A: Shark-infested custard.

No, wait, come back! There is more to this week’s newsletter than a terrible joke, I promise. It’s just that whenever I think about custard this joke (which came via my niece Eleanor when she was about six or seven) was all I could think about.

I hadn’t thought about custard for a very long time before that, perhaps because at boarding school we were served vats of custard with greying slices of banana floating on top like partially submerged mines. Boarding school food is a topic for another day, but considering that we got pudding three times a week (Tuesdays, Thursdays, Sunday lunch after church), it was a cruel blow that banana custard was so high on the rotation. Occasionally we’d get chocolate custard and I always suspected that they’d just fished out the banana bits and added cocoa. Either way, that was infinitely preferable.

Earlier this week I thought I’d had a custard trauma breakthrough when my colleague Andrew told me all about his secret hack. I pushed thoughts of Sacred Heart custard and sharks to one side and listened intently as he described how to turn a carton of prepared custard and a spoonful of two of sugar into an instant crème brûlée-alike with the aid of a blow torch.

If you’re thinking, ‘that sounds too good to be true’, you’re smarter than I am. It turns out that shop custard (ingredients: skim milk, cream, sugar, glucose syrup, thickener (1442), vanilla flavour, and colours 100 and 160b) is no match for baked custard (base ingredients: cream, eggs, sugar). It looks the part (see above) but the texture is all wrong. The sugar seems to pool on top rather than crackle and the whole thing becomes unpleasantly runny very quickly. Possibly not as dangerous as shark-infested custard, but about as palatable. I can’t call it an AI slop recipe because it came from a real person, but it was actual slop. Sorry Andrew, but I’ll pass on this one. Instead, I have a hankering for something that’s a tiny bit more work but infinitely more delicious.

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Miso Caramel

This is salted caramel, but with a little bit of je ne sais quoi. It’s really great with vanilla ice cream, or layered with Greek yoghurt in little glasses and topped with crunchy nuts. It’s really not hard to make - you can turn it into a two-step pudding by making the caramel one day and serving it over ice cream the next.

• 1 ½ cups caster sugar

• ½ cup hot water

• 1 cup cream

• ¼ cup white miso paste

• 1 tsp ground cinnamon

• 1 tsp ground ginger

• a pinch of chilli flakes (optional)

Put the sugar and water in a small pot and set it over medium heat. Stir well to dissolve the sugar, then bring to a simmer. Let it bubble away for 5-10 minutes - do NOT leave it unattended - until it turns a dark caramel colour. Remove from the heat and add the cream (be careful, it may spit). Stir briskly until smooth, then add the spices. Scrape into a jar and leave to cool. Cover when cold. Store in the fridge, but bring to room temperature before using.

Good Things

Culinary Writing Workshop

Like to eat and write, or write about eating? Either way, this one-day workshop will satisfy your appetite for both. As well as writing sessions with me and Anna King Shahab (of Lazy Susan fame), will share lessons from her experience of cookbook publishing and participants will all get a copy of her beautiful new book. Plus there will be lots of award-winning food to eat (and write about). Drop me a line if you want to find out more.

‘Hide your brains, it is your only chance’

If you need distracting, the new Netflix adaptation of My Brilliant Career is a delectable romp - gorgeous to look at, silly and serious in equal parts. Philippa Northeast is fabulous as Sybylla Melvyn, a young woman who wants to escape grinding convention and become a writer in 1900s Australia.

Take me to The Doctor

In a nod to Beervana, here’s an intriguing brew that we’ve been drinking lately. ‘The Doctor’ is a health-giving* dark lager from Matakana brewery Sawmill that’s a rich, chocolatey meal-in-a-glass kind of beer.

(*Note: results may vary. About half a wineglass full is enough for me.)

Thank you for reading. Please do tell me if there’s a correct way to make two-step crème brûlée (or if you too have unresolved custard trauma). Have a lovely week,

Lucy

(P.S I really hate asking but click the heart please and thanks!)

It all started after I spotted this poster stuck to a lamp post in La Ciotat, a small seaside town about halfway between Marseille and Toulon on France’s Mediterranean coast. I’ve always loved reading the small ads in newspapers or scanning supermarket noticeboards, so the prospect of the ‘Confrérie des Chevaliers de l'Aïet’ (which turned out to be a sort of garlic fanciers society, complete with natty outfits) delighted me on many levels.

Even so, it took me a week to summon up the courage to ring the number to enrol and I wasn’t entirely sure that I’d understood what the person I spoke to had said.

On the night of the contest, I nearly lost my nerve and had to give myself a stern talking to (and a fortifying gulp or two of local rose). I raced down the cobbled streets of the old town to the edge of the port, where a growing band of competitors and spectactors were assembling around a long table covered in an olive-printed cloth. There were officious types in special waistcoats and badges, a fearsome woman with a clipboard and dozens of elderly ladies dressed in traditional costumes. There was nothing for it but to stake my claim to a place at the table. In faltering French I explained my position - I’d rung earlier and the gentleman I spoke to told me to just turn up. There was the shrugging and gesticulating and shaking of heads that normally goes on in French interactions, then my name was added to the list and a place created at the table.

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It was at this point that I realised that I had no idea about how to make aïoli. I knew the basic principle, but I’d only ever made it once before and that was in a kitchen in New Zealand, not in a public square in a French town where everyone else looked like they’d been taught by their grand-mere. I wanted to kick off my 1-Euro Carrefour jandals and make a run for it, but there was no way out. The bonnet-wearing aunties closed in behind me as my neighbouring competitor confidently dispensed advice (mansplaining sounds alike in every language). ‘Don’t panic,’ I told myself. ‘At least this will be a good story’.

The next 20 minutes or so passed in a blur as I pounded garlic to a paste with an egg yolk and added pungent local olive oil drop by precious drop. Periodically one of the aunties would shuffle her chair a little closer to see what I was doing, and then discuss it pointedly with her pals in French too rapid for me to follow. A compere whipped the watching spectators into a frenzy as the time counted down and the 15 of us sweated in the twilight. Moments from the final klaxon, my neighbour’s early confidence was undone when his aïoli curdled like a bad custard.

(Afterwards, the aunties advised him on some cure for this using mashed potato, or at least I think that’s what they were saying).

What happened next is a bit hazy. I recall a series of people with clipboards coming around and marking our efforts with extreme diligence while the competitors made convivial small talk. Then all of a sudden people were cheering and clapping and it slowly dawned on me that I was no. 14, the winner. I was so gobsmacked I could barely breathe. When I breathlessly stammered to the compere that I was from Nouvelle-Zelande there were audible gasps from the watching spectators. (A local chef, who came second, was definitely not amused, but the aunties who had kept such a close eye on me during the making process, were thrilled.)

For two minutes, I was the most popular person in La Ciotat. Tout le monde wanted to shake my hand or offer their félicitations. I said something probably unintelligble in French in front of a TV camera. Afterwards, when I went to thank the top brass of the organisers, they asked me if I could come back for a conference in October. As we sat at a table on the waterfront to have a celebratory drink, people kept stopping to congratulate me. I felt like I’d won the garlic equivalent of the Nobel Peace Prize. I had a brief vision of the mayor extending my visa to a prized carte de residente and carving out a new life in Provence as some kind of local legend, an inspiration to aïoli makers everywhere…

While that didn’t happen, the trophy did make it back to New Zealand with me. It sits on a shelf in my little shed office as a reminder of a golden time in our lives - and that there’s always a good story in doing something a little bit ridiculous.

How to make prizewinning aïoli

It may have been a fluke, but here’s how I did it.

Peel two plump cloves of garlic. Using a mortar and pestle, crush the garlic to a pulp with a pinch of salt. Don’t rush this step - the garlic must be smooth or you’ll end up with ‘bits’ in the finished aïoli.

Add an egg yolk and mix well (keep using the pestle as your main tool here).

Decant about 200-225ml of your very best extra virgin olive oil into a bottle where you can keep tight control on its flow. Add the oil, drop by drop, to the garlic and egg mixture, constantly stirring with the pestle. Doing it drop by drop is essential - you can’t rush this part either or the sauce won’t emulsify and thicken and you’ll be wasting precious resources.

Once about half the oil is in, you can relax and add about a teaspoonful at a time, making sure it’s all emulsified before adding the next.

This might sound painstaking, but it’s worth it. You’ll know it’s done when the aïoli has the texture of proper mayonnaise. It almost glows, as if it’s captured all the energy of your now-aching wrists into millions of tiny light-reflecting spheres. It will hold its shape - and, when you tip the mortar upside down, it will stay put rather than sliding out.

If you’re being Provencal, you can now eat it with tiny new potatoes, or raw vegetables, or with grilled fish, or any other way you like. At the Concours de l'Aïet the spectators scooped it up with crisps.

Oh là là là là, that’s MORE than enough for this week. Thank you for indulging my little trip down memory lane. Click the heart if you’d love to be making aïoli in the south of France right now!

Lucy

Here is a very good biscuit. It’s a little chewy, a little crunchy, a little lemony.

Actually, it’s a lot lemony. At the risk of sounding 200 years old, I think it’s an excellent biscuit to accompany a cup of tea and the crossword. Even better, this recipe makes loads, so you can even magnanimously share them with other people in a kind variation of making your cake and eating it too. Here’s how to make it.

Lemon Biscotti

This slightly tweaked recipe is from a children’s cookbook called Little Kitchen Around The World by Sabrina Parrini, published in 2011 and now out of print. They’re not biscotti in the sense of something you crunch into fearing an expensive visit to the dentist, but an an intriguing mixture of soft and chewy. This makes them a bit like ricciarelli from Siena, which are one of the world’s best biscuits. Side note: I once went on a very fancy press junket to Siena, where I stayed in an outrageously fancy hotel that had previously been home to Daniel Craig during the filming of Quantum of Solace. We were fed multi-course Italian feasts at every opportunity but that didn’t stop me from eating as many ricciarelli as I could.

Back to these ones: I use more lemon zest than the original recipe and almond essence instead of vanilla (see ricciarelli, above). I also use full-fat Greek yoghurt instead of sour cream (we seldom have sour cream hanging around, but we always have Greek yoghurt). Another side note: I have very strong thoughts on Greek yoghurt and was relieved to see the The Spinoff’s testing panel recently recognised the only one worth the name. Please note I haven’t made these cookies with any other kind.

ANYWAY… I am getting to the point, I promise. These are very simple to make - just melt and mix - then you rest the mixture in the fridge before baking. Incidentally, I do this with all the biscuits I bake, mostly because I am often doing more than one thing at a time (or cooking something else in the oven) and it’s convenient. My theory is that everything is better after a bit of chill-out time, but Nik Sharma has tested this process more thoroughly and explains the science behind it here.

