The Olive Pick

The fruits of our labour - freshly picked olives

Although I've seen it many times on Food TV, I've never actually picked an olive until last weekend.  I use Olive Oil by the litre and, like wine, I have my everyday variety and I have ones that are special and I am particularly fond of knowing and seeing where they come from, which is much easier now that New Zealand and Australia are starting to produce some of their own very interesting oils.

There is something about the provenance of tasting an oil from a place that you have picked the olives - and that's exactly what we did.  Off we went on an autumn's day with our new found friend Rex and our combined pack of 4 hounds to Susan's olive grove, eco house, El Paca farm and all around self sufficient property located on the Kaipara Harbour South Head north of Auckland. It's totally off the grid, solar and wind powered, and with NO mobile coverage whatsoever (!).

2 puppies enjoying the freedom. The olive grove is to the left in the background

This weekend was a communal effort which you only often read about, where all the neighbours and friends turn up in their carloads, grab a bucket, a ladder, some of the very high tech Italian tree shaking equipment, and go to work.  Some people were in the kitchen preparing the communal lunch to feed the masses, there were dogs running around everywhere (ours had a ball - at one stage there where 10 dogs running around together!) and everyone pitched in and had a good time, either meeting new people or catching up on the gossip with old friends.  The food was deliciously wholesome, the wine and stories were flowing, and of course everything is served on a communal table.  I could have been on the set of an Italian cooking programme that was trying to convey the spirit of 'familia'. The Europeans do this well - reminds me of family events such as my parents making sauerkraut and also stomping grapes for wine with their crazy German friends.  The wine/sauerkraut/olive oil are revered, but quite honestly the produce seems like a good excuse to get together and have a good time!

Sorting and drying out olives

many hands and many stories - one of the crews at work

Even as a complete novice I got top marks for my carefully and properly picked olives with no bruises, and  sorting the olives in preparation for the pressing was a soothing escape from the brain based office work that I usually find myself doing.  Picking olives is not hard, sort of like picking cherries if you ask me.  All you have to do is treat them gently.  Stems get pressed so are OK, but bruised olives, leaves, and too much moisture make for a bad press.

What more can I say - I had a great time and I'd recommend it to anyone.  I do not profess to know much about the olive oil process and I'm sure you can read about the agricultural aspects on line, but the bottle of olive oil I was given in exchange for our efforts at the end of the day and the story which has been carefully pressed with the olives into the bottle will be a treasured part of my foodie collection. 

Susan 

Wishing she could join the El Pacas in the olive grove....

Rum and Coke Ribs

I got my love of cook books from my mom. Even now when I go home for a visit, I can't resist flicking through her latest interesting additions. It seems appropriate then, that she's the one who bought me the quirky Canadian cookbook which has inspired this ribs recipe: Cooking with Booze by Ryan Jennings and David Steele. We're also doing a family cookbook, and this is the first recipe I have added as it's become a favourite and I'd happily serve these to any rib lover.

I absolutely love ribs - it's my desert island food. It must be the way it taps into the primal self, gnawing on bones and licking your lips. Even one of my favourite family foodie experiences includes ribs - it was on a trip to Alaska when I was a kid, eating Alaskan sized beef ribs in Fairbanks (I think they found an extinct Mammoth, these were so big!). This was an early food reference point and my family still talks about them to this day. You can imagine then, how horrified I was when I first came to New Zealand a number of years ago, and getting ribs was virtually impossible. Butchers looked at me funny, no restaurant in their right mind would have it on their menu, and it was THE one thing I had to have whenever I made a trip home to North America. Things have come a long way in New Zealand, and ribs are now par for the course but this early deprivation is probably one of the reasons I now have an obsession and just can't get enough of them.

Rum and Coke Ribs

(Serves 4)

This recipe is pretty straight forward - It's a slow cook and moist rib recipe, with the rum and coke adding moisture as well as flavour. You can make the sauce while cooking the ribs and all will come together nicely at the end.


The Coke part:
2 racks pork ribs
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 onion peeled and quartered
6 cloves garlic, crushed
8 cups (2L) coke

Preheat oven to 135C / 275F
Trim any visible fat, remove membrane from underside if attached.  Season both sides with salt and pepper and place meat-side down in a large baking dish. 
Arrange onion and garlic evenly around ribs.
Pour enough coke to cover ribs completely.  Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 2hrs 15 min.
Remove from oven and allow ribs to come to room temerature in cooking liquid, about 1.5 hours.

The Rum part: (Caribbean barbeque sauce)
1 tsp vegetable oil
1 onion minced
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp chili powder
3/4 cup ketchup
1/3 cup dark rum
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
(optional: Dash hot pepper sauce.  I find it spicy enough with the chili powder, so a matter of taste)

Heat oil in small saucepan over medium heat.  Add onion, garlic, cumin and chili powder and cook for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.  Add ketchup, rum, brown sugar, venegar, mustard, Worcestershire sauce and hot pepper sauce and simmer for 15 min.

Rum meets Coke

Preheat bbq/grill to low.

