In the ‘It Would Never Happen Back Home’ category, comes this ad I spotted on our local New World supermarket community noticeboard recently.
As I’ve mentioned before, possums are pests here. You can even buy clothes and toys made out of their fur. (Husband has a pair of soft, warm gloves – the traitor!)
The furry creatures are so reviled here, that on a kids' TV show the other day, one of the tasks in a competition was for them to shoot cardboard possum targets. The child who shot the most number of possums won. Kids shooting and killing animals – two taboos in one!
As I’ve mentioned before, possums are pests here. You can even buy clothes and toys made out of their fur. (Husband has a pair of soft, warm gloves – the traitor!)
The furry creatures are so reviled here, that on a kids' TV show the other day, one of the tasks in a competition was for them to shoot cardboard possum targets. The child who shot the most number of possums won. Kids shooting and killing animals – two taboos in one!
New Zealand is funny like that.
For example, there’s The Edge radio station/Burger King's current campaign, which touts BK as a perfect hangover cure. On Fridays, they give away $50 vouchers for BK to callers with the best stories of what they’ll be getting up to on the weekend, making them most deserving of hangover food. Radio stations glamourising drinking? Look out!
And finally, our school is having a fundraiser this week. It’s a bingo and auction night, but not as we know it. No, this one is dubbed “Blingo” and is hosted by an Auckland Drag Queen with the unusual name of Ms Beaver Brown.
I mean could you imagine the outcry if this happened in a Queensland school? I’m sure The Courier Mail would be in an outrage!
But Kiwis are delightfully relaxed about these things.
Speaking of relaxed, the kids gave Husband and I a late anniversary present on Saturday by allowing us a sleep-in. They got up quietly and watched breakfast telly by themselves, without fighting or destroying the kitchen once. I couldn’t have asked for a nicer start to the weekend.
It was another wet and cold Auckland day, so we decided on a Doona Day. While the family watched telly or played computer games, I pottered around the kitchen, making the family anniversary dinner we’d been too tired to cook the night before: Roast pork belly with just a hint of hoi sin, warm green bean salad, roast potato and pumpkin, and earth gems. Nigella, eat your heart out!
“But Mumma, it’s not dinner time,” protested H. when she came to help. However, she soon came around to the idea of dinner for lunch! (Roast pork is one of her favourite meals).
I have no idea what earth gems actually are. Even the company’s website doesn’t quite explain, describing them as the “Jewel of the Incas”, and “the ideal nourishing vegetable.” They liken the taste to that of baby beetroot.
After a light boiling, they tasted more like an apply potato to us … but they were pretty nice with the roast.
Sunday dawned sunny and warm, so we took the kids to the fabulous Auckland Zoo.
That’s a blog for another day, so in the meantime I will leave you with a link to the inaugural Auckland High Heels-A-Thon (Warning: Lots of photos of men in high heels). This was held just up the road from our place, but in typical NZ style, I didn’t know it was on until it was over! The charity run had categories for Men, Women and Drag Queens, and was clearly a very colourful event.
Each team coughed up $250 for Kids Can, Telethon’s Big Night In charity for 2009.
Hats off to them, from someone who has enough trouble walking in high heels, let alone running in them!
For example, there’s The Edge radio station/Burger King's current campaign, which touts BK as a perfect hangover cure. On Fridays, they give away $50 vouchers for BK to callers with the best stories of what they’ll be getting up to on the weekend, making them most deserving of hangover food. Radio stations glamourising drinking? Look out!
And finally, our school is having a fundraiser this week. It’s a bingo and auction night, but not as we know it. No, this one is dubbed “Blingo” and is hosted by an Auckland Drag Queen with the unusual name of Ms Beaver Brown.
I mean could you imagine the outcry if this happened in a Queensland school? I’m sure The Courier Mail would be in an outrage!
But Kiwis are delightfully relaxed about these things.
Speaking of relaxed, the kids gave Husband and I a late anniversary present on Saturday by allowing us a sleep-in. They got up quietly and watched breakfast telly by themselves, without fighting or destroying the kitchen once. I couldn’t have asked for a nicer start to the weekend.
It was another wet and cold Auckland day, so we decided on a Doona Day. While the family watched telly or played computer games, I pottered around the kitchen, making the family anniversary dinner we’d been too tired to cook the night before: Roast pork belly with just a hint of hoi sin, warm green bean salad, roast potato and pumpkin, and earth gems. Nigella, eat your heart out!
“But Mumma, it’s not dinner time,” protested H. when she came to help. However, she soon came around to the idea of dinner for lunch! (Roast pork is one of her favourite meals).
I have no idea what earth gems actually are. Even the company’s website doesn’t quite explain, describing them as the “Jewel of the Incas”, and “the ideal nourishing vegetable.” They liken the taste to that of baby beetroot.
After a light boiling, they tasted more like an apply potato to us … but they were pretty nice with the roast.
Sunday dawned sunny and warm, so we took the kids to the fabulous Auckland Zoo.
That’s a blog for another day, so in the meantime I will leave you with a link to the inaugural Auckland High Heels-A-Thon (Warning: Lots of photos of men in high heels). This was held just up the road from our place, but in typical NZ style, I didn’t know it was on until it was over! The charity run had categories for Men, Women and Drag Queens, and was clearly a very colourful event.
Each team coughed up $250 for Kids Can, Telethon’s Big Night In charity for 2009.
Hats off to them, from someone who has enough trouble walking in high heels, let alone running in them!
H. was happy to help, once she realised roast pork was on the menu!
Warm bean and mushroom salad
H. made a face with her food! Roast pork hair, green bean eyebrows and mouth, roast potato eyes and apple sauce nose.
Earth gems before cooking
And lightly boiled
2 comments:
Your house always sounds like some kind of gourmet cooking show!! :-) Think my husband would love to be married to someone as enthusiastic about cooking as you are...!
I think those "earth gems" are a marketing gimmick for midget potatoes that didn't make the grade!!
I didn't know about that High Heels thing either! You're right - that's so typical NZ - I'm always coming across things that I would have been interested in attending if only I had known about them in time...I always wonder whether the organisers adversise these events at all or do they just do it so badly??
Hsin-Yi
Hehe yes I noticed the whole possum thing on our last holiday! It's so funny the difference in attitudes towards the possum. I saw the possum gloves and socks too! You're right never back at home :P
I have to say I love their laidback attitude to things though otherwise!
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