Elvis

I never quite understand the cats and books things that so many librarians seem to cling to and revel in. But then, I'm not only allergic to cats, I also don't find them so adorable or delightful as others may. Occasional amusement describes my take on the creatures, and then I try to get the heck away from them and get out of what I'm wearing, shower, and into fresh non-catted clothing.

I'm a dog person, instead.

Conrad and I travel too much to own a dog. We're selfish people, and the reality is that dogs are very social and need their human friends regularly and often. I can't offer that. Instead, I just kind of envy my friends a little for their lovely dogs and fall a little in love with them.

Alas, there is now one fewer dog on which to lavish love and attention when next I visit my friends. Elvis has, to borrow a phrase, left the building.

We've known for several weeks that Elvis was not well. Cancer ate away at him rapidly, and I've sort of been holding my breath awaiting the news. It came yesterday, and Elvis is gone, leaving Dion and Minna and little one year-old Erika without a family member. Elvis was a big, friendly dog (and if you've read my posts on Coney and Buster, you will know how very much I love big dogs), Fluffy Bum by nickname as I recall. I wish I'd been able to visit and see how well Elvis and little Erika got along, but at least I did get to pat and play with Elvis a few times on past visits.

Sad news, especially for his family. When next I get to Auckland, I'll pause a moment wondering where he is before I remember that Elvis is no more.

two meals with Dion and Minna

One of the happiest things to learn about Dion and Minna over the last few years is that they, too, enjoy good food and good wine. Look, I know I'm called a food snob - to my face, even - and sometimes it's a fair accusation. So let me revel in it yet again.

On our first night in New Zealand, I saw a beautiful book at Dion and Minna's and was compelled to flip through it. Ah, the lust in my heart. A cookbook and a coffee table book: I knew that by the end of the trip, I'd buy my own copy. You can imagine my delight to learn that it was from the restaurant we'd dine at the next night, Saffron.

I love when fine dining is out of the way. I love that a small isolated town - albeit one that seems to bank on tourism - has such great dining. Arrowtown, not far from Queenstown and all the wineries and recreation of Central Otago, has the look of a restored old-time village. Saffron, meanwhile, just sits there, not too assuming.
Ah, but treats are in store inside.

I didn't get a copy of the menu (so I'm trying to pull some descriptions from the Web site), nor did I get good photos of all the courses. No shots of the raw Bluff oysters - a seasonal delicacy - for example. Meaty oysters and briny. We got the last order, and that only added to the enjoyment, of course. I also don't have a shot of my whitebait done two ways. The cookbook shows a plate of three preparations, and three are available, but not all on the same plate. I think I did well to forego the fritter and just have them simply fried and lightly coated in flour and fried. So simple, and yet the appetizer stuck with me throughout the remaining two weeks in the country and beyond. And did Conrad have an appetizer? I think so, but I cannot recall. No shots of our shared side dish of roasted vegetables that sent me on a two-week obsession over the delight of kumara.

An amuse-bouche: bloody Mary, served as a liquid-filled soft globe on a spoon.


Conrad's main course of Akaroa salmon, poached with creamed spinach, potato, wasabi, sweet ginger dumpling, sake beurre blanc.

My own main course of calves liver, crumbed, sauteed golden, with red cabbage, chicken & chestnut boudin. Liver is such a rare thing to see on menus, and I was drawn to it immediately. Worth it.

Dion and Minna knew the local wines better and steered us to a Valli Pinot Noir. In the end, we downed two bottles (and we wonder why we gained weight on the trip? HA!) Dinner done, we moved on to dessert.

Conrad wasn't wowed by dessert, a hazelnut praline souffle with hokey-pokey ice cream. I kind of have to agree, to a point. The souffle had a good nut fragrance but was mostly a bit blandly eggy in flavour. What redeemed it was plunking the ice cream into the still hot souffle. At that point I thought it rather tasty.

Oh, and indeed I did buy the book at the end of the trip. Food porn, utterly, and I love it.

Minna and I had corresponded at some length, trying to figure out fine dining in Auckland. In the end, though, we went for familiar rather than new: The French Cafe. Dion and Minna love the place a great deal, and when we'd dined there with them in 2007, we had enjoyed it mightily as well. Dion, in fact, recalled that I had raved about the quail. Good memory on that man, and quick check of the blog entry now shows that indeed I had. Which didn't stop me from ordering the recent preparation of that bird as my appetizer. Again, no menu to work from, and worse, few good photos. Bear with me - I'll get this right one day. Working from the Web site, then:

My appetizer of roasted quail breast with sweet spices, almond cream, quail b’stilla, poached apricot, pistachio oil.

