Cracking cookies...

I love baking... so satisfying and you get so much gratitude for a little bit of measuring and mixing.  

I made cookies last week but they flopped.  Not so satisfying. They merged together in a most annoying way and didn't have that satisfying snap when you bit into them. The boys loved them regardless (see? gratitude) but I wanted them to be better.

Then I watched Ina the next day and she had almost the same cookie recipe with a few tweaks and this one worked.  She's a genius or maybe I was just paying more attention... 

Ina's raisin and pecan nut cookies. 

• 1 1/2 cups pecans roasted and chopped
• 130g unsalted butter
• 1 cup dark brown sugar
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 2 extra large eggs at room temp
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tspn baking powder
• 1 tspn ground cinnamon
• 1 tspn salt
• 3 cups rolled oats or oatmeal 
• 1 1/2 cups raisins

Beat the softened butter, brown sugar and caster sugar until light and fluffy. Sift together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt and mix together. Then add the oats, raisins and chopped pecans.

Spoon on to a baking tray using a tablespoon or as Ina helpfully suggests an ice cream scoop. Bake for 12-ish minutes until they look like they should. Cool on a baking rack.

Lovely. Roasted pecans for a bit of crunch but nothing a two year old would choke on. A touch of cinnamon but not enough to turn off a five year old. A little too nice perhaps. I had to quickly put them in the freezer for school lunches so that I wouldn't eat them all...

------------------------------------------

By the way the secret to my success might have been this new gismo that my mother kindly gave me a few weeks ago. I love it! Thanks Mum. x

Reading in 2010

You may have noticed that over the past few months I have been listing my reading material. The idea was to keep myself on track with the New Year's resolutions I made in April to read more selectively.


I had fallen out of love with reading and books. Too sad for a girl who has always read obsessively, voraciously, hungrily, passionately... and rather likes big words.

Why? Well, number one was the usual excuse of the mid-thirties mother. I needed sleep more. I always read before bed. During the day I can't be home alone without background noise, at night before bed, no TV or music.  I want peace and quiet and a book.  Unfortunately thanks to my lack of sleep, most nights I couldn't even manage three pages.

Second, I was a little bit time poor and a little bit lazy. Reading just crime novels because I like PD James and Ian Rankin and I could whip into the library with the rampaging toddler grab a book and whip out again.

Third, the sheer cost of buying books in Australia and New Zealand.  I don't earn much these days and I really think twice about spending thirty dollars (and the rest) on a paperback.  We used to buy three new books a week in the UK - they are so much cheaper there. We've decided buying in bulk overseas online is a better idea and I also need to invest more time in second handbook stores. No great chore you'd agree...

So how's the resolution going? I used to know what was on the best seller list, what was shortlisted for which prize and I had an opinion on whether it should have been... I still don't know any of that - I'm playing catch-up remember.

But I'm back. I read during the day last weekend - desperate to finish my Barbara Vine. I stayed up on Friday night at our bach in front of the fire alone and finished Seabiscuit.   Ah, that feeling when you simply can't sleep without knowing what comes next. It's back and I'm loving it.

By the way the image is from Remodalista... thanks Claude, it's becoming a favourite...

-----------

AND I  need to add to this... I had half written this post last week and Kerry from A Tranquil Townhouse messaged to say she'd like to start her own reading list - a little like mine.  Well she has and she very kindly blogged about it today and said some very nice things.  Now I get to check out what she's read and liked and make my book shopping list... you should read her lovely blog too, she's a doer not just a talker like me!

A weekend away...

Omaha Beach, on the Matakana coast about an hour north of Auckland... our mid-winter, mid-school holidays long weekend away.

Beautiful sunny weather. Basking in the sun on the deck of our rented bach, reading, playing lego, hunting for crabs in the rockpools, playing football on the sand, chasing seagulls, drinking red and toasting marshmallows on the open fire, grazing at the farmer's market, marvelling at the Kiwi countryside, revelling in the clear, cool air and sleeping, quite a lot of sleeping.

Beautiful isn't it?

Second chance...

A few weeks ago I tried to find a picture that summed up what I liked in one picture. A blog game from From The Right Bank. Well, like searching for the right pair of shoes and finding THE shoes six weeks after you needed them, I've found the room.

The people behind this lovely, lovely space work at the American architects, Buttrick Wong. You can see more here.

Even though it's a Northern Hemisphere room I think it has a very light, indoor outdoor feel and would fit very well in my family's life. Minus the white couches. Or I could sell the children.

The nine month mark...

I think it's nine months. Well close enough anyway.  That's the time it takes for me to settle into a new city or a new country. Nine months has nothing much to do with me and babies.  My pregnancies last around 15 months. (Just ask my husband) which is why I am most definitely not doing it again. Sit down Mum, sorry I got you excited.

