My chance encounter over the weekend with my ‘Sweet Sixteen’ boyfriend took me back to my teenage years where I was reminded of a chap, who was nothing like my sweet sixteen boyfriend, we named PT. I grew up as the second oldest of five girls in a very lovely suburb where nothing ever happened […]
Raspberry Shortbread Slice and…Sweet Sixteen
March 12, 2012 By 52 Comments
I’ve had a surreal weekend. On Friday night Carl and I went to an event to raise money for Kids with Cancer. Because I knew the organisers they asked if I would mind arriving early to help set up and then work the crowd selling raffle tickets. I told them I would be only too […]
Coq Au Vin and…Entertaining Perils
March 2, 2012 By 51 Comments
Entertaining can be full of perils and the perils absolutely multiply if you’re trying to pull off a dinner party with your own small and unpredictable children under your feet. My mother didn’t like to do things by halves so instead of inviting a manageable amount of six guests, she would invite 12. And there […]
Chocolate Slice and…A Ping-Pong Table
February 26, 2012 By 44 Comments
When I was growing up in New Zealand, my parents wanted to host wonderful dinner parties but the problem was, they didn’t have a table. They did have a small, cheap table that, being the seventies, could even have been veneer. And it only seated six. My mother wanted a proper dining room table made […]
Vanilla Slice and…Not Everyone Can be a Ballerina
February 12, 2012 By 43 Comments
I went to ballet classes when I was growing up. Did five years of them. Every Thursday afternoon from 4-5pm. Mrs Warwick was the teacher. She was an older woman who ran the classes from a studio she’d purpose-built in her backyard. She had carrot-read hair piled on top of her head like she was […]
Chicken Chasseur and…The Lord’s Day
February 10, 2012 By 43 Comments
Sunday was the Lord’s day when I was growing up. You went to church. And you didn’t rock up in any old thing, you brushed your hair, cleaned your teeth and wore your Sunday best. And you didn’t only attend church, you went to choir practise as well. Choir practise was on for an hour […]
Bread and Butter Pickles and…Charlie Turns Five
February 9, 2012 By 39 Comments
I was so excited to turn five. Not just because it was my birthday but because it was the day I started school. In New Zealand you didn’t start school on the first day of the new school year like everyone else in the world, you started on your 5th birthday. I don’t know how […]
Florentines and…’You Don’t Play with Knives’
February 8, 2012 By 35 Comments
During my childhood, a favourite outing for my sisters and me (but not for my mother) was shopping day. My mother would pile all five of us into the car where we roamed about as we weren’t strapped into car seats and we didn’t wear seat belts. In fact at some stage a law came […]
Devils on Horseback and…The View From the Staircase
February 5, 2012 By 31 Comments
I grew up in a house with a mother who loved to cook. Not only cook, but entertain. I have wonderful memories of those nights when we were given ‘fish n chips’ for dinner (the only available takeaway), were put into the bath early, came down to the lounge to dry our hair in front […]
Spinach and Sweet Potato Cannelloni and…Haere Mai
January 11, 2012 By 38 Comments
Translated, that’s ‘Welcome’ in Maori. I did experience a Haere Mai when I was eight years old and it was an experience I’ve never been able to forget. When I was growing up in New Zealand I went to Waiwhetu Primary School and it wasn’t multi-cultural because there were just two cultures – the Maoris […]
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