This week’s small pleasures #477

Thistles and Kiwis

Can you believe it is February already? January seems to have flown past. Not that we have had that great a summer here in New Zealand, with lots of rain and not much sun. This is why apparently, but at least things have improved a bit and w e have had some sun. Anyway, here is the sky at 9pm on Thursday evening – pink sky at night, shepherd’s delight.

Along the waterfront

At lunch time on Friday, I went for a walk along the waterfront as it is nice to do on a sunny day (or actually any time…but the good weather helps). I was reminded of the Wellington Writers’ Walk, a series of plaques with poetry celebrating the city. This extract is from Denis Glover’s 1977 Come High Water. It is nice just to stop, read the words, and stare out of the water.

In the shopping basket

We got a Wonky Box this week, and apart from the dreaded pumpkin, there were potatoes, onions, sweetcorn (x 2), a bunch of mini carrots, aubergines (eggplant), green beans, some not very fresh broccoli and a bunch of basil that rotted as I looked at it. As you can tell, I am slightly going off this delivery scheme, and think the quality and variety has gone down in the past year.

Anyway, we topped this off with blueberries and raspberries, plums, mushrooms (to have with pork filet), tomatoes, courgettes (zucchini), a couple of oranges, tomatoes, burrata, pecorino romano, some pink peppercorn and fennel salami along with some lamb mince to make moussaka, using those aubergines.

Out and about

Wednesday was both Karl’s name day and our arrival in New Zealand, 13 years ago. To celebrate both of these events, we headed out for dinner to perennial favourite, Ortega Fish Shack. I had, as usual, the yellowtail kingfish ceviche with avocado, lemongrass, Vietnamese mint and crayfish oil to start while Karl had the duck liver pate with fig preserve, which I can tell you was excellent as I did try a bit. We drank the house chardonnay. I then had the steamed moki with a ‘green sauce’, boquerones (those little white anchovies) and roasted cauliflower which was such a wonderful mix of fresh flavours. Karl of course had steak frites. We shared a very good green salad, and each had a glass of red wine from Lebanon. For dessert I had bush honey panna cotta with strawberries and almonds accompanied by Château Jolys Jurançon dessert wine and Karl the Catalan crepes with orange caramel sauce and vanilla ice-cream and a glass of Alvear Moscatel. A wonderful evening!

Staying in

Now, as you know, we are soon about to embark on the long journey to Europe, so watching the first series of Hijack might not have been the best idea (especially as the hijacked plane set off from Dubai….), but it was so exciting and over the top that it kept us engrossed. We are now a couple of episodes into series 2, this time about an underground train in Berlin. We’ve also been rewatching old episodes of The Thick of It and started the comedy drama Riot Women. Oh and yes….the first heat of Melodifestivalen….Maria knows exactly what I mean!

It was back to a Saturday afternoon treat of one of the home made biscuits from our local deli – this week, chocolate chip. I did take a picture of the moussaka, but it was not good enough for the blog, though it did taste fantastic. I use this recipe from The Guardian.

Simple things

  • Seeing summer again.
  • Meeting a friend for lunch and gossip.
  • Enjoying negronis for a pre dinner cocktail on Saturday evening.
  • Realising I can see a little bit of the sea from my new office desk.
  • Counting the day to the Big Adventure.
  • Enjoying gelato on my Friday lunch time walk. The flavours are liquorice and lemon.

What were your small pleasures this week? Here are some other blog posts from a few fellow bloggers looking at the good things in life. 

Thistles and Kiwis is a Wellington, New Zealand based blog written by Barbara, who likes cats, summer, good food and pretends to garden.

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Published by Thistles and Kiwis

Loves summer, sunshine and cats. Beginner gardener, likes eating, cooking and reading about food

48 Comments

  2. Of course we watched Melodifestivalen as well 🙂 Did you have a favourite in this first competition? My guess after hearing the first song was that “this is one of the finalist”, which turned out to be true. Secretly I hoped for “noll2” to get a chance, because they were a little different and also chose to sing in Swedish.

    Sorry to hear about the loss of quality in your Wonka boxes. Do you think it is climate related? I sometimes order organic fruit directly from farms in Southern Europe and they are dealing with weather related challenges right now.

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    1. I actually liked the winning song – very catchy. We’ll see what comes next week!

      The veggies…weather yes (not a good summer) but also the deliveries now come from Auckland and so things like the basil are spoiled before they get here.

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  5. That little bit of sunshine does lift your spirits. It’s out here this morning but who knows what tomorrow will bring? It’s been that kind of month. Fabulous celebration and many thanks for the link xx

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  9. January here has dragged, it has been storm after storm mostly hitting Cornwall hard first. I am glad to see the back of it though the start of February is more of the same, rain, rain and windy weather. How long will you be in Europe for? Work and pleasure?

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  11. You watching Hijack before heading off on your big trip is a lot like us going to an amazing Titanic exhibition in Brisbane before we left for our Antarctic trip. We had to laugh. Luckily we didn’t hit any icebergs.

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  16. What an enjoyable post, you sure had a happy New-Zealand-versary and Karl’s day. My husband and I will go to Europe soon, too; I hope your trip is filled with lots more small pleasures!

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  18. Like Laurie Graves says, Celebrate Long, Celebrate Often!

    I assume the pumpkin from Wonky Box is “dreaded” because it is so challenging and tiring to cut up? Or at least, it would be for me, although I love pumpkin in all forms!

    And the countdown continues …

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      1. I have to admit that chopping pumpkin (or most hard squashes) is not my favourite activity. Thankfully we have a cleaver which makes splitting them much easier than before.

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  20. That sucks that the quality of your Wonka boxes is declining. It looks though that you did manage to put some of the veg to good use. I am in awe of your descriptions of the food you had when celebrating Karl’s name day and your arrivel in NZ.

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