If you’ve made it this far… the two other things you should know about these cookies is that the raw mixture is addictively good (obviously resist this if you’re worried about raw eggs) and the cooked biscuits are strangely excellent partners with sharp cheddar or Parmesan cheese.

130g butter, melted

2 1/2 cups plain flour

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1 cup caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract (or ½ tsp almond extract)

150g Greek yoghurt or sour cream

1 egg plus 1 egg yolk

finely grated zest of 3 lemons (use the juice in something else)

3/4 cup icing sugar

Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda and sugar into a large bowl. Add the melted butter, vanilla, sour cream, eggs and lemon zest and mix well to a firm dough. Cover the bowl and put in the fridge for at least 20 minutes (you could probably leave it for two hours without any harm coming to it).

When you’re ready, preheat the oven to 200C and line a couple of baking trays with baking paper. Sift the icing sugar into a shallow bowl. Roll tablespoons of the mixture into balls, then roll them in the icing sugar so they are well-coated. Place them on the prepared trays, allowing room for spreading.

Bake for 10 minutes, until pale golden. Cool for a few minutes, then remove to a rack to cool completely. Makes about 35.

Good Things

Preserved Lemons 101

Please consider this your seasonal reminder to preserve some lemons while they’re cheap and abundant. There are various methods, but the simplest is to cut a lemon into quarters lengthways, stopping just short of the stem end, then filling the cavity with salt. Prepare about four to six lemons like this, then layer them into a large jar with more salt, squeezing them down as best you can (wear gloves if you’re a delicate flower with tender hands). Pack more salt on top and screw on a lid. Over a couple of days the salt will turn into brine - this is good, you want the lemons to be submerged at all times. Keep the jar in a cool, dark place for about a month, then they’re ready to use. Once you open the jar, store it in the fridge.

Fancy (buttered) sardines

Big thanks to Fancy Butter reader for sending me this delicious way with luxury sardines. I imagine Sabato sardines are exceptional, but when Kiran said she made it with Unda Sardines (from Latvia, via her local supermarket) I figured I could give it a go with King Oscar’s finest from my local supermarket too. It worked a treat - if you don’t have capers kicking around then add extra lemon juice and zest, and a lot of salt and pepper. OR, make it once your preserved lemons are cured, and add lots of diced preserved lemon.

Note: Even with lots of lemon, I wouldn’t recommend this as a take-to-work lunch unless you are also packing a toothbrush.

Last chance for Tomboy fans

If you’ve always wanted to bury your face in one of Tomboy’s famous pillow doughnuts (or equally impressive pork sandwiches), you’ll need to hustle. Owner Kate Bresolin announced this week that she’s ending this particular era and closing her cute little shop, but “this is not the end of Tomboy”. In the meantime, you can check out her newsletter.

Happy mid-August dear readers. Hope you have an excellent week ahead and thank you for spending some time with Fancy Butter (and clicking on that pesky heart below if this was worth reading).

Lucy

‘I’m having people for drinks and substantial nibbles on Sunday… I have whitebait, which I will serve with white bread (naturally). But I need to make something else. I have a lot of carrots - any thoughts?’

It’s easy to overlook carrots, mostly thanks to their omnipresence in supermarkets all year round. But since there’s nothing better for them than a good frost (in super cold temperatures, the starches in carrots convert to sugar, making them sweeter), now’s the time to embrace the mighty carrot in all its glory. Plus - and this can’t be ignored - they are incredibly cheap, at about $2 a kilo (or $5, for organic ones). My brother-in-law says the potato is the steak of vegetables, but the carrot needs recognition too.

Carrots can suffer deeply in the kitchen from being boiled to blandness or left to go limp in raw batons. But a good roasting brings out that inherent sweetness and means the carrot retains a certain al dente quality that makes it satisfying to eat. A leftover roast carrot is as much of a treasure as a cold roast potato, if not more. Thinking about those things, while excavating a carrot from beneath the carcass of a leftover roast chicken in the fridge, inspired the following recipe. (I hope this solves your conundrum, Kim!)

Hassled Carrots

These are heavily inspired by ye olde Hasselback Potatoes (occasionally known as Hasselhoff Potatoes in our house, in a homage to the great man himself). I can eat these as-is, where-is, straight out of the oven (or, cold from the fridge the next day), but they’re great as a side dish or as part of a platter of what my friend Bess calls ‘heavy nibbles’.

Serves 4 carrot lovers

750g medium-sized carrots, washed, peeled and ends trimmed

For the spicy oil:

2 tsp cumin seeds

1 1/2 tsp coriander seeds

1 tsp fennel seeds

3 tsp chili crisp (aim for 2 tsp of chili solids, 1 tsp oil)

1 tsp honey

1 tsp wholegrain mustard

1 Tbsp olive oil

2 Tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

Heat the oven to 180C.

Prepare the carrots: put a peeled and trimmed carrot horizontally on a chopping board and align a chopstick (or wooden spoon handle) on each side. These will act as a guide for the knife, so you don’t end up with a pile of carrot coins. Make slices about 0.5cm down the length of the carrot, then cut the carrot into thirds. Repeat with the other carrots.

Put all the spice oil ingredients in a large bowl and mix well to combine. Add the carrots and mix well, ensuring the oil and spices get into all the nooks and crannies.

Transfer the carrots to a shallow baking tray. Season well with salt and pepper. Set the bowl to one side - don’t get all hyper-efficient and wash it, you’ll need it later.

Bake for about 45 minutes, shaking the tray a couple of times through the process to ensure the carrots can caramelise on all sides.

Return the carrots to the bowl you used earlier and let them scoot around in the remaining oil, then tip them onto a serving platter. Season again with salt and pepper and serve.

EXTRA FOR EXPERTS: To make these a bit more fancy (or to take them to a pot luck, or as heavy nibbles), double this recipe and serve with some lemon-laced whipped feta as follows:

Lemony Whipped Feta

200g feta, diced
½ cup plain, unsweetened Greek yoghurt
1 tsp olive oil, plus a little extra for drizzling
A squeeze of lemon juice and some finely grated lemon rind
3 spring onions, finely sliced

Put the feta in a bowl and mash with a fork. Add the yoghurt, olive oil and lemon juice and beat until smooth. Fold in the spring onions and lemon zest, then scrape into a serving bowl and drizzle with olive oil. Serve immediately or cover and chill for up to three days.

Good Things

Pickled Carrots

Have you eaten your way through last week’s Pickled Cauliflower and now have a jar of brine in the fridge that you don’t know what to do with? Make pickled carrots! Pour the brine into a pot and bring to a simmer and drop in some carrot batons. Bring to a simmer again, let boil for a minute, then remove from the heat. Transfer the carrots to the jar (that you’ve diligently washed out and sterilised) and pour over the brine. Let cool, then screw on the lid and store in the fridge as before.

‘I just need a quick snap’

This is a rushed photo of what’s widely thought to be Auckland’s best hummus (at Gemmayze Street, in the beautiful St Kevin’s Arcade on Karangahape Road). When it arrived my dining companion said, ‘look, I’ll give you a minute to take a photo before we tuck in’. Argh, I thought, have I become one of those people? If you’ve ever held up the meal to take a shot, then this clever essay by Leanne Kitchen has plenty of food for thought. (The hummus at Gemmayze St deserves all the praise, as does the fried eggplant, which is one of the best things I’ve eaten all year.)

Choc Tops and crisps

From the sublime to the ridiculous: thanks to my daughter I have discovered this absolutely winning combination - the classic cinema choc-dipped ice cream, followed by some salt and vinegar crisps. Don’t judge me until you’ve tried it!

Thank you for reading. If this was useful or diverting, please click on the heart below and with any luck someone else will empty the dishwasher for you today.

Eat well,

Lucy

This is a drawer in my kitchen that’s home to cake tins, lunchboxes, Thermoses (Thermi?), empty yoghurt containers and glass jars. Many, many glass jars. At least once a week I feel the red mist of rage when trying to shut it. About once every couple of months, I very performatively de-clutter it, matching containers and lids and stacking things in as orderly a fashion as I can manage. Anything that doesn’t have a properly fitting lid gets recycled, ditto anything with an irritatingly persistent label (Maille mustard is particularly bad for this!) But I swear they multiply while I’m not looking.

My husband calls it a jar cemetery, but I actually think he doesn’t realise how lucky he is. About 99 per cent of these jars are on their second or third (or fourth or fifth) life. It could be much worse; I could be one of those people that buys matching virgin storage ware and a labeliser. Who knows, maybe I secretly want to be one of those people and my jar hoarding is just the latent expression of it.

In the meantime, I prefer to this drawer of shame as one of potential and opportunity. All these jars are waiting for renewed purpose as vinaigrette shakers, containers for preserved lemons, bulk spices, chutneys and jams. Or, they can help you declutter the fridge too when you fill them up with this addictively good pickled cauliflower.

Easy Pickled Cauliflower

This is ridiculously simple and decidedly moreish. If you’re the sort of person who needs a snack as soon as you get home at night, a jar of this in the fridge will be your saviour. It’s better for you than crisps (and extremely good with a slab of cheese).

If you’re not that sort of person, be advised that these pickles work well on a platter of snacky things and they are a secret weapon in a humble cheese toastie, especially with a lick of mustard.

• 1 1/2 cups white wine vinegar

• 1 1/2 cups water

• 3 tsp plain salt

• 1 1/2 tsp cumin seeds

• 1 1/2 tsp coriander seeds

• 1 1/2 tsp whole peppercorns

• 2 small dried chillies

• 4 cups cauliflower florets (about half a cauliflower)

• 3 spring onions, green parts trimmed, sliced in half lengthways

Put the vinegar, water, salt, coriander seeds, peppercorns and chillies into a large saucepan. Boil for two minutes, then add the cauliflower florets. Cover and simmer for one minute, then remove from the heat.

Pack the cauliflower florets into a 1-litre sterilised glass jar with a lid (or two 500ml jars). Poke the spring onions down the sides. Pour the hot brine over the top, making sure the cauliflower is covered. Let cool, then screw on the lids. Let stand overnight, then store in the fridge for at least a day before eating.

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Good Things

OMG this cheese is good

A couple of weeks ago a plant-based camembert-style cheese won the Vegan Cheese Awards. This flushed out a huge number of hitherto unidentified local cheese ‘experts’ who debated loudly among themselves on social media about whether or not this was in fact, a camembert. Honestly, people can’t help themselves, can they?