Conrad's appetizer of swordfish carpaccio with pink grapefruit vinaigrette (which Conrad asked to have left off), shaved fennel, candied lemon, freshly picked crab, watercress.

Minna, Dion, and I all had the pink roasted lamb with soft white almond polenta, sweet tomato, buffalo ricotta, stuffed zucchini flower, lavender foam. The polenta was brilliant, and the zucchini flower filled with buffalo ricotta was a wonder.

Conrad stuck to fish (and I can't recall what type - salmon?) with seared scallops, stir-fried asparagus, shitake mushrooms, pea shoots, ginger sauce, fennel cream.

For dessert Conrad enjoyed the assiette of French chocolate, featuring warm chocolate tart, milk chocolate ice cream, cocoa brulee, chocolate macaroon, chocolate sauce.

The rest of us each ordered the apple creme brulee, a magnificent concoction of caramelised apple, vanilla apple jus, green apple sorbet, butterscotch, pain d’epices.
This was the best dessert I had on the trip, I think.

Our wine was a lovely Pinot Noir from the Canterbury area of the South Island, the 2005 Bell Hill Old Weka Pass Road. We ended up with a generous heaping of contentment, and were once again glad to have visited. It's very easy to see why this is a favoured restaurant, and I was sorely tempted to buy its cookbook as well.

Two very very fine meals in New Zealand, and yet, there was one restaurant we liked even better (and one other restaurant that was very definitely comparable to these two). Our hard lives...

Peaches Honeyblossom

Before I continue with more New Zealand trip reminiscences, it behooves me to welcome Dion and Minna's daughter. The two are now proud parents of Erika Ripley (though, while we were there, they cheerily referred to her as Peaches Honeyblossom rather than reveal the name). We wish them hearty congratulations and hope that Mum and daughter are healthy. Enjoy a lifetime together as family!

second best meal on NZ trip?

Second best? Possibly. We dined very well while in New Zealand, I must admit. Oh come on - if you've seen this blog before, that won't come as a surprise.

Good meals are more than simply immaculately and creatively plated portions of exquisite treats, served by someone calling me "Sir". Setting, company, occasion - all can override the actual food itself if not complementing what is on the plate.

Or the paper.

On an easy Sunday in Auckland the four of us (plus Elvis) went the takeaway route. We picked up fish and chips (snapper in this case) and drove up to Mt. Eden where we walked round the rim of the crater to a view of much of Auckland below. Blankets spread, paper packages of fish and chips unwrapped, a bottle of Lindy's (we tried to taste as much typical NZ cuisine as possible!) opened.

Sunset came upon us

- and we weren't the only ones there to enjoy it, of course. Just such a remarkably relaxing meal together, and other than champagne flutes, no dishes to deal with.

And, as an added bonus, Conrad and I found ourselves setting each other off into giggles much of the rest of the trip simply by jokingly uttering the supposed NZ pronunciation of the meal: fush and chups. I mean really, how do you top a meal like that?

NZ wines: Otago

When we did our first trip to New Zealand in 2007, we had a lot - A LOT - of discussion about potential itineraries. So many places to see and things to experience. How to figure it all out and draw up a do-able schedule?

Well, what do we like? Food, obviously. Also wine. And that became the core of that 2007.

One other good thing on that visit was getting re-acquainted with Dion and meeting his wife, Minna. As it turns out, they, too like wine. Serendipity! Happier still for Conrad, they rather like their Pinot Noir. Best of all, New Zealand, and Central Otago in particular, is gaining ever greater and deserving renown for its Pinots. Of course we began the trip own there. And so, on our second day in New Zealand and under gloriously sunny skies, we set out tasting.

I don't have any photos from our first stop, The Big Picture. It's a good idea, a wine experience parked out among vineyards and offering tastings of several wines. I just wish they were offering better wines. The six pours were not very distinct from each other, frankly, and I found the wines unexceptional. Nonetheless, it was lovely to sit out in the sun and begin the tasting, if tentatively. We ended up not buying any of the six Pinots we tried, but we found, instead, the lovely Valli Pinot Noir we'd had the night before at Saffron (blog posting to come). That first stop paid off a few nights ago when we enjoyed the bottle over a quiet Saturday dinner in.

