Martinborough Fair 2012
Having escaped the big city rugby booze-fest this weekend, we got up early and headed to Martinborough for the first fair of the year (it’s held on the first Saturday in both February and March so you get 2 chances).
Now having been a number of times, we are pretty quick at getting around the event, and tackle it as a kind of assault course. We get there early (around 8.30) to beat the crowds, and today managed to finish by 10.40, including a stop for coffee half way round. However, unless you have been a number of times – I would bank on spending at least twice that amount of time wandering around and browsing.
We really tend not to spend much money, mostly because I seem to have expensive tastes and the stuff I like and want to buy is in the hundreds of $$$. So I take a card and add it to the list of things I will buy one day when I have a stash of cash burning a hole in my pocket.
However, we did buy some delicious Satay Sauce from Sone’s Satay. Unfortunately they don’t have a website, and stockists are short, but if you see this stuff anywhere – grab some. Its the best Satay Sauce I have ever tasted in New Zealand. At $10 a jar it is quite expensive – but it is worth it.
Hubby spent some money on some real Turkish delight from Loukoumi. I cant stand the stuff, and it’s full of sugar, but he confirms what the seller said, in that it really does melt in the mouth and is delicious. At $12 a box, I would say its quite expensive, but it gives you 16 pieces and hubby it’s worth it!
What I didnt but was a stunning hand beaten copper still from Alembics.
This one was distilling a Eucalyptus oil which you could catch on your finger as it came out. Now I have a lot of essential oils – I am actually trained as an aromatherapist – but I have never actually seen a still in action and I have never smelt an oil straight from the still. It was beyond devine. For the serious DIYer, lifestyler this is a true treat. Even better, they sell a range of stills for different products – the large ones for distilling essential oils and making hydrosols, and smaller ones for distilling alcohol.
And they are gorgeous to look at.
At $295 for the smallest stills and $795 for the large 10l column still its not pocket money. But to be honest with the cost of essential oils in New Zealand, you could probably save that relatively quickly, not to mention savings on Alcohol, and having the pleasure of owning a beautiful item.
And may favorite whimsy of the day was the Car-B-Que. Only in New Zealand!
Vintage Hairstyling in Wellington @ Wildilocks
If you love vintage style – clothes, make-up, hair – then you need to check out Emily Belle at Wildilocks on Cuba St.
Wildilocks are also based in Perth and Melbourne if you are interested, and will be doing the hair for a photoshoot for Illamasqua makeup – the stuff I spent a small fortune on while I was in Melbourne recently.
I picked up a deal on the Treat Me website, so got what I consider to be a bloody good deal, but having now tried it – this is one deal that will actually lead to more spending. Bad for my sanity allowance, but I guess good for Wildilocks. Now I am still going to Calibre for my haircuts, but Emily knows her stuff when it comes to vintage. We had a lovely chat (when I wasn’t dozing off because I find having my hair done quite relaxing). Not only that, but while the Wildilocks site has some How to Tutorials, Emily has her own on You Tube at MissEmilyBelle.
Anyway, from the back and sides (my photos really didnt come out that well) – here is what I ended up with:
I already had the outfit – a dress purchased off Trade Me from Artman. Ive just bought a wide red belt and bolero jacket from Pagani to do with it. Cos I am not as slim as the dummy in this picture and I need some help lol.
Either way – it was a fabulous treat, and we topped it off with dinner at Arbitrageur – becuase we felt like it!
Merry Christmas :)
Here’s hoping no matter where you are that you have a lovely christmas. And because I just can’t let this go with a bit of geek humour:
And added with thanks to Scott 
From Obvious Winner
Christmas Prettiness
A couple of years ago I was sent a link to a free online game called Winterbells. It’s a simple game - but highly addictive: bounce your cute little bunny rabbit off the Winterbells and don’t let him fall. It’s also a very pretty game, with a twinkly christmassy tune to go with it. And it’s available as an iPhone App for 99USc or $1.29 NZ.
20 Years of Toast Martinborough
The 20th Anniversary took place on Sunday – which luckily was 1 day’s grace before gale force winds have literally rocked the lower north Island. We have now been every year – except last year when we were in Sydney and couldn’t make it – it’s a family “tradition”.
Now normally, I tend to be the one pointing out that things in New Zealand may not be as rosy as you are led to believe, and that you need to keep a sense of reality about you when planning to immigrate here. However (just to be contrary it seems) I am on the other side of the argument when it comes to the Toast Martinborough Festival. Apparently, it is reported that this year was “marred by drunken brawls”.
