Friday Five: The food of love...

The Two Brewers, in happier times

I don't think I've ever been to a restaurant on Valentine's Day. I hate all the palaver of people trying to make you buy roses and playing violins anywhere in the vicinity. And I hate the general pressure to conform to capitalism that surrounds the date. But, for the purposes of this post, I did think about my favourite restaurants, most of them because they are connected with special memories...

Five Great Restaurants:

1. Cesare's, King Street, Manchester - now apparently called something else; one of the first 'grown up Italian' restaurants I ever went to, around Christmas time while Him Outdoors and I were courting.
2. Yang Sing, Princess Street, Manchester - I still dream about their crispy duck pancakes.
3. Botswana Butchery, Marine Parade, Queenstown - fantastic setting, amazing food, excellent wine list and superb wallpaper!
4. Le Sergent Recruteur, Rue St-Louis en l'île, Paris - When I lived in Paris, my dad came to visit (he was on a work trip) and I was able to suggest, 'a fabulous little place on the île St-Louis'. Pretentious, moi? It was very, very good, though.
5. The Two Brewers, St Peter Street, Marlow - I used to drink here; it is my favourite pub in my home town. It became a gastropub after I left England, and I finally ate there in 2012 with my parents in the cellar restaurant, an authentic eighteenth century beer cellar. It burnt down in 2013, and was due to re-open sometime in 2014, although it is probably now flooded and I wish the team every success in getting it back up and running.

Friday Five: Cricket grounds

Spider-cam at the W.A.C.A.

Don't worry, I won't mention the cricket. I won't even whisper the word 'Ashes', which is all that is left of England's dreaming. I will, however, mention some grounds where I have seen the game played (by one team at least). I enjoy watching cricket, as I have said before, and I have see it in some fine locations. I am omitting the Westpac(Trust) Stadium in Wellington because it is not a particularly good ground. I did once watch England play an ODI there against New Zealand and it was my turn to go the bar when England were halfway through the batting order on a run chase. I returned with the required four pints to be told, 'drink up; we're all out'.

5 Great Cricket Grounds:

1. Worswick Memorial Ground, Rawtenstall - I've seen Rawtenstall play here (with Michael Bevan as their professional) and I've also seen Roger Harper when he played against them with Bacup in the Lancashire League; cracking stuff!
2. The Basin Reserve, Wellington - from England to my nephew's under-eight team, I've seen a variety of entertainment here this big-hearted little cricket ground.
3. The Events Centre, Queenstown - with grass bank seating and some of the finest views in the country (the Remarkles form the backdrop to many a dropped catch) the cricket has to be pretty spectacular to gain the spectators' attention. It usually isn't.
4. The W.A.C.A. Ground, Perth - it was hot and I saw some records including Captain Cook's first ever golden duck and the highest number of runs scored in an over in what is possibly the last Ashes test ever at this venue.
5. The MCG, Melbourne - one of the greatest sporting arenas in the world.

The Melbourne Cricket Ground

Market Research

I suspect I am a terrible person on whom to conduct market research. I don't wish to sound egotistical or anything, but I think too much. Often the multiple choice options don't include my view, and then I deliberate interminably over my response, as the researcher rolls their eyes, fidgets with their pen and generally just wills me to get on with it.

Wherever possible I feel compelled to answer surveys. This stems in part from a childhood of reading magazines with my best friend, when we took all the quizzes to see how compassionate or fashionable we were; what type of holiday companion we would make; or what animal we most resembled (very/ not at all/ tolerable/ a dog - the last was particularly hard for my 11-year-old self to take).

Furthermore, when I finished my English degree, many of my fellow students got jobs as market researchers (slightly preferrable to call-centre operators) and stood on the aptly-named Market Street in Manchester clutching a clipboard and harrassing passers-by with queries about their shopping habits and entertainment preferences. Naturally I would always take time to answer them - after all, there but for the grace of God and everything... Not that I had much to be thankful for; I was working in a book shop on arguably the lowest pay rate in the retail industry.

