nice - I didn't feel forgotten or fussed over. All in all, super nice kids!

AND IN CONCLUSION: Uncle Mike's. Don't get excited before you go and you should be all good. Doesn't require active avoidance, but I wouldn't urge you to attend.






Shannon took the photos of the food, and required a credit. So here you go doll!