Not A Cooks Blog... living the great New Zealand cookbook

"Holy guacamole" was the catchphrase of the family driving to a friends 50th Mexican theme birthday party. The guacamole in the boot had been tipped on its side during the turning process of a rather hard corner. I had to scrabble at the back to reset it and daughter driving had the challenge of ensuring every corner was taken so that the guacamole was upright. Right beside it was the more balanced crispy chicken tacos. Of course, the recipes for both of these came from"The Great NZ Cookbook". Jose Carlos de la Macorra - Mexican Specialities from Ellerslie, Auckland, shares a great philosophy of life...  "Food is just the side dish, the main course is sharing the celebration of something "Geater", this gives meaning and soul to all of our food. And why not take someone to the park, hold hands, walk around the cathedral, kiss kiss and along the way enjoy a couple of sopes and tacos".  Well, I didn't indulge in the sopes because I couldn...

Last week's theme continues , where I referenced love ones going overseas to destinations that were making headlines for all the wrong reasons, such as bombs and missiles. Little did I realise that mother nature was also at work and creating havoc with Hurricane Maria right in the path of the island of Dominica - just where my brother in-law was. Hurricane Maria ripped through Dominica as a category four storm damaging hundreds of homes, and the island was afterwards, as one news reporter described, "deathly silent". The island lost all contact with the outside world. In the age of instant communication, one gets use to people being there, despite the distance. So the next 48 hours of no news was rather anxiety provoking for the family. You are powerless to do anything... if only you could. This is of course has been an emotion felt by many, for family of  soldiers, for intrepid travellers of yesteryear where a couple of years on board a ship exploring separated from fam...

 Why is it when loved ones depart overseas there seems to be a glut of political-themed or environmental disasters?!  Another terrorist attack in London, missiles flying over Japan. As Bilbo Baggins said to Frodo, "it's a dangerous business, going out your door". Husband Jamie had left for Japan,  just before Auckland airport run out of aviation fuel.  So it seemed appropriate this week to go with the Japanese recipes from "The Great NZ Cookbook" which Sachie Nomura from Parnell, Auckland had contributed. Sushi and Teriyaki Chicken were favourites for the kids, always a good start. Like most of us, I was time poor, it was a Sunday evening, and we had spent a fair bit of the day enjoying being out and about. However there were a number of other pressing issues to deal with before I started preparing dinner, and unfortunately, the curse of the chicken occurred. There seems to be a phenomenon at our household that is way over the statistical probability of chance (...

As the chef, Laurent Loudeac states " who doesn't love macaroni cheese? It's simple and fast to make, delicious, cheap and a great filler for kids and teenagers". Perfect! With 3 of the family already fed with a midday lunch main from Grandad K, the missing teenager had been Imke, being courtside support at a Silver Ferns netball team play off against the English Rose national team. Great opportunity to see the best of the game up close and Imke ended up being the videographer for the English team. With all of us back at home base later in the afternoon there was little time to devout to culinary masterpieces. So Mr. Loudeac's Macaroni cheese contribution to "The Great NZ Cookbook" seemed to fit the time constrained evening meal. Laurent puts a "Frenchmans twist" to the dish by adding Ki korangi blue cheese, spinach, and ham. However, Pam's Colby cheese had to do and there was no ham handy. I did have baby spinach though with this green a...

Napier hosts one of the star chefs from "The Great New Zealand Cookbook". You can find David Griffiths behind the kitchen bar in full swing at Mister D. There was a double occasion to celebrate, Jamie's birthday and Father's Day on the 3rd September and Mister D was well suited to dine at. The restaurant was humming and luckily we had booked in advance. Before the place completed filled up I took my chance to meet THE Mr Griffiths. He was very accommodating to spend a couple of minutes with me, meeting the family and posing for a photo. He was apologetic for his croaky voice, attributing to band practice - I could see a couple of guitars on the wall as a testament to his music affiliation. I explained I had made one of his recipes out of "The great NZ Cookbook"  - the moonshine biff. This is a wonderful marshmallow treat which can found on the restaurant menu. Mr Griffiths explained that this recipe had actually come from his father ( not noted in the cookb...