NYtoNZ

Wedding Day

James G — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 06:08:12 +0000

Some months ago we were asked to provide the venue for the wedding of a local woman and her English fiancé. We were only too happy to comply, and the day they set for the big event was 28 January 2012, which seemed like a million years from when they first contacted us. But sure enough, thanks to the inexorable progress of time, the day eventually arrived, and thus this afternoon at 3pm the guests began to arrive and at 3:30pm the vows were exchanged and at 3:45pm the champagne was poured. As luck would have it, they had just about perfect weather for their wedding–sunny skies with white puffy clouds, warm (nay, hot) temperatures, and all that, which was extremely fortunate, since just two days ago we had a strong southerly come up (that’s Kiwi-speak for winds coming up from Antarctica, which equate to cold temperatures). In fact, in some parts of the South Island, it even snowed the other day, and the Kakanui Ranges just outside of Oamaru are now snow-capped, despite the fact that it’s high summer.

For the big event the bridal couple wanted us to make three canapés–our signature baked brie with chutney, something with salmon and something with beef. The salmon dish I made was gravlax salmon with cucumber dill pickles on blini with dill mustard sauce and the beef I made was sous-vide Tuscan roast beef sandwiches with horseradish sauce and sprouts. For the wines, we had a NZ bubbly and a Sauvignon Blanc and an Australian Shiraz, along with beer and juice. The guests seemed to enjoy the food a lot (the brie in particular!), and we ended up having not too much leftover. By 5:30pm the bridal double-decker bus had arrived to take the guests to the reception and we were able to call it a day.

Here are some photos to give you a taste of the event:

In a Bit of a Jam, or a Pickle

James G — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 08:37:54 +0000

It’s very annoying that our busiest time of the year, December to March, is also the time of year when our fruit trees and vegetable patch are at their most productive. Just as Christmas looms on the horizon our gooseberries, red currants, black currants and broad beans (aka fava beans) are coming into their own, producing huge volumes of berries and beans that won’t pick themselves. Last year, I had enough free time to be able to pick them myself or with J2′s help, and we collected several kgs to turn into jams, sauces, pickles, or just to freeze. This year, there was no way we’d manage the harvest without help since we have been much busier with guests. A possible solution to this problem appeared when the son of a former colleague arrived in early Jan for a few nights, and in exchange for putting him up and feeding him he was to harvest the fruit and veg for us. Unfortunately, he was not a particularly assiduous farmhand, and after spending an hour or so in the garden, producing no more than a small bowlful of fruit or a single carrier bag of beans, I’d find him splayed on the sofa watching TV. I then reasoned that I might be better off hiring a local kid, since they’d be more likely to know a thing or two about picking fruit, but I couldn’t seem to find anyone with a kid of the right age who was available or willing to do it. Finally, I turned to the owner of one of the local backpackers (inexpensive accommodations popular with young people travelling around the country with a backpack) to see if any of her guests would be interested in helping out. Sure enough, she had a Welsh who came over and in about 4-5 hours had completely emptied our bushes for us.

The only problem with this plan was that I now find myself with vast quantities of produce. The freezer is now full of bags of berries and broad beans, and it still has some from last year’s harvest, and there’s still produce coming. On top of this, tomato season is upon us and I was recently given 25kg of jam-quality tomatoes by a friend who grows them commercially, which I have turned into tomato sauce, tomato salsa, passata, and even a tomato-ginger jam and tomato-citrus-saffron marmalade (both of which were truly delicious). I even found a use for the tomato skins that I removed in making these things–I dried them in a slow oven and then pulverised them in a coffee grinder. Now I can sprinkle them on dishes for colour and a bit of intense tomato flavour. Meantime, I have frozen some of the berries and beans, and have turned some of them into jam, too (red currant-raspberry-rose geranium jam is a real winner).

