September 24, 2011
Kowhai and Lucy grazing
“So, is she pregnant?” Rick asked.
Naya looked over the fence at our pet kunekune pig, Old Lady Lucy. “She does look a bit more plump, doesn’t she?”
Naya is a vet and a pig farmer. She was wearing a thick knit cap and an old jacket that was tied closed with a bit of twine wrapped around her waist. There was a bit of hay stuck to her left shoulder.
Rick and I had asked Naya to come over to give us her professional opinion. Although Rick and I suspected Lucy was ‘in pig,’ as they say, the simple truth is that city boys like us wouldn’t know a pregnant pig from a bar of soap.
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Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
August 14, 2011
Lucy and Kowhai
One sunny afternoon a few months ago I noticed that Old Lady Lucy, our pet kunekune pig, was standing in the middle of the top paddock covered in mud and screaming. Something was clearly wrong.
I went over to check on her, but she was irritable, aggressive, and didn’t want to be touched.
So I did what one does when your pet pig turns psychotic. I called the Martinborough Pig Whisperer.
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33 Comments | Food, Neighbors, New Zealand, Pet kunekune pigs | Tagged: kunekune, pet, pig, pork, Wairarapa Lifestyle Magazine | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
January 19, 2011
Dave's carrot cake
“Why won’t you share it?” I asked Rick. We were standing in the kitchen, looking at a carrot cake recipe written on the back of a long, white envelope.
“Because it’s too special,” he answered.
“But all the neighbors are asking for it.”
“Too bad,” Rick said. “If we share this recipe then everyone will make it, and it won’t be special anymore. Besides, it’s the only cake we know how to make! And we can’t serve store bought ever again. The locals will shoot us.”
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51 Comments | Food, Neighbors, New Zealand | Tagged: baking, blue-green eggs, carrot cake, gluten free, recipe, rural, wheat free | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
September 21, 2010
Moore Wilson's
I looked up at the enormous building and the huge green sign that said “Moore Wilson’s Fresh Market,” and I felt like Dorothy at the gates to the Emerald City.
In my arms I held a heavy cardboard box full of olive oil bottles that I’d carefully labeled the night before. At my side was our good neighbor Kiwi Bronwyn, carrying another box which contained more olive oil, a tablecloth, a bread knife, and some plates and bowls.
Rick stood right behind us, next to our little Nissan Pulsar. He’d just driven us over the Rimutaka Hill Road and into Wellington city for the day.
“Do you have everything?” he asked.
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17 Comments | Food, Neighbors, New Zealand, Olives & olive oil | Tagged: gratitude, kind neighbors, olive oil, olive oil tasting, wellington | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
September 5, 2010
Escarpment 2008 Pinot Noir. Sautéed mushrooms & celeriac aioli on crouton.
The room was dimly lit. There were candles glowing everywhere, red and white heart-shaped helium balloons across the ceiling, and an inviting fire burning in the nearby fireplace.
I stood talking to an energetic, grey-haired woman whose intricately beaded black necklace sparkled in the candlelight. She was telling me about her life as a vineyard owner.
“I do all the P words,” she said. “Plant, pick, prune and price!” Then she let loose with a delightfully mad, very infectious laughter. Her short hair flipped back as she doubled over.
I was speed dating, and having a fantastic time. Of course, this woman was old enough to be my mother. But never mind. She was not my date.
I was there to find my perfect Pinot match.
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16 Comments | Food, New Zealand, Wine & vineyards | Tagged: pinot noir, vineyard, wine tasting, winemaker, winery | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
January 2, 2010
Our gingerbread persons (click to enlarge)
No matter where I’ve lived in the world, if I couldn’t get back to Michigan for Christmas, then a little bit of my boyhood Michigan Christmas has always come to me – in the form of a box of gingerbread men.
Whether we’ve been living in provincial Japan or crowded Tokyo, central Wellington or out here in our rural paradise of Martinborough, the gingerbread men have always come.
That is, until this year.