Anyway, this particular cheese pictured above is not a camembert either, it’s a Triple Cream Brie. Or, if you’re a pedant, it’s a Brie-style cheese made in Putaruru from cows’ milk (but the cows eat grass, so does that make it plant-based?). Next time you reach for an imported camembert or Brie, do yourself a favour and invest in this one instead, it’s one of the best cheeses I’ve eaten this year.

How to keep your crackers cracking

Since we’re talking about cheese we may as well talk about crackers too. Here’s a hot tip from my sister-in-law Jenny: keeping your crackers in the fridge stops them from going soft. This has been a useful life hack in our household, though it has not yet stopped Some People from putting the empty cracker tin back in the fridge. If you can crack that one, do let me know.

Hot stuff

This ye olde classic is a recent rediscovery in my household and we’re all hooked on it. English mustard is more of a punch in the face than the French stuff we’re used to (I feel like Dijon mustard is more likely to say something cutting than resort to fisticuffs), but that makes it a good wake-up for jaded winter palates. Plus, you know, the jar is a very elegant shape…

Thank you for your company this week. If you do me the courtesy of clicking on the heart below, your jars will always find matching lids.

Have a delicious week,

Lucy

Many food writers tell stories about learning to make scones at their apple-cheeked grandmother’s flour-dusted knee. Not me. I learned how to make scones at my first office job at Parliament. It was the late 90s and I was one of an army of support staff - mostly women, most of them at least twice, or maybe three times my age - charged with looking after MPs’ secretarial requirements. Let’s just say it was a learning experience, leavened by some good people and a newfangled invention called the internet. One of my loveliest colleagues (who worked for a complete monster) also found the time to contribute recipes to the newly created email newsletter that went around the building every morning. I lost touch with her after I left, but I think of her every time I make one of her recipes, especially her scones.

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Julia’s Scones

This is Julia’s basic recipe, with which she provided the following secrets for success:

• Don’t grease or flour the oven tray - it just needs to be VERY hot. Turn the oven on and put the tray in to heat up as soon as you think that scones might be a good idea.

• As a rough guide, allow 2 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp sugar, 10g butter and 125ml (1/2 cup) liquid for every 1 cup of flour.

• If you’re adding dates, cut them in half with scissors first. This pre-empts the excruciating and potentially expensive risk of crunching on a date stone.

• There is no truth to the old wives’ tale that eating hot scones gives you indigestion.

For about 9 large scones:

3 cups plain flour

2 Tbsp baking powder

pinch of salt

30g (2 Tbsp butter)

1 Tbsp sugar

1 egg

1 1/2 cups liquid – milk (any kind is fine), water and plain yoghurt in equal (ish) quantities

Optional extras: 1 1/2 cups grated cheese, 1 cup chopped dates

Heat the oven to 220C and put the oven tray in to heat up (don’t grease or flour it).

Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl, then rub in the butter until it’s well mixed in. Stir through the ‘extras’, if using. Mix the liquids together in a jug, then pour into the dry ingredients.

Mix VERY lightly with a knife until a soft dough forms. Tip out onto a cool floured bench top and pat into a flat shape about 2.5cm high. Cut into squares and put immediately on the hot oven tray that has been waiting in the oven for this moment. Leave about a thumb space between them so they have room to nearly join up while cooking.

Bake for 10-12 minutes until golden, crusty and well risen. Leave on the tray to cool briefly, then eat with lashings of butter. There are never any leftover in our house, but they can be frozen.

Pumpkin, Feta and Onion Scones

If you’ve already mastered ordinary scones, here’s a variation using ubiquitous winter pumpkin. You could easily use leftover roasted pumpkin (or similar winter vegetables) if roasting it from scratch feels like a bridge too far. Or, you can cook the pumpkin in advance and set aside (in the fridge, if for more than a couple of hours) until ready to use.

300g peeled Crown pumpkin, diced

1 medium red onion, peeled and finely sliced

1 tsp whole cumin seeds

1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper

3 cups plain flour

2 Tbsp baking powder

pinch of salt

30g (2 Tbsp butter)

1 Tbsp sugar

1 egg

1 1/2 cups liquid – milk (any kind is fine), water and plain yoghurt in equal (ish) quantities

75g feta, crumbled

1 cup grated cheddar cheese

Heat the oven to 220C. Line an oven tray with baking paper.

Put the pumpkin, onion and cumin seeds in a large bowl. Drizzle over the olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Toss well, then spread over the lined tray. Roast for 25 minutes, until starting to brown. Remove from the tray (lift up the paper in one go) and return the empty tray to the oven. Set the pumpkin aside to cool while you prepare the scone dough.

Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl, then rub in the butter. Stir through the cooled pumpkin, the feta, and most of the grated cheese. Mix the liquids together in a jug, then pour into the dry ingredients.

Mix VERY lightly with a knife until a soft dough forms. Tip out onto a cool floured bench top and pat into a flat shape about 2.5cm high. Cut into squares and put immediately on the hot oven tray. Leave about a thumb space between them so they have room to nearly join up while cooking. Scatter the remaining grated cheese on top.

Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden, crusty and well risen. Leave on the tray to cool briefly, then eat with abandon (and extra cheese, if it is a very gloomy day).

Good Things

Many Melting Moments

My obsession with melting moments continues. Among other things, I’ve learned that the difference between melting moments and yo-yos is custard powder (yes for yo-yos, no for melting moments). I’ve made two batches so far, experimenting with using a mix of custard powder and cornflour, and adding more butter to a standard recipe (thank you !). More trials to come…

My Royal Nemesis

Help, I am trapped in another seemingly endless K-romcom that zips between modern Seoul and the Joseon dynasty of 300 years ago. There are just enough genuinely comic or touching moments in My Royal Nemesis to mitigate the lingering looks, laboured portents and panto villains, but occasionally I do wonder if I could be splitting the atom instead of watching it. Only five (of 14!) hour-plus episodes to go…

Oh FFS!

Wellington On A Plate kicks off next weekend, including the beloved burger contest. There’s only one burger I’m really interested in this year and it’s actually not a burger at all, but a recreation of the infamous Field & Green fish finger sandwich. At least, that’s what it looks like to me… and when asked about it chef Laura Greenfield didn’t deny the similarities. All we need is for her to start making ice cream again - maybe when she pops up as guest chef at Capitol later this year? - and life will be complete.

Thank you for reading and if you click on the heart below your scones will always be lofty and light.

Have a great week,

Lucy

I have nothing against Australian oranges but I have no idea why we import them at this time of year when the local ones are at their glowing peak. Don’t even start me on why we import American ones. Or stonefruit. It’s madness!

Navels are not the only orange, of course, but they’re the ones to eat right now - their Valencia cousins are more of a summer orange. Probably the very best thing you can do with them - apart from quartering them in the traditional fashion for the sports field (or kitchen bench), is to fillet them as painstakingly as fish, then smother them with sugar or a thin caramel (they don’t need it, but it’s great) and eat with lots of cold, whipped cream or yoghurt. The very next best thing is this extremely simple ice cream.

Navel Orange Ice Cream

This recipe has a bit of a storied history. It’s inspired by a Nigella Lawson recipe - she uses lemon in How To Eat, then pomegranate juice in Nigella Express - but I actually wonder if she was originally inspired by an Elizabeth David recipe for ‘Lemon Ice Cream’ that I recently re-stumbled upon in Summer Cooking. Anyway, this can also be made with mandarin juice - my brother does this to great success. I think he also grows the mandarins, which is also impressive. Anyway, about twice a year he texts me some variation of ‘help, I can’t remember ratio of juice to cream’ - so now it’s seared into my brain.

I’ve gone a bit fancy here by setting the mixture in a 20cm round cake tin, then pouring chocolate-orange ganache on top, but you could just as easily freeze it in an ice cream container and scooping it out. It also doubles (or triples) easily. Don’t make and save for a rainy day though, it’s best eaten within a week.

This is easily enough for four people, or six very polite ones.

1 large navel orange (yields a pile of zest and 60ml juice)

1/2 cup (80g) icing sugar

300ml cream

Finely grate the orange zest over a large bowl, being careful to stop before you get to the white pith. Squeeze the juice (it should be about 60-75ml) on top. Stir in the icing sugar, then pour in the cream. Whip to soft peaks.

Transfer this mixture to a lined 20cm cake tin, or a plastic container. Cover and freeze for four hours, or until firm.

Scoop or slice to serve, with a scattering of more orange zest on top.

Optional extra: if you have another orange kicking around, finely grate the zest and set it aside. Squeeze the juice into a small pot. Bring the juice to a simmer over medium heat, then add 60g dark chocolate. Remove from the heat and stir until smooth. Pour this over the frozen ice cream, or let diners do the same with their own portion. Scatter the orange zest artistically on top. For even more excitement, add a few dried chilli flakes to the party too.

Good Things

(Inter)National Velvet

The day after I confessed to Jim Mora that I eat chocolate every day, my sister serendipitously sent me this stupendously good local bar. The clue is in the name - this Mount Maunganui-based firm makes chocolate from Solomon Islands-grown cacao beans. It’s every bit as smooth and silky as the name suggests.

‘Reading moves slow and mends things’

If you’re a fan of Jeanette Winterston you may already know that she writes a typically thoughtful and brilliant newsletter called Mind Over Matter. (If you’ve never heard of Jeanette Winterson, go to the library or bookshop and borrow or buy, ‘Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit’, immediately. Great things await you.) Anyway, this particular one I wanted to print out and send to everyone I know - you, dear readers, included.

The Odyssey

Quick, go and see this on the biggest screen you can. It’s epic in every sense of the word; a story as old as Homer’s wine-dark sea, brought to life by an excellent cast. It’s not perfect (very occasionally I felt like I was watching Matt Damon in a swords and sandals Bourne reboot) but it’s a colossal spectacle all the same.

Thank you kindly for reading - and for clicking on the heart below - I know this is pathetically needy but it helps spread the Fancy Butter love.

May the gods smile on us all this week,

Lucy

Looks aside, that burst of crunch is what makes cabbage so good right now. Winter is full of soft food in shades of brown or red, which is all very well, but I reckon you need something with a bit of zing to brighten it up a bit. A lettuce salad made with a bag of ubiquitous mixed leaves feels a bit limp and insubstantial at this time of year. However, if you add something satisfyingly crunchy - hello, cabbages of all stripes, but especially the crinkly Savoy - things start to perk up a bit. Maybe that’s because crunching or chewing on things is good for your brain? Either way, this very simple salad has been a regular feature on our dinner table in recent weeks.