Place ribs meat side down on bbq and close lid.  Cook, turning occasionally, and after slightly browned and tender (about 10 - 15 min) brush ribs with the BBQ sauce. Turn and brush a few more times until nice and sticky and caramelised (about another 10 minutes). 

Cut and serve with some coleslaw and corn or other BBQ favourites.

Waiheke Headlands Sculpture Festival

Temporary by Delicia Sampero

It's been full on at the Ponsonby ranch these days but I really wanted to put in a post about the Waiheke Headlands sculpture festival.  We managed to squeeze this in on our last free weekend before invasion of the killer hounds and if there's one thing I would recommend doing over the next few weeks, this would be it. According to their website, this has been voted number 35 of the best things to do in the work in the New York Times. There are ~30 different sculpture / art installations scattered around the most beautiful walk just on the northern tip of Waiheke island, very close to the ferry terminal so immenently doable.  This is only on every 2 years (but why?!) and only on for 3 weeks so not a lot of time - it's on until 17 Feb.

Here's the link to the website: http://sculptureonthegulf.co.nz/

The stunning setting for the Headlands Sculpture Festival

When you get off the ferry on Waiheke, on the right is the Headlands pavillion where you can catch a shuttle bus for $5 to the beginning of the walk.  It took us about 2 hours to walk around and take in the sculptures before ending up back at the Pavillion. Grab a coffee or something to eat if you want (the kitchen is run by the runner up of last season's Master Chef, Ana Shwartz).  I haven't been to any of the previous years, so I can't compare, but it was an awesome experience helped by some pretty spectacular scenery and weather.  There is some real quirky stuff on this walk, and lots of it, so I've included some pics, but you really must experience this in its entirety in the setting of the headlands. Very cool.

The view from Casita Miro - worth a visit on Waiheke

Afterwards, we took the bus to Onetangi beach and had a great tasting at Obsidian winery before having lunch at one of my new favourite restaurants in the Auckland surrounds - Casita Miro.  What an awesome place!  Cat who runs Casita Miro is a quirky vibrant and passionate hostess and the Spanish tapas and wines and sherries are just perfect for the vinyard setting of this Spanish inspired hacienda. Cat pulled out an amazing Pedro Ximenez from a little bodega she found in Spain at the end of our meal, which went very well with the Churros con Chocolate. 

All in all, another brilliant day on Waiheke.

Beyond Good and Evil by Konstantin Dimopoulos

Sheep Track - a very cool woven woolen walkway
created by Gina Ferguson

Waiheke Island Sway by Fatu Feu'u



Allister took over 100 pics on the day!  This is my angle..

...and this is his

Pavillion Structure made out of pieces of recycled timber by Gregor Kregar

Breath by Nick Moon



Little Bush by Matt Elwood



Overview, Overlook, Oversee by Graham Bennett

ICOELTP - Trish Clarke



Wildfire by Sarah Brill - very cool effect



Churro con Cholate and a lovely PX at Casita Miro - well needed after all the walking around on the day!

last by not least, believe it or not, I snapped this in the loo at Casita Miro!

Good Life - Good Dogs....

The 2 new Ponsonby residents

Well,
Most people who know us have been inundated with updates on our new puppies and have had to endure us going on about the pending addition to our household for the last 2 months since they were born.
Well, the new Ponsonby Pooches have arrived and what a handful they are! The Good Life is about to take a new direction.
They are full of energy and our primary objective at the moment is to protect them from themselves and protect our plants from them.
As for names, the breeder is required to give them registered names and all her litters are named like hurricanes, (how appropriate, given the absolute chaos the 2 hounds have caused since they've hit!) i.e. successive litters need to have a name with the next letter in the alphabet.  Our little is the 'U' litter, and we have ended up calling them "Upside - Up" and "Upside - Down".  Much like the condition of our house! 
As for their other names, well that's still a work in progress! We're too busy trying to save all plants, furniture, shoes, magazines, and everything else from being chewed, tugged, dug up and torn apart!

Here, just to bore everyone with more dog pics, are a slice of their first few days.



Happy Mora on the way home

Sound asleep in the car with Auntie Sabi

Destroying a plant container - poor garden won't be the same



A cool toy from Auntie Sab and a the other fave is the 'saucisson' sausage from Dave and Caro

Not another Ponsonby resident with a drinking habit! we love the beer cartons......

Hey daddy! Over here.....

So nice when they're sleeping....

Blenheim, Marlborough, Nelson

Kenepuru Sound, Marlbourgh.
The view from Marge and John's.

Sometimes your own back yard is as nice as any overseas holiday, or, (as is more correctly the case for us) if you're not going to go overseas, you might as well enjoy your own back yard!  I recently heard someone refer to it as a 'Stay-cations' - staying close to home is the big thing.  

Any which way, we made our way down to the South Island and reacquainted ourselves with that beautiful part of the country, with 2 nights each in Blenheim, Kenepuru Sound, and Nelson.

Pick one, eat one... good think they didn't weigh us before we picked raspberries!