When I came to put away the jars of jam, pickles, etc, I found that my storage cabinet was getting pretty full. Me being me, this prompted me to do an inventory of the cabinet, which led to the discovery that we have 216 jars of jams, marmalades, jellies and preserves, and 132 jars of pickles, chutneys, bottled fruits, etc. I think we may have to take a stall at the farmers’ market to help thin out supplies! In case you’re interested, here’s what we’ve got; if you’re interested in any, please send a cheque or money order to our attention!

Jams		Pickles
3-Fruit Marmalade		Apples
Apple Butter		Apricots
Apricot Jam		Artichokes
Apricot-Orange Marmalade		Award-Winning Pickles (large)
Apricot-Rose Preserves		Award-Winning Pickles (Small)
Balsamic Strawberry Jam		Azeri Candied Walnuts
Blackcurrant Jam		Belgian Pears
Boysenberry Jam		Brandied Sweet Cherries
Cherry-Rhubarb Jam		Bread-and-Butter Pickles
Complicated Strawberry Preserve		Candied Walnuts
Confiture Gratte-Culs		Chinese Spiced Quince Sauce
Crabapple Jelly		Cucumber-Onion-Tomato Chutney
Feijoa Jelly		Date-Fig Chutney
Gooseberry Conserve		Feijoas
Lime Marmalade		Fruitcake
Medlar Jelly		Gooseberries
Mint-Apple Jelly		Kakanui Hot Sauce
Mixed Berry Preserves		Lemon Artichokes
NZ Grapefruit Marmalade		Medlar-Apple Chutney
Orange Marmalade		Mincemeat
Pear Butter		Mint Syrup
Pear Jam		Passata
Plum Jam		Pears
Quince Jelly		Picallili
Raspberry Preserves		Pickled Onions
Raspberry-Red Currant-Geranium Jam		Pickled Walnuts
Red Currant Jam		Plum Chutney
Red Currant Jelly		Plum Sauce
Rhubarb Berry Jam		Quince Conserve
Rhubarb Jam		Quince-Apple Sauce
Rhubarb-Orange Marmalade		Quinces
Rose Hip-Apple Jam		Radish Pickles
Rose Hip Jam		Red Wine Pickled Beets
Shiro Plum Jam		Roasted Salsa
Strawberry-Rhubarb Jam		Roasted Tomatoes
Strawberry-Blood Orange Marmalade		Salsa
Tomato Ginger Jam		Tomato Sauce
Tomato-Citrus Marmalade		Tomatoes
Tomato-Sherry Vinegar Jam		Watermelon Rind Pickle

Some Food Shots

James G — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 06:31:24 +0000

In an article that appeared about us a few weeks ago in Weekend Gardener magazine, the author of the article decided to distinguish the “two Jameses” by calling J2 “outside James” and me “inside James”. Sure enough, that’s a pretty good way of describing our responsibilities in and around the house, though J2 also gets to spend a pretty significant amount of his time inside, especially when we have no housekeeper on duty. But it’s fair to say that from the time I awake–at around 6:30am–till the time I call it a day–around 7:30pm–pretty much all my time is spent in the kitchen unless I’m out doing errands or having a meeting or something.

The last several menus we’ve put together have started looking a lot more like something you might actually pay money for, so I have been taking more photos of them. Here are a few for you: This first one is sous vide pork belly in the style of porchetta, served with pureed cauliflower, minty peas from the garden, and pickled kohlrabi slices.

The next one is a slow-roasted pork shank with Greek spices (fennel, marjoram, garlic, etc) with crushed potatoes and a sauté of broad (fava) beans from the garden with pancetta.

And the last one is perhaps my favourite: sous vide lamb racks on puree of home-grown potatoes, salad of green beans and radish, and fried artichoke hearts.

The whole sous-vide thing is really revolutionising the way we serve meals here. It’s so convenient to be able to prepare something like these lamb racks and leave them in the fridge until an hour before serving them, and then just open the bag and pan-fry them to brown the outside for service. Plus they keep for ages in the fridge in their vacuum-sealed bags, so I can leave them there in anticipation of surprise guest arrivals.

