Award-winning blog of Irish food writer and broadcaster Caroline Hennessy.
We were having five people over for dinner on Saturday night and, as I was digging through the cookbooks looking for inspiration, the boyfriend asked if I had ever cooked an Indian curry from first principles. Well, with a challenge like that it didn’t take me too long to dig out a few recipes that I’d been wanting to try for a while.
The countdown is nearly over and this Friday sees the opening of the Christchurch based Savour New Zealand foodies masterclass – by NZ Prime Minister Helen Clark, no less. I can’t imagine her Irish counterpart, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, opening such a thing in Ireland unless, of course, it was a pub in Drumcondra and there was a pint of Guinness in it for him.
It’s feijoa season! And what, you may ask, are feijoas? The first time I saw apple and feijoa juice for sale, not long after I arrived in New Zealand, I had no idea what it was.
The other night I was trying to take the boyfriend out to dinner but, after ringing a few restaurants only to be informed that they were booked solid, I soon gave up that idea. So it had to be something special from our own kitchen then.
Yesterday – 25 April – was Anzac Day. Now, in the days before I got myself the Kiwi boyfriend, I mainly knew the word Anzac from some recipe for Anzac Biscuits that I had cooked when I was a kid.
It was a friend’s 30th birthday on Saturday and we were gathering at 5pm, in fancy dress, for a few drinks before heading over to a rugby match in Christchurch – Canterbury Crusaders vs South Africa’s Cats.
When you move to a new place, you’ve got to figure out what events are going on and, when I arrived in Christchurch in January, I was thrilled to discover that this South Island city is the home of Savour New Zealand, a foodie spectacular that happens every two years.
The first time that the boyfriend’s parents were coming to dinner, last summer in Ireland, was a bit of a challenge.
