The garden ruin looks biblical to a Catholic so I’m doing reruns of past sins to discover which one is responsible for the crop failure. I’m tossing up between assisting in the theft of a king-sized bar of Caramello chocolate from the Big S supermarket (even though I did follow Father Duggan’s advice and purchase a bar and replace it on the supermarket shelf a week later); and putting on my big sister’s glamorous shoes and dancing up and down the driveway Shirley Temple-style (they had heel and toe plates so the sound they made was hypnotic) despite being told to STAY AWAY FROM HER THINGS AND OUT OF HER ROOM! And if either of these sins was punishable by crop failure then I’ve finally discovered the real reason for the Irish Potato Famine because God only knows how many disobedient children there were in Ireland in 1845.

Saturday night Mr Scott and I returned from a tasty meal out and I don’t know if it was too much wasabi or possibly some MSG sneaked into one of the dishes but I had an unexpected rush of enthusiasm and decided that around midnight is the ideal moment to make tomato relish. As you can see by the recipe at the end of the page one starts by chopping the tomatoes and onions and sprinkling them with salt to draw out the moisture.

I think the operative word here is sprinkle rather than dredge and I’m just warning you in advance that my relish will not get a tick from the Heart Foundation. It’s not the recipe which is to blame as much as my interpretation of it along with a hand rendered less responsive by a couple of wines.

Chopping the tomatoes went well though there were moments when I felt like chucking it all in and heading off to bed not so much through fatigue as boredom. But gosh, don’t things come to life when you start on the onions? December and January the onions were rubbish. They were soft and green inside and smelt like swamp water. Personally, I feel they were picked too early and not left out to harden-the-whatever up but don’t take this as gospel for I’m not one who knows my onions. But I do know that they have improved at last and so it was with a bit of trepidation that I moved to stage two of the recipe … chopping the onions.

I’m no ninja-knife person when it comes to chopping and slicing so my lack of speed meant I was positioned over the onions for longer than was comfortable for my eyes. And I know there are 20 different ways supposed to prevent crying over the onions but I have not found a method which actually works.

Until now.

Blame it on the alcohol if you wish but part way through Onion Number One, with a face covered in tears, I had an epiphany. I went to the bathroom, washed my face and rinsed and dried my eyes then I PUT ON MY SWIMMING GOGGLES! Internet … it works! Absolutely no more eye irritation. And then because I wasn’t having quite enough fun, I put my swimming cap on, too. Finally I finished the onions while softly humming lullabies and thinking about little lambs skipping through sun-filled meadows and all was right with the world.

Next day I drained off the water and continued to make relish.

This tomato relish recipe comes out of the universe and into your kitchens via my very wonderful friend Morag, who made a triumphant batch of relish last summer. I’m sorry my first effort hasn’t quite made the grade but it was all worth it to discover the solution to onion-eye-cry.

So grab your tomatoes, onions, swimming goggles and (optional) cap and get chopping.

TOMATO RELISH

6lb/3kg tomatoes

2lb/1kg onions

2lb/1kg sugar

8 small chillies

2 cups malt vinegar

3-4 tablespoons of cornflour

3 tablespoons of curry powder

2 tablespoons of salt

2 teaspoons mustard powder

METHOD

• Cut up tomatoes and onions, sprinkle with salt and leave overnight.
• Pour off liquid and add the toms/onions to a large pot. Barely cover with vinegar (about 2 cups). Put on heat, add sugar and chillies and boil for half an hour.
• Mix cornflour, curry powder and mustard powder in a little vinegar (or water if your pot mix has become a bit spicy) to a smooth paste.
• After tomatoes have boiled half an hour, add the paste, boil to thicken then bottle in sterilised jars.

WARNINGS

Don’t be too heavy-handed with the salt at number one. Taste the relish before adding any more salt. Actually, I’ve just gone back over my recipe notes and realised there is no place for adding more salt. I think the 2 tablespoons in the ingredients list is for sprinkling over the toms/onions right at the beginning. I got that completely wrong but it was difficult to read through the swimming goggles.

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It just wouldn’t be a new week if I didn’t get the chance to write about rats.

Seemed nocturnal-kitchen-rattus was a bit annoyed when, on its return the following evening it discovered the entrance at the top of the rat-ramp was firmly locked.

So it did what all angry rats do and it moved into the ceiling with much of its family and they set about building themselves a resort among the pink batts. To my utter dismay I had to report Rativity to Mr Scott who had returned to Auckland.