We have also had a spate of friendly visits lately, from old friends we haven’t seen in a while who were visiting NZ from their current base in Vietnam, to the 18-year old son of a former colleague, and tomorrow I’ll be picking up my high school Russian teacher and her daughter for a few-day visit, just in time for me to bone up on my Russian before our first Russian guests arrive next week. So it’s been a busy month, and it’ll culminate at the end of the month with a wedding!

A Start to 2012

James G — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 05:27:47 +0000

Sorry for the long silence on our end, but it’s for a good reason–we have been swamped with guests! In contrast with last year, when in early January we just had two non-paying guests, this year we have had one group after another, many staying for multiple days, most dining in, and all being so far really nice people. On New Year’s Eve we had a family of five take three rooms to seek a sunny and warm place to celebrate the end of 2011. Happily for us, Oamaru and North Otago were about the only places to enjoy fine weather at the end of December in NZ, with the rest of the country experiencing rain and cool temperatures. They were a really great family, and having them here was like having friends come over more than having guests to look after. Then shortly after they left we had one group after another, including a few last-minute bookings. Interestingly we have had a sudden spate of Jewish guests, including one family from Australia who brought with them some information about Oamaru’s Jewish history. Much to my surprise, Oamaru has a Jewish history, with a Jewish immigrant from Poland actually being responsible for the establishment of Waitaki Boys’ High School, which is the school for the area’s young men. Who knew?

Dessert Table

Today we had our first sizeable party to cater for, with a group of locals celebrating a milestone wedding anniversary. This was also the opportunity for us to try out two new servers, who did an admirable job, and to practice for an upcoming wedding. The dishes we served will probably also make an appearance on the wedding canapé menu–blini with gravlax and mustard-dill sauce; sous-vide roast beef sandwiches with horseradish cream sauce; and radish-cream cheese sandwiches. Then for the sweet side of things we made scones with my “complicated” strawberry preserves; assorted cookies; brandied fruit cake; and pistachio-strawberry-rose meringue cake with crystallised rose petals. The group seemed to enjoy the party, and the weather was just perfect for it, too.

For the past few nights we have had the 18-year old son of a friend visiting us. He’s in NZ for a “gap year” between high school and college, working around the country and enjoying a change of environment. To earn his keep here we’ve set him the task of helping harvest our black currants, red currants and broad (fava) beans. I now finally understand why people have children! We took Dom to Moeraki yesterday, visiting the lighthouse to see the penguins. We were treated to a very rare spectacle–a pair of juvenile penguins standing out on the cliff with an adult.

Yellow-Eyed Penguins

We followed this up with a meal at the Moeraki Tavern, our first time at this pub in the shadow of Fleur’s Place. I wouldn’t rush back there, but when you can’t get into Fleur’s it’s a perfectly fine alternative.

We have a few nights off before the next guests arrive, but this coming week is again looking pretty full-on, culminating with the arrival on Saturday of my Russian teacher from high school and her daughter, who are visiting NZ as part of a Slavic languages conference or something. So that means we’ll likely be going back to Moeraki on the weekend, where we’ll see if we see more juvenile penguins. In the meantime, we hope you have had as good a start to the new year as we seem to be having!

An End to 2011

James G — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 08:43:11 +0000

Only one more day to go before the end of 2011, our first full year in New Zealand, and what a year it’s been! Here are some highlights:

My mom’s and sister’s visit over Christmas 2010 and New Year’s
Visits by our friends Ben & Sandra; Roe; Jeff; and Darren
Travelling to Auckland, Napier, Queenstown and Wellington for meetings of our various marketing groups
Our round-the-world visit to LA, NYC, DC, Cohasset, London, Naples, the Amalfi Coast, Paris and China
Seeing our room occupancy rate creep steadily upwards
Having the dogs back with us
Making lots of new friends in Oamaru and the surrounding area

There were a few ‘lowlights’, too, one of the biggest being the surprising and sudden passing of our friend and quiz teammate Ann a few weeks ago. We will miss her very much.