The trip highlights: 

1. Kenepuru Sound, Marlborough Sounds.  Staying with Marge and John at their batch. Wow, what a beautiful corner of paradise. Whilst we did a virtuous walk on one of the many beautiful tracks on New Year's Day (after a not so virtuous New Year's Eve!) this was only just a small taster, but the scenery we did see was beautiful and we passed plenty of happy hikers.  We stayed close to Te Mahia Lodge, which would be a lovely place to stay, and much to my surprise, the owner made a decent Soy Latte (though he somehow didn't take it as a compliment when we said it was almost as good as Ponsonby! Must have been the South Island pride)
Check out my latest favourite foodie experience - BBQ butterflied lamb weighed down and infused with the 'terroir' of a Kenepuru schist rock - yum!  Inspired by Annabelle Langbein and skillfully barbecued by John.

The Famous Kenepuru 'terroir' infuses into butterflied lamb.

The finished product - delicious

2. Camping on the beach in Mapua, outside of Nelson, going for Fish and Chips on the wharf at the Smokehouse, eating at a cool little restaurant there called Jellyfish Cafe (their chef just won best chef in the Nelson area), and checking out all the cool arts and crafty places in the area.  We loved the Upper Moutere area and it almost felt a bit like the Adelaide Hills.  I had bought some Moutere Gold Passionfruit Curd at Farro for Christmas and we met the producer there - I didn't realise they make these in batches of only 8 at a time.  Imagine making an order of 1000 for Farro a Christmas!  Apparently they are quite exhausted at the end of it.

The Ponsonby camper

3. Nelson.  I just love this town.  It still has the same artistic, earthy, backpacker vibe as it did about !$@ years ago when I went through the first time on my own backpacking experience. Morris St Cafe is worth checking out for a good coffee and some other cool places to check out were the South Street Gallery, a collection of about 25 potters from the area, and also the World of WareableArts (WOW) exhibition.

I could spend a lot of money here... Lots of nice pottery

4. Hans Herzog, Blenheim, for a degustation dinner.  A great little winery restaurant in Blenheim, with a great sommelier, and with great food and wine matches, though we did find the service a bit too slow.  Whilst I don't like rushing through a degustation, it took 3 hours to get through the first 4 of 7 courses.  


The Wine....

As expected, we went to some good wineries - some favourites and some new.  Here are the ones we got to:

1. Himmelsfeld, Moutere.  We spent almost 2 hours talking to the winemaker and listening to the many stories she had to tell.  If this was any other winery, we would have been greeted by the accolades:  "2006 Chardonnay served at the world's top restaurant (Heston Blumenthal's The Fat Duck)" and "served at Meredith's, one of New Zealand's best restaurants", and "2003 Noble Chardonnay awarded top honours in 2006 Paris wine show", highly awarded wines, etc. etc. etc.  Instead,  Beth Eggers is a down to earth, unassuming, passionate, sustainable, sheep farming winemaker. (Her sheep are employed to help with the leaf plucking!) Of course the Chardonnay was superb.  She likes to age her wine, which we like, so as long as this is your style, it's worth a visit.
2. Fromm, Marlborough.  The Pinot Noirs are exceptional, especially the Clayvin Vinyard, which is probably one of my favourite Pinot Noirs in New Zealand.  This is a winery we make it to every time we get to Marlborough and the cellar door experience hasn't disappointed yet.

Cool shot by Al in the Framingham cellar

3. Framingham, Marlborough: Go the Select Riesling, one of New Zealand's nicest sweeter style Rieslings.  We hadn't been here before, but will certainly be one we'd return to.
4. Forrest, Marlborough: Dr. John Forrest does good wine. Worth a visit.
5. Neudorf, Moutere: Some bloody good wines, though it was a bit busy on the day we were there.

We did also go to Cloudy Bay, and Seresin which both have great wines, but disappointingly, the cellar door experience was lacking.  Seresin had the frostiest cellar door person (we almost rushed to get out of there - a real shame given their stunning reserve chardonnay which is one of our favourites) and Cloudy Bay was just too commercial with about 30 people at the counter.  I guess that is the price of their success.  If you go to Cloudy Bay, try to avoid the busy times.



Well, we are going to try to get in a few more camping trips this summer, but to be honest we are about to become seriously distracted by the addition of new dogs, which we also visited on the way home.  In the meantime, here's to living in a beautiful country and nice summer holidays.

Some holiday pics from the trip:

Dinner at Floridita's,Wellington

Enjoying a coffee at Finc, Wellington

Te Mahia Lodge, Kenepuru Sound

Enjoying a coffee at Te Mahia Lodge,
with a wet bum after Kayaking there from Marge and John's a few bays over!

Gaspacho with Fino and Manzanilla Sherry - Marge is studying fortifieds so we all learned heeps.

Made it! New Year's climb up to the look out.  

Enjoying a beer at Mapua on the wharf

Fish and Chips, The Smokehouse, Mapua

Cool artists in the area.  This is Katie Gold in Moutere

Jellyfish Cafe and Bar, Mapua

Yummy Asian pork salad at the Jellyfish Cafe

Good coffee at Kush, Nelson - plus great Carrot Cake.

Stopped on the way to see the pups.  Think they like Al....

How cute......