Letters from Wetville

Kale again. Last night I tried boiling it first a la the recipe in my new Monty Don cookbook. I washed the kale (in hot water and with a brush on the aphid infested areas), chopped out the central core and ripped it into pieces like small lettuce leaves. I peeled and chopped three cloves of garlic and put the kale and garlic into boiling salted water for about 7 minutes. Then I added about 180g cream cheese (Monty called for cream but we didn't have any) and whizzed it all with my whizzy stick and mixed it into the penne pasta I cooked at the same time. It tasted nice, possibly better than the night I sauteed the kale in oil instead of boiling. I served it with cold cooked chicken and raw carrots because my kids like carrots raw and I couldn't get my head around safely reheating the chicken into the pasta without possibly curdling the cream cheese. But today when I had the leftovers for lunch, I added parmesan cheese on top which was the best accompaniment. I did some se...

Last night we marked May Day in Blackball. At 5pm the memorial wheel for the men who have died in the mines since 1990 was opened. Around the edge of the wheel are the names of the 29 men who died at Pike River. Each family designed their own tile and a local pottery made them. In the middle are the tiles for the two other men who have died in the mines in this time frame. Darian Fenton, spokesperson for labour for the Labour Party, spoke, mostly well but for too long and the last third would have been better omitted. More on her later. Bernie Monk, spokesperson for the families of the 29 men, spoke. He thanked us all for our support of the families and asked that we keep it up. Their number one goal is to get their men out of the mine and he noted that it has been a long time fighting for this and morale is low. 'Please help us by carrying on supporting us', was his request. I'm looking out for every way I can honour that request. Then the opening of the new exhi...

The linseed microgreens experiment is going well... Winter food: miners lettuce for salads, bay leaves for casseroles and sage for gnocchi and sore throat gargles. For someone who has killed a number of lemon trees, these actual fruit are very exciting. Banana passionfruit growing over from the neighbour's fence. While the sun shone today, I planted gladioli and daffodil bulbs and sowed 'mesclun simply red' seeds and some calendula seed. Today the insulators came and finished the ceiling and insulated underneath the house. Tonight Favourite Handyman put the draught stopper attachment on the back door. I've even got the name of a man in his eighties who chops and delivers wood AND who knew Bill Pearson. Can't wait to order wood from him and get to have a chat. There has been much sadness on the coast, in the big picture with the new camera footage of the Pike River miner and also as a friend farewells her husband in the saddest of circumstances. I'm consciou...

I found some blade steak in the freezer. I found the kidneys beside it but decided I now know too much about how kidneys are the detox unit for a body. This is what I did, throwing together an amalgam of ingredients from various Alison Holst slow cooker book recipes, less the ones we didn't have in stock. Chop 2 onions and one carrot and saute in pan. Chop the blade steak and brown in pan. Scrub and thinly slice 2 agria potatoes. Line the slow cooker with oil (I don't like the oil spray canisters so I pour some from the bottle and use the pastry brush to spread it round). Put the onions and carrot on the bottom. Then place several sprigs of thyme on top. Then layer the sliced potato around evenly. Then add the meat. Then add a can of mixed beans (pinto and borlotti and something else from memory), including the liquid from the can. Then squirt some soya sauce in. Then squirt quite a bit of tomato sauce in. Cook for quite a few hours (I think I started at 10.30am and...

Dinner: kale penne Finely dice one carrot and saute for about a minute in lots of butter. Then add a packet (250g) of bacon, chopped, and three leaves' worth of kale, washed and finely sliced and 4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped. Stir a bit, add a splash of red wine, turn down low and put the lid on. Cook the penne pasta as per the inctructions on the packet. While that is cooking, add some cream cheese to the vege mix (I used about 180g). Stir it round to soften and mix in, then get out your whizzy stick and blend it all together. Drain the pasta and add to the sauce and mix up. Serve. It tasted good. Slightly odd texture (think finely chopped crunchy) but good. In other news, I have been cleaning. Lots. Yesterday and today. It is looking and feeling a lot more civilised. I've been wondering what to do next for winter warmth: more wood or pay to get the rest of the insulation done? Today, confident that given the government's fiscal austerity, the insulation ...

We headed south for some culture this afternoon. This is the Crooked Mile cinema from the outside and inside looking at the seats and where my children quickly made themselves comfortable and looking towards the screen. Poor quality photo, so hard to see the old style piano underneath the screen. I love red velvet curtains. We went to see Queen of the Sun . Indeed you can watch the trailer here . It was a fantastic documentary and Favourite Handyman is thinking about beekeeