All posts filed under: Events

LBTL Challenge: Day 5

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Day 5 Menu Congee 2 or 3 slices of peanut butter toast Satay fried noodles with a fried egg More congee New Zealand welfare has many great things going for it including benefits, healthcare and education, but school lunches do not exist. Even though school lunches in other countries are regarded as culinary horrors, the truth is that a culinary horror is better than no food at all. If you would like to know the state of the lunches of our kids, please watch this interesting 8 minute video on a recent social experiment. Too many children go without lunch in this country and it is heartbreaking. Living on $2.25 a day this week, for the Live Below The Line Challenge has highlighted to me how distracting hunger can be. I haven’t missed a single meal. I’m eating 3 meals a day, sometimes more and I still feel foggy. I have trouble concentrating, I’ve had dizzy spells, I am weak and tire and need naps and bed early. If kids in this country are hungry, they …

TEDxAuckland

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I’m a huge fan of TED Talks. TED is an acronym for Technology, Education and Design. As much as I love hearing designers or foodies talk about their passions, you can only go so far if you approach life with a certain brand of knowledge. That’s where TED excels. The speakers come from many varied backgrounds and industries. The talks are eye opening and inspirational and I sincerely wish that a once a week TED TV slot existed instead of all the crap they play on TV. If you haven’t heard of TED Talks, please take a look. I believe there is something for everyone. I’m looking forward to TEDxAuckland in a couple of weeks at Aotea Centre, Auckland. The tickets are a very reasonable $80 each for a full day of events. Compared to the $3,000 to 6,000US ticket price that some TED events fetch, this is a bargain. Of course, talks can be found online for free. Yes. Free. More information including speaker line-up and ticket purchase can be found: www.tedxauckland.com For those that …

The ice cream cone

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He cowered in the corridor doorway. Away from the other children who were finishing their lunches. Some of us had already finished and were returning our lunchboxes to our schoolbags. When we spotted him, we stopped in our tracks. Sheepishly eating the last of an ice cream cone, he realised his mistake. “Where did you get that ice cream from!?” we all demanded. Ice cream for lunch is a prize in every child’s eyes. The poor boy, embarrassed that he had been discovered, admitted: “I didn’t have an ice cream. I just had a cone for lunch”. The kids are hungry Schools in New Zealand are ranked in socio-economic order from 1 to 10 so that funding can be allocated. 10 is the highest,  1 is the lowest and each decile contains a tenth of the schools in NZ. From ages 5 to 9, I attended a decile 3 primary (elementary) school and poverty was all around. Many children only dreamed of lunch. My sister and I were lucky and – though scrawny – always well fed. There …

Challenge Accepted

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I know that a food blog is probably one of the most self indulgent, irrelevant things I could occupy my time with. Especially with a third of the world under-fed and another third starving. We are the lucky third that are fed. So, I have signed up with hundreds of other kiwis to participate in the Live Below The Line Challenge next month. As a food blogger, I would like to give back by taking part in this campaign and I’ll take every grain of support offered. Currently seeking cheerleading, donations, kind words, advice and encouragement. The challenge takes place over 5 days from Monday 24th September to Friday 28th September allocating just $2.25NZ ($1.80US) per day for food and drink. I would love for you to join me in the challenge or to sponsor me by making a donation. I have pledged a target of $500NZ. Where is the money going? I have nominated for all donations to go to the World Vision and World Food Programme (WFP) partnership. WFP to delivers life-saving food aid to families facing extreme hunger …

Live Below The Line – An Intro

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Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.  – Edmund Burke Live Below The Line is relatively new campaign, not to make you feel guilty about world hunger and poverty, but to raise awareness and funds to charities that have been steadily working hard on these issues for years. Before we can tackle the concept of poverty. We need to understand it. This is a great 2 minute video about the challenge by Auckland designer Kaan Hiini. The challenge: Spend 5 days feeding yourself with $2.25 a day – the New Zealand equivalent of the extreme poverty line. The reason: To give a glimpse into the lives of 1.4 billion people who have no choice but to live below the line every day – and who have to make $2.25NZ ($1.80US) cover a lot more than food. More information can be found on the Live Below The Line website: http://www.livebelowtheline.com/nz

Design at The Food Show

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I’ll be honest. I buy food and wine that has beautiful packaging. My pulse quickens, I may gasp aloud and I’ve been known to squeal with delight. I am an absolute sucker for pretty bottles, labels, quirky illustrations and unique materials. As a print designer who also happens to be obsessed with food, I would love nothing more than to design just for the food. All day, every day. Heaven. Yesterday at The Food Show was like food design geek OVERLOAD. So many lovely designs. So little time. It was a lovely surprise to see The Good Tempered Chocolate Company at The Food Show. The ornate, hand drawn logo I designed for Hayley was on display for everyone to see. Excite! Hayley’s hand made chocolates are to die for and she sweetens me up by bringing me her wonderful treats to sample. I had the pleasure of trying her new Peanut Butter Deluxe Chocolate a few weeks ago and she launched it at The Food Show. Hayley shared a stall with Pic’s Really Good Peanut Butter. The …

The Food Show 2012 – Top Tips

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The Food Show at the ASB Showgrounds in Auckland started today. It kind of snuck up on me this year. I guess hibernating over winter does that. I really enjoy the Food Show and unlike other foodie events, this one is aimed more at the every day consumer rather than the gourmet. We are lucky that we have two big foodie expos  here in Auckland and I like to think of The Food Show as the supermarket and home cook expo, whereas Taste is the restaurant and gourmet expo. The Food Show a mega space and walking through the maze of exhibitors will tire you out. Take breaks when you can. Seating is pretty rare at the expo, but there are many seated food demonstrations in the makeshift theatre if you want a reprieve from meandering the halls. If you are heading that way this weekend, here are some tips I’ve compiled from years of experience… Food Show top tips: Avoid queues and buy your tickets online. Bring cash (notes and coins) as there is a …

Bastille Day

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Tomorrow is Bastille Day and like any Francophile, I’m going to be celebrating by eating something French and listening to French music. It just so happens that French Onion Soup is on my bucket list this winter so that might be the ticket. What French things do you think you’ll get up to tomorrow?

Semi-Permanent 2012

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A decade ago, the year Semi-Permenent set up a chapter in Auckland, I was a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, first-year design student. I had just started going out with The Koala and when we heard about a new, fledgling design conference we purchased our precious tickets. For a student, even the concession ticket was a lot of money. The Koala and I attended the very first NZ Semi-Permanent event at the Bruce Mason Theatre in Takapuna and we were blown away by the world-famous calibre of creative speakers. Since then, I’ve barely missed an event. I think I’ve missed two. One because we were saving our pennies for our wedding and another time we were out of town. Semi-Permenent took a break from our shores last year, but this year they are back and on in just a few weeks! I won’t be in Auckland so I won’t be attending this year. But if you are around, you should check it out. The two day event runs on 18 and 19 May 2012 at the ASB Theatre at …

Blue Sticker Fever

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It’s not often talked about, but here in New Zealand, all across the country, grown-ups have blue sticker fever. Since February, one of the supermarket chain giants, Countdown, has customers collecting blue stickers in the hopes to earn one of six  knives and a knife block/chopping board. We achieve an unreasonable level of joy out of peeling each tiny sticker off and adding it to the chart on our fridge. It invokes the feeling of gold star sticker charts we get as children to award good behaviour. The thrill of being one step closer to a “free gift” is as ridiculous as it is real. The large Santoku (a large all purpose kitchen knife) I have my eye on is the result of at least $900 spent. It hasn’t changed my spending at all and I think most households can easily spend $900 over 12 weeks. That’s just a spend of $75 a week. Hell, larger families might even be able to save for all 6 knives. To get the full set, you would need …

Urbis Designday 2012 Designs

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Urbis Designday is an accessible, entertaining design event for Auckland city. I guess it’s easy to forget that everyday items were designed at some stage. Look at the closest table to you. The closest chair, lampshade, set of drawers. Someone or a team designed that to be the way it is. Designday gets these designed items into the radar of both public and professionals. Admire the things in the showrooms, the creative collaborations between designers in different industries and interact with anything they let you touch. This year’s Designday featured lots of painted and interactive elements. Here are some of the designery sights from the day: The Kohler showroom with Resene and Art Associates had interactive elements such as a painting wall using your choice of Resene testpots, throwing games (bathtubes, paintbuckets and balls) as well as painted artworks on live models. The “Identify Your Design” flowchart painted on a huge wall at Essenze in Parnell was an interesting way to figure out your style. The Photo Booth Fun with dress up boxes at Mini …

Urbis Designday 2012 Eats

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Post 2 of my 3-part review on Urbis Designday which was on Saturday the 24th March. I’m going to post about 3 blog-specific aspects of Urbis: post 1: Bunny, post 2: eats and post 3 (sometime in the coming week): design. This post is all about the delicious delights to be found at Urbis Designday. I had been looking forward to the Fisher & Paykel exhibit and this year’s The Social Kitchen did not disappoint. Last year, it was in a huge inflatable structure in Auckland’s Britomart Station area and this year’s reiteration at The Cloud on Auckland’s Queens Wharf was a great step up. The Cloud was the venue for many of the Rugby World Cup events including a special edition of Taste of New Zealand. You can read more about that event here. Brilliant and light, The Social Kitchen at The Cloud is a 50m+ installation/exhibit/buffet line/kitchen line/processing plant while the rest of the room was made up of long tables and coloured stools to sit and enjoy the creations. To say this …

Monday Bunday: Urbis Bunny 2012

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I’ve been busy with work and such, but a couple of weekends ago, I had a great time at the annual Urbis Designday. Each year this event woos me and this year it did not disappoint. I can’t think of a better all-emcompassing design and food event. A must for fans of design and food and if you work in the industry, you really should give it a day. It’s only one day and you won’t regret it! Urbis Designday is everything this blog stands for and if I had to make a 3 item checklist (Bunny, Eats, Design) I would be able to tick all three items off many, many times. I will post a post on the great food at Urbis as well as the design, but until then, let’s begin with all the bunnies at Designday. And if bunnies aren’t your thing, perhaps some of the baby chickens that were at the Essenze showroom will tickle your fancy? Easter is coming up soon after all. Bunnies and baby chickens are Easter personified. If …

Urbis Designday 2012 is tomorrow!

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Urbis Designday is back and it’s on all around Auckland city tomorrow. Online ticket sales end tonight but if you still miss out, you can get door sales tomorrow morning at Mini Garage, Ponsonby Road. General tickets are $30 each or if you bring a buddy, it’s $50 for two. There’s a big group of us going this year and I can’t think of a more worthwhile all encompassing event. This year, Urbis Designday is in it’s 7th year and I think I must have been to 4 or 5 Urbis Designdays already. Yep, I guess I’m a Designday groupie. I had a great time last year and I’m excited about this year’s event. Still haven’t made up your mind? You can view my photos from last year and read a write up of the event here. Urbis Designday encompasses many facets of design including architecture, fashion, photographic, graphic, spatial, product and one of my favourites: food! This year’s theme is Colour in Motion and I’m looking forward to to seeing how the collaborators work it …

Celebrating VD

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The freakiest, exotic and un-romantic meal I’ve eaten with The Koala was in Vietnam. At a restaurant where such things happen, The Koala killed a snake and I swallowed it’s raw heart in a shot of vodka. Then we proceeded to eat the rest of the snake over 8 courses cooked by professionals. Supposedly an aphrodisiac, but after we washed down our snake soup shots of Hanoi vodka, we were feeling more sloshed than sexy. Our love is a rom-com. With that in mind, there is world of sexier feasts out there and this coming Tuesday could be a day to eat them. Caviar, oyster and chocolate sellers must look forward to this day. Even if these foods don’t actually get the juices stirring, the purpose is people want to think they’re getting into the mood. The whole aphrodisiac thing is more about rituals than medicine. Since Valentine’s Day falls on a weekday, and because it is red and has a cool name, I leave you with a recipe for Virgin Bloody Mary Shooters. No …

Actual Lanterns

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Just in case you suspect that I  went to Auckland Lantern Festival only to eat, here is  evidence that I also enjoyed the lanterns at Albert Park. Of course, the steamed bun lanterns was a favourite. There were a few food shaped lanterns…asians sure do love their food.

Takoyaki and other street food delights

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Like many others I went to the Lantern Festival at Albert Park over the weekend and gorged myself on an array of street food, witnessed the horrid karaoke and adored the display of lanterns. Armed with my camera and a 50mm prime lens, it was a learning experience for me and the first time I’ve ever taken my manual focus only lens out. Having to manually focus every shot gets tiring, but thankfully, my friend Miss C was very patient with me. I make no secret that I love street food. It’s one of the highlights of my travels. Even if my body doesn’t always agree. I’ve had meat on sticks in many countries and I love when stalls specialise in a single or few items rather than try and do many dishes poorly. When presented with so many potential delights to choose from, my criteria was simple: pick a dish you don’t make at home. Takoyaki Japan These takoyaki hit the spot. For those that are unfamiliar with these piping hot Japanese snacks, a …

Land of Milk and Hammy

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Milk Last night I saw that local food store Nosh, was offering 2 litre jugs of milk for $2 to raise awareness of high milk prices in New Zealand. We a lot for milk even though we are one of the world’s biggest dairy exporters. $2 litres of milk usually ranges from $3.50 up to $6. Today, the New Zealand Herald reported that Nosh’s February only offer was being extended until the end of 2012 and other chains are now tipped to follow suit. Milk wars on!!! Good on you Nosh for being a pioneer on the price of milk. Nosh are a very small reseller of milk so good on them for taking on the giants. Full article here. Some comments on this is that Nosh will have to increase the price of other items to pay for the drop in the price of milk. Since I didn’t buy milk at Nosh before, this hike in everything else would affect me. I guess we will have to wait and see. Nosh’s gourmet positioning turns people …

Auckland Seafood Festival 2012

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Today, armed my sister, Joey, and our cameras, we tackled my first Auckland Seafood Festival. I always suspected that it would be an expensive exercise that wouldn’t be worthwhile. I was wrong. This festival really celebrates New Zealand seafood and the new location of Wynyard Quarter is perfect. Surrounded by water and boats old and new, the festival was beautifully decorated and it was often hard to figure out what props had been brought in to entertain the sea theme and what were already there. We arrived a little after 11am to a queue shortly after the doors opened. Greeted by seafood on ice, this was a nice preview of what was to come. If you don’t like seeing eyes on your food, then keep walking. We made our way around and quickly found something we couldn’t turn down. The Wild Seafood Challenge. There were 6 different items for $2 for each item or $9 for a platter of all 6. This included: kina, prawn killers, turbo shells, sea cucumber, octopus and kina shots. The …