An offline coffee morning

Oh, I wish I was typing this in Starbucks.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I like being in Starbucks. But if I was typing this in one it would mean that I'd have cracked the technological magic that is wi-fi. And I haven’t. Yet.

So, once again, I’m typing this in a hot internet café.

It’s not that I don’t have a laptop, I do. After consultation with my technical advisor, Mr Sloane in London, I picked up a new Toshiba on Saturday and naively anticipated a new life of unlimited wi-fi in coffee shops. I was going to be the culinary equivalent of SJP. Albeit larger and without the wardrobe or being splashed across a bus. I was going to be JAM in Food in Auckland City. Sometimes you need to make your intials work for you.

So this morning I took my laptop to Starbucks so we could get acquainted. Except it didn’t quite work out. It wasn’t until after I'd handed over $4.20 for a flat-white (my favourite café, The Strawberry Alarm Clock a few doors down, does a great one for $3.50, but no wi-fi) that I learned in order to hook-up to the wireless world, one must already have a Telecom account. Which I don’t. However, Starbucks could sell me an access code for $10. How long would that last for? I wondered. Around 45 minutes apparently, “depending on the speed”. The speed of 45 minutes?

Whatever, it was a ludicrous deal. The downtown internet cafés are two bucks an hour. OK, the machines are slow (long minutes, presumably) but if you accidentally tip your drink into the keyboard at least it’s their wear and tear. Oh! I can’t believe I just said that.

So I cart the paid-for coffee – hating it already - and laptop wrapped in Sunday’s newspaper (a carrying case is also on my to-do list) back to a square table, wishing I was in the Strawberry Alarm Clock, which is fun and exciting and they give you plastic animals to take to your table so they know where to bring your food to. Yesterday I was the horse and I loved it!

But today I’m in Starbucks and there was nothing for it but to plough through the tanker of characterless coffee and wonder when I would finally see the bottom of it. During which, I pondered the question that always baffles me, which is: Why is Starbucks coffee so expensive? Or, more to the point, why do people pay for it?

I hadn’t been to a Starbucks for about two years though can remember the last time – it was the one in Golden Square in London in my lunch-break. When they told me how much they wanted for a latté I felt like I’d been hit in the face with a sack of single-estate Arabica. Or is it Robusta? Either way, I’d had to borrow some extra change from a colleague. That’s how unprepared I was for it.

So allow me to share with you the reason why Starbucks charge what they do for their coffee. It’s because the beans are “always fresh”. Once they go out of date, Starbucks simply won’t use them. They’ll throw them away or give them to charity.
Me: “Gosh, does that happen a lot then?”
Them: “Oh! Yes! All the time!”

Well why on earth do they order so much of the damn stuff, then, only to give it away? I might not be in the coffee business but surely if you bank on selling all your stock, rather than chucking half of it away, you could charge a bit less for it. Maybe?

But the background music was making me too drowsy for further questioning so I smiled politely and returned to my seat to peruse my surrounding environment, which consisted of middle-aged tourists who had probably spent their entire holiday in the same suburban shopping street. Out of sight somewhere, a small child sounded like it was torturing another one.

Oh, another benefit of shopping at Starbucks is that you can make any special coffee requests to the person making it right in front of your very eyes. More foam, less foam, hell no foam, even. Remember, it’s YOUR coffee!

Suddenly suspicious, I started to eat banana from my bag in case there was a drug in the coffee that was about to make me get up and buy a muffin.

Just as the pointless background song in French started washing over me like an over-extracted, milky latté, the woman who’d served me walked over and presented me with a FREE Starbucks Beverage coupon. Apparently to make up for paying over the odds for something that wasn’t that great (I can’t remember her exact words) without the technical perk I’d specifically hoped for.

“Ahhaa!” I thought. So this is how people become regular customers. It’s an American mind-machine. Pah! Thank goodness I’d seen through that one. I grabbed it from her with thanks, then gulped down the rest of the coffee, suddenly desperate to get on with the rest of my day.

