Better Late etc

Some months ago I celebrated my 60th birthday with a 7 course degustation and wine matching dinner cooked in my kitchen by local chef Dean Wong. He had offered to cook to cook and serve a dinner for eight people as a fundraiser for the local school and we were the lucky highest bidder for this wonderful prize.

He and his apprentice arrived at 9.00 am on Sunday and took over the kitchen until about 12.00. The team that came back at 6.00 that evening included Dean's father - chief washer-upper! It was a fabulous meal and a very exciting way to celebrate a milestone birthday. We were all treated as though in a very high class restaurant with wine chosen to go with each course and each course beautifully presented. As well as the 7 courses detailed below Dean provided THREE amuse bouche offerings: Asparagus Velouté and Steak Tartare and a third which I am ashamed to say I cannot remember. Certainly a night to remember!

The Menu:
1.    Trio of mushroom soup french, field & brown or button
Johanneshof  Dry Gewurztraminer 2008

2.    Seared snapper with avocado potato crush, asparagus hollandaise sauce
Domain Road Riesling 2009

3.    Smoked cured venison with mango-kumara salad & red wine reduction
Okahu Chambourcin

4.    Double Lamb Cutlet with potato rostie & broad beans lamb jus
Locharburn Pinot Noir 2008

5.    Medium-rare roast duck breast with potato tian, turned courgettes & cherry compote
Cottier Pinot Noir 07

6.    Angus eye fillet of  beef with potato puree, french mushrooms & green beans
Barwick Black Label Shiraz Cabernet

7.    Chocolate & olive oil mousse with raspberry compote
Okahu OBJ Port

My 60th Birthday

I turned 60 a few days ago. We had a fabulous family weekend - and the family joined together to buy me a kindle. Here are a few pictures of me opening gifts. I'll blog more about the weekend later but I know Nadeeka is keen to see my reaction to the gift she was part of buying.

 

Dressing Up

We love an excuse to dress up. We check out our favourite second hand clothes shops, we buy cheap accessories from the $2.00 shop and we hunt down the perfect pair of shoes or shoelaces or wig. We have shirts printed with logos! Because there are four of us we are very brave about walking down the street or entering a venue looking ridiculous - why should we care? We've had our fun, putting the outfit together!

Last Saturday night was the Rotary Club's changeover night and the theme was Better, Bolder Brighter Blue. SuperRotary Man, the Bold Blue Bustier, Blue Freak Hair and I would have taken prizes for the best costumes if such had been on offer! You might have noticed that I am not as brave or as bold as the others, but man those blue shoes had the highest heels I've ever worn! Terry is standing on tip toes in the photo of us together!

Roll on Thursday - another Rotary Changeover; theme this time - midwinter Christmas!

A trip on a jetboat

For Christmas last year we gave Sarah, Aimee, Jessica and my father, vouchers for a jet boat ride on the Whanganui River. We booked the Havoc trip to the Flying Fox with Brent Firmin of the Spirit of the River Jet Boat Tours. This is a one hour trip up the beautiful Whanganui River, one hour at the Flying Fox for coffee and muffins and a little tour around and then another hour back on the river. Unfortunately it rained on the day we went this time. That only meant we didn't get many photos, we still enjoyed it and it did let up a bit while we were at the Flying Fox.

The two girls and Sarah were given a ride on the flying fox - half way out over the river. There is no road access to the house, all people and supplies are brought by boat or by road to the other side of the river and then winched over on the flying fox.

And why am I just showing you these photos now? 4 months after the event? because the camera we used to take these photos was, um, mislaid, until very recently. Until I had to get the backpacks out for our trip to Sydney actually. Last time they were used was, oh, in January for a trip on the river I think!

Shoot for the Stars

I have been giving all the little ones in my family a bed quilt on their fifth birthday. Andrew happened to get one much earlier in his life plus he has the quilts his brothers were given when they turned five. So I decided he could have a wall hanging instead. I asked what his passions were and heard about rockets and spaceships. I am still experimenting with woven quilt backgrounds and spots look like stars so this has lots of woven spots and a spaceship - and the globe shows Australia as that is where he lives. Happy Birthday Andrew!

Andrew's mother Nadeeka has blogged about his reaction to the quilt.

Success!

Yes, I finished on time, just. Terry has written a blog post on our trip to Wellington and you might as well read his, as he is a better writer than I am. I am hoping that Chris will post his photos of the day on Flickr so that I can borrow one or two for you. I know he took one of Jessica's lovely wide eyed reaction to the quilt when it was first held up for her to see. Here is the finished quilt, front and back.

The Lentil Policy Document

Apple: is attempting to cook MoF lentils
Button: Whats "MoF"?
Apple: Ministry of Food - it's a cafe in Wgtn
Coin: or... Minister of Finance lentils. They'd be produced through an innovative PPP model, and provide more tastiness per lentil than under previous administrations
Apple: There is no evidence yet that the Partial Pressure Pot will increase the tastiness, tho it should reduce the cooking time, although not as much as the more expensive full pressure pot approach. However, if we add additional condiments at the beginning of the process we may see an improvement in tastiness
Fluffy Chick: I think you need to raise the analysis up a level and start asking why you would want to cook lentils. Lentils are just one option within a range of food groups. Further analysis is needed to determine if this is in fact the best value for money food group.
Seagull: But value for money is just one measurement paradigm. I think a framework for analysis is required to determine the best tastiness assessment criteria and the acceptable levels of input to achieve any minimum levels established.
Fluffy Chick: Personally I think that we can safely assume that lentils will not score well regardless of the framework or criteria we try to develop. I think we just go with something like this.
Drafter: the girls
We recommend that you:
note that lentils are disgusting
agree that you will never cook lentils for us
But this may just be my personal view :)
Apple: i think you guys are spending way too many resources on the issue (with a distinct lack of problem indentification). The initial process was appropriate and provided a positive outcome for the limited target audience. Lentil supply was outsourced to the lowest bidder (who, being a specialist supplier was also able to offer high quality), the intended outcome was well researched (I have eaten lentils at MoF several times) and the eventual product was of a high quality. The unindented outcomes (gas) have been identified and will be rectified in subsequent batches (I'll rinse the lentils first before cooking).
I, at least, didn't get caught up in the theory and successfully operationalised the concept. Anyone else who would like to contribute to quality control is welcome to come over for lentils. =)

I know, its been a long time...

But I have a good reason: after the girls left to go home with their mummy and daddy, we had a week and half of comparative peace and quiet with only Kenza staying here (the horticultural student from France). Then, the weekend before my niece Mary was due to arrive with her two youngest children to stay for 5 days, Terry's mother was discharged from hospital but was not well enough to go home on her own so Terry brought her down from Auckland to stay with us. Mary arrived the day after Mum did, Mary's two older children unexpectedly joined us 5 days later and Mary left with all 4 children a couple of days after that. Terry has now taken Mum up to her home for a few days to keep a few appointments but is bringing her back here later today.

Because of the number of people staying and the care some of them have needed, I've had no time to quilt - or the space as Kenza is living in the sewing room.

However, I do have something quilty for you - more specifically, for those of you who edit quilt club or guild newsletters. I have edited a few of them over the years and have put together a small collection of original quilt clipart which I am happy for you to use for non-commercial purposes. They are of various sizes and you can download them from here.

http://www.delphinium.co.nz/QuiltClipartGallery.htm

What I'm doing instead of sewing

http://aimeejessie.blogspot.com/

A Moulin Rouge Party

Mum

Four weeks ago my mother rang me early one morning to say that the ambulance had come to take her to hospital. She died three weeks later. It was a great shock to all of the family as we had no idea she was ill apart from the increasing pain she was feeling in her spine. We understood this to be from degeneration of the spine, which is not normally a terminal illness. As test results were revealed over the next few days, the family gathered in Auckland - her three children (my brother Mark flying home from England), her grandchildren and great-grandchildren(from all over New Zealand). We all spent as much time as we could in hospital with mum and in my sister's home with dad, supporting and comforting mum, dad and each other. The strength of the family gathering and just hanging out like that was amazing. We went through the acknowledged grief cycle together over that time: denial, anger, depression and finally, acceptance. She didn't live long enough to leave Auckland hospital for hospice care and the staff in her ward were very good to us all, making it very easy to stay with mum as long as we wanted to each day and, especially, all of her last night.

The funeral was a chance to say goodbye and to pay tribute to our lovely, patient, kind, thoughtful, clever mum (I learnt my sewing skills from her). We played a series of photos of her, all I could collect together from various sources, at the service:



And after the funeral, my 4 year old grand-daughter Jessica borrowed Terry's camera and took some great pictures at the wake:

A 60th Birthday Quilt

You may remember Terry had a 60th birthday some months ago. At the party I had some cream and blue fabric rectangles (bricks) prepared with freeezer paper backing and a pile of fabric crayons and fabric felt tip pens. I asked guests and family members to draw on the fabric bricks which many did - some did more than one. Over the past few weeks when I have managed to escape to my sewing room (since it became a sewing room again and not temporary living quarters) I've sewn the bricks together into a wall with scrappy brown and fawn fabric brick pointing.

I printed the party invitations on fabric and cut them up to make every second block on the top and bottom rows.I also started to sew a diamond border but I've got bored with that (no surprise to those who know me and my piecing skills) and the other two borders might just be squares.

My niece gave me the fawn, brown and blue fabric for a Christmas present in 2007 and said that it was to be a quilt for Terry. So it will.

I'm looking for input from you - should I persevere with the diamonds or will the squares look ok?

Row by Row finished and in its new home

I don't think I ever showed you pictures of the finished Row by Row. Here it is, in the place it was designed for. The club members who each did a row of this quilt were asked to use a particular picture that I gave them for inspiration for colours and subject. I used the same picture for the colour scheme for our new rooms. And the size of the quilt was decided by the size of this wall space.

 

You can see in the corner of the room, a preview of the tiles that are being laid today. We laid some of them out last night to see if we still liked them. We did, good job. 

Here is another view out of the new folding doors with Teacup sitting there hopefully:

And another view of the splashback - now with shelves in use:

 

And upstairs in the new office the floor has been plastered in preparation for industrial vinyl to be laid on Thursday - which means we can move in this weekend - wow, at long last! You can see in the far corner where my desk will be I have used some of these to put up photos of my grandchildren and their parents. On the red wall at the entrance to the office I have photos of my niece and her children.

Christmas Day and Boxing Day 2008

 

  

  

  

  

  

  

 

Guess Who

not a builder, not *any* tradesman, not me...

Jasmine's picture

My seven year old great-niece draws the best pictures! They are beautifully designed and have lovely detail. She sent me this picture of herself playing soccer last week with her stepmother and little baby brother in a baby buggy in the background. I think that may be her older brother playing soccer too but I'm not sure about that. Look at the sun wearing spectacles! And the lovely action of the players.

Anyway, I wanted to make her something special with her artwork and decided to look at the t-shirts in town to see what I could find. I found a long tunic with a vinyl transfer in four parts so I printed two copies of her picture onto a t-shirt transfer sheet and ironed them onto fine white cotton. Then I sewed them onto two of the sections on the t-shirt. I used the small stipple stitch on my pfaff machine and I used embroidery tearaway on the back of the t-shirt fabric to give it stability while I stitched. Do you think she'll like it? It looks very large but I think its meant to be worn with leggings and maybe a belt.