Sometimes you get disappointed, but sometimes you get happy.

My husband emailed me while visiting the US, "I just bought you the greatest thing. You will love it." He didn't reveal what it was, but said it was taking up most of his luggage.  I was advised by a friend to not get my hopes up, since this was a GUY buying a gift.  I was impressed when he unpacked it back in Auckland, and extremely happy when I got to use it the first time. What is it you ask? Check out the photo below:

That's me giving my dog Fargo a bath, with Ruby behind me.  The gift is a portable, propane water heater. 

You connect the hose from the faucet, the propane tube into the heater, and the white tubing in the center pumps out hot water to a shower head.  The temperature and water flow rate is adjustable.  The beauty part about it is the not freezing water! Much more comfortable for me and the dogs, and the soap seems to work better as well.   Usually doggie bath time is when we are all tired and sore, so to have the warm water takes away a bit of the discomfort. Also, Darin and I can take it up to our land in Maungaturoto and use it up there.  I really do love this little water heater! Isn't it adorable? It's so practical. Never underestimate the power of hot water!

This past week Guy Faukes day was celebrated. As Nov 5 fell during the week, the fireworks were scheduled for the weekend. We went to Kumeu to see the fireworks show on Friday night. We saw many fireworks going off from people's yards on the drive home.  As we turned onto Scenic Drive, we saw a dog running downhill as fast as he could go, down the middle of the street.  Darin stopped the car and I got out and tried to get him to come to me. He was so scared, and I was so worried about him in the middle of the street. People drive pretty fast coming down this hill, and sure enough, one was coming. I flailed my hands and yelled, Darin flashed his lights, but the jerk didn't even slow down. I saw the dog go on the opposite side of our car, into the oncoming car's lane, and fully expected to see a dog's body go flying through the air.  When he reappeared behind our car, I called to him again and he came to me. Whew! He was a sweet red Staffordshire Terrier, and had his tail tucked firmly between his legs.  I got him into the car, and we drove up the hill. We put him in a dog crate on our front porch and called the Waitakere City Council phone number on his registration tag.  Amazingly, someone answered the phone at 10 pm.  They called the owner and connected us. His wife showed up to pick up Simba a few minutes later; they live about 200 meters uphill from us. How great is that? What a happy ending! But it gets better:

The neighbor showed up with her daughter to deliver this sweet thank you. 

The disappointment I refer to in the title was the recipe for Rogan Josh I prepared from a slick new cookbook I borrowed from the library, Curry, Classic and Contemporary by Vivek Singh. I had some goat meat from the freezer which I used in place of lamb, but the recipe called for leg and I had loin and shoulder, still on the bone. 

You would think that Rogan Josh made from scratch would be pretty awesome, right? I made a special trip to the market for whole cinnamon stick and black cardamom pods and ghee.  I cried my way through two large onions to make this, even doing the beetroot-in-a-soaking-bag trick to make the sauce red (didn't work so hot).  The result was edible, but not worth the effort it took.  I did have fun trying it though, and I recommend you listen to Metallica's S & M while preparing all the ingredients in advance.  I also recommend reading the recipe in full repeatedly before following it.  I didn't have any problems with the recipe but in the past I have had the unpleasant experience of burning the onions- that sucks.

Anyway, I have photocopied some of the other recipies and will try them. I bought some yellow splilt peas awhile ago and will have to try that some time.

Much less disappointing was the book Watchmen, the graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. Recommended!