Chopped cabbage salad with apple, lemon and spinach

Apologies that there’s no pic of this salad - I forgot to take one the other night, so in the interests of sending this newsletter before I make it again you’ll have to imagine it.

This is pretty customisable to what you have kicking around - cabbages, lemons and apples are all in good supply at the moment, but you could add other green things of your choosing, like celery, or chopped herbs (coriander would be especially good). I wouldn’t add carrot though; to me that would feel a bit like cosplay coleslaw, and that’s a path we don’t want to go down this week.

For 3-4 people as a side dish:

1 chunk (1/4 -1/2) cabbage, chopped into 2cm pieces

1 apple, cored and thinly sliced into matchsticks

1 large juicy Meyer lemon

3 handfuls baby spinach or equivalent greens

A bunch of coriander, finely chopped (optional)

1/4 cup plain yoghurt (or use mayonnaise)

1 tsp Dijon mustard

1 Tbsp olive oil

Salt and pepper

Put the chopped cabbage and apple in a serving bowl. Zest the lemon over the bowl, then cut the zested lemon in half and flick out the pips. Thinly slice one half - including the skin, then cut into dice. Add this (and the juice) to the cabbage. Toss to mix. Add the spinach and most of the coriander, if using.

Squeeze the remaining lemon into a small bowl or jar. Add the yoghurt or mayonnaise, mustard, olive oil and salt and pepper. Stir to combine - taste for seasoning and sharpness (if it needs more acid, add more lemon juice or a splash of apple cider vinegar).

Toss the dressing through the cabbage, apple, lemon and greens. Scatter the rest of the coriander leaves on top and serve.

Good Things

Waiata 100

Quick work-related plug: in case you missed it RNZ hosted its first-ever Waiata 100 countdown on Friday after asking people to vote for their favourite New Zealand song from the last century. I’ve known who made it to the top 100 for weeks, but I was still glued to the seven-hour countdown, which revealed that ‘Poi E’ was the nation’s favourite. Nick Bollinger delivers a sound analysis of what our choices mean here. Also, I defy anyone to listen to ‘E I Po’ by Prince Tui Teka without sobbing.

Ice cream weather

More Kiwiana: I was very briefly in Christchurch last weekend, where I did my best to eat a lot of things in a short amount of time. Of them, I highly recommend Rollicking Gelato, which boasts lots of fun flavours (such as the Hokey Tokey Pokey, above). Most excitingly of all, they drizzle melted chocolate either into the base of the cone, or over the ice cream in a cup, before handing it over. (Yes, the melted chocolate goes everywhere as you eat down the cone, but it’s worth it.)

Pieface

After stuffing myself with ice cream in Otautahi I made an even briefer trip to Waimangaroa, about 20 minutes north of Westport, later in the week. The purpose for this visit was mostly to avail myself of the excellent pies at The Scullery, a little coffee/pie cart with a cute garden tucked just off the main road. While the pies (steak and mushroom, pictured above) were the main drawcard, I also had a yo-yo/melting moment that I have thought about ever since. I always thought yo-yos were a bit boring and dry, but this was the double-decker biscuit of the gods. If you have a recommended recipe or you know the secrets of truly melting moments, do let me know.

Thank you for reading - and please remember to click on the heart below - that helps the machine help more readers to find Fancy Butter.

Have a great week!

Lucy

“Yes!” I say. “Thaw it in a bowl of cold water and ring me about 45 minutes before dinner time.”

Because I’ve got a lot on this week and can’t make it to your place (as much as I’d like to), here’s how to turn a lump of lamb mince into something delicious in two shakes of a, um, lamb’s tail.

Spiced lamb with kūmara, spring onions and feta

This is something I’ve been wanting to make since the days of Homecooked. Just after it came out I had what I considered to be a genius idea for posh lamb mince on toast (specifically, toast made from the Kūmara Bread on page 281). Last Sunday night I finally made it happen (minus the kūmara bread toast, but that’s still the plan). This recipe is my Matariki gift to you. Make it for people you love (preferably ones who love savoury mince).

• 1 Tbsp olive oil

• 1 red onion, peeled and diced

• 1 medium carrot, peeled and diced

• 2 ribs of celery, ends trimmed and discarded, diced

• A fat pinch of salt and some freshly ground black pepper

• 500g lamb mince

• 1 medium kūmara, peeled and grated (about 150g peeled weight)

• 1 bunch coriander, washed, roots discards, stems finely chopped, leaves picked and reserved *

• 2 tsp ground cumin

• 1 tsp ground coriander

• 1 tsp smoked paprika

• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

• 1 Tbsp worcestershire sauce

• 1 Tbsp soy sauce

• 1 cup (250ml) chicken or vegetable stock

• 3 handfuls spinach, shredded if leaves are mature

• 4 spring onions, finely sliced

• 150g feta, crumbled, drizzled with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil

• Pita breads (or delicious toast), to serve

Set a large, heavy pan over medium heat. Add the oil, followed by the onion, carrot, celery and salt and pepper. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are softened and coloured - about 7 minutes. Remove the lid. Push the vegetables to the edges of the pan and add the lamb mince, flattening it out like a giant patty. When it’s sufficiently browned on one side, flip it over and squish it with a fork so there are no lumps (this method means the meat doesn’t stew and turn into grey sludge). When the meat has browned all over, stir in the spices and fry for another minute or two. Add the kūmara and coriander stems and mix well, then add the worcestershire and soy sauces, and the stock. Stir well, then cover and lower the heat. Simmer gently for 10 minutes, then stir in the spinach. Cook for two minutes, then cover the pan and remove from the heat.

While the lamb is cooking, prep the spring onions and coriander leaves. Crumble the feta and toast the pita.

Now, showtime. Transfer the pan to a wooden board. Scatter the spring onions, coriander leaves and feta over the top. Carry to the table and get someone else to whip the pita breads out of the toaster (mind your fingers, they’ll be hot!). Let people help themselves, scooping up the lamb with the hot, pillowy bread. Or, for a slightly more formal approach, arrange the toasted bread on warmed plates and heap the mince on top, followed by the green bits and feta. Some chilli crisp is a handy accompaniment here too (especially this one).

This serves four people generously. If there are fewer of you, leftovers are excellent in a toasted sandwich the next day.

*If you’re a coriander hater, just leave it out - or scatter mint and parsley on top at the end.

Good Things

A better way with feta

Lots of people got in touch after I wrote about how I store feta in DIY brine so it doesn’t turn into a stinky waste in the packet in the fridge (in case you missed it, those instructions are here). If brine feels like too much hassle or you don’t have a huge slab to deal with, the next best thing to do is stick it in a bowl, pour over a generous slosh of olive oil and cover it. For extra bonus points and flavour, scatter over some toasted cumin and coriander seeds, some freshly ground black pepper and some chilli flakes. Cover tightly and stick in the fridge. I guarantee this feta won’t go off, because you’ll find it is so delicious you’ll eat it very quickly.

You Have A Friend in 10A

Have you read Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead? You really must. It’s probably one of the best books I’ve read in the last two years - a soaring and cleverly structured tale about love, life and aviation. You Have A Friend in 10A is her first collection of short stories. If you’re like my mother-in-law and think that short stories are unsatisfyingly short, rest assured that each of these ones feels like a full meal. (But go and read Great Circle first.)

Madonna, again

This won’t be to everyone’s taste - but I am completely obsessed with Madonna’s (latest) comeback, from the 13-minute short film masquerading as a music video (as I texted a friend, “it’s got Benedict Cumberbatch, Kate Moss, and vagina lasers!”) to the newly dropped album, which seems to reference all the moments of her career to date. Also, she turns 68 next month and she’s still killing it on the dancefloor. Respect.

Thank you for reading - and please remember to click on the heart below - that helps the machine help more readers to find Fancy Butter.

Mānawatia a Matariki!

Lucy

I smiled at him as benignly as I could, pivoting away from his outstretched hand. What I really wanted to do was turn back and say, ‘actually, friend, I am a peas-ful person’. (Yes, the thought of delivering this line made me smile to myself for the rest of the afternoon - it’s the little things that bring me joy.)

The humble-yet-mighty frozen pea has come to the rescue on many occasions recently and I am extremely grateful. Whenever our household greens intake looks in doubt, frozen peas are there to save the day.

The frozen pea was invented just over a century ago by Mr Clarence Birdseye and it’s been delivering cheap, nutrient-rich vegetable goodness to the masses ever since. Peas are the jeans of the vegetable wardrobe: democratic, serviceable, go-with-everything. When I was at boarding school, peas were a regular, comforting meal component that couldn’t be stuffed up. Peas were a staple in every flat I ever lived in for much the same reasons. When I was cooking for one or working shifts, a favourite desperate dinner was buttered basmati rice, puy lentils and peas, topped with chilli and coriander-laced Greek yoghurt. Luxury! And then much later, when I was feeding a small person in a highchair, a little dish of frozen peas was an excellent distraction (she still prefers them this way).

Searching my file recently for something I came across this recipe, which we’ve enjoyed in many different iterations over the years. A bit of energetic crushing transforms boring old peas into something more novel and tasty.

Smashed peas (+ variations)

I using prefer baby peas (sweeter and cuter) to big grown-up ones (bigger peas can be mealy), but use whatever you have.

The basics

• 1 Tbsp butter or olive oil

• 1 large clove garlic, peeled and sliced

• 2-3 finely chopped spring onions (reserve some finely sliced green parts for garnishing)

• Finely chopped red chilli, to taste (optional)

• 2 cups frozen peas

• 2 Tbsp water

• A handful of fresh parsley and mint, finely chopped

Melt the butter or olive oil in a small pot set over medium heat. Add the garlic and spring onions and chilli, followed by the peas and the water. Crush the peas with a potato masher or a fork as they cook, until you have a rough puree (this will take about three minutes). Stir in the chopped herbs.

The next steps

While the peas are cooking, you can:

1. Toast four slices of hearty bread and spread generously with butter (or drizzle with olive oil). Arrange the toast on a plate and pile the crushed peas on top, allowing for a bit of artistic scattering. Season well with salt and pepper and serve to two people for lunch.

2. Or, follow the above instructions and top the peas with poached eggs.

3. Or, follow the above instructions and top the peas AND the poached eggs with some rashers of crisp bacon.

4. Or, remove the peas from the heat and mash in half an avocado and a squeeze of lemon juice. Season well, then scoop this into a bowl and serve with posh crackers (or spread on toasted baguette slices for a canape vibe). Season well with lots of freshly ground black pepper and some salt flakes.

5. Or, stir the smashed peas through some just-cooked pasta (choose a shape that will let the peas fall into its nooks and cranks). Loosen with a splash of pasta water and then shower the whole mixture with freshly grated grana padano or parmesan. This trick works with rice too (add green lentils and the yoghurt sauce described above instead of cheese).