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32 Comments | Death, Family, Food, New Zealand | Tagged: Christmas, gingerbread men, gluten free, gratitude, molasses, recipe | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
December 5, 2009
Our roast turkey
Rick called me at work on Thursday morning in a panic.
“Did you see the weather forecast for Saturday?” he said. “It’s horrible. Rain all day. Should we cancel Thanksgiving?”
For most people, the idea of canceling Thanksgiving on account of a little bit of rain would seem a ridiculous idea, but they’ve never been to one of our Thanksgiving parties.
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16 Comments | Country dinner parties, Family, Food, Neighbors, New Zealand | Tagged: city friends, gratitude, kind neighbors, olive grove, rimutaka hill road | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
October 3, 2009
Podcast available.
Daisies in the garden
Nothing is normal at our house. Even a simple dinner party comes alive with bizarre and friendly characters.
The reason for our most recent dinner party was simple. The neighborhood was crawling with Americans.
I was pulling out the wine glasses when our neighbors John and Aussie Brownyn arrived that night. John has taught me how to prune vines and Aussie Bronwyn taught me how to kill a chicken. I have a lot of respect and admiration for them both.
That week they had an American staying with them, and so did Rick and I. It was a great excuse to get everyone together. It doesn’t take much around here.
Our American, TJ, was setting the table. John and Aussie Bronwyn’s American, Lily, was walking in just behind them.
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13 Comments | Country dinner parties, Food, Neighbors, New Zealand, Podcasts | Tagged: dinner party, gratitude, kind neighbors, olive oil, pickling olives, River & sea, table olives | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
August 8, 2009
The finished product
Ever since I’d read that pickling food can create botulism, I’d been a little nervous. Yet there I was, ready to put our olives into jars.
This is the part where it can all go horribly wrong. One false move and you’ve created the Olives of Death.
I stood at the island in the center of the kitchen. It was a bright Saturday morning, and the light was streaming in the French doors that open out to the deck and the olive grove beyond. Above me the peaked wooden ceiling spread its wings.
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21 Comments | Food, New Zealand, Olives & olive oil | Tagged: kitchen, pickling olives, satisfying work, table olives | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
June 27, 2009
The day after our big olive harvest with the city friends, the weather took a turn for the worse. It didn’t matter. Four of us in the harvest gang were determined to hand pick some olives for pickling and preserving. We weren’t about to be put off by the weather.
Olives and macrocarpas in the mist
Everyone that morning was sore from the day before. Inside the fire was going, and outside the temperature had plummeted. The mist across the hills had thickened. But we four intrepid olive harvesters put on winter coats and gloves, left behind the others who were reading by the fire, and headed down into the grove with a couple old plastic buckets.
It doesn’t snow in the Wairarapa valley, except for occasionally up in the mountains, and the coldest days in Martinborough are nothing compared to the serious, snow-filled winters of my native Michigan. But my body seems to have changed.
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8 Comments | Food, New Zealand, Olives & olive oil | Tagged: city friends, gluten free, manzanillo, olive grove, pickling olives, recipe, satisfying work, table olives | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
June 13, 2009
Washed olives going into the press
Rick and I drove up to the olive press and looked in through the ornate metal gate.
It was dark out, and the lights were still on inside. Diane of ‘Pressing Engagements’ was still pressing olives. She works furiously throughout May and June, then things go quiet for the olive presses of the Wairarapa valley.
We wanted to pick up our oil and get it home to taste it right away, in order to see if the frosts had damaged the taste. We’d gone to great lengths on harvest day to make sure we’d sorted out as much frost-damaged fruit as possible. But were our efforts enough?
Diane smiled when she saw us. “Your oil is beautiful,” she said immediately, and then waved us in through the gate.
Does she say that to all the boys?
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12 Comments | Food, Neighbors, New Zealand, Olives & olive oil | Tagged: frantoio, kind neighbors, leccino, olio nuovo, olive grove, olive harvest, olive oil, olive oil containers, olive press | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