I can’t remember whether I got as far as the door or just glanced through the window as I rose from my seat, but suddenly I realised that the heavens have opened and it’s raining monstrously. The kind of rain that dents car roofs and without an umbrella causes head injuries. To imagine what it would do to a laptop wrapped in a newspaper... well, frankly, it wasn’t worth imagining, so I sat back down on the edge of my seat, submitted to some more paralyzing music and marvelled at the efficient air-con.

Then I got up and ordered another tanker of coffee. Well! At least it was free. And like I said, I wish I was still there.

The latest mobile accessories

Forget gadgets and gizmos, when you're on the move and living out of a bag, there's never a better time to buy another one.
Bag that is.

Even if it only holds your sun-creme and ipod shuffle and is a pickpocker's dream. If it looks good and doesn't require an additional loan, buy it!


The same can be said for shoes. All that walking around and constantly being on the move. Soles wear down and flip-flops can flip out. But more of that in a minute.

My new bag was a birthday present*. It was designed and made by Jo Sweeney, one of six designers who belongs to a co-op and runs a shop called Jet in Raglan. They each take it in turns to man the shop (it's closed Mondays, so that works out one day a week) and devote the rest of their time to dreaming up new creations. That way, they each have time to work on new stuff, have an outlet to sell it and benefit by sharing all running costs at the shop.

When she's not in the shop, you'll find Jo designing and sewing in her studio - her garage at home. Apart from bags, she does a line in belts, cuffs and wallets - her "bread and butter".

Her style is a mix of colourful, floral prints with contrasting blocks of colour - often in denim, corduroy and vinyl. All materials are recycled or vintage and she dyes her own lace. The bags and purses are full of surprises - open a pocket or a zip and you might find a beautiful lining or garish lace edging. If you pay an extra $10 you can pick a sparkly brooch to pin to your new bag.

It's tough being a small business, though, especially when you're only 25, like Jo. She's just had her first two-year tax bill and it was big. Presumably it's all worth it, though. She looks round the shop at all her work sometimes, she says, and realises how busy she's been. She'd like to extend her range into hats and shoes. No animal products though, so leather's out. Vinyl's strong enough.

There's only a few of my bags in the world. Jo even decided to keep one for herself as she liked it so much. You can buy some of Jo's stuff in Auckland, too, but the the prices are way inflated - sometimes by as much as 50%. And you won't even get to meet her. If you want to buy designer labels it's far nicer buying directly from the designer. Even if they don't want to have their photo taken.

As for shoes, I'll be back for some of Jo's when she's finished making them. In the meantime I'm making do with my $5 cross-town flip-flops, towering gold wedges from Wellington and some battered old tango shoes from Buenos Aires (picture to follow) .

Fellow traveller Beth certainly knows a thing or two about shoes. She's just arrived in Auckland from Cardiff and among her wardrobe essentials I counted no less than 12 pairs. Oh, plus the ones she's wearing. Though I'm sure heels come in handy when you're a sports teacher...













In New Zealand you even have to wear shoes in internet cafes...


*it's still not too late to send gifts

Egg on toast? And the rest...

If there's one food combination I can't stomach it's eggs with baked beans. Sticky yolk congealing in that gloopy sauce-stuff? No thanks.

Now I'm a great fan of the humble egg (free-range, any style) and I don't mind the occasional factory-farmed bean. Indeed, what better a jacket potato filling?

Well, plenty, since you ask - but that's another story.

Just not baked beans with egg.

Being someone who's always finished what's on her plate (and sometimes other people's) I used to think this egg-with-bean problem was uniquely my own and that admitting it would mark me out as a bit of a picky eater. Which I'm not.