Good Things

Baking with Lois

Lois Daish has been helping me make biscuits this week. Not in person (a girl can dream) but via some extremely detailed and solid advice. I had a sudden, inexplicable craving for peanut brownies and found a recipe in her 2005 book, A Good Year. The trick, she says, is to roast and skin the peanuts first1, then to cream the butter and sugar thoroughly and then mix in the dry ingredients with as much care as if you were making a cake. “This makes biscuits with a light, crisp, friable texture,” she says. Having followed her instructions to the letter, I can confirm she’s right. Peanut brownies are an extremely underrated biscuit; if you haven’t had them for a while then I urge to you rediscover them.

Abundance

I’m quite late joining the fan club, but I’m trying to make up for lost time by gorging myself on as much of his work as possible. This lovely book, which he wrote in newsletter instalments, is a joy to read. It’s a bit upside down if you’re in the southern hemisphere (which will be a familiar frustration if you’ve read a lot of Nigel Slater) but no less charming for it. He also runs a writers’ retreat with Diana Henry, which is the first thing my no-doubt imminent Lotto win will be spent on.

‘What is your worst fear?’

I read a story this week that explained the trend for female cannibal fiction (!) as a response to trying times. “Horror thrives in times of anxiety,” it said. Perhaps that’s why I’m so in thrall to the latest iteration of Cape Fear, where pardoned murderer Max Cady (Javier Bardem) turns up to make life hell for the lawyers (Amy Adams and Patrick Wilson) who put him away. Sure, the story takes a few leaps here and there, but Bardem chews up the screen (and Amy Adams is good in everything). Don’t watch if you’re home alone.

Welcome to new subscribers, it’s lovely to have you join us. I don’t want to be needy, but if you enjoy what you’ve read today, please remember to click on the heart below - that helps the machine help more readers to find Fancy Butter.

Stay warm out there and thank you for reading,

Lucy

Kim mentioned this drink in her farewell interview with Jim Mora in November 2023 and it made me see her in a whole new light1. If only I’d known that she was an ordinary person who occasionally needed a sustaining mug of chocolatey goodness when I bumped into her on my first day at RNZ I might have had something useful to say. Alas.

While I missed the chance to give Kim my chapter and verse on hot chocolate making, let me deliver it to you. No Milo involved!

Spanish Hot Chocolate

Spanish hot chocolate is thick, rich and chocolate-y enough to keep you going until tapas hour. Making it at home isn’t quite as much fun as drinking it in a little Spanish cafe, but it’s infinitely more achievable.

For best results, use the best cocoa powder and chocolate you can find. This makes enough for a good-sized jar – instructions follow on how to take it from powder to liquid heaven.

• 1 cup cocoa powder

• 1/3 cup caster sugar (sweet tooths: icrease this to 1/2 a cup)

• 6 Tbsp cornflour

• 200g dark chocolate, smashed into little bits

Put all ingredients into a food processor and whiz until it forms a fine powder. Alternatively, sift the cocoa, caster sugar and cornflour into a small bowl, then stir in the finely chopped chocolate. Transfer to a screw top jar.

To make two elegantly sized servings: Mix 1/3 cup (6 Tbsp) of the chocolate mixture with 1/2 cup milk of your choice in a small saucepan. Heat, stirring all the time, until it thickens, then add 1 1/2 cups milk and stir frantically. Keep cooking over low heat, stirring all the time, until the mixture is thick and velvety. Pour into cups and drink it as soon as you can. Churros optional.

Alternatively, try this spiced version, which is more of a mugful.

Spiced Hot Chocolate

For two servings, you’ll need:

• 400ml milk or milk-adjacent product

• 2 tsp cocoa

• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

• A fat pinch of chilli flakes or powder (or a pinch of ground ginger)

• 100g dark chocolate, finely chopped

Put the milk, cocoa and spices in a small pot set over medium heat. When it comes to a simmer, add the chocolate. Turn off the heat and stir VERY vigorously until the mixture is thick and smooth. Pour into your favourite cup and drink immediately.

Please note: Do NOT wander away or start doomscrolling when the milk is heating up, it will invariably boil over and you’ll have to start again (and clean up).

To make it fluffier, use a milk frother or pour the hot milk into a coffee plunger and froth it up before pouring it over the chocolate.

Desperation Hot Chocolate

The third method - which I only use in desperate times, such as when I’m working from home and need a quick hit of something chocolatey to warm me up - is to drop a couple of squares of dark chocolate into a mug, top with boiling water, then stir like mad until it’s dissolved. The results are surprisingly good. You can also do the same with coffee, but that requires making the coffee first.

Good Things

Vote for Aotearoa’s favourite song

Speaking of RNZ… we’re currently asking people to vote for their favourite New Zealand song and waiata Māori from the last 100 years (yes, John Hore Grenell features on the longlist, but I promise there are plenty of more modern options). Check out the long list and find out how to vote.

Sketches from the Trenches

Should you find yourself in Upper Hutt in the next month, I recommend whizzing into Whirinaki Whare Taonga to see this exhibition of Nugent Welch watercolours. Welch, who is considered to be New Zealand’s first war artist, spent two years in the trenches capturing the devastation of World War One. After the war, he came home and continued painting, focusing this time on the gentler landscapes of the lower North Island. (There are other shows on at WWT too, but I was busy discharging my duties as a dance mom… and eating great chips and kasundi at the attached cafe.)

‘There are naturally many chances to meet persons of distinction’

‘Marguerite’, the narrator of The English Understand Wool receives many useful life lessons from her mother about how to meet persons of distinction, dress with elegance and, above all, avoid anything that might be construed as ‘mauvais ton’. It’s very hard to talk about this delightful novella without giving the game away, but I loved it. And just look at that cover!

Have a wonderful week x

“Mmmm, something out of my head.”

This was never the answer I was after. “Something out of my head” was code for something brown, probably cooked in the Crockpot. The actual result wouldn’t be bad, but it wasn’t something you could reliably anticipate, like chao fan (my ultimate favourite) or corned beef or chops.

Still, nostalgia is a potent sauce. A few years ago I found an exact replica of Mum’s Monier Crockpot on TradeMe and couldn’t buy it fast enough. Since then I’ve used it exactly once, with average results. It takes up a spot designed for a microwave in my kitchen and I stack egg cartons on top of it before I take them back to the cheerful egg men at the market. I should really give it a proper workout or give it away; this middle ground isn’t good for either of us. Maybe you’re either a slow cooker person or not. Or, more likely, the missing ingredient is probably my mother, shouting out ‘don’t lift the lid off the Crockpot’ as me or my brothers prowl around the kitchen looking for something to eat.

Anyway, now it’s June I think we are officially in brown food season. This slightly out-of-focus shot is a very messed-about with version of Nagi Maehashi’s Southern Pork and Beans from her book Dinner, which is still one of the best-selling cookbooks in Aotearoa several years after its release. Basically, you sear some chunks of pork shoulder, then cook them in a rich sauce of tomatoes, beans, onions. I deviated hugely from Nagi’s recipe, leaving out the bacon, adding carrots, using black beans instead of kidney beans, using some quince chutney and chopped tomatoes instead of passata and throwing in some chipotle peppers. By the time I was done with these on the fly substitutions it pretty much qualified as ‘something out of my head’ - but it was still delicious and there was lots of it (feeding three of us for dinner, then for five hearty lunches).

As well as brown things, we’ve been eating lots of cabbage and kale. That might sound like a punishment, but treated right it’s exactly the right counterpoint to meaty stuff. I’ve been heavily inspired by ’s herby cabbage salad, which we’ve had various interpretations of in the last week or so. It works with any kind of cabbage, but it’s hard to go past the crinkly Savoy as pictured above.

I’ve long admired and read the work of Guardian journalist (a name destined for a byline), but didn’t realise she did so much foodwriting until recently. I’ve been greedily hoovering it up ever since. So far I’ve made her oat and raisin cookies, which I meant to photograph but accidentally ate the last one this morning. Her breadsticks and brioches are next on the list.

Other notable brown things I have gobbled down this week: Annabel Langbein’s lemony lamb shoulder, which uses my favourite slow cooker, aka the oven; a cocktail called a White Cow at the Capital of Kai opening (I think made in homage to the legendary Carmen), which contained tequila, some kind of coffee liqueur and cream; KC homemade tofu with pork mince (the most gorgeous, etheral tofu, smothered in garlic - apologies to everyone who I breathed on in the following 48 hours) and fat pikelets smothered in cream cheese and marmalade to accompany coffee in my favourite brown cup.

I’d love to know what you’ve been eating this week - and whether or not you embrace the slow cooker life.

Lucy

I didn’t want to draw any attention to myself by saying that we’d had ‘King of the mountain’ soup, a clear broth with giant meatballs and vegetables in it, because this would be considered very weird. I knew that describing it as ‘like cazuela’ (a Chilean dish of chicken or beef and vegetables poached in broth), wasn’t the right answer either. So instead of just saying ‘soup’, I told him I couldn’t remember. For some reason, Mr Saunders wouldn’t let this go and it turned into a weird battle of wills that bizarrely culminated in my mother inviting him to lunch so she could make it for him.

Why am I telling you this story? It’s because I’ve been in a decluttering frame of mind that’s included examining my mother’s recipe clippings. Alas, ‘King of the mountain’ soup has not been among them. Maybe she tore it up to excise the trauma. Or maybe it wasn’t actually that good. Anyway, in the process, while thinking about broth-y soups, I remembered making this cheeky number for Frankie magazine a wee while back. There are no kings or mountains, just chicken, leeks, prunes and beef stock. It’s really good! But heaven help the kid who has to explain this to their teacher.

Cockaleekie

The ingredients for this may sound unlikely - prunes? - but together they make magic. This cheeky little number dates back to the 16th century, when it was apparently quite the thing in bonnie Scotland. It was also known as Auld Reekie, but I think you can see why that name hasn’t stood the test of time. Use really good quality beef stock and a happy chicken for best results.

2 litres (8 cups) best quality beef stock

1 whole chicken

3 large leeks

2 cups prunes

Put the stock in a very large pot and set over medium heat. Bring to a simmer.

While you’re waiting for it to heat up, prepare the leeks. Slice off the root ends and green tops, then slice each one lengthways. Wash under cold running water to remove any grit. Cut one leek into 1cm slices and set aside. Cut the other two into thirds and tie together with kitchen string (cotton, not blue plastic in the style of Bridget Jones).

