BURQAS ON BUSES

New Zealanders don’t know a burqa from niqab and hijab. A burqa covers the whole body, Afghani style. Niqab is the eye slit jobby and hijab covers only the hair and neck. I have worn hijab myself along with jeans and an ordinary shirt. It’s no different than a light hat and scarf. Young Palestinian girls dressed me up in it for a bit of fun and I wanted to know what it felt like. I wore it round for half a day in the refugee camp where I was staying. It certainly blended you into the crowd and it was not uncomfortable. I went jogging first, then walked down to the beach and visited the graveyard near the beach. Nobody took a blind bit of notice of me. That had not been the case the day before, when I wandered around the camp without Hijab. The camp has a population of around 30,000. You can’t get in without a permit. The Lebanese army guard the entrance at an initial checkpoint. The PLA guard a secondary checkpoint. Everyone knows everyone, at least by sight. Without Hijab I was a stranger and was immediately recognised as such. Hijab gave me anonymity. It can look very pretty. I attended a wedding near Tripoli in Northern Lebanon – not Tripoli in Libya. The women looked fabulous. Palestinians take wedding cakes very seriously – see the photo. I was told the Quran directs that men and women dress modestly. They told me there was nothing in the Quran that dictated burqa or niqab. And, I never saw anyone in Lebanon wearing niqab or burqa. We do not ordinarily allow people here to enter banks, courts and various other forums with their faces covered, and quite rightly too. If I went to Saudi Arabia (friend of the US) or Iran (enemy of the US) I would have to wear what their law directs on pain of serious punishment. I recommend that Muslim women here respect our law and our culture. Hijab is quite enough. It identifies you as Muslim, it is modest and it adequately fulfils any constraints that might be inferred from the direction of the Quran.

MURDER AND CARNAGE ON THE FARM

It was an ugly sight -even in the dark. We arrived home to dozens of deaths - carcasses strewn over a big patch in the paddock with evil abandon. Our 3 bloody cows got out of their paddock and ate all the beetroot, brussel sprouts, cabbages, broccoli, cauli and then had the temerity to frolick in the strawberry patch.

After they had their fill they went for a wander down the road for about a mile until some kind farmer shoved them in a paddock. After all that - when we found them, the buggers had the nerve to trot up to the fence and bawl to be fed . One wonders if they didnt do it as a protest for the steer on the left n the pic being all cut up in the freezer. In fact his mince was the base for tonights lovely bolognaise.

The upside is we have two new black as pitch lambs and the Mad Rooters blood runs thick in their veins - the down side is they are both rams who will be named - Frenchie and Rack.

Whose fault that the cows got out?? We aren't telling - other than to say I will get a new rotary hoed garden...

Never a dull day in the country..

SWEDE AS

A vegetable that evokes in us some misty memories of a wonderful childhood has been given its own festival.

We grew up on the Southland Swede. The maroon banded yellow swede that has been livestock fodder since farming began in the south is also a welcome addition to the southern dinner plate.

However, our favourite memory of eating swede was not at the kitchen or dining table, it was in the paddock. As kids we grew up on family sections cut from my Grandfathers farms. So as soon as the sun rose we would be off over the fence to our playground. In the cool months of swede growing we would grab our ponies chuck on a bridle and head to the swede paddock armed only with a pocket knife.

Every kid had a pocketknife.

Then we would wander the swede rows to find a good sized one - not too big or too small and haul it out of the ground. Then we would rub the sticky dirt off on the nearby frosted grass and sit down and carefully peel off the hard outside layer to get at the sweet frost crisped inner glory of the swede and we sit and chomp on it as we would plan our day.

If we did forget our pocket knife we would peel the outer layer off with our teeth. And sometimes the frost rendered our fingers useless for welding a pocket knife so teeth were the only solution.

Our favourite accompaniment to muttonbirds is a baked spud and a big mound of mashed boiled swede seasoned with a bit of salt and pepper and crowned with a big dollup (actually a massive amount) of butter. You need to make a wee well in the swede mound fill it with butter and when its all melty fold into the mash and eat the sweet swede meat.

They also enhance mashed spuds - a dish combining both is known in Scottish parlance as "Neeps and Tatties"

There is nothing like a southland swede even though it is a culinary favourite elsewhere in the world often known as rutabaga - it yumminess probably has something to do with the rich southern earth and hard frosts. We have tried the northern varieties from the supermarket but they are dry and woody and lack the crunchy moist texture of our beloved southland swedey.

So good on Mataura for paying hommage to such a wonderful vege that has played a very significant part in the agrarian landscape of the south.

WARM WINTER WANDER

Today we took Floyd out for a ramble around the countryside. The Rangitumau Valley is typical of the Wairarapa with soft glowing hills framed by the beautiful snow kissed Tararua Mountain Range. We sauntered up James Road and met two elderly people out for a walk. They looked like they had seen a good 80 years each. She was aided by a walking stick and sir was on a sturdy push bike. Sir was a visitor from Wellington who had arrived on the train.

He chuckled as he explained his good fortune at being able to come over on the train for free on his gold card and the fact that his friends had looked after him as it was a terrrible weather on the day of his arrival in the Wairarapa but he only had to bike for 7km before he was picked up!

Today there was not a cloud in the sky and Floyd set out with a no nonsense spring in his step and his eye bright and ears pricked up for interesting things on our journey.It was a lovely ride. The top picture is of our place tucked under the ridge between Kopuaranga and Rangitumau. The big silver shed.The bottom pic is of the fine view of James Road from on top of Floyd.

30th ANNIVERSARY OF THE SPRINGBOK TOUR

July, thirty years ago the Springboks came to New Zealand. My then husband and I had a sheep and cattle farm in the Takitimu Mountains in Northern Southland. That’s the heartland. You can’t get anymore heartland than Northern Southland. People there were, and still are, rugby mad, me included. To me, the whole sad mess was never about the rugby. It was all about other things: ignorance, paucity of mind and poverty of spirit. The average age of the farming population then, before the southern dairy boom, was quite high, around 45 I guess. And archconservative. I did not support the Springbok tour. As far as I knew, I was in a minority of one. I was physically attacked in the pub by a six foot, thirty-something, Christ's College educated neighbour for voicing my support for the ANC and their request that the tour be cancelled. Let me tell you, money and a privileged education are no guarantee of an open mind. If there is anything more repellent in this world than a hick with money and influence, I don’t want to know what it is. With hindsight it was foolhardy to voice such views in such a time and place, but, I was 18 in 1981. My husband brought members of the Red Squad to our house to drink beer and revel in their tales of brutality. I was forced to feed them, serve them beer and suffer their pumped up contempt for people with views like mine. It was humiliating. Taking a stand against the Springbok tour damaged me socially. I paid a price for it locally for most of my twenties. I was pleased when we left the district in my thirties for a new farm near Gore. Don’t laugh. Gore is a good place to live. Some of the best people I know live in Gore. But that’s another story.

With the 30^th anniversary of the Springbok tour there will undoubtedly be a rehashing of events. I hope it doesn’t spoil the rugby again. I expect there are hundreds of stories like mine. Stories of the damage the tour did to us. We grew up then and we shouldn’t forget it. But, I hope with all my heart that the Crusaders win the Super 15. It’ll be great for Christchurch. Great for us all.

SMOKED BUMPKIN PUMPKIN SOUP

We grew a selection of pumpkins last summer. This was the biggest  - it was a whopper, but it was a the only pumpkin to be produced on the vine.  We had a range of pumpkins but this is undoubtedly the best.

We bought the plants from the woman who sells herbs, pumpkins and tomato plants at the Wairarapa car boot market in Masterton on a Sunday.  We will buy this pumpkin again. It beats my other favourite pumpkin variety the kumi kumi, hands down. Despite the lack of quanity  being the only one - it makes up for it in taste and texture - it really is a  fabulous tasting pumpkin - sweet and juicy  - very similar to an orange kumara. Roasting it intensifies the flavour and adds a lovely richness.  

We roasted it in olive oil, golden syrup (as we didnt have any dark honey) and smoked salt which we combined and applied as a paste.   

The Smoked salt is one of our favourite ingredients. It really brings out the flavour of this pumpkin 

So our soup recipe is 

• The roast pumpkin mashed 
• A sweated onion
• Sage leaves fried till crispy,
• Hazelnuts fried in olive oil till brown 
• chicken stock (  we used our own) to get the consistency you want 
•  good Parmesan cheese
•  creme fraiche 
• cumin 
• Cayenne pepper 

Combine the pumpkin, onion and the stock, puree. Season. 