In the meantime until Mr Scott’s return, I listened to the rats bringing in the earthmoving machinery and digging a swimming complex complete with perpetual wave machine and kiddy-pool because they’d already completed the nursery and kindergarten and were accepting new entrants. I lay in bed at night thinking not of England but of just how loud I would scream if one of those rats fell asleep at the wheel of its bulldozer and came straight through the ceiling. Right above my head.

Mr Scott arrived armed with traps and peanut butter but it’s the end of the holiday and we’d run out of bacon which clings to a trap hook like a limpet and ensures a successful snare. The first day we tried sausage smeared in lovely organic peanut butter and the clever rodents sent in their special-army-soldier rats who managed to eat the snacks without being caught.

Undeterred Mr Scott and I peered at the diminished refrigerator contents and decided the special rat catching dogs could share their lamb chops. With a bit of raw lamb and a dollop of peanut butter on the trap hooks (I feel a new recipe coming on!) Mr Scott headed back into the ceiling access through the small hole at the top of the wardrobe like some sort of reverse Santa. And all our Christmases came within the next few hours. [Time to look away if you don’t like trapkill].

As all the best copywriting goes … the results speak for themselves.

Strike One!

Strike Two … literally!

Special rat-catching dog gets a few pointers.

Strike Three … OUT!

Apologies for the awful photography but each photo was taken with my eyes wide shut.

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Dad's beans should look like this.

The weather stayed cold for a long while after I planted. And there was a lack of rain. This is the beach garden so it is fairly untended and just has to get on once the planting is done. The beans were slow to start and then remained quite yellow in the leaf department. There didn’t appear to be a lot of nitrogen-fixing going on. Even Mr Scott noticed there was something amiss when one morning he announced: “There’s something amiss with those beans.” But I’m an optimist and felt things would right themselves. By the time I realised the beans weren’t righting themselves, it was a bit late. The yield was down about 80% and I’ve left the remainder to seed.

For I also have scarlet runners.

And they are a triumph!

They, too, were slow to start but suddenly they kicked into overdrive and reached for the sky. Like Jack’s beanstalk they grew and they grew and, goddammit, they were going to find that giant. Along the way they flowered and entertained fat bumble bees and hungry honey bees and were soon producing an overwhelming number of beans. Much of the crop is out of the reach of even the tall Mr Scott so we’re going to hire a helicopter and winch someone down to do the rest of the picking. Gathering a trug-full daily has enabled me to share bean love about the bay (and I won’t even talk about the zucchinis!).

Image of my scarlet runner beans captured
by the Hubble telescope which orbits
366 miles/589 kilometres above Earth. 

Yesterday I spent the morning blanching and freezing beans and to make it sexy, I frenched them first. I performed the usual internet search to make sure I was using the correct process (because it’s just possible blanching involves more than a simmer then an icy plunge) and it was during this search that I discovered you can eat the scarlet runner flowers! Who knew?

Yes, I can hear some of you saying “Daft bint … no flowers, no beans!” but, reader, I have been blessed. I have so many beans I can sacrifice a few flowers to make the world’s most twee salad.

So, without further ado, I’d like to introduce you to The World’s Most Twee Salad. Sadly it was not a photogenic dish so you’ll just have to believe me that I made it, ate it and it was good.

I cooked up some amaranth, quinoa and lentils (no, I was not jet-propelled on this morning’s run, but thanks for your concern). To this I added cherry tomatoes, Kalamata olives, feta, red onion, scarlet runner beans (frenched), a few spinach and miscellaneous salad leaves (and probably some weeds because I’m not entirely sure what is what in that part of the garden) and parsley, mint and basil. Drizzle with olive oil and a squirt of lemon juice then GARNISH WITH SCARLET RUNNER FLOWERS!

It would have been as twee as four Beswick ducks flying up the wall if it weren’t for the ancient grains and lentils which had made the entire creation a bit brown. It’s just my opinion but I think brown food only starts to look good in a photo if it involves chocolate. Anyway, next time you make a salad, go for glory and throw a few scarlet runner flowers over the top and have a very hippy day.

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After Mum died a friend of hers produced a photo she’d made of Mum just hours before she headed off to the big white light. A couple of weeks after Dad died a cousin produced this photo (Yes, Mary, I promise I’ll return it) of Dad and there are a few special things about this image.

Dad looking as though he’s just discovered that the “Dove From Above”
(Reeves and Mortimer, Shooting Stars) has pooped on the roast pork.

One is … get a look at that great vintage party spread. It’s all wooden bowls and brown Temuka pottery screaming “It’s the 70s and we’re doing pork crackling, butter and full-fat cream”.

Another is … Dad looks remarkably like Vic Reeves and being a bit of a fan I’m glad to be the daughter of Vic’s doppelganger. In all honesty the resemblance possibly starts and finishes with those fabulous glasses Dad’s wearing. I’m tempted to hunt them out and have them fitted with my own prescription lenses. It won’t make me look like Ulrika-ka-ka-ka-ka but the family resemblance may have carried through enough to get me a stand-in part for Vic when he’s off work with a tummy upset. I’m sure I could Coo Down the Dove From Above, and even my normal singing is in the club style.

And to make this completely spooky, both Vic and Dad’s real names are Jim!

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Eventually I settled on a recipe and then, in honour of my dear mother, I faffed about with it a bit though I promise I did not add anything weird like coconut. Or curry powder.

The result was not so much a triumph as it was a good, honest pudding suitable for an entry in a Comfort Food Wiki, or as a carbo-loading dish for an extreme runner on the eve of an Ultramarathon.

Without further ado, internet, I’d like to introduce you to Rhubarb Rumble…

INGREDIENTS

· 3 cups of chopped rhubarb or make up with other fruit (I had minimal rhubarb [sister, that plant needs fertiliser] but when combined with the minimal peaches and minimal apples I also nearly didn’t have, I discovered I’d completed 3 cups of fruit … and it was good).

· ¾ cup of brown sugar

· 4tbsp of melted butter (a silly measurement, so I’d just melt a lump then use a tablespoon to measure it out)

· 2 eggs lightly beaten

· ½ cup of milk

· 1 ½ cups of flour

· 2 tsp baking powder

· 1 tsp vanilla essence

· 1 cup of caster sugar

· Extra butter for greasing dish

METHOD:
1. Chop up your fruit into bite-sized chunks and place in a bowl with the brown sugar. Mix it around and leave it for a bit so that the juices run a little and you get a syrup thing going on. This might not be vital at all but it is what I did and I guess I left it about an hour by the time I ran up and down the road looking for someone who could help out with caster sugar.

2. In a large enough bowl (I can’t see into your kitchen so I can’t be any more precise than that) combine 3 tbsp of butter, the eggs, milk, flour, baking powder, vanilla essence and caster sugar (just use plain white sugar if your neighbours don’t have caster sugar) and keep mixing until you get a smooth batter. To be honest, I had to add a bit more milk at this stage but just see how you go.

3. Grease a baking dish – I used a 2lt Pyrex dish – with some butter, or your favourite grease.

4. Add the fruit mix and spread it around sensibly.

5. Spoon the batter over the top of the fruit then drizzle over a bit of the remaining melted butter – if you have some. I don’t think the extra melted butter is that important, but I had some left so that’s what I did. Bake in a 350/180 oven for about 40 minutes.

6. Serve warm with cream, or ice-cream or custard or what-have-you.

 Spread fruit around dish in a sensible manner.

Make a general mess of the kitchen bench and hope
that Edmonds love it so much they offer to
sponsor your blog.

Allow special rat catching dog to lick the bowls.

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This probably explains why I am late to the world of BUMPITS. Honestly, when I saw that word I thought they were talking about butt implants or perhaps a way to falsely acquire a cleavage with a cleft like an arse.

I think I was lead astray by incorrectly assuming where the first syllable ended and the next one started. Perhaps the word is not bum-pits after all.

There’s an entire hair volumizing world out there which I’ve never entered. Girls (and lads) it’s time to ditch the GHDs and plump up your do … and the really cool thing is that you get the opportunity to appear as if you have a nasty SYMPATHY-GRABBING ABCESS that needs excising on the top of your head.

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Needless worry about what …

Big ears?

Ill-fitting clothing?

Hobbits?

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The other morning I’m walking the dogs on the beach and I bumped into Gabrielle McKone, a Wellington-based photographer with enough discipline to post a photo a day on her blog … even if she has a toothache. And she’s not cheating by drawing from a massive archive of previously shot images … she’s out there in all weather and posts from that day’s takings.

Gabrielle uses a “shoot from the hip” style of photography – sans viewfinder – so if you’re all at the same event, your results may differ!

She sent these couple of pix of the dogs from the discard heap of that morning’s walk. You can view a more exclusive collection here on her blog.

However, if you’re going to be in Wellington head to Courtenay Place and have a look at Gabrielle’s Three Stories Up exhibition featuring 48 photographic artworks stacked three-high in 16 light boxes along the street.

Worth it. Do it.

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If Andrew has turned 41 today, clearly last year was Andrew’s 40^th birthday and I have to say that it was celebrated with massive imagination and style when Andrew turned his St Heliers suburban home into a tropical island resort complete with faux-palm-fale and enough sand to make the Sahara feel inadequate. Andrew’s wife, Fiona, deserved something between a damehood and beatification for calmly allowing him to run with the idea in the first place. The thought of all that sand being traipsed through my house would really have done my head in.

Midway through that evening nobody was feeling any pain except me, the designated sober driver. The roles reversed the following morning when I was probably the only party attendee not to be in pain and it is at that stage one starts to feel just a little sanctimonious.

This year’s birthday sees Andrew celebrate at a proper beach with its very own native sand and last night, in a moment of CAN’T-STOP-VOLUNTEERING, I offered dessert as well as a dish of homegrown beans.

I awoke this morning with thoughts of my sister’s small but old and perfectly formed rhubarb plant and in the very next cascade of early-morning-brain-stew I remembered the most stunning and simple rhubarb puddy recipe which I’d found on the internet about 18 months ago.

I have it printed out but that precious piece of paper is in the drawer at home in Auckland. So I’ve spent the morning searching high and low all over the net and cannot find the recipe. To be honest I thought it was called rhubarb crisp but the problem with that is there are 98,700 rhubarb crisp recipes (no, really, thank YOU, Mr Google) to read and not one of them the correct one. This is how sad I am. I even remember what I was searching for when I came across the totally fabulous rhubarb recipe in the first place. I was searching for rhubarb cobbler.

I have now come to the end of my tether and Mr Scott will be arriving from Auckland very soon having not seen his mock-wife for a couple of days. Imagine his surprise when he discovers me, face down on the desk with QWERTY permanently impressed across my forehead from banging my head against the keyboard.

I have decided to make rhubarb cobbler  Rhubarb Rumble. And, Mr Google, having used the keywords “Rhubarb Crisp Recipe” in this piece I’ll be expecting to see your search results display 98,701 within 24 hours of this post.

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I was newly out of bed the other morning and, just like the Queen, I was using the toilet (bathroom for our American friends) when Mr Scott calls out: “Did you get up in the night and eat half a peach?”

No, I hadn’t. It’s just not something I would do. “No, I didn’t,” I called back, “I wouldn’t do that.”

“Well, there’s a half-eaten peach …” etc, etc, and with that we decided to continue the discussion when I vacated the toilet.

I took one look at the peach and the bits of spat-out skin left on the bench and I said: “Rat!”

But Mr Scott had remarkably turned into a rodent dentition expert – à la my sister who became the shark expert – and said that it wasn’t the doings of a rat because the teeth marks were spaced too far apart! If there is any one of you out there who can look at the photo and give a negative to a large Norwegian Brown, please contact me.

Mr Scott’s dentition career was brief as we quickly discovered a trail of rat droppings leading to an open window by the water tank. The pipes that run from the house to the water tank beneath this window do so in such a manner as to provide a virtual escalator for any rat who cared to visit.

So there was a rat and it ate half a peach. Big deal, I hear you say. Harden the whatever up!

Well, here’s the rub. The Norwegian Brown entered the house, hopped on to the bench and had a snack, moved the fruit bowl and bench miscellanea around and used the benchtop as a toilet … about 10 metres away from two blissfully unaware dogs WHO FANCY THEMSELVES AS RAT CATCHERS!

Admittedly one now nears the age of 16 and is completely deaf and spends her days in a dream world somewhere between earth and an extraterrestrial paddock of warm juicy lambs so it could be argued that her body may have been 10 metres away but her mind had long since left the building. But Eddie, WAKE UP! Aren’t you the fox terrier mix who just lives for chasing cats, rats, rabbits and stoats?

This next bit is for you, Eddie. We were your third home in the first nine months of your life and we’ve kept you another nine or ten years with little demand on yourself apart from those heartfelt pleas to stop smelling like a billy goat and would you PLEASE STOP THAT BARKING! However, that was a big FAIL on not barking at the rat, Eddie. We know you know how to bark. You bark at people who move at what you consider to be an inappropriate speed; you bark at people up ladders; and sometimes you just bark at people. You bark at all animals, especially cats, and you’ve even been known to bark at the big poster of the cat on the wall at the vet clinic. You’ve been caught barking at your reflection in the window which is a screamingly uncool thing to do. But Eddie, just this once, couldn’t you have barked at an appropriate moment?

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