So apart from the odd alcohol-fuelled, late-night confessional over the years, I generally just kept quiet about it. At a push, beans and egg could co-exist on opposite sides of the plate. Just never in the same mouthful. During my student years, when a morning-after all-day breakfast hole was not for the à la carte diner, it was simply a matter of pushing the beans to one side, scoffing the rest, then announcing I had to go to the cashpoint. Plus there was always the dash back for Eastenders omnibus. Beans could be overlooked and thus my secret was safe.

Over the years, however, other egg-beans combo haters* have shamelessly announced their intolerance for all to hear. It's become as common as a nut allergy. There's probably even a book or chat-show about it. So I, too, came out of the egg-beans combo phobia closet and can only say I've never looked back. In fact I'm proud to shout about it loudly in any set-breakfast greasy spoon I slide into. "Eggs AND beans? Together? Get with it, woman, I might drop dead!"

So here we are in 2007 and I'm in Auckland. Yesterday morning I took a walk over to Season, a smart café on Ponsonby Road, which I've heard is the place to eat Baghdad Eggs.

I've made a version of Baghdad Eggs a few times, from Stephanie Alexander's cookbook. I don't have it to hand, but if memory serves correctly, you squeeze lemon juice onto the eggs while they're frying so the whites take on a citrussy tang, then sprinkle over ground spices and chopped mint. Sometimes they're called Turkish Eggs.

At Season, Baghdad Eggs is three fried eggs on a thick crusty slice of fried bread. But of course that's not all. A Sunday-morning student could just about manage that. What Season's head-chef Cameron Lawless does with his Baghdad eggs is this:

While the eggs are still cooking, in goes some squashed tomatoes and whole cloves of roasted garlic, so that the tomatoes creep into the whites just a little. Eggs and tomatoes are then flipped onto the fried bread, then topped with cumin-spiced lentils, a dollop of chilli tomato chutney and stacks of fresh mint and coriander.

Eggs, three; beans, nil. Lots of other exciting stuff going on, bucket-loads. The whole thing's an explosion of flavours with a satisfying crunch from beneath that makes you wish it would last twice as long as it does.

The waitress tells me the dish is "chef's pride and joy". And you can see why. Keep your beans - I'm going back for my next one tomorrow.


* you know who you are

Seaside rough‘n’magic

Who can resist a cake with an interesting name?

Certainly not me, that's for sure.

Which is why I found myself sitting outside the Tongue’n’Groove Lounge in lovely by-the-sea Raglan before a coconut rough and a magic slice.




The coconut rough is rougher than a shag-pile rug and about as coco-nutty as a Malibu under a palm tree. A biscuit base – which takes some fork-force to dissect – is topped with a chewy mass of shredded coconut and milk chocolate.

It's crunchy round the edges and icing sugar-sweet through and through.

The magic slice turns out to be a dense, gooey heap of thick chocolate discs, fat raisins and shredded coconut stuck into toffee and set atop an orange malt biscuit base. Something for everyone in there.

Sickeningly good and fork required.

Coconut roughs and magic slices are made by the clever people at the Tongue’n’Groove. They each go perfectly with several cups of well-brewed tea and someone to share them with. Go there with someone and see for yourself!

Mushrooms by the sea

If you’re lucky enough to visit Wellington you mustn’t leave without calling in at The Chocolate Fish café in Scorching Bay. It's a bit of a trek to reach and will be out of your way – the hilly road that hugs the coast twists and turns forever – but as soon as you glimpse it round the bend, you’ll know it was worth the effort.


And that’s before you’ve even tasted the food.

Most of the café is across the road from the kitchen. Lots of brightly painted rickety tables and chairs overlooking the rocky beach. They’re only allowed 54 chairs out there (it’s the law) but one of the waiters tells me last Saturday they squeezed in 104.

To make life safer for the waiters, they put a couple of cones in the road to slow down passing traffic. There’s even a road sign: Waiters Crossing. I wonder if there’s ever been any accidents. The waiter tells me someone once drove over his foot. Was he okay? “Yeah, luckily I wasn’t carrying anything,” he says. I laugh, but he wasn’t joking.

We’re the first customers of the day – not even the veg has arrived. In fact, the kitchen's completely out of mushrooms. But not to worry - they’re on their way over the hill.

A few minutes later, another mushroom update: they are about to arrive! I check my hair and at 8.46 a jeep pulls up, the back loaded with boxes – two of which contain mushrooms. They’re whisked inside – I’m lucky to catch a fleeting shot of them.

Less than 15 minutes later, they’re back – only now they’re sliced, fried in lemon butter and mixed up with what must have been several handfuls of spinach, now wilted.

No wonder they call it a Popeye’s Slammer. A pretty smug and tasty way to take care of your five-a-day.

Resident daschunds Vegas and Jamie return from their walk a little earlier than expected at 9.30. Here they are with Penny, who owns both them and The Chocolate Fish. That’s fennel she’s holding – it’s better than dill when cooked, she says, as the texture’s more robust. It smells amazing, too.



Vegas and Jamie aren’t interested in that though – they’re trying to get a look in at the biscuits she’s holding.

Coffee, cupcakes and stunning views

The botanic gardens in Wellington are the best in the world. They're nestled in the hills to the west of the city and if you climb up high enough you can see the sea. You can take a cable car to reach them but if it's a fine day, walk across the city and through the old cemetery.

On the way I stop off for a power coffee at Espressoholic. It's run by a guy called Leyton - he's owned it for 18 years. He tells me he'd originally planned to call it Midnight Espresso but his mate Jeff stole the name for his own café that he opened the week before Leyton's. So Leyton went with Espressoholic. The whole place is a graffiti artist's den of walls sprayed with motifs and squiggles. The deep skylights cut into the ceiling let the light pool in.

The coffee's strong - a flat-white's made with a double espresso. At the counter there's the usual motley mix of muffins, lasagnes and a raspberry and caramel slice. Tempting - but a bit early for me.

The botanic gardens are as lovely as I remember. I wander through the herb garden. Do you know the difference between a herb and a spice? If the essential oils are in the leaves it's a herb; if they're in the seeds, flowers, bark or roots, it's a spice.

Plants produce aromas to repel insects and animals - it's about survival of the fittest. A rosemary bush may look like a thing of passive beauty but it's sweating it out round the clock to be there.

On the way back to the city I walk through the scenic graveyard past the lucky souls buried there on the hillside in the sunny breeze. It's probably about the best place you could hope to end up. Talk about a view to die for.

Back in town, I head straight to Midnight Espresso to see what Leyton was up against in 1989. It wasn't midnight and I didn't have an espresso - I had a pot of tea with a chocolate orange cupcake with fudge icing. There's heaps of colourful food spread out across the bar, crying out to be eaten.

Leyton's old mate Jeff is long gone. All the food's now made by a guy called Pablo who wasn't there today. They wouldn't let me have the recipe for the cupcakes - apparently it's Pablo's secret. In fact, even they don't know it. Or so they say...

I'll drink to this...

Here's a revolutionary wine-tasting experience. You go to a wine shop called Scenic Cellars in Taupo and ask to taste their wines.

They'll give you a plastic card. You then have the green light to wreak havoc through 32 wines rigged up to a snazzy Italian machine called Enomatic. By inserting the card and pressing the button above the wine you want to taste, a 30ml tasting measure is dispensed into your waiting glass.

The cost of each tasting is proportionate to the price of the wine. And they don't just put the cheap stuff on, either, which means you can taste a stunning $70 wine for just $4. If you don't like it, you haven't wasted $70 on it. And if you never had $70 to begin with, you can savour a mouthful of loveliness without taking out a bank loan.

We called in at Germany, Italy, France, South America, New Zealand and Australia for less than $25.

Enomatic works by pumping a layer of gas called argon into the top of each opened bottle. Argon is odourless, colourless and tasteless and acts like a tight-fitting blanket, protecting the opened wine from the air. This is the argon back-office - it looks a bit like a diver's kit in the '70s.

Scenic Cellars has two managers: Floris is a Cab Sav Bordeaux man with a penchant for blockbuster Ozzie Shiraz, whilst John favours Burgundy, Rhone and elegant Italians. So when it's time to switch a bottle on Enomatic there's always a healthy debate as to which wine to go for. Mind you, I'd fight over that, too. It requires pouring a measure and tasting it before it can be sold – just to check it's okay.

The big, tannic reds keep best - up to two weeks - as their tannins act as a natural preservative. But Floris and John never normally have to worry about wines being wasted – customers normally polish them off way before then.

Look out for Enomatic. Floris tells me it's being rolled out across the states and even in London. It's like Yo! Sushi by the glass.

www.sceniccellars.co.nz

My new life with a porridge stirrer

I run into Ernst at the Saturday Settlers Market in Taupo. He's a wood carver and runs the Village Crafts stall there. Originally from Austria, he's lived in New Zealand for 53 years.

“Everybody’s gotta have a shed,” he smiles.

Among his smoothly carved chopping boards is a selection of spoons and spatulas. I pick up one with two holes in it. Apparently it’s a porridge stirrer - the holes turn oats and milk into the best textured porridge. Though Ernst can’t vouch for it as he doesn’t eat porridge.

Everything Ernst carves is from salvaged wood and he made this stirrer from his favourite wood, Rimu. It’s not the strongest – that’s Matai, used to make the best wooden floors – but he loves its beautiful grain.

The next morning I try out the porridge stirrer myself. It stirs up a storm - the thickening, milky mixture glides through the lower hole in a most pleasing fashion.

It's quite mesmerising.

You'd have to make a pretty huge batch for it to reach the top hole though.

Lamb chops and Afghans

It’s Sunday night and we sit down at a small table in the TV lounge at Toad Hall in Napier to eat dinner. My dad’s lamb chops with stir-fried veg and fried potatoes.

Inches away, fellow backpackers are glued to Nicolas Cage in National Treasure (Sky Movies 1), so we attempt conversation in hushed tones.

It goes something like this:

Father: "Mmm, the broccoli was a good choice."
Daughter: "We’ve got cheese for pudding." (A local washed rind cow’s milk overlaid with white mould, I can now say out loud.)
Mother: "And I bought some Afghans!"

The combination of forbidden whispering and my mum’s excited announcement has us all stifling laughter.

If you’ve never had an Afghan from a packet, let me explain. They’re New Zealand’s thick-cut answer to milk chocolate hobnobs with coconut. Excellent for dunking as they’re incredibly robust. According to the packet they’re "the delicious taste of home". Presumably they’re not aimed at the Afghan market, then. Let’s be honest, Christchurch or Kabul… I know where I’d rather spend a long weekend. You can feed the ducks on the river in Christchurch for a start.

We soon drain the first bottle of Pinot, and father and I look at each other hopefully for bottle number two, which we both know is only metres away in a locked room. Apparently (or rather, according to my mother), he’s already had "half a pint of gin" and she has the key to the room.

"Dad, don’t you need to, er, change your socks?" I ask helpfully.
"Oh! Yes! Right, yes, yes, I do!" he beams. His enthusiasm is a dead giveaway; she looks at us sadly. "It’s a screw-cap so we Don’t Have To Finish It." Hell no! We win.

Out come the Afghans, mostly heading my way it must be said, and a spot of after-dinner table exercise in the form of Connect 4 (or 4 In A Line as it’s called on the box) ensues. I beat my dad in, oh, about 10 seconds (I'm green). He claims he didn’t know it was "four in a row".

Never mind Afghanistan, I feel like I’ve eaten my way to Russia. I have to lie down so I take the washing up into the kitchen and… what have we here! A biscuit-making enterprise by the name of Bobo from Taiwan.