Happy new year 2009

We spent Xmas morning at Cornwallis Park (above) with my sister and bro-in-law. The beautiful red flowering trees are the Pohutakawa, AKA New Zealand Christmas tree. Darin brought our camping stove, fresh eggs from our hens, chopped veggies, and free range bacon, and made omelettes for breakfast. We were glad we got there early, because this remote beach became fairly busy as the morning progressed. We played a couple games of Bocce ball, then headed further down the road, through Huia and on to Whatipu, where I knew of some sea caves within an easy walking distance. Sadly we didn't bring any flashlights or sunscreen with us, so the cave tour was cut short.
There are about 5 caves of different sizes, and one can be camped in. I love caves! There are lots here in NZ, and sometimes people get trapped in them.
The picture below shows how far away from the ocean the caves are. The location is at the mouth of the Manukau Harbor, where sand has been deposited over the years. You can get to the beach from here, but it is a bit of a walk and there are many swampy areas.
For Xmas dinner I made a lamb stew recipe using a lamb shoulder (bone in) from my sister's Julia Childs cookbook, and it was the best! Pretty easy, too.

The weekend after Xmas, Darin and I went up to camp in our orchard, on our land outside Maungaturoto. We had a satisfying time walking around with a beer in one hand, machete in the other, smashing the thistle bushes to death. I did get a few scratches, but that's the price you pay when you do battle with the REAL evil weed.

Fargo and Ruby had fun playing in the recently filled pond next to our driveway. Ruby improved her swimming skills immensely, and she enjoys launching herself from the shore into the water. She and Fargo are master stick-fetchers.
We knew there was a rabbit living in the ravine just uphill from the pond, and Darin found him hopping about early in the morning. He hadn't even had any coffee yet, but his aim was perfect, right in the head! The dogs had fresh rabbit for breakfast (post-butchering).

After making ourselves breakfast, we drove 10 minutes to Whakapirau, where we tried out our new surf-casting rods and reels. The tide was out, and the shore was hella-muddy. Note to self, wear your gumboots next time. After 1.5 hrs without a nibble, we gave up. It was a lovely morning for standing around the beach, watching the birds and the tide come in.

Though I meant to paint my bedroom during the break, it just didn't happen. We did have some fun with friends, and ate lots of good food. I took the time to experiment with the goat meat, and found it to be really quite good. I made 2/3 goat, 1/3 beef sausages with pork fat, seasoned with rosemary, mustard, garlic, and salt of course. I also made a goat meat chili, cooking the goat legs in beer and broth with carrots, onion, shallot, leek, garlic, peppercorns, bay leaf, etc. The cooked meat was removed from the broth, cut off the bones, and the broth drained. Then I made the typical chili sauce using some of the broth, and just added the meat back to it. I have never fully appreciated the awesomeness of braising meat before this break, and I feel enlightened by the time and effort I put into learning it.

I finished reading Steve Martin's autobiography, Born Standing Up, and also Are You There Vodka, It's Me, Chelsea by Chelsea Handler. They were both ok, quick reads.

Finally, my new favorite blog is CakeWrecks. I frequently laugh out loud when I see it- check it out here. I will add it to my liks also.

Countdown to Christmas

Once again, my friend Holly and I hosted a Thanksgiving picnic. This year's picnic was held at Muriwai Beach, on the west coast north of Auckland. A lot of people showed up, each bringing a dish to share, creating enormous amounts of food. Holly's partner Steve is shown above, cutting up the wild turkey they prepared. Darin shot it on our Maungaturoto land, but Steve and Holly plucked and cleaned it, and prepared it. I baked roast beef. Strawberries are in season again, and they are in abundance. The day was glorious! Still, because this is a remote beach, I was shocked to see so many people there!

Christmas is nearly upon us. Just 3 days of work next week, then 11 days off for the Xmas/summer break! Yippee! Last week, we returned from our weekly trip to Maungaturoto (water the trees, play with the dogs), and found this in our mailbox:

Our next-door-neighbor's son made this for us. Byron and his younger sister Bronte were then ringing the doorbell to ask if we got it. I told them how much I love it. I don't think the photo displays the pop-up design. The reindeer have hats on, and Santa's mustache is green! I love it as much as the Santa my niece Lydia drew for me years back: He appears to be saying HOI HOI HOI because the exclamation points (!) are upside-down. (Ho! Ho! Ho!). Anyway, Byron and Bronte got home-made chocolate chip cookies from me.Darin and I enjoy playing board games with our friends here, and we decided we needed to buy one to share. Agricola is the #1 boardgame on boardgamegeek.com (all the geek details are here). We really like it. Darin has won every time he's played, and I'm struggling to figure out how to do better. Meanwhile, we are mirroring the actions in the game, one of which is butchering a sheep. In the photo below, it is a goat, but that's a minor detail. This photo depicts our other new Christmas gift to ourselves, a butcher's bone saw. We decided to get this after seeing a distributor selling whole frozen goat carcasses for $5 per kilo. Apparently they were for export, but for some reason the sale didn't go through. We ended up with 4 of them, each about 15 lbs. We LOVE having chest freezers (yeah, we have 2: one for people food, one for dog). The idea was to feed the goat to our pets, but then I got to thinking that I should try to prepare some of it and see how it tastes. That is on my list of things to do during my holiday break.
Darin also bought a whole albacore tuna from the fish market. We ate some of it as sashimi (shown above, in soy sauce), some of it grilled, and froze the rest in vacuum sealed packages. The grilled tuna was so delicious! The recipe is to marinate tuna steaks about 30 min. in: dry sherry, 3 crushed garlic cloves, salt, pepper, and finely chopped parsley and cilantro. While it grills, a peeled/seeded mango is blended with orange juice, white wine, and 1 habanero pepper. This sauce is served over it. It's shown below with the grilled zucchini. One of them was the first one from my garden.Here's how the garden is doing: Those are lettuces and carrots on the left, then moving right: another variety of carrot, spaghetti squash, tomatoes, sliverbeet (chard), red onions, spring onions, yellow onions, garlic, zucchini, another spaghetti squash, and a cucumber (the last two have yet to fruit). Darin sprayed the "wooly jumpers", but they are unaffected. So far, no sign of the nasty green stinkbugs, but the slugs have been having their way with some of the lettuces.

I have been taking Ruby to the Dogsport NZ Auckland club for a few months. They have accepted me as a new member, and it's interesting to compare it to the Schutzhund clubs I knew back in Southern California. They hosted a trial this weekend. Two of the teams I train with earned new titles: the BH (obedience) and IPO I (tracking, obedience, and protection/"carachter work"). I was impressed with the performances overall.

Also this past month, I went to the 24-hour Incredibly Strange movie marathon.

This was hosted at the Hollywood Cinema in Avondale, where they have a Wurlitzer organ and big balcony. The seats in the center front of the theatre were moved to make space for people to bring their bean bag chairs. People were also allowed to bring outside food and drink. The event was sponsored by the energy drink V, and 3 were given to me as I went inside. I had two of them plus a couple of cans of Coke, so my stomach was in a knot from all the caffine. I did manage to stay awake during most of the 15 movies, which included: Lady in a Cage, Krull, Role Model ,The Ruins, Dying Breed, The Road Warrior, Desperate Living (John Waters), Mr Mike's Mondo Video, Moonshiner's Woman, Ninja Turf, The Last Dragon, Small Eyes, King Dinosaur, and Time Machine (the original). Highlights were Dying Breed, Desperate Living, The Last Dragon, and The Road Warrior.

Finally, books. I don't think I mentioned that I finished Roots, but found that I lost interest when he got to Chicken George. This section went on way too long, and then the characters started changing quickly, so they didn't get developed as well. I finished In the Land of Invisible Women. I was annoyed with the writing or editing, because names come up without any background mention. The author is both very forgiving and at times very critical of the Saudi culture. She went on WAY too long about doing a muslim pilgrimage (ho hum). It confirmed what I knew and gave me new knowledge about the society, and it's really ugly. I'm now reading Heat, An Amateur's Adventures as a Kitchen Slave (etc). Pretty good subject, insight, and entertaining writing. I'm nearly finished with it, and next is Steve Martin's biography, Born Standing Up. Three cheers for the library!!!