All posts tagged: anniversary

7 years and 7 whiskeys

The Koala and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary last night. I have been on the lookout for something special that we would both enjoy and stumbled across it when I read a date night review by Megan on She Said Yes blog about a whiskey bar called The Jefferson. Ribs? Tick.  Whiskey? Tick.  Nice setting? Tick.  Something out of the ordinary? Tick.  Down on the gentrified service alley of Fort Lane and beside freshly crowned Restaurant of the Year, Cassia, you’ll find the entrance to The Jefferson. A basement whiskey bar with 600 whiskeys on offer, this is a great spot to get comfy and let the staff share their nerdy whiskey wisdom with you. With a teal and brass colour scheme and old school glamour The Jefferson feels like home…if home happens to be cerulean lounge with spacious banquette seating, decent lighting and a long well-stocked whiskey bar. There is a small food menu which I suspect is a work in progress, but they have two varieties of rib which is was of the reasons for …

“All The Time We Laughing”

The Koala and I are celebrating 6 years of marriage tomorrow. I can’t believe it’s already been a whole year since we went glamping on the West Coast. It was really good to get off the grid for a weekend. More than one wise person has said that you should marry someone who makes you laugh. The Koala has a wicked sense of humour. If jokes and humorous stories (OMG, the STORIES) were currency, we’d be rich! The Koala and I laugh together every day. We have an intricate web of personal jokes that span various languages and time periods. It keeps us tight buddies. When I tell people we’ve been married for almost 6 years, it often surprises them. I guess everyone has ideas of what a marriage is and this changes with each generation or even group of friends. I don’t have many married friends and it seems that my generation prefer to have children or buy houses before getting married. In case you’re wondering, we didn’t marry in a whim either, we were together …

Bunny Eats Design turns 4!

I can hardly believe it has been 4 years since I started this blog. One day I started and just forgot to stop. I’m a little horrified that I’ve published over 1000 posts over 4 years. With around 250 views a day and over 1000 subscribers, I feel incredibly blessed to have an audience. It’s amazing how anyone can start something and put in the passion and man-hours and suddenly you are “a blogger”. I’ve enjoyed using this blog as an excuse for adventure. I’ve eaten some amazing things (fish laap in Laos, mantis prawn in Borneo) and some gross things (bile in Vietnam). I’ve also enjoyed eating crickets, alpaca, snake, brains, eyes, and hearts.

Off The Grid

Without sounding spoilt, The Koala and I love to have long holiday outside of New Zealand once a year. But over the last few years, we have not left New Zealand, instead we have taken small holidays within New Zealand. I still yearn for foreign lands for new perspective and culinary delights, but there are world-class destinations within an hour from home. This is a story about one of them. Hidden in the remote hills behind Waiuku on the southernmost west tip of Auckland, is a secluded glamping gem. For the uninitiated, glamping is short for glamorous camping. Will and Kate (of the royal variety) went glamping in Uluru, Australia this week, so I think it is fair to say that glamping has reached the mainstream. The Koala and I stayed at Castaway’s glamping last Friday to celebrate our 5 year wedding anniversary. Expensive for camping, inexpensive for luxury, glamping is a careful balance. Our stay was paid for in full with real cash so this is an honest review, not an advertisement. Saying that, I must warn you I …

4 years

In my world, each celebration is marked with a meal. It is compulsory. Birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, new jobs, babies, weddings are all celebrations and all come with a meal. I’m sure it’s Maybe it is just another excuse to eat well. I don’t need an excuse to eat, but if I can find one, I’ll take it. Today is The Koala and my 4 year wedding anniversary. We met on a summer’s night on Freyburg Square 11 years ago. We fell in love. You marry one person. Make an effort. Celebrate your triumphs. You miss an anniversary, you may as well miss them all. The secret to a lasting relationship? Enjoy and respect each other. Have similar but not identical views and interests. Maintain your own hobbies and friends. Be complimentary persons, not the same person. For example, if The Koala didn’t like pies, it might be over between us. But he doesn’t have to love the same pie as me. As long long as we both agree that pies are awesome, we can respect that he …

Two Year Giveaway

It’s been 2 years since I started this blog and in that time I’ve made a number of wonderful friends through this blog both in New Zealand and overseas. There’s nothing like shared interests to cement a friendship and I thank everyone who has commented on this blog in the past 2 years. This blog has given me the excuse to be more adventurous and try new things. I love sharing a little slice of my New Zealand kitchen with the world. Sometime in the coming month, this blog will hit 100,000 visits and I’m celebrating with a new logo and giveaway. Some of you may remember my last giveaways when this blog reached 1,000 hits in October 2010 and then 10,000 hits in April 2011. One lucky winner will receive three of my favourite New Zealand products and three sets of my designs. In true NZ style, the producers all came to the party and have generously donated the following: Al Brown has donated a 1 litre cask of his Extra Virgin Olive Oil from The …

Experience a degustation

Celebrate The Koala and I have been together for 10 years, and we recently celebrated our third wedding anniversary. As with any good relationship, good eating has been and will probably always a part of our relationship. To mark 3 years, we treated ourselves to a degustation dinner at Kermadec in the Viaduct. Two years ago, our first official anniversary dinner was unplanned. It ended up being at KFC in Hamilton. It was scoffed down, on the way home from a wonderful weekend in the Bay of Plenty, but we can’t help thinking of how far away a degustation in the Viaduct is from “Kaccas in The Tron”. Degustation A degustation is a tasting menu, designed by the chef. You get to sample a range of delights over many courses, and the number of dishes usually ranges from 6 courses up to 12. It’s considered the best way to sample a chef’s skill. Instead of choosing what you want to eat, you completely surrender your choice to the chef. Degustation can be matched with wine …