That was absolutely not our experience of the event. In fact the only sour notes of the entire day had nothing to do with the party goers – drunk or not. There was one really stroppy bus driver, and James Murdoch Winery had a stupid and utterly nuts rule about “one in one out” when buying wine. As we have a system where often hubby takes the glasses and gets the wine while I get the food – while someone else holds our place at a table – it meant he had to bring back two empty glasses, go back and get one filled, then go back and get another one filled. Along with everyone else.
It was the only winery with queues, and we didn’t bother, and headed to the next one – which was much more reasonable about the whole thing.
That aside, we had nothing but good humour, friendliness and fun off an awful lot of less-than-sober people (of all ages). By the time we got to Palliser Winery for the traditional end of Toast Dancing to The Beat Girls we were pretty shattered, definitely not sober, but still able to dance for a few hours with a whole mix of people (some of whom took quite a shine to my mum!) There was still no aggression or unpleasantness – just a bunch of people having a good time and getting louder as the day wore on.
Best Bands of the day:
The Dufraines - Brilliant Rock!
That 80′s Band – seriously good for dancing to.
The Jedi Nights – cos you just have to right?
The Beat Girls - Thier sets travel through the decades so theres something for everyone.
DJ Maxx - he was on while the Beat Girls took a break, and had the fantastic taste to play music in keeping with thier style, so we could just keep on dancing.
Let’s talk sausages :)
The annual NZ Sausage competition has just finished. Three days of sausage consumption & judging. Where do we apply for these amazing jobs? – beats me!
The problem for a lot of expats (especially me and my lo-carb proud-to-be-a-carnivore where’s-the-bacon diet) is that New Zealand sausages are actually very different from UK sausages. Ie they are crap. I was actually reduced to tears one breakfast in our first year here as we tried the umpteenth type of pork sausage in an attempt to find one that was edible. Most pork sausages here seem to contain (for some inexplicable reason) ginger. Tastes like crap.
There’s also the ridiculous amount of crap you can get off other expats who feel you are being entirely unreasonable if you don’t dissolve in waves of rapture at having to eat such garbage.
“It’s a Kiwi sausage – of course its perfect! You don’t like it – go home and shut up!”
Anyhow, beyond the award from the judges, there’s also the people’s choice award. Both of them this year went to Ashby’s Butchery in Christchurch; not to be confused with two other butchery’s of the same name in the UK.
Unfortunately the main competition website doesn’t give the 2011 results in full photo write up yet. So you’ll have to search google for the details, which can be found on NZ Pork & Retail Meat websites.
Our personal favourite is still Black Rock pork or BlackBall Cumberland. Available in large quantities if you happen to get to Moore Wilsons before us. Unavailable if we’ve beaten you. These actually taste as close to UK sausages as you are likely to get in New Zealand.
Olympic Butchery in Nae Nae is still a great option – again – english tasting sausages courtesy of the old owner being a scouser. He knew his sausages. Try the Superpork, Jubillee or Cumberland – you won’t be disappointed.
A new find is Freedom Farms Pork and Sage sausages. Hubby isn’t such a fan, but I really quite liked them.
mmm sausages – time for a snack I think.
Proper devonshire cream tea at Clear River Estate
Actually we had this last weekend for fathers day – I have just been too lazy to blog about it till now. We came across this new winery the weekend before at a “Made In The Wairarapa” expo. Clear View winery used to be the Solstone Estate which closed down three years ago. We do not have good memories of it – the one time we went there to use the cafe it smelled overpoweringly of cow dung. We didn’t stay for a coffee.
However it has now been taken over, the vines have been tamed and restored, wine is being produced and the cafe is now open on Sundays. And doing Devonshire teas. So bad experience with the previous owners notwithstanding – we decided to give it a go.
First of all – no cow dung!
Then we come to order the cream tea. Now for those not familiar with this – a cream tea should consist of scones (plain or sultana but in no way should this be a “kiwi” style scone shaped like a rock cake and savory) served with clotted cream and jam (sometimes butter).
Now the charge is $10, but there was an option of $8 for whipped cream. So we asked what the $10 version came with and were told “Clotted Cream”.
O.M.G.
Oddly enough we went with that version. 