When the stock is simmering, carefully put the chicken, breast-side up, and tied-up leeks into the pot. Cover and simmer gently for 40 minutes, then add the prunes. Cover and continue to simmer for another 30 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through.

Take the pot off the heat and remove the chicken to a large plate. Discard the leek bundles. Skim as much fat from the stock as you can (use a fat separator jug or skim it with a large spoon). Alternatively, chill the stock, then scrape the solid fat from the surface (this is the easiest way and the most satisfying). Remove the skin from the chicken, then shred the flesh and discard the bones.

When you are ready to serve, return the defatted stock to the heat. Add the chicken and the sliced leeks and cook for five minutes, until piping hot.

Good Things

What’s yours Dad? ‘Beef’

Speaking of childhood trauma, I still remember the horror of biting into a beef stock cube that I’d mistaken for a chocolate treat (it was square, covered in foil and on the top shelf of the pantry - I thought I’d hit the jackpot). Now most stock cubes give me the horrors for a host of other reasons. This widely available Gault’s stock concentrate is a far better option, not least because you’re unlikely to knock it back by the spoonful.

Capital of Kai

Warning: if you’re my age or older, the new Capital of Kai exhibition at Wellington Museum may be confronting. It’s a very charming look at how the city’s culinary scene has evolved over the last 100+ years, but I was surprised that scenes from (what feels like) the recent past are deemed historic enough to be in a museum. Lots of great photos (especially a lovely one of Lois Daish), paraphenalia and thoughtful storytelling.

‘Why are you the mayor of this town if you hate everyone so much?’

All Mayor Tom Loftis (Matthew Rhys) wants is for the island community of Widow’s Bay to get a little love from tourists to boost its economy and morale. Alas, a half-buried history of cannibalism, killer clowns, sea hags and other things that go bump in the night are in his way. Widow’s Bay (on Apple) is a clever mix of awkward interactions, jump scares and oddball characters that will make your neighbours seem really normal.

Hope you can make the most of the long weekend,

Lucy

What does this anecdote have to do with mushrooms? Nothing, really, except it’s one of several memories that bounce back into my head every time I pile mushrooms into a paper bag at the shops. We’ve been eating a lot of mushrooms lately, so I’ve been thinking about them quite a lot. The more glamorous story involves a cooking lesson at The Ritz in Paris, where a fellow participant (a polished Parisian) got told off by the chef-teacher for peeling the mushrooms we were preparing for stock. But there’s something earthy about the Kinleith memory that always makes me smile.

I’d love to be one of those people who goes fungi foraging in the Town Belt and comes back with a bag of fairytale porcini, but I don’t seem to have the knack. Luckily, ordinary old buttons from the supermarket are still pretty good when you treat ‘em right.

Roasted ‘shroom spaghetti with lemon and spring onions

This is great for those times when you can’t really be bothered with a big production and want to eat something fast and fabulous. I buy cheap ‘use now’ bunches of spring onions at the Sunday vegetable market, but if they elude you then you could use a finely chopped brown onion, or a leek. Similarly, I use ordinary button mushrooms but if you have fancy or foraged ones they’ll work too.

Lastly, if you don’t like pasta, these mushrooms are great over rice, or on toast, or eaten by themselves straight off the oven tray.

This is enough for four people - I’m sure you can work out the maths to increase or decrease amounts if you need more or less.

600g button mushrooms, wiped and halved

1 bunch (6-ish) spring onions, ends trimmed, finely sliced

1/2 cup (125ml) extra virgin olive oil

400-450g spaghetti

Salt and pepper

1 lemon, finely zested and juiced

A handful of parsley, finely chopped

Parmesan or Grana Padano, to serve (optional)

Turn the oven to 180C fan bake. Put the mushrooms, spring onions and two-thirds of the olive oil into a large bowl (top tip: use the one you’ll be serving from to save on the dishes). Mix well, then tip onto a large baking tray. Season well with salt and pepper and put in the oven. Bake for 15-20 minutes, stirring halfway through.

Prepare the pasta while the mushrooms are roasting. Bring a large pot of water to the boil. When it’s bubbling merrily, add a generous spoonful of salt and the spaghetti. Cook for 8-10 minutes, until al dente. Scoop out a small cupful of the pasta water, then drain the pasta.

Show time: put the pasta and mushrooms in the large bowl you used earlier, making sure you get all the juices from the baking tray. Add the lemon juice and zest, and the remaining olive oil. Slosh in a splash or two of the pasta water and toss energetically so all the ingredients can get acquainted. Add the parsley and toss again. Take to the table and serve.

Good Things

Nigella’s Dense Chocolate Loaf Cake

I photocopied the recipe for this lush loaf out of Nigella Lawson’s How To Be A Domestic Goddess in 2001 and tucked it into a bulging notebook of ‘things to make one day’. After finally making it for the first time last weekend, I think it could be the best chocolate cake I’ve ever made. If you’ve never made it and don’t have the book, you can find the recipe here. Note the measurements on this version of the recipe are US - for metric measurements I can advise you that it’s 225g butter, 375g sugar, 100g chocolate, 200g plain flour and 250ml boiling water.

‘Life’s short, we’re never going to be this hot again!’

I don’t think I could love any TV show more than season two of Rivals, based on the Jilly Cooper novel of the same name. It’s so deliciously bonkers (not to mention full of bonking) that it’s the perfect antidote to doom and gloom. The dinner party scene in episode two is particularly brilliant, but there are plenty of other gems. Watching it is a participatory experience - a bit like panto - as it’s hard not to shout, scream and groan as the action progresses.

Heart the Lover

I adored Lily King’s ‘Writers and Lovers’ so much that when I finished it I read it all over again just to make sure I hadn’t imagined it. I feel exactly the same about Heart the Lover, which exists as a sort of prequel (but makes sense as a standalone book). I cried copiously through the last third and could just about cry now just thinking about it. Highly recommended.

Happy last week of May to you and yours,

Lucy

I thought of lots of smart replies for her afterwards, but usually the answer depended on what or who I was writing the recipes for - and often on what we had in the fridge at the time. Sometimes I’d tell people that I came up with ideas while I was running and they’d look at me like I was mad, but it was true. More than once I had an idea while jogging in the early dawn hours, and I’d have to hope that I could remember it when I got home.

Anyway, my point is that inspiration comes from unlikely places. Last week I stumbled upon this shopping list at the supermarket and it sparked all sorts of ideas.

Apart from marvelling at this person’s lovely handwriting, I was intrigued by what they might have been making. An Ottolenghi-esque salad, I guessed (the herbs, cauliflower, pomegranate seeds, pistachios give it away). The rest of the list feels quite everyday until you get to the cashews, which I seldom personally buy for recipe use because they mysteriously disappear before I can put them in anything.

The next day, still thinking about that shopping list, I bought a beautiful (and cheap!) cauliflower at the market, among other things like cabbage and spring onions. Mid-way through the week, I saw Anna Frazer’s recipe for miso cod and pickled ginger salad. I made the salad (delicious!), which has rice mixed through it. The cauliflower continued to occupy considerable real estate in the fridge while I made a lacklustre lasagne. (“Lack-sagne,” as my witty colleague called it.)

Then, walking the dog on Thursday morning I remembered a cauliflower salad I used to make and wrote about in 2015 (the inspo for that had come a few years earlier, because I was obsessed with the caramelised cauliflower in Molly Wizenburg’s A Homemade Life). About a month after we moved into this house six years ago, one of my neighbours appeared over the fence waving a tattered newspaper clipping with this salad in it. “I’ve just realised this is you,” she said. “I LOVE this salad!”

Anyway, my point is inspiration comes from all sources, all of the time. Sometimes it’s easier than others. Sometimes the execution doesn’t match the dream. But it’s always fun to keep trying. Here’s the latest version of this salad, inspired by all of the above.

Roasted cauliflower with brown rice, coriander, cashews and lemon-yoghurt dressing

Don’t be daunted by the long list of ingredients, everything more or less happens at once without too much hassle. This is pretty customisable - I’ve used brown rice and quinoa, because I had some kicking around, but you could use another kind, or another grain, or leave it out entirely. Same for the nuts and greens. If you come up with something new and great, let me know! This serves 4-6 depending on whether it’s a main character or a side part in the story of your dinner.

• 1 cup brown rice

For the cauliflower:

• 1 tsp cumin seeds (or ground cumin)

• 1 tsp coriander seeds (or ground coriander)

• A fat pinch of chilli flakes

• 1/2 tsp turmeric

• 1/2 tsp garam masala

• 1/4 cup olive oil

• 1 cauliflower, leaves and excess stem removed

• 1 bunch (4-6) spring onions, ends trimmed, roughly chopped

For the dressing:

• 1/2 cup plain yoghurt

• 1 tsp wholegrain mustard

• Zest of 1 lemon and 3 Tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

• 2 Tbsp olive oil

For the salad:

• 4 large handfuls baby spinach or silverbeet leaves

• 1/2 cup roasted and salted cashew nuts (plus a few more for the cook to snack on)

• A handful of fresh coriander leaves (sub with mint or parsley if required)

Get the rice on the go first - rinse it, then cook as per packet directions or your favourite method. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 200C.

Put all the spices in a large bowl and mix well.

Wash and dry the cauliflower, then sit it on a chopping board, stem end down. I find the easiest way to cut a cauliflower without it shooting all over the floor is to cut it into quarters (like you’re cutting a cake into four), then slicing each of those bits into 1cm-ish slices (some will break into little bits, others will stay whole. This is OK, really). Cut out and discard any big bits of stem.

Put all the spices and the olive oil in a large bowl and stir to combine. Add the cauliflower and spring onions. Mix everything together, then tip out onto a large baking tray. Season well with salt and black pepper and bake for 25-30 minutes or until the cauliflower is tender and crispy. Set it aside to cool slightly.

To make the dressing, put the oil, yoghurt, mustard and lemon zest and juice in a small bowl and whisk to combine.

To assemble the salad, put the rice in a serving bowl. Plop the spinach or silverbeet leaves on top, followed by the cauliflower. Drizzle over half the dressing, then scatter over the nuts and herbs. Toss gently and serve, with the extra dressing on the side for people to help themselves.

Good Things

This week’s Good Things are all in the newsletter realm. Here are three very different ones I’ve been delighted to discover in recent-ish times:

Do you know Karen Nimmo? I’m luckily enough to know her in real life but you can get to know her, or at least benefit from her excellent, wry and wise life advice, via her newsletter, A Good Enough Life.