I remember hitting the nine month mark in Melbourne. (We moved two months later.) I hit the nine month mark in Auckland a month or so ago.  I feel really happy, I thought. I like it. Life is pretty good. I have friends. I know what I am doing tomorrow and next week. I know where to find things.

I even welled up when my kid sang the New Zealand national anthem  at his school assembly with a couple of hundred little Kiwis.  The first time I heard that my thought was "Oh hell, that's right we live in New Zealand... how did we get here again?" So to hear it and feel a little moved (like you should when you hear a national anthem) is quite a change.

New friends have invited us to their bach in the summer.  People have now started letting us in on the local secrets for day trips and weekends away. We can even give some tips of our own.

I can say some Maori words without stumbling too much. You pronounce all the vowels, 'wh' is 'f' and you listen to Radio New Zealand a lot. You try it... Whangaparaoa, Tawharanui, Komokoriki.  Heavens, our first few car trips into the countryside were fun with me trying to match the signs we whizzed past with the map in my hand.

Ah yes, and if it's wet you say "wit" or if you're five years old "it's wit as, Mum." Sorry couldn't help it. Apologies for poking fun at the accent... there go at least half of the new friends I've made.

Three months in to our move I was depressed and a little snappy. "Why won't these bloody women just talk to me," I thought. Now I don't mind as much if someone doesn't chat back. Australians I think (or maybe just me) love a bit of a chat without consequence. I have now found other people do do that here too. Just not as often.

I think what I've learnt with the whole moving chore (I used to say adventure but it's worn off) is that you can't rush the process. Just wait and slowly but surely it will be fine.

I lied a lot in those first nine months, telling people "yes, we're feeling so settled now."
I am not lying now when I say we're feeling settled. Must be about time to move.

(By the way my husband read this and muttered, "pregnant for 15 months? More like two years...")

Winter walks...

A Saturday afternoon walk at our local harbour beach in Auckland. T-shirts, ice-cream, climbing, jumping, running and Dad with the camera.

Seventeen degrees and sunny on the the 3rd of July... I just thought I should confess that despite my whining about the rain it really is rather warm most of the time in Auckland and sometimes even quite dry and bright! Just not a great deal from about May to December.

I no longer look at the weather forecast - it's such a topic of conversation that someone will always tell me what's in store. And I think it must be mostly guesswork for the poor forecasters.

Auckland, for those of you who don't know, is on New Zealand's north island. It's quite close to the top of the island and straddles a narrow neck of land. Without a large land mass on either side, living here is rather like living on the deck of an ocean liner.

The weather is 'everywhere' (as I once heard on an Arican weather forecast)... squally showers sometimes blow across four or five times in an hour. And it can be bright, clear blue sky in between. Or like today, so much rain you can't quite imagine the sun ever coming out again.

I have given up on my want for a washing line. Pointless. Instead I play washing roulette ducking outside with the washing frame and then dashing back to rescue it from the next downpour.  I've also bought a decent rain jacket and never go to school without wet weather gear for all. Well actually I have quite a few times and got terribly wet. But I'm learning.

Last night we barbequed in the pouring rain.  In the true Australian way,  Mum  did the salads (roast vegies as it is July) and Dad did the meat, umbrella in hand.

I think you could say we're starting to acclimatise.

Kitchen dreaming...

Winter for me is all about food. I start looking at recipe books, flicking through the pages searching for pictures of beautiful summer picnics, salads and grilled seafood on skewers laid out beside sparkling aqua water... what a nice way to escape a dull grey winter.

If I'm cold and feeling slightly rundown (like now actually) then it's the slow food I look for and perhaps even cook... coq au vin, slow cooked lamb shoulder or shanks. Comfort indeed.

Then of course there's the good old Food channel.  Number one for winter escapes at the moment is the Barefoot Contessa, Ina Garten. It's summer in the Hamptons and she also ticks my top three for food watching.

• Simple recipes that can be scribbled on a scrap of paper and once cooked done again without a recipe
• Kitchen utensils to lust after (I am unashamedly shallow)
• A fabulous kitchen and home as a backdrop.

See? Fabulous. She has a large home in the Hamptons and has built a new barn in the garden (oh yes the garden is to die for and looks even better in snow...) Read all about and see more lovely pictures here.

Ina's kitchen also has good eye candy for the shallow shopper. And I am not just shallow but also stupid enough to think that if I buy the beautiful utensils in a television chef's kitchen then I too will cook like that...  

In my Nigella phase I bought the whisk she swears by  -  I LOVE it and use it every day.

Jamie's favourite Thai-style stone mortar and pestle  is now mine... I waited until I left London to buy it as I could never bear to lug it home on the tube. It weighs a ton. 

Everyone who cooks on the telly seem to have a  KitchenAid in white  - I'd like an original please but I'd settle for a brand new one in red.

 I'm still saving but that's ok. We should all have to wait for some things in life...