Because I’m curious, and because I figured people would want to know -I asked where they were getting it from – I figured we could all do with knowing just how and where you could get the stuff. Turns out they got the recipe off the Internet. Now I don’t know if it was this website that they visited – but if it was – you are very welcome! They also have a recipe from a local cheese producer – hopefully they will at some point be providing the recipe for people.
So on with the yummy bits. We each got two scones – you can choose your flavour including cheese. (Cheese??? With Clotted cream and jam???). They were good size scones – definitely no skimping here but still rock cake shape rather than English style, and they tasted absolutely delicious. The clotted cream was heavenly – just the perfect taste and consistency – and just like mine comes out. And we got different jams – I had blackcurrant – the others had raspberry.
I think its also worth noting that the tea and coffee was really good too.
In fact the only niggle I really have is that there wasn’t enough of the cream and jam for 2 scones that size. We managed because my brother and dad actually didn’t want theirs.
That aside – it was delicious and a lovely treat. I really wish the new owners well with the business – they are providing something that is very rare in New Zealand – a cream tea with clotted cream instead of whipped cream. Even the nearby copthorne hotel which serves High Teas serve them with tiny scones and whipped cream. I hope they keep making their own clotted cream and keep selling cream teas – because if the amount of NZ visitors to this blog searching for it is any indication – it’s much sought after.
Ode to Cumbria (or Wellington).
It rained and it rained and rained and rained
The average fall was well maintained
And when the cracks were simply bogs
It started raining cats and dogs.
After a drought of half an hour
We had the most refreshing shower
And then the most curious thing of all
A gentle rain began to fall
Next day was also fairly dry
Save for the deluge from the sky,
Which wetted our party to the skin
And after that the rain set in!
No Idea where that came from – but mum and dad found it and it made me chuckle 
A moment of perfect beauty in Wellington city.
I popped out earlier for a much needed coffee with Hubby, and we ended up in Starbucks at the Old Bank shopping arcade. While chilling out, we heard singing. Beautiful singing. While I sat entranced I really didn’t want to get up, and then I heard one of of my favorite pieces of music wafting up into the cafe. So I went to take a peek.
It was a school choir, arranged around the escalators and bringing a “moment of perfect beauty” to an otherwise quite ordinary day.
When I got back to the apartment, I looked some stuff up – turns out this week is “The Big Sing” – a competition for school choirs all around New Zealand, culminating in the Finale which is being held tomorrow night at the Wellington Town Hall.
It turns out that we were listening to the Sweet Sixteen Chior from Aorere College in Auckland. While I don’t have any footage of them from today (I was just too entranced) I have found a You Tube video of them singling Miserere Mei, which is the piece I just adored.
Just wonderful.
Lost in Westeros
This is one of those “just because I feel like it” posts that has nothing at all to do with New Zealand, Money or emigrating.
While waiting (impatiently) for my copy of Dance With Dragons to arrive from the UK, I have been reading all the previous books. Basically because its been so long since the last book, and the story is a bit complex so I cant remember all the twists and turns.
(Though oddly I always remember way more about the plot of a book read years ago than I ever remembered about stuff I has to sit three-hours exams on).
Via Twitter – im a very occasional user – I came across a website called The Inn At The Crossroads (In the Game of Food you win or you wash the dishes)*
Oh.My.God.
These wonderful nutcases have decided to re-create the food described in the books. Most food in fantasy books is based on Medieval Banquets – so I am already a huge fan – but never particularly felt the urge to jot down every meal listed in such a huge and epic story and try and cook it. Where they have really excelled themselves in in taking a description from the books and then providing not just one but two or three recipes for it. Modern, old and medieval versions – with comments about which turned out best and what the differences are as well as suggestions for substitutions when they couldn’t get some of the more “fantastical” ingredients.
Comments are then added by people who have gone on and tried the recipes, with some suggestions about sources for ingredients or other substitutions.
And then there’s the photos. Not only have they tested the recipes, but they have taken photos of the food so that it actually looks like you may in the world of Westeros. Like this Casual Dornish Dinner.
Once they get the book published – I will be adding that to my collection of Medieval (and film related) cookbooks. becasue officially – I really love this website.
Still no news on a release date for the TV series in New Zealand. But I have now seen it and not only is a really accurate telling of the story in the first book (allbeit with the usual HBO addition of an awful lot of sex) but it is a damd good tv show in its own right. It hasnt been ponced about with, its brutal and dark, and the casting is pretty inspired.
*In the Game Thrones you win or you die.
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