The stars are shining!

Everyone in this country has now surely heard of Matariki – the Maori name for the star cluster known elsewhere as Pleiades, the appearance of which signifies the end and start of a new year – if only because from next year a day will be set aside each year as a public holiday. Great, we get something we can call our own, even if it is shared with many other island nations and further afield. But we can make it our time to gather family and friends, to eat, to celebrate, to strengthen bonds and to reflect on our lives, those we have lost and the planet we live on. 

Here’s a scrumptious roast lamb recipe to serve as a centrepiece for a gathering. You can go all out and turn this into a long and leisurely lunch by serving nibbles and a starter, and finishing with dessert. Matariki is the name of the star cluster we are celebrating and also the name of the largest star in the cluster, the mother star. Serve this lamb to your whanau (family) and you really will shine as a star!

It’s been a busy week with cooking, writing and all the normal stuff, fabulous CRISP sunny days followed by atrocious stormy weather … but the big question is, WHO ATE THE OTHER HALF OF MY MEATBALL??? Seriously, if you haven’t caught up with this, you must take a read to find out where most of the food we produce in our country goes, and the radical changes that have occurred over the past 5-10 years. It’s an eyeopener. Apparently, we produce enough to feed about 40 million people. Why the hell are there New Zealanders starving then? The story was originally published on RNZ but the link is not working, so here it is via Stuff Who’s Eating New Zealand

Dry July

I’m up to day 7 of Dry July and it’s going well. No alcohol and no withdrawal symptoms yet. But I just ate a double-coated chocolate Tim Tam biscuit dunked in my cup of very hot tea. You leave the biscuit in as long as you dare, then take a bite and the inside goes all sort of melty and you suck the chocolate out (oh god, it’s so good…).

Okay. I lie. Not about Dry July but about the biscuit. I ate two. And now the packet is open …

Have a good week.