Dan Keane is also a source of wry and wise stories, though I’m not sure he’d describe them as advice. Dan has a foot in two worlds; as an expat in Aotearoa making sense of the New Zealand-ness around him every day, and as an American looking towards home. His writing is well-observed and thoughtful. And funny!

american.nz

Letters from an American in Aotearoa.

By Dan Keane

Lastly - a shameless work plug. There’s now a newsletter in my day job, which curates the best of RNZ’s lifestyle, entertainment, music, arts and culture content. If you want a little burst of that every Saturday (it’s free!), sign up here.

Have an excellent week and thank you for reading, always,

Lucy

What they wanted, she said, was to be able to call out ‘Muuuuuum’ and to know that a voice would answer from somewhere within shouting distance. I guess that actually depends on the child (not to mention the parent), but since she had plenty of parenting experience I always took this statement as the gospel truth.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot this week during the annual bombardment of Mother’s Day advertising. It’s 14 years since my mum died and so her absence is less brutal than it was. That doesn’t mean that I don’t miss her, but more like it’s an old injury that flares up in certain circumstances rather than an acute condition that stops me from getting out of bed in the mornings. Maybe that feeling, of being able to call for your mother and know she’ll be there, never leaves us.

My mother must have made hundreds of cakes in her lifetime, but I only really associate her with two of them. One is a Peta Mathias’ recipe for a chocolate and fig-studded number, a great big exclamation mark of a cake that weighs a ton. The other is this one, which uses a whole lemon and lots of dates (we always had lemons, for G&T purposes, and my dad loved dates). It’s rather more unassuming, but no less delicious.

When we were clearing out my parents’ house I was desperate to find this recipe, which eventually turned up in one of her folders of recipes clipped from newspapers and magazines, along with notes in her loopy cursive handwriting. I remember the first time Mum made this (and many subsequent times, including the one when she realised as the cake went in the oven that she’d forgotten the baking soda. The cake was mostly unharmed.) During my ‘between food processors’ phase I developed a terrible craving for this cake, because it’s really hard to make without one. It’s not impossible, but it’s much easier with Mr Magimix or whoever doing the heavy lifting.

There’s a chance this could be an Elisabeth Pedersen recipe, based on the newspaper font and age of the clipping, but in Mum’s book it’s just called ‘Mary’s Date and Lemon Cake’. Mary, wherever you are, I salute you. I’ve made a few small changes to your recipe, mostly streamlining the method to make it easier to follow. Please note that you can substitute Greek yoghurt for sour cream.

Mary’s Date and Lemon Cake

Makes 1 x 24cm round cake, serves 2-10

1 lemon, quartered, pips removed
1 cup dates, roughly chopped
100g soft butter
100g caster sugar
75g brown sugar
2 eggs
200g plain flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 cup full fat Greek yoghurt (or sour cream)

Heat the oven to 180C and grease and line a 24cm tin.
Put the dates and lemon in a food processor and whizz until they form a finely chopped mushy mass. Warning: this will be noisy. Scrape into a bowl and set aside.

Put the butter and sugars into the processor and whizz until light and fluffy. With the motor running, crack an egg through the feed tube and whizz until well combined. Stop the machine, scrape down the sides, and repeat the procedure with the second egg.

Add the yoghurt/sour cream and the date mixture. Whiz briefly to combine. Lastly, add the sifted flour and baking soda and pulse until mixed.

Scrape the batter into the prepared tin and bake for about 35 minutes, until a skewer plunged into the middle comes out clean. Let it sit in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn it out on a rack to cool.

Lemon Icing
This is enough for a generous coating (which is to say, you can eat a few spoonfuls and the cake won’t suffer). I’ve topped the cake in the photo with a handful of chopped pistachios (hey, it’s nearly Mother’s Day!) and some lemon zest.

2 Tbsp soft butter
1 2/3 cups icing sugar
2 Tbsp Greek yoghurt/sour cream
pinch of salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp lemon juice (or more, according to taste)

Put all icing ingredients in the (rinsed out) processor and whizz until smooth and fluffy. Slather over the cake when it’s completely cold.

Good Things

A winner chickpea dinner

I don’t think I’ll ever be one of those people who spends all day Sunday batch-cooking for the week, but I have stumbled upon this brilliant Anna Jones recipe that you can make while prepping something else. The key ingredients are pretty basic - kale, chickpeas, tinned tomatoes (I actually found it by googling those three ingredients) but they’re enlivened by turmeric and preserved lemon, plus a dollop of yoghurt and harissa to finish. It’s relatively cheap to make and you can get creative with substitutions. It was a hit in my household, feeding three of us for dinner and then two lunches.

Margot’s Got Money Troubles

Michelle Pfeiffer! Nick Offerman! Elle Fanning! Greg Kinnear! Some critics have been unkind about this charming Apple series, but I’m completely in love with it. Margot (Elle Fanning) turns to OnlyFans to pay the bills after having a baby with her (truly awful) English professor. Chaos ensues, etc, but it is the very best kind of chaos featuring Nick Offerman as her former pro-wrestler and addict dad, and Michelle Pfeiffer as her former Hooter waitress mom. Plus, Nicole Kidman turns up as a pro-wrestler-turned-lawyer. Suspend critical thought while watching and just enjoy the ride.

Sift

Not for one minute am I suggesting that you rush out and buy this for your mother for Mother’s Day… but if she’s legitimately keen on baking then this is a brilliant gift. Nicola Lamb (of fame) expertly dissects the science of baking and then shows how to use this knowledge in real-life scenarios. I was transfixed to the point that I read a paragraph aloud to my husband one night about various sorts of pastry cream. (Admittedly, he was less interested in the difference between creme mousseline and creme chiboust, but I still think it’s fascinating.)

Hope you have a happy Mother’s Day or ordinary old Sunday, whichever you choose to celebrate,

Lucy x

Last month, Woolworths New Zealand announced they’d be trialling closing their in-house butchery departments in the South Island, saying it was too difficult to find trained staff. I found it hard not to be cynical about this news, considering that they’ve already shut the door on in-store butchers in their North Island shops. If you want to buy meat at Woolworths, you have to buy it pre-packaged. In my experience, this is never a good thing.

I’m not the first person to grieve the end of the neighbourhood butcher, nor is this a new trend. It is depressing though. In the last two decades of writing about food I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve written about butchers - whether they were freezing workers or proprietors of posh shops. My absolute favourite thing is asking for a cut of meat and having the butcher quiz me about what I’m planning to do with it, then dispensing their own advice. I once stood in a butcher’s shop in a fancy part of London, eavesdropping with delight as the aproned butcher conducted a passionate discussion with a customer about what kind of standing rib roast they should serve for Christmas dinner, but I’ve had similar experiences in less salubrious parts of Hamilton or Wellington. When we lived in rural southwest France in 2019, all the local supermarkets had scores of butchers and each meat counter boasted information about the provenance of its wares. (Admittedly, it was a very meat-tastic region.) Sure, pre-packaged supermarket meat might be convenient, but is that convenience designed to serve the store owner or their customers? Increasingly, I feel like food knowledge is being eroded by the prevalence of pre-packaged things that make people less and less connected to what they’re eating. But that’s a diatribe for another day.

I feel no guilt at not buying meat from my local supermarket (lord knows it extracts enough of my earnings as it is). Instead, I buy it online from a farm-to-table butcher, where the prices are no more expensive than supermarket meat (sometimes cheaper), the quality is a million times better, and if I send them an email asking about a certain cut, they’ll respond at speed. They also have lots of different and useful cuts that go beyond steak, sausages and ‘stewing steak’. It’s not quite the same as standing in a butcher’s shop, but it’s the very next best thing.

Coconut, chilli and tamarind beef cheeks

This is a slightly tweaked version of a recipe in Homecooked (which is where the above photo comes from). Tamarind adds a delicous hint of sourness, which lifts the richness of the meat and coconut gravy. I buy solid tamarind pulp by the block and keep it in the fridge, but depending on where you live, tamarind paste might be more accessible. I’ve also added some more vegetables in this version for two reasons; one, so it feels a bit less ‘meaty’, and two, to make it go further).

If you like to do things in advance, this is even better the next day (and also freezes well). I got eight meals out of this last week - four of us ate it the first night, then the next night I topped the remainder with a sheet of puff pastry unearthed from the freezer. The next day, my husband took the last bit of ‘pie’ and stuck it in a bagel. We are nothing if not resourceful when it comes to extracting every bit of juice from the orange in this house.

Serves 6 (and leftovers can be repurposed in several ways, see below)

Prep time: 25 minutes

Cooking time: 2 hours 15 minutes

• 1.2kg beef cheeks, cut into 5cm chunks

• 3 Tbsp plain flour (use cornflour or rice flour for GF eaters)

• 2-3 neutral-tasting oil

• 2 red onions, roughly chopped

• 4 cloves garlic, finely sliced

• 4cm piece fresh ginger, roughly chopped

• 1 small red chilli, finely chopped

• Zest and juice of 3 limes (save the juice for the end)

• 3cm x 3cm chunk of tamarind pulp, diced, or 2 Tbsp tamarind paste

• Vegetables: 1 large eggplant, cut into chunks, or a couple of handfuls of mushrooms, halved or 1 large peeled and diced kumara, or 2 carrots, peeled and cut into chunks

• 1 Tbsp soy sauce

• 650ml coconut milk (about 1 ½ cans)

Heat the oven to 150C.

Put the beef on a large plate. Sprinkle over the flour and season well with salt and pepper. Toss the meat in the flour until it is well coated. Set aside.

Put the onions, garlic, ginger, chilli and lime zest in a food processor or blender and whiz until smooth. Set aside.

Heat two tablespoons of the oil in a large, heavy ovenproof pot with a lid. Brown the flour-dusted beef in batches over high heat, turning so it colours on all sides. Remove to a plate and set aside.

When the meat is all browned, add the remaining tablespoon of oil to the pot. Lower the heat slightly and add the onion and garlic mixture. Fry gently for two minutes, then tip in the beef (and any collected juices), plus the vegetables, if using. Stir well to coat the meat in the paste, then add the tamarind, soy sauce and coconut milk. Season well, then cover tightly and cook in the preheated oven for two hours, or until the meat is very tender.

Remove from the oven and uncover. Cook over medium-low heat on the stove top, stirring often, for another five to 10 minutes, to reduce the sauce. Squeeze in the lime juice (from the zested limes) and taste for seasoning before serving with steamed rice and something green on the side.

Good Things

Honey: Recipes from a Beekeeper’s Kitchen

There are so many delectable things in this gorgeous book, which my sister told me about in January (and cooked something from it from memory). Amy Newsome is a beekeeper, gardener and cook - and a very charming writer. Lots of info here for gardeners and aspiring beekeepers, as well as cooks and people who love to eat.