Anyway, the other day I passed some bored-looking geography students who were sheltering from the rain and trying to drum up enough data to write a report on tourism in Queenstown, or some such earth-shattering masterpiece. The questions ranged from 'how old are you' - they didn't even ask me to choose an option (although I could clearly see on the upside-down form that there were several brackets) to 'do you consider your occupation to be a) directly related to tourism, b) indirectly related to tourism, or c) not related to tourism at all?'

Now, to the (as you can imagine) obvious delight of the teenagers, I considered this question carefully. I am a full-time writer and work part-time as a dental receptionist to pay for groceries - or to put it another way, for peanuts. Forget what you've heard about crime; it's writing that doesn't pay. So what would I consider my 'occupation'. Is that what I do? Or what I do to earn money?

Assuming it's the latter, despite the number of front teeth shattered by snowboards or chipped during tandem sky-dives, dentists aren't really dependent on tourism. However, if there were no tourists, there would be no Queenstown. People in hospitality and tourism serve them directly; people who work in retail, trades or services administer to them indirectly, and everyone who lives here is affected by them on a daily basis.

Only the farmers are independent of their influence, although those who turn their stations into 'experiences' so Koreans can adopt a sheep, or those who havest grapes on their land to join the burgeoning tourism wine trail clearly rely on them too.

So, how to answer that question honestly? I picked c) in the end, rationalising that the occupation itself is not necessarily related to tourism, even if the location in which it is conducted is. I am certain I lost a lot more sleep over this than the hapless lads asking the questions.

You see, I used to be on the other side. I translated cold hard statistics into 'content-rich' (how I hate that expression - as opposed to what: vaccuous?) website pieces about career choices. I remember struggling with a sentence that informed me '72% of executive assistants work in Auckland'. I immediately wondered what the other 28% of executive assistants in Auckland were up to - filing their nails and drinking coffee? Skiving off to the pictures? Checking the cricket scores? Bleating on TwatFace? I was told I had 'uncommon and irregular thought processes' (of which I was silently proud) and that no one else would interpret this statistic as such.

Please tell me I am not alone!

Let them eat cake!

The latest ridiculousness to be filed in the customer-is-always-righteous file is the recent issue of 'cakeage'. Thankfully, it is not quite a scandal or we would be hearing predictable stories of cake-gate.
 
Apparently a group of folk went to a restaurant in Richmond to celebrate a 70th birthday and were charged $12 to eat a cake they had baked themselves and brought along. They were 'disgusted' (I can but imagine their spurius indignation) and contacted their local paper to complain; note, incidentally, that they didn't discuss this with the restaurnt owner at the time. He later expressed himself to be 'shocked' by the response - you can't beat a dash of hyperbole in the kitchen.
 
I wonder what makes people think they can take their own food into a restaurant. Would these people go to a pub and crack out their own home-brew? Are these the people who go to the theatre to watch a performance and conduct their own conversation? Probably.
 
It is not the same as the service charge applied on public holidays, which is simply ludicrous. Some 'hospitality' outlets insist it costs more to open on these days; to pay staff an extra percentage on their meagre wages to compensate for them missing out on time with their loved ones or leisure activities; a cost which, apparently, is not recovered by the increased custom. In that case, this cost should be factored into the prices for the rest of the year. It's not as though Christmas is a surprise to anyone; even Easter may be a moveable feast, but you know it happens every year. That way the cost is spread through to everyone and is negligible.

But why should others shoulder the financial burden because you want to have your cake and eat it (in public) too? Why don't you just have it at home? This is similar to parents who bring their own food to cafés to feed their chidren. Their argument is that the café is making money from the mothers who buy a coffee. I've seen these meetings. Children throw food, drink and various bodily excretions around the place. They run, wriggle, fidget and scream.

All normal people are driven away or take one look at the bedlam and decide to eat elsewhere. After the mothers' mayhem has gone, the café is left to clean up and replace the tables and chairs to their original position, plus dispose of semi-masticated food that they haven't even provided. Some cafés are happy to provide this service, and fair play to them. I avoid such places.

I prefer to go to a café where I can enjoy my coffee and conversation in peace. Coffee houses were originally established as places to discuss the events of the day and share ideas. One of the first, Café Procope (est. 1686), was a major meeting venue for the proponents of the French Enlightenment, such as Voltaire, Rosseau, Diderot et al. It is arguably the birthplace of the Encyclopedie - the first modern encylopaedia; try writing that while being deafened by a toddler's tantrum! Lloyds of London began life as a coffee house where politics and business were the topics on the menu (sport was reserved for the pub).

There used to be a wonderful place like this in Queenstown where folk met to pontificiate and enjoy their caffeinated pleasures. The place ground the beans on location and you could purchase them whole - they were in big sacks at the side of the shop. It was a tiny venue and not conducive to small children clogging up the place with cumbersome pushchairs, falling off the stools or plunging their grubby mitts into sackfuls of coffee. The owner banned children from the premises. One crusading mother took him to the Commission of Human Rights and her complaint was upheld. He has since moved on and there is now no refuge from screaming miniature hooligans in town.

Restaurants and cafés should have the right to charge what they choose to serve whom they want. They should print their charges and intentions clearly so there can be no confusion. And then everyone can make an educated decision about where they spend their time and money. If you don't like disruptive infants, child-free zones, or paying for 'cakeage', go somewhere else. There are plenty of choices, and so there should be. Vive la difference! (as they would have said at Le Café Procope).

Adventures with Thermal Girl

Last week a friend (let’s call her Thermal Girl) came to visit from England via Sydney, and we had five fantastic days of fun and catching up. We even did some tourist stuff. Here are the highlights:
 

Monday – At passport control Thermal Girl had filled in a form to say where she staying during her visit to New Zealand. She didn’t know our address but wrote down our email. The bloke interviewing her couldn’t read her handwriting so she spelt it out for him. ‘Oh, I know them!’ he said. She thought he was joking – as you would – until he gave his name and said for her to say hello to us from him. Welcome to New Zealand, where the cliché about two degrees of separation is actually true.

This was Thermal Girl’s first visit to our beautiful country. It was a fine day; she looked around at the blue sky, white mountains, and green rivers. ‘Wow’ she said. And then she said, ‘wow’ again. It’s always nice to be reminded of what a scenic location we inhabit, just to ward off complacency.

I took her back to our place and fed her wine and crackers. When Him Outdoors came home he made us chilli. She likes our house. She likes the fire most of all, and didn’t move from in front of it all night.

Tuesday – Thermal Girl has packed several layers of thermals. She put them all on for a trip to Queenstown where she went to visitor information places, booked skiing packages, and examined bus timetables.

We met for lunch at Pier 19 and lingered over coffees, switching tables to stay in the sunshine – I thought she was very brave to sit outside; those layers were clearly doing their job.


In the evening we took her to the local PTA Quiz at Fox’s Bar in Arrowtown. Our friend, Heart of the District, made up our foursome and we looked to him to answer any questions relating to rugby or Kiwi sport in general. At one point Thermal Girl asked, ‘Is this the sort of quiz where it’s frowned upon to look up the answers on your i-phone?’ Is there a sort of quiz where it isn’t?

We learned that Lake Baikal is the deepest freshwater lake in the world. Apparently it contains approximately 20% of all the liquid freshwater reserves on earth. A haboob is a sandstorm, P&O – as in cruises – stands for Peninsular and Oriental (not Pacific and Oriental), and in the expression mind your ‘p’s and ‘q’s; the letters stand for pints and quarts. Thermal Girl can’t say that she hasn’t received a dose of culture on her tour down under.

Wednesday – Today’s activity was skiing. A bus took Thermal Girl up the mountain where she sashayed down the slopes and re-fuelled with hot chocolates and toasted sandwiches. She says her eyesight isn’t that great and she struggles to tell the difference between the blue and the black runs – she finds out which is which when she is halfway down, which could be interesting!

She says it is all very efficient and she is very impressed with the lack of children on the slopes and the waiting time in queues. She does, however, wonder why the toilets are down a flight of stairs rather than all on the same level.

We called round to a friend’s place in the evening where we drank wine, talked nonsense and ate pizza. Thermal Girl wanted to know why Kiwi houses don’t have radiators – a good question and one I still can’t answer after living here for 14 years – and why they put bananas on pizzas. I can’t answer that one either.

Thursday – After another full day’s skiing, Thermal Girl came to my book club with me. She finds it curious that we don’t really talk about books, and certainly not the same one as each other. The eating and drinking met with her approval, however. She reviewed One Day by David Nicholls which sounds pretty good, although it is being made into a film ‘starring’ Anne Hathaway (because clearly there are no English actresses available), so that should ruin that, then.

Friday – We had a voucher for a trip to Milford Sound incorporating a nature trip on a boat, so we gave that to Thermal Girl. She said she wanted to do something touristy and sight-seeing-ish so we thought this would be appropriate. She agreed, particularly enjoying the views, the penguins and the dolphins, although she was less enamoured with Te Anau – ‘does anything actually ever happen there?’

On the return trip it was dark outside so the bus passengers were ‘treated’ to a couple of Kiwi classic films. She found Whale Rider ‘interesting in a naff sort of way’. It had subtitles for the hearing impaired and every now and then it would say ‘mystical music’ across the bottom of the screen. Thermal Girl said some of the ‘hideous wailing’ made her wish she were hearing impaired herself.

The World’s Fastest Indian met with a little more approval despite Anthony Hopkins having ‘an extremely odd accent’ – that’s Invercargill for you. She exited the bus before the final destination (I picked her up from Frankton Bus Station) so she missed the end of the film. When she mentioned this later in the pub, she was told succinctly, ‘he gets the record and then he dies.’ That’s also Invercargill for you.

In said pub Thermal Girl apologised profusely but she doesn’t really drink beer. It seems a shame when the Arrow Brewing Company makes such fine ales, but when she couldn’t finish her sauvignon blanc, there were no takers; in our entirely non-scientific experiment, people from Invercargill, Newcastle, Burnley and Essex prefer beer. We went next door to Mantra for a fine Indian meal – it’s just wonderful to have everything so handily placed to each other!

Saturday – Provisions was our first port of call for breakfast and coffee. I’m still not sure what is the best time to avoid the young family brigade; the ones who take over an entire room with their toys and papers – each parent and child monopolizing a different table while shouting to each other across the cafe. I really like the place, but would like it a lot more if it resembled a disorganised crèche a little less.

Thermal Girl had packed away most of her layers and we took her to Brennan for a final wine-tasting. She decided she liked the pinot grigio very much but couldn’t have too much as she was about to get on a plane. Tracey talked us through all the nuances and subtleties of the wine; its origin; flavours and history. She was knowledgeable, chatty and very friendly. We bought a 2008 Gewürztraminer and a 2007 Pinot Noir to take home and put in our riddling rack.

I think we packed in quite a lot to entertain our guest in the past five days and I was very sad to see her off at the airport, but I thoroughly enjoyed her visit and hope she did too.

Autumn Festival Parade

Last weekend the Arrowtown Autumn Festival kicked off. I enjoy this celebration of cooler climes and changing seasons. There is a street parade, an arts and crafts market, ambles along the river, jazz bands, a senior citizens' afternoon tea, a mountain bike treasure hunt, a PTA quiz night, and even an invitation to help pick up litter - now that's what I call a community event! It may be a far cry from the glitz and glamour of the Queenstown Winter Festival down the road, but that's the beauty of having two towns with such separate identities, nestling side-by-side in the valley.

Him Outdoors and I went for a coffee and a wander - this is what we saw:

We also saw the Buckingham Belles - more of them in another post...