On to the first proper winery: Rockburn. Conrad loves that rock wall there.
We all liked the wines we tried, in fact. We came away with two of their moderate label, the evocatively named Devil's Staircase (a mountain feature on the lakeside south of Queenstown), and enjoyed the Pinot Noir a few nights later while in the Catlins. The Pinot Gris came home with us. A delightful start.



Mt. Difficulty was up next,

and what an experience that was. I'll embarrass myself now by forgetting the name of the man who took us round, but it was a fantastic customized visit to a winery whose Pinot Noir we'd enjoyed a number of times. Minna's company owns (or is it distributes) the wines, and so she had arranged this special visit.



Wow. What a thrill, getting a look at what the workings were on the day before the grapes were to be harvested. They took such good time and care with us, it was remarkable. And hey, great wine. We couldn't taste the high end single vineyard ones, but we trust they'll be good, and we came home with a bottle. Also, a cap and a t-shirt - I love the logo. Oh, and a dry Riesling. What struck me over the course of the say was that Otago may be known for its Pinot Noir, but I liked a lot of the Pinot Gris, Riesling, and Chardonnay I tasted. It made for a more complete experience that day.

Anyway, the tour done, we ventured up to the winery restaurant with its gorgeous view of the river valley below.
Those hoodoos over there? Left behind by former mining activity in the area. Lunch on the sunny patio, and it was hare for me.
Hare. Cool! We sat by a handsome little water feature and relaxed quite nicely.



Next up was just a short drive, next door as these things go. Another lovely setting. Grapes ripening, protected from birds.
Conrad picked up some
fallen on the ground - somehow, they still look so appealing. Felton Road is a producer of highly-sought and high-quality wines. Some of them are for mailing list clients only, and there is a waiting list to get on the mailing list! I'll say two things:

• The wines we tasted were magnificent. I tasted a vin gris - a rose left pale as can be - and loved it. The "regular" Pinot Noir? Super! Oh, and what was that I spied? An opened bottle of an exclusive single-vineyard Pinot? Oh no, the woman, protested, it's been open for a few days, left over from some event. No worries, I said, I'm sure it's fine. Oh yeah, it was fine. Very fine. Easy to see why there's a waitlist. Sad not to be able to sip more.
• The woman behind the counter should work in another part of the winery away from customers. Sorry. She was very pinched in manner and acted as if it was incredibly disagreeable to her to have to have strangers come in and want to buy wine.

We left with a couple of bottles, of course.



Up next: Akarua. This seemed so much more low key a place, and the wines were more modest. No worries, modest by comparison to Felton Road is not a bad thing. This was another place where I liked the whites as well, and we ended up with not just Pinot Noir but an unoaked Chardonnay as well.

Carrick. Wow, a lot of wine already consumed. Conrad and Dion kind of eased off at this point (and Minna, in case I hadn't mentioned it, was our designated driver - we hope that when Peaches Honeyblossom is born next stuff, that Mom and daughter will be healthy). No matter, my tastebuds go on. Sadly, my memory is dreadful, and though we did buy a bottle, I cannot recall it. Fair enough. I liked the place and its wines, but I wasn't blown away by them.

Still with me? Good. Two more (plus) to go! The last one before dinner was sort of my request, based on looking at the map and past experience: Wooing Tree. Love that name. It ended up having a cozy cottage feel to it. Again, good wines. We've got a bottle of Pinot Noir here with us at home.

You can tell that we were flagging at this point - we weren't buying as much, and I'm writing less and less. Two more stops, though up next was a bit of a snack. We'd been drinking all day, but we needed something else. Though we didn't go to the winery here, we did like a break with some cheese at Gibbston Valley.

And then it was on to Amisfield.
Ah, we'd looked forward to this one. A year and a half ago we'd marveled at one of its wines over Boxing Day dinner at NoMI. Now we would visit the winery AND have dinner there. On such a lovely, sunny day, what could be better?


The darn thing is, we didn't actually have a range of wines. A bottle with dinner, and not even our favourite bottle of the day. Ah, who cares? Come on? What a setting, out there on that sunny patio.

Dinner served in multiple courses family style, with some risotto, salmon, beef, salad, and more even.



All very very satisfying.

We chuckle at our holidays being planned around wine, but really, look at the day we had, the company we had, and read what I say about the wines and the food. Is it any wonder we do? Now all we have to do is figure out how to persuade Minna to organize similar days in the future...