BACON BUTTY - WONDER FOOD

We knew this...

The telegraph reckons new research shows that bacon helps relieve hangover symptoms.

Bacon and poached eggs, on thick wholemeal toast washed down with a Banana smoothie means that after a couple of vinos too many - we can win the DomPost trivia quizz with ease....

Hat tip ( Francis T ( facebook. )

A WEEKEND IN PARADISE

Sometimes the best of times are not planned and this weekend served up a fair dollop of feel goods. For a start we, on the advice of one of our lunch companions on Friday, who is as much a Wairarapian as we are a Southlander ( 6 generations), we were given a heads up on a wonderful fair at Assisi Gardens near Gladstone.
It was spectacular residence atop the hill over looking the Wairarapa valley. It was a stunning mix of natives, peppered with exotics, ponds, fruit groves and a house, that despite its size and grandeur - was a home. The veges were mixed with the flowers, stone cats peered silently at visitors and birds fought for space in the bird bath. The place also features some very quirky sculptures.

The fair, a mix of wine, food, and unbelievably interesting different and superb craft and gourmet goodies is in aid of the Cat Walk trust. It is a trust set up at the behest of Catriona Williams, one of the country's top equestriennes who was confined to a wheel chair following a riding accident.

We drank in the amazing view, sampled some tasty wares and bought some locally produced Lighthouse Gin, lovingly crafted in Greytown. We bought it after hearing a good mate of the late Garry Ward talk about his never ending quest to find the perfect gin.

It's a bloody smooth drop.

It was a good day and well worth the $20 entry fee and a nice quiet pace compared to the frenetic Toast Martinborough.

Back at the Block , one of the Rocks family arrived with some of her mates. They were all good people. Last night we had a wonderful meal, talked crap, some sense and listened with joy to the Radio as we won our place at the Football World Cup as the generator hummed in the background.

They were off to do the Toast Martinborough thing today..

And best of all they were huge fans of Bustedblondes pickles, chutneys and jelly jams.

So they can come again.

And our spuds are up, with a perky promise of little sticky jersey bennies for Christmas dinner.

We are now on the train wending our way back to the capital sadly knowing it will be another week of work till we get to put our feet back on paradise's fertile plain again.

BACCHANALIAN PARADISE

Today we worked for our lunch, not lots, but enough to get a fainter shimmer of perspiration on our brow and a dusty butt.

We were asked to come join in the harvest of one of the Wairarapa's top pinot noir vineyards. Wycroft. The owner and Bon Vivant is Lawrie Bryant. There were a few other guests of the harvest as well but in the interests of national security all names will remain anonymous.
Anyway the day was picture perfect , autumn sunshine, great company and a superb autumnal lunch of cold cuts, pies, pickles and bread and salad. And of course a drop of the hosts best.

Wycroft is seen and enjoyed in such fine eateries as Antoines and Boulcott St Bistro.
We could go on about how good it is , but to our untrained palate it's just bloody yum.

One of the things that Lawrie has crafted, which shows he is a man who thinks hard about how to reduce the impact of dirty and difficult work, is the slidy vine chair pictured above. It alleviates the need to bend over or scrabble along on your derriere as you clip the grapes from the low hanging vines.

But the highlight of the day was meeting a 95 year old airforce veteran. Sprightly he was, thoroughly entertaining, a true gentleman and a one our nations treasures. And he helped pick grapes along with us young 'uns. We could have listened to his tales for hours.

We will remember the Wycroft 2009 vintage, and the privilege of meeting a great New Zealand hero for many years to come.

PURE DINING PLEASURE

There are good restaurants and then there is sublime dining.

This afternoon we feasted at Antoines in Parnell.

We adore offal. Sweetbreads, kidneys, hearts, brains, oxtails and ox tongue are simply gastronomic nirvana to us.

And Tony Astle is not scared of offal. He is the master of turning the exotic parts of fauna, often spurned by an uneducated public, into mouth melting delights.

When we were small and dad killed a "mutton" which was normally a two tooth wether, more often than not the neighbours got the chops and roasts and we got the liver, hearts and sweetbreads (if it was a lamb) So we grew up thinking that they were the prized bits.

The experience of dining at Antoines starts at the door. You knock, and the waiter opens the door and you are seated. At once you feel very special and privileged.

So at todays lunch we started with a Nautilus Sauvignon Blanc and 6 Bluff oysters encased in a feather light tempura.

Our good mate had oysters drenched in a cream champagne sauce.

The next dish was a favourite of ours - tripe in a cream peppercorn sauce and one of the signature dishes of this iconic restaurant.

It was sublime, a gentle whiff of sheep, layered with the aromatic green peppercorns.

Then for main we had an extraordinarily rich ox tongue, with sweetbreads, baby sweet onions encased in a rich buttery fall apart pastry. It was accompanied by a lightly oaked Selaks Founders Sauvignon.

Dessert was a bread and butter pudding dressed up as a flouncy creamy Cinderella with shiny shoes of strawberries . It was matched with a stunning De Bortoli semillon.

Antoines remains one of our favourite restaurants in New Zealand.

It is elegant and a touch arrogant, as it should be. And the waiter was as cute as waiters can be.
And the afternoon was all we hoped it would be.

YUM

We are one of only a few New Zealanders who have had opportunity to handle a kakapo. We dribbled. We did not cry as the rest of the party of VIP's did, we just dribbled. Dribbled as we dreamed of gently roasted parrot with piko piko and vogels ancient grain stuffing basted in port laced with titoki berries, served on a bed of maori spud mash surrounded by sauted porchini mushrooms. All washed down with a bottle of Olssen's Jackson Barry Pinot Noir.

You see we reckoned the reason the buggers died out is because they were the finest tasting flying protein to ever grace Aotearoa. So while we think that they should be saved its because we think they should be cloned and bred for eating.

They would rival Bluff oysters as an iconic dish.

Its taken ten years and millions and millions of dollars to get to 100 of the fat delectable, succulent parrots that are big enough to feed four people.

However, unless they are cloned we think that they are doomed. They are picky about shagging, picky about what they eat and picky about where they live. The only thing we are picky about is the meat on their bones.