We have had a busy last week of the year, with a late booking for three rooms (3!) on New Year’s Eve, with dinner, so we’ll end the year with a bang. We look forward to a good and busy 2012, and wish all of you a year full of health, happiness, and good memories!

One Year On

James G — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 08:40:02 +0000

It’s hard to believe, but it’s already a year since our dogs, Ivan and Leo, were reunited with us after their seven-month adventure becoming New Zealand dogs. To recap, in order to move from China to New Zealand the dogs had first to spend six months in a third country (in our case, we chose Korea) before they could even enter NZ for their one-month quarantine at a facility in Auckland. They were released on Christmas Eve, 2010, and flown down to Dunedin, where J2 picked them up while I prepared for our Christmas functions and overnight guests.

The dogs and us on their first day in Oamaru

In the year since then the dogs have completely acclimated to their new surroundings. They spend the majority of their time in our backyard area, where they get to see passersby (often barking at them, much to our annoyance) and help themselves to the fruit on our apple tree (again, this is a bit annoying). They used to trample our vegetable patch, too, but we have since installed a fence to keep them out. During inclement weather they stay in their room, where they have their old kennel from Beijing and a window to allow them to keep abreast of our comings and goings. At night, Leo sleeps in his usual spot (on the bed…) while Ivan sleeps in his (in a little dog bed–actually it’s far too small for him, but he seems to like it anyway) next to our bed.

The dogs at Bushey Beach

We have taken the dogs on a couple of little trips around Oamaru, and several times have taken them to the beach. They were not all that sure about the beach the first time we took them there, but they have begun to get a bit more comfortable with the sand and the surf, and even have ventured close enough to the water to get their feet wet. Before long they’ll be jumping into the ocean! We have also taken them to the Waitaki Lakes, where the calm waters were a bit less daunting for them.

Leo and J2 at Lake Aviemore

The dogs are enjoying their new surroundings as much as we are, and they seem to be enjoying having gone from being indoor dogs in China to semi-outdoor dogs in NZ. To mark their anniversary today we spent a little extra time with them–giving them baths and brushing them out a bit–and tomorrow they’ll spend Christmas with a new friend, since friends of ours are bringing their Schnauzer with them when they come to spend the night with us. It should be a lot of fun for everyone concerned!

And of course, we wish you all a very merry Christmas!!

Cooking With Heston

James G — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 07:08:28 +0000

A new cookbook arrived here this morning, one that I did not know about until two weeks or so ago, but that has my name all over it. It’s by Heston Blumenthal, a self-taught chef in the UK who has made a huge name for himself with his modernist cuisine at his restaurant, The Fat Duck. This new book, called Heston Blumenthal at Home, is a very approachable book, providing very clear instructions on replicating the sort of recipes that Heston would cook himself at home. I spent a little while leafing through the book over a cup of coffee at Steam this morning, and came up with several things that I wanted to try out for possible future meals at the lodge. Heston has a small section on sous vide cooking in the book, so I decided to start there, choosing to make a dish of salmon that’s prepared in a 50-degree celsius water bath for all of 15 minutes before sautéing for a grand total of 30 seconds to crisp the skin. Heston serves this on a bed of ‘crushed potatoes’ with a Bois Bourdan sauce, both of which I had all the ingredients to make lying around. The sauce takes very little time, and is based on ketchup, sherry vinegar and shallots, while the potatoes are simplicity itself. The combination worked really well, tasted great, and would be good for guests. Here’s what it looked like (I served it with some green peas):

Touring with Darren

James G — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 08:34:02 +0000

We had another friend visit us this past week, this time our friend Darren from London. In contrast with Jeff’s visit a few weeks ago, though, this time the weather was not very cooperative, with the sole exception of his first night here, when we had some sun and relative warmth. After that, though, it was almost nothing but rain and grey skies, which posed a bit of a challenge for our touring plans.

His first day we spent showing him Oamaru and the surrounding area, going to the store to buy him some possum-merino knitwear and even as far as Waimate (30 minutes or so away) to check out the wool warehouse store there (we did not find anything worth buying there). We introduced him to some of our friends, organising a Chinese dinner for his second night here at the lodge, and we spent Thursday on a day-trip to Dunedin, including a visit to the Royal Albatross Colony, Larnach Castle and Olveston House, stopping on the way back at Moeraki for a visit to the boulders, the penguins at the lighthouse, and dinner at Fleur’s Place. Finally on Friday we hung out close to home, venturing out to Elephant Rocks and Earthquakes before dinner at Riverstone. Now Darren is in Wanaka at Tiritiri Lodge, owned by our friends Denis and Stephanie, and J2 and I are back to our usual routine, looking after guests and hanging out with the dogs. The next friend comes in a few weeks, by which time I hope the weather will back to ‘normal’!

Christmas Barbecue

James G — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:57:34 +0000

Christmas in the Southern Hemisphere takes place in summer, of course, so it is not surprising that Kiwis often celebrate the holiday with a barbecue. Last night we attended our first such event, organized by the Oamaru Rotary chapter (which I joined a few months ago). The barbecue was held at the “tin shed” belonging to one of the members, which is located deep in the countryside outside of Oamaru. The directions were a bit worrisome, since they included advice that, despite rumors to the contrary, the road could be traversed without a four-wheel drive vehicle. When we got to the road in question we agreed that a 4WD was not strictly speaking necessary, but it sure would be advisable in the event the weather was at all inclement.

As luck would have it we had a rather nice evening for it, although there was a bit of drizzle at one stage. The shed truly is a tin shed, though it’s a rather storied tin shed, since NZ TV One has come to film a group of friends of the owners’ son meeting there to watch the Rugby World Cup, and back in the days when satellite TV was very expensive in Oamaru, the tin shed was the only spot around where you could access the Sky channels for free (or something).

The meal was a rather typical summertime barbecue, starting out with whitebait patties cooked up on the grill (which went some way toward explaining why all BBQs here are sold with a grate on one side and a griddle on the other of the firebox). After that we had more familiar BBQ dishes, like burgers, franks, and coleslaw. Several people asked if we were able to handle food like this, coming from the exalted kitchen of PYB, as though we always eat gourmet food, but in fact it was tasty and we had a great time hanging out with our friends (and we got three bookings out of it, including a rehearsal dinner for the wedding of one member’s daughter, and an annual general meeting event).

The setting could not be beat, with amazing views over the valley. See for yourself in the gallery below, which includes two photos of flowers in the PYB garden:

Steampunk Photo Shoot

James G — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 20:08:03 +0000

A few days ago the call went out for all local Steampunk aficionados to come join a photo shoot that was to take place in the historic precinct on Saturday morning. The purpose was for a spread that the Automobile Association is planning for the autumn issue of their members’ magazine, which will cover road trips in this part of NZ. We have been working with the Steampunk groups to promote their activities, so while we don’t have fully-formed Steampunk personae yet, we do have the beginnings of a Steampunk ensemble, so we thought we’d join in.

If, like Homer Simpson, you’re not familiar with Steampunk, it’s a genre of science fiction that assumes that fashion and technology have not advanced beyond the Victorian era, so the doodads and whatsits that a futuristic person might need (like ray guns, teleporters, and the like) are all steam-powered, using lots of brass, dials and pistons, and their clothing is based on Victorian style. Imagine a Jules Verne or HG Wells movie and you’ve got a good picture of the style.

For a small town like ours, it’s perhaps surprising that there are two Steampunk groups, each of which has its own particular take on the genre. One is quite a bit darker than the other, and has as its symbol a skull-and-gear motif. The other group is more light-hearted, and gets involved in creating modernistic penny farthing bicycles and fanciful characters with interesting back stories.

After taking a bunch of photos in and around the Harbour-Tyne precinct, we adjourned to PYB for some interior shots, which included some fun scenes of Steampunk billiard games and guests playing with some of our gizmos that have a Steampunk look to them. But photos speak louder than words, so take a look at the gallery to get an idea of what went on: