Our blender is about 5 years old and has a crack in it so I am very, very careful when blending hot soup. It’s had a good life and was actually a birthday present from my friend Sarah about 5 years ago. The highlight of its career was probably cocktail parties at home and on holiday (yes, I pack a blender with me while on holiday, don’t you?). Fruit, ice, booze, no trouble. But it’s time it was replaced. By something younger, slimmer and prettier. The Koala surprised me with this magic wand for my birthday (strawberry smoothies not included). Yes! It’s red! It’s a Cuisinart Smart Stick Hand Blender. But I’m just going to call it my magic wand. Now I can use this magic wand for those soups and cocktails. Less clean up too 🙂

I’ve never liked goat cheese. I find it too goaty. In Cantonese, there is a word for it: sohw. It suggests a smelly, savoury flavour. Well, last weekend at the Lyttelton Farmers Markets, there was no cheese for sale except for goat cheese. You can’t have a farmers market lunch platter without cheese, so goat cheese it was. I ate it wrapped up in lettuce, salami and hummus. I enjoyed goat cheese for the first time. I had an epiphany. Goat cheese isn’t a food that you reach for when you need a snack. It’s an ingredient. Just like a spoon of fish sauce or a raw clove of garlic would be nasty on its own, when used with other ingredients that enhance or compliment it’s pungent flavour, it’s good. So, next time you shy away from a food that you don’t like, try looking at it again as an ingredient. It would make Happy Goat very happy.

Bratwurst Grill. Left: Bockwurst – Smoked German sausage with garlic. (mine) Right: Bratwurst – German sausage made from Bavarian Recipe. (his) First time I have tried sauerkraut. I liked it, but it was pretty intense. A condiment. Not a vegetable to have a bowlful of.

I present to you, photos from my very first guest blogger: my sister Joanne Ho, who visited Omaha last weekend and ate all sorts of scrumptious things with her friends. Omaha is a beach about an hour north of Auckland. I like to think that this is how all New Zealanders eat while on holiday. Roast chicken with fresh rosemary – cooked in a barbeque with cover. Delicious tender meat and light crispy skin. (Matt Pont) Dinner table – breads, dips, salami, cheeses and salads (collective) Mini halloween cuppycakes – pumpkin and cinnamon with cream cheese icing Midnight snack – made with all the fillings by a beerpong and flipcup contestant (Nick Thorne) Bunny rabbit – Omaha Pufferfish with no eyeballs – Omaha beach You can see her other adventures over at her blog.

I love seeing another creature enjoying their food. Even better when it’s an adorable sea otter. These unlikely gourmands enjoy eating abalone, mussel, crab, clams, sea urchins, prawns, squid, snails and sometimes fish. They eat 30% of their body weight so that they can keep warm. A sea otter can eat 5 to 10kg of fresh seafood daily and there is often conflict between local fishermen and sea otters. Sea otters prefer large items of food over small and have been known to completely ignore small clams if larger species are available. Since large crabs, large abalone and large sea urchins fetch higher prices than small ones, fishermen are usually chasing the same catch. Sea otters spend most of their life floating on their backs and are one of the few animals to use tools. They put a rock on their belly smash shells against it to get to the meat inside. They dive for food and bring it all up to the surface by carrying extra stuff in their armpits. Yes! Even spiky sea …