Just Spent Six Months In A Leaky Blog

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My blog is six months old! In a time where technology moves so eye-wateringly fast, I feel I'm justified in getting a little misty-eyed over the half-year existence of my little blog that could. It feels like just last week that I was getting excited over my 200th hit!

Speaking of milestones, our weekend in Hawke's Bay (for Tim's grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary) was a fantastic time, a large part of which was spent solidly grazing. We were also able to reap the benefits of one of life's happiest pairings - someone who has a massive feijoa tree but doesn't like to eat them. The feijoa is one of my very favourite fruits, and for some reason in my mind they are one of those fruits you don't actually go out of your way to buy - you should just know someone who has a windfall. When living in a damp city full of apathetic university students though, one can't expect to find them that easily. While up north we managed to get two shopping bags full of this wonderful fruit, by pillaging a family friend's trees, and I absolutely can't wait to do something with them - feijoa ice cream mayhaps - slices perched atop a pavlova - maybe some kind of pork-adorning salsa - or just eaten one after the other after the other after the other, cut in half and scooped out with a teaspoon.

For some odd reason, the feijoa is only really widely known in New Zealand, which seems a nice enough trade-off for all the things we don't have here (Primark, Minstrel chocolates, access to Neil Young, 12th century cathedrals) It has a dense, gritty, pear-like texture and an elusive fragrance not unlike passionfruit. Heavenly.

Speaking of our weekend away, I completely forgot to post about the gluten free peanut butter biscuits I took up along with the Quince Loaf. This is the third time I've made these biscuits and the third time I've forgotten to blog about them...and the third time I've been solemnly staggered by how quick, easy and delicious they are. The recipe can be found here, from when I made them a few weeks ago.




Above: I ended up with two-tone biscuits, because the ones on the tray on the top shelf of the oven browned faster than those on the bottom shelf. Rigorous testing proved that there was no difference in taste though. Equally fab.


By way of further illustrating why you should always write things down (or is that, why I should write things down), I give you tonight's dinner. I thought that I could use my creme fraiche in a simple pasta dish loaded with vegetables and garlic, and only realised after eating it that I'd forgotten half the things I was planning to put into it.



Above: There was carrot, courgette, and capsicum, but my brain mislaid the information about adding tomatoes, frozen peas (even though I bought them specially after work!) and pine nuts.
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I began by julienning the carrots and capsicum (all the while imagining I was a sous-chef in New York - inexplicably the words "julienne" and "sous-chef" are intertwined to me), and blanching them in a pan full of water in which I also placed about five cloves of garlic. The garlic simmered away and became soft and mellow, rather than burning and acrid. After fishing out the vegetables, I cooked the pasta in the same water and then drained it, stirring in some creme fraiche and the cooked vegetables. The garlic cloves I chopped roughly and mixed in too. It was certainly good - the creme fraiche made a kind of instant sauce - but all I can think about is what it would have been like had I not forgotten half the components.

This weekend we are flying up home for my best friend's 21st, and next weekend I hope that we can go to Levin (in all honesty, the first time I've used "Levin" and "I hope that we can go to" in the same sentence) to catch a performance of Rent. I can't find a review online for love nor money so it's a bit of a gamble, but the idea of finally seeing this show onstage, no matter where, is too exciting to miss out on. In what seems like positively providencial circumstances, Palmerston North will be having their own production of Rent in May. I'm trying to convince Tim that two productions so very close to Wellington means this is a sign that it's all meant to be but he's still not quite buying it. Never mind, my birthday is a-pending which means he is obliged to humour me (if only briefly, for his sanity's sake.) Oh and did I mention that Puccini's La Boheme, the opera which inspired the very musical of which I speak, is coming to Wellington?

<.twilightzonevoice/.> "Doo-dee-do do, Do-dee-do do"