August 2008
Taupo, New Zealand


We generally stop at Taupo for lunch ...


and to take photos outside of Mulligan's Bar.




2007 Taupo and Dublin

Week Twenty-Seven

Sunday
A cold cold condensation-y day. Spent mainly in bed.


Monday
Sometimes I quite like the quotes chosen by Bennetts bookstore.


Tuesday
Office Miscellany.


Wednesday
3 of the 6 parcels I had to send off this week - I've been selling clothes that no longer fit me on Trademe.


Thursday
Candlelight, protest for peace. The white blur behind? a banner being unfurled.


Friday
I hadn't had a cookie from here since 2005 and all of a sudden? I was obsessed.
I think I had three this week.


Saturday
My Pierre Hardy for Gap wedges finally escaped the clutches of New Zealand Post.


&



Make up free!

Also? the highlight of my week? was being compared to Zooey Deschanel with my nouveau hairstyle.
She is my number one girl crush. It was a huge compliment.

Beef, Mushroom, Bacon, & Olive Pot Pie

Only occasionally do I feature something I've already purchased as something I heart, but this week? I bought a Pie Bird. As in a four and twenty blackbirds were baked in a pie kind of bird.
And this wouldn't exactly be news except that tonight I used it (him? her? no. it) in the making of a pie so amazing it has wiped all thoughts of material goods out of my mind completely. G.O.N.E. Hmm. I think it was octopus jewellery? anyway.



Beef, Mushroom, Bacon, & Olive Pot Pie
(this recipe is most definitely not mine. It was featured in a fundraising recipe book so it didn't originally come from there either.)

2 cloves of garlic, diced (I used 2 inches of pre-crushed garlic from a tube)
1 onion (I used 2)
125g bacon, diced
1 cup of mushrooms, diced
1kg beef, diced (3cm cubes)
1-2 heaped tablespoons wholegrain mustard (I used 1.5)
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 cup red wine (I used Cabernet Sauvignon)
440g tin crushed tomatoes (I used 400g cause that's what came in the tin)
1 handful black olives (I used 2 handfuls! I love olives)
1-2 sheets puff pastry

Preheat oven to 200°C

In one pan, sautée the onions and garlic in two tablespoons of olive oil until softened but not browned. Add the mushrooms and bacon and stir.

In another pan cook the beef cubes until sealed. This might need to be done in batches, adding the beef to the onions, mushrooms, bacon, and garlic mixture as you go.

In the pan you used to seal the meat put in the tomato paste and mustard, deglazing with the red wine. Stir well to get all the scrapings off the bottom of the pan.

Combine the ingredients from both pans, add the crushed tomatoes, and bring to a simmer and cook until the beef is tender. The recipe I used called for 1-1.5 hours but I didn't realise that until I had started cooking and it was already getting late so I made do with 30 minutes and the beef wasn't tough at all. But I guess it depends on the quality of the beef and uh ... I don't know anything about beef. If it looks like it's getting a bit dry, add some water, or more red wine! Stir in the olives.

Place a pie bird in your pie dish (hee!) and surround it with the delicious delicious pie filling. Top with a sheet of puff pastry (apparently, if you are sans pie bird (a sad life) then a hole cut in the pastry will work just as well. But it will be much less amusing) and make leaves with any leftover pastry. Brush the pastry with an egg wash (or a milk wash) (or forget this part because it seems like too much hassle) (oops) and bake for 30 minutes.

Serve and enjoy!

Perfect for the cold cold threatening storms winter evening Wellington served up tonight. It's moorish and amazing.

Gerard Manley Hopkins (28 July 1844 – 8 June 1889)

And the sunlight sidled, like dewdrops, like dandled diamonds
From The Furl of Fresh-Leaved Dogrose Down

It only took two and a bit years but I finally finally finally found a book his poetry for sale. Previously? I danced around Shakespeare & Co in Paris with a thin worn tome in my hands before finally realising that it was essays about Hopkins' work and life (he was a jesuit priest and his poems were never published in his lifetime, I don't think he ever intended them to be published at all!) and nearly crumpling down right then and there.



His poem Spring is one of the two poems I know by heart, word for word, beginning to end.

Nothing is so beautiful as spring—
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden.—Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

The other poem I know off by heart? Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll!

One, two! One, two! and through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

I won't go on.

Road Trip August 2008
Central North Island, New Zealand

Week Twenty-Six

Sunday
The first time I ever had French Toast with Bacon and Maple Syrup. I can't believe I ever doubted how amazing it tastes.


Monday
A teeny tiny overpriced coffee and the necklace that took tootoo long to be altered.
(chain shortened and split so it doesn't run through the top of the horseshoe)


Tuesday
I went to watch the powhiri (maori greeting) for the King and Queen of Spain. Because really? how often do you see royalty?


Wednesday
It took 2 hours to get home on the train. Because it hit someone! they survived, thankfully, but the train & scene had to be inspected for a long long time before we could move on.
I yelled at a large man who was giving the train guard attitude whenever he updated us on the situation.


Thursday
I pinched my skin with my GHDs for a second and watched as the blisters came up. The burn didn't hurt for about 14 hours.


Friday
I helped Craig bake his first cake.


Saturday
I walked home from my hair appointment, and paused by the rose gardens.


&

Ask and ye shall receive

I love twitter.
The following exchange took place at 6am New Zealand time





I always worry that people who don't know me will point and laugh.
Hence the hesitation. I shouldn't have been so damned ridiculous.
Noone pointed and laughed. In fact? I received several compliments!


This is the best shot of the new necklace (kenneth jay lane via outnet.com) that sparked the idea for the Heidi hair.


Plus, I'd just seen an instructional video which gave me the secret to the Heidi braid*.


(note: the rarely seen 0g ear hole)

My hairstyle pretty much made my day today.
Thank you Wendy Brandes!

* The secret? You start the plaits at right angles to your head, like pippi longstockings but then plait them upwards, against your head. I always thought you just made plaited pigtails then folded them upwards and then scowled at the mess they made.

4 August 2008
Road Trip, North Island, New Zealand



It was just after terrible flooding.



These were supposed to be fields, not lakes.

King Juan Carlos I & Queen Sophia of Spain

Official welcome at Parliament
23 June 2009

Week Twenty-Five

Sunday
I spent the day in bed attempting to ward off illness and watching Criminal Minds.


Monday
Craig returned from his long weekend racing cars. His dirty laundry safe in a bag.


Tuesday
I made Mexican Lasagne* for dinner. My pathetic wrists are too weak to hold the pan while constructing the lasagne. Craig helps out at that point.


Wednesday
I wore my new supercute shoes. They hurt. Because, despite the hidden platform, the heel is just a smidge taller than I can find comfortable. I will continue to wear them though! because look! they're so damn cute.


Thursday
Walking to the station at dusk.
These lights are at the entrance to the Beehive grounds.
(you can see it through the trees)


Friday
It was so so cold on Friday that I bought a coffee from the cart at the station in order to have something to warm my hands on my walk to work. And the coffee is really good.


Saturday
Kitschy lights at the kitschy Uncle Chang's restaurant in Wellington.
(Craig was on a nostalgia kick)


&



I've had a death cough all week.



* Mexican Lasagne
It's essentially Chili Con Carne plus miscellaneous vegetables, in a casserole dish with Tortillas taking the place of the pasta in lasagne, each tortilla smeared in a little cream cheese (taking the place of béchamel sauce) and topped in grated cheese.
Then baked for a further 20 minutes. Deeeelicious.