Good Friday dawned to the tail end of Cyclone Cook as it reached Wellington. Bringing with it quite a lot of rain, and some wind, it was nowhere nearly as bad as predicted for our neck of the woods. However, the Coromandel, Bay of Plenty and parts of Hawkes Bay and Gisborne took quite a battering. I feel for the people in flood damaged areas, and am only glad that we escaped the worst of the weather.
In New Zealand, everything shuts on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, so if you suddenly find you’ve no beer or bread, you need to make do without. As last year, we had friends over for a long, lazy lunch, with a mix of a sort of Swedish table (herring, smoked salmon, meatballs) and other good things like cheeses, bread and of course some hard boiled eggs (which this year I haven’t coloured as could only find brown eggs again). Beer and snaps were on hand to wash it all down.
I whipped up a pineapple upside down cake for desert, and also had on hand some Kekscholad chocolate wafers as well as cheese and crackers, served with pears and quince jelly.
The long lunch is something that happens only rarely, but is such a luxury. Try it sometime – it is worth it.
Thistles and Kiwis 
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