Licked Spoon

Thinking about French butchers reminds me of Debora Robertson’s wonderful dispatches from Marseillan, a little port town about 50km from Montpellier. Debora mostly writes about food (though she can also make choosing paint colours sound exciting) and I enjoy her weekly market haul photos. (She inspired me to take this sunny baguette shot this morning.)

Sovereign hobbies

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this remarkable essay, in which the author dissects ‘sovereign habits’ - and what restricts us from having control over how we spend our leisure.

Here’s hoping we can all carve out some time to pursue some sovereignty this week. Thank you for reading x

Smelling rosemary is like playing a word association game; roast lamb, foccaccia, crunchy roast potatoes. Or the conditioning rinse my flatmate Anna used to make for her hair, steeping sprigs in apple cider vinegar for a couple of weeks, then diluting this potent tincture with water (she had great hair).

Rosemary is a friend to gardeners - in my experience it grows in terrible soil and inclement conditions - and to bees, since those blue flowers, each like a miniature orchid, are rich sources of pollen and nectar.

And, of course, it’s a friend to cooks. Those pine-y notes stand up to flavours big and small, meat and vegetables, sweet and savoury. In The Flavour Thesaurus, Niki Segnit describes how to make a rosemary-scented chocolate custard. If you’re wondering what that might be like, try eating a square or two of Mr Whittaker’s finest garnished with a rosemary bloom.

Bonus tip: any leftovers are excellent on toast or in a toasted sandwich.

Good Things

Cookbooks for a Doomsday library

News that entrepreneurial couple Eva and Toni Piëch are looking for someone to curate a collection of books to help them see out the end of days has sparked many a speculative story this week. I’m glad someone suggested Kath Irvine’s excellent The Edible Backyard, but I was surprised food books didn’t get more attention. I'd definitely include Niki Segnit’s The Flavour Thesaurus (so clever, interesting, funny and light enough to read in bed) and probably Stephanie Alexander’s The Cook’s Companion, which has just turned 30 (and been updated with 90 new recipes), both of which I’ve consulted this week. And maybe a chunky Jane Grigson or Elizabeth David (lots of reading, no pictures). What would you put in?

Life is short, eat the extremely expensive spread

I am in two minds about recommending this, because it is eye-wateringly pricey and probably not what Michael Pollan was thinking of when he uttered his famous dictum, ‘Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants’. BUT… it tastes like what I imagine angels have on their toast. It’s heavenly in or on all sorts of things. If you buy it for yourself, don’t let any little (or large) angels in your household see you eat it on toast or a jar will vanish before your eyes.

Can you dig it?

It’s had rave reviews, but I’m not convinced by US actor/comedian Zac Galifianakis’ new Netflix show, This Is A Gardening Show. Each 15-minute bite is too much about his awkward jokes and not enough about gardening for my tastes, though perhaps I’m not the intended audience. Far better, more relevant, AND free-to-air (not to mention hosted by my colleague Kara Rickard) is the homegrown show Once Were Gardeners, which explores traditional Māori gardening (māra kai) with a gorgeous array of real-life experts.

Hope you have a blooming good week ahead,

Lucy

At least, that’s been my experience over the last 36 hours in Napier south. Yesterday morning I got up to run along Marine Parade and up Napier Hill to various sites of my youth, but got sidetracked by feijoas carpeting the streets. Before long I’d found myself at the temporarily relocated Urban Farmers’ Market (by the museum, opposite the Masonic Hotel). An outrageously jolly man sold me an armload of gorgeous dahlias and then I felt compelled to buy a bundle of pastries. As I walked back to my sister’s place, everyone I came across - tourists, delivery drivers, street cleaners, even a slightly suspicious looking guy on a child’s bike - smiled at me benevolently. Leah McFall says everyones’ faces soften when they talk about babies, but maybe a bunch of absurdly cheerful flowers has a similar effect.

I have lots of feelings about Napier. My great-grandfather decamped here from Wellington after the 1855 earthquake, eventually building a series of houses on the hill. My parents lived here briefly in the 1950s. One of my earliest memories involves feeding the seagulls on Marine Parade with my grandfather, who lived where Farmers’ is now. My mother told me I had to hold her hand and be careful crossing the road, because “you’re from the country and you don’t know how to cross the road in the city”. Seven years later I came to live here with my beloved big sister and brother-in-law while my parents went overseas. A few years later, I returned to Napier for boarding school, which is another story in itself. All these years later it feels somehow right to be here.

Anyway, I digress. Apart from wandering down various memory lanes, buying this stuff at the market meant I had a bag in which to put the foraged feijoas, which felt slightly more seemly than stuffing them into my running shorts. Obviously feijoas are available everywhere now, but I do think the homegrown variety taste better than bought ones (even, or especially, if you gather them from the pavement).

Here’s a good way to use up a small harvest.

Feijoa, Ginger and Banana Loaf

Makes1 standard-size loaf, about 10 generous slices

This is a very sweet, sticky, pudding-y loaf. It freezes well (and it also tastes good frozen, but don’t ask me how I know). If you don’t have any suitably ripe bananas, add a beaten egg instead (this will make it less sticky and a bit more loaf-y). If you feel so inclined I think you could substitute some of the flour for ground almonds… but I haven’t yet had time to test that theory. Walnuts (also forageable at this time of year) are a good substitute for crystallised ginger in this instance.

125g butter

1 cup caster sugar

1 medium-sized overripe banana

1 1/4 cups plain flour

1 tsp mixed spice

1 tsp ground ginger

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 cups diced feijoas (about 4-6, depending on size)

3/4 cup crystallised ginger, chopped

Heat the oven to 160C. Grease and line a standard size loaf tin (about 23 x 12 cm).

Melt the butter in a large saucepan over low heat. Remove from the heat and add the sugar and banana. Beat well, then add the flour, spices and baking powder. Finally, fold in the feijoas and ginger.

Scrape this mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 50-60 minutes, until golden and crusty on top (and cooked in the middle – give it the skewer test to be sure).

Leave in the tin to cool for 10 minutes, then carefully turn out to a rack. Serve warm as a pudding or allow to cool completely and store in an airtight container.

NOTE: I have a boring admin question: Substack offers a recipe template that I have been experimenting with using - but haven’t used today. Can you tell?

Good Things

Let’s go to L’Opera

I was digging around in my sister’s pantry looking for vinegar last night when I came across this: a homegrown Hawkes’ Bay aperitif first created to toast the restoration of Hastings Opera House. It’s the sort of thing I can only drink a teaspoon of without having to lie down with a cold cloth on my forehead (#lightweight) but the flavour will delight anyone who fancies Campari or Aperol. Plus, it’s organic and that vibrant orange tone all-natural. Bonus fun fact: my sister’s friend referred to Hastings as ‘The ‘Stings’, which brought me great delight, even before I sipped my thimbleful.

The Newsreader

I’ve come late to this brilliant Australian show, set in a TV newsroom in the mid-1980s. It cleverly mixes real-life news events (the Challenger space shuttle disaster, Halley’s comet, Lindy Chamberlain’s release from prison, Chernobyl) with fictional (and highly believeable) drama. The characterisation is excellent (particularly with the lesser characters, like the all-knowing secretary, the always-irritable news editor, the video editor) and the 80s costuming is magnificent. After watching lots of US TV set in the now, it’s also refreshing to see real, untweaked faces and ordinary bodies.

Knives out

Upskilling at knife sharpening is one of my goals for 2026 (got to have a practical skill for when the revolution comes) and my brother-in-law has just shown me a short-cut. This tool (about $35 from most hardware stores) can be used to sharpen all manner of blades, including scissors. Having used a collection of impressively sharp knives at his house all weekend, I reckon he’s on to something.

Hope you have a happy week ahead. Thanks for reading, as always.

Instead, here are some things that have brought me joy recently, starting with the Easter Bunny at my local supermarket:

Admittedly, he looks a bit like he’s had a few Easter eggnogs, but I do admire the skill that’s gone into his creation. Not pictured but in the same location: a bunch of Spanish-speaking shoppers cracking up and dancing when the Macarena started playing over the sound system.

Whoever said imitation was the finest form of flattery probably wasn’t thinking of pretend brandy, or at least of pretend brandy many decades past its use-by date. After bravely giving this a sniff I’d say it now does a very good job of being Imitation Vinegar.

Crown Lynn devotees will recognise this as Vintage Pat. 982 - praise and thanks to the Westport Salvation Army Store where I got four of these lovely, never used bowls for $8. (Should you have a casserole dish in this pattern that you’re willing to part with, my former workmate Kimberley is on a life-long search for one.)

Here’s a wild apple tree at Cape Foulwind, with the very best fruit tantalisingly out of reach, or at least hard to pick when you’re also holding a dog lead (there’s a metaphor in that somewhere). I think the second-best fruit had been snaffled by passing mountain bikers or (more likely) passing weka, who will apparently eat anything that’s not nailed down. There were more of these random apple trees on the road between Murchison and Nelson. I’d like to think they’ve grown from cores chucked out car windows, but can that really be true?

Speaking of apples, here’s the sum total of our courtyard apple harvest. Pesky wind knocked lots of baby apples off the tree in December, so this was all we were left with. Worse still, cheeky blackbirds snacked on them while we were away. Still, the salvageable ones do taste good - and they did remind me of a soup I used to make years ago when a flat I was in got an organic fruit and veg delivery and we couldn’t keep up with the apples.

Good Things

Gardening with passion

More gardening good news: Two years ago I planted a $3 passionfruit seedling between two struggling feijoa trees in our small city garden. Against all odds - wind, drought, poor soil, neglect - the vine has grown vigorously through the trees and along a fenceline. Last week, we ate our first ripe one, with many more on the way. Given that passionfruit are about $2.50 each in the shops, this one has already earned its keep. (I wish I could say the same for the feijoas.)

The Safekeep

Speaking of passion… I COULD NOT stop reading this last week - the absolutely gripping debut by a Dutch author that scored a Booker Nomination and won various other prizes. Intriguing characters, sharp writing, and a gut-wrenching story.

Malcolm in the Middle 2.0

I really, really didn’t want to watch this reboot of the 2000s hit show Malcolm in the Middle. It would be inane humour made for adolescent boys, I raged. Why can’t we watch The Other Bennett Sister? Then I sat down and watched three episodes in a row and had to be forcibly stopped from bingeing more. It’s silly, big-hearted and a wonderful antidote to everything else happening in the world right now. Plus, it has Bryan Cranston!

Hope you can find some moments of joy this week. Thank you for reading x