Serve with dollop of creme fraiche topped with parmesan, hazelnuts and  crumbled sage leaves. 

Never Surrender Your Tongue!

Are we losing our language lickity split? I notice New Zealanders are starting to pronounce route like rout. It is a particularly silly Americanism complete with oppressive religious undertones and small town mores. The mispronunciation clearly comes from a precious reluctance to say root, except in a botanical context. The typical Kiwi male eats roots and leaves, but avoids double entendre preferring mispronunciation instead? For goodness sake people. Route and root are homophones. A rout is a chaotic and disorderly retreat. You may be routed while rooting, if the wrong route is taken, but never surrender your tongue!

HAGLEY PARK HOUND DOGS AND TANGATA

We have been working in Christchurch for two weeks - across a couple of government departments as we move to more co-ordination in the public sector - something we support whole heartedly.

We stayed at a motel a stones throw from the barriers around the cordoned off CBD. While houses and buildings around it shook apart during the big quakes, the motel and its next door twin stayed strong.

And that is the most perplexing thing to a quake virgin like us- that some buildings cannot withstand the shocks while others brace against the onslaught and shrug off the fiercest of the vibrations.

We were in Christchurch for work shortly after the September quake and that left us sad and numb but nothing can prepare you for the visual shock of the damage in the worst areas of the city -post February's big one.

We weathered a 5.5 bone jarring jolt on the first night we were there this time that bought us to our knees. It was a but a shimmy to the big shakes.

The thought of another quake hovers on the edge of your existence day in and day out.

The residents draw on a huge well of resilience to get through each day.

While some people think that the centre, the CBD, is the heart of the city- we dont think that way. We think it is Hagley Park. That great verdant centre of Christchurch with its lush magnificence that is the home to the Hagley hound dogs - the pooches that walk their owners around its paths every day. And the older couples who map out a route for a bracing stroll on a willy chilling frosty morning. And the lithe lycra clad young guns who jog at pace. And the mothers with children at heel and prams pushed out front with vigour. Thats where the heart of the city beats.Christchurch people look much fitter and healthier than their northern cousins and its because that great Green is their space, they are part of it and it is part of them.

Lots has been said about the stoic nature of southerners ands its a truism and we witnessed it as we watched older people looked out for each other. The problem is that stoicism is stopping them from asking for help when they need it. They just think that there will be someone in a worse situation than them and they dont want to trouble anyone.

And in the muck ridden pockets out east life is a groundhog hell. People have to cope with the most rudimentary of living conditions. There are even some in Christchurch who have no real understanding of how bad it is.

We had dinner with some residents who lived over by Merrivale who have considerable damage to their home but its repairable. They bundled their children up in the car after their off hand comments made the parents realise that they really didnt get the enormity of the situation for those out east. So they took them for a drive around the worst areas last weekend so they could get an understanding of what other people were living through. They cried.

Others, big strong men who have worked in the central city for 20 years, still haven't been in to see it - they told us bluntly, without shame that they aren't ready yet.

And there is no way to describe the effort that is going in to sorting out the mess other than to say it is a hugely complex event on every front made more so by that mental shadow of the possibility of another quake that you see in the eyes of almost everyone.

All those involved in the recovery effort are working long hours often in crappy conditions to get the place working again - that goes for the street cleaners to the people at Cera, the volunteers , the home bakers, the hospital workers, the mums and dads - everyone is getting on with the job of getting their city sorted again.

And each day is another step forward another bit fixed another problem solved and other person helped.

Christchurch residents enjoy the interraction with "out of towners," They are happy to share their experiences and for some there is a need to talk. So visits by others are appreciated and injecting your hard earned dollars into they economy is even more appreciated.

And so much of the city is unscathed so there is infrastructure to support visitors. Your journeys around the town might take a little longer but hey - whats a few more minutes here and there?

What will come out of Christchurch is an amazing city and a whole generation of young people who will be made better and stronger and more caring by their experience, that much we can see now.

But if you dont live in Christchurch and want to know what you can do - pick up the phone - ring the friends and family that you may not have talked to for a while.

Its a tough bleak winter for the good people of Canterbury and they will welcome the warmth of your voice .

Remember while the bricks and mortar and the rebuild is critical to the future of Christchurch what is most important right now? He Tangata He tangata - it is people it is people.