Backpacker Bobo hasn't merely strayed from the safety of two-minute noodles or instant soup à la ping to craft, say, a semi-challenging toasted cheese sandwich: she has turned her hand to baking! Only once before have I seen this performed at a backpackers: in 2001 on the West Coast of Australia I witnessed a girl (who turned out to be a chef) make caramel sauce for her ice cream. Suddenly I’m embarrassed by my Afghans (though, luckily, there’s little evidence of their former existence).

So what’s the recipe, Bobo, flour, sugar and butter? "Of course!" she cries, though her secret is that the sugar is brown, there’s cornflour mixed with the flour and a little honey with the sugar. It’s not a Taiwanese recipe - it’s inspired by a shortbread recipe she read in a cookbook.

They’re a bit stuck to the tin by the time the photos are over and the removal process is slow. Luckily I’m patient enough to be offered a taste. Actually it was probably just to get rid of me now I come to think of it. They’re good, though!

Now I’m full of cheese, chocolate and Bobo’s biscuit. I crawl back down the corridor to dream of Pinot on tap, homemade Afghans and Connect 4 strategies.

Fishy drains and elusive trout

Lake Taupo is New Zealand’s largest lake and is stunningly beautiful. Especially at sunset when the low, streaky clouds turn pink.

The softly rippling water fills a vast volcano crater that's lined with coarse sandy beaches and dotted with pumice stones and pebbles. Green forests and never-ending distant mountains encircle it.

Taupo District Council think it’s all rather lovely, too. They’ve decorated the town’s drains with silver fish to encouage residents to not to tip rubbish down the sink and to remind visitors of the declining population of kokopu – the native giant trout which live in the lake and tributary rivers.

"What goes in the grate ends up in the Lake". It’s all part of the council's kokopu protection plan.

Kokopu can live to a grand age of 20 if water pollution doesn’t see them off first.

You won’t find the famous trout on any menu in town, though. But that’s not because you’re not allowed to eat them – it’s because, unlike salmon, wild trout aren’t allowed to be sold commercially in New Zealand.

So if you want to know what kokopu taste like, you’ll have to catch your own, says the waitress at Fat Fish Café opposite the lake.

Though, she adds, that’s not to say you have to cook and eat it indoors with the curtains drawn. Oh no - you can take your kokopu to any restaurant in town and have them prepare it for you.

It’ll cost $15 per person (around a fiver), or $60 per fish, depending on the restaurant. A bit like fish corkage. How they cook it is up to you – sprinkled with brown sugar and oven-baked whole, or keep it simple with sushi. At least you’ll know it’s fresh.

I didn’t catch a kokopu so I can’t tell you what it tastes like, but if you want to find out, head to Rod & Tackle round the corner from Fat Fish Café. They’ll have you on the first boat out the next morning.

Fat dogs and cool cats

At The Fat Dog café in Rotorua, a few hours south of Auckland, they give you a wooden painted cat to take to your table while you wait for your coffee. Or your porridge with cream and brown sugar or your homemade soup with chunky wholemeal toast.

If you have coffee, though, on the spoon you’ll find two white chocolate buttons, which you can either stir in instead of sugar, or pop into your mouth, one at a time. Or both together, if you like. The only thing that beats that is a huge bowl of their hot chocolate, which comes topped with chocolate marshmallows and a good dousing of cocoa.

There's always a Scramble of the Day (today's is cheese and mushroom - think omelette with texture on toast) and a towering veggie burger which is floored by gravity when it lands on your table.

In the evenings at The Fat Dog, they dim the lights, set candles twinkling on tables and crank up the music a notch. This all makes the Glamour Puss Pinot Noir taste even better.

There’s writing all over the wall, even on the ceiling and on the plates.

Amongst other things it says that Cool Cats Go To The Fat Dog.

No sign of the fat dog, though. Apparently he was a black labrador who belonged to the previous owners. He's since moved on - rumour has it he started up his own place in the next town. I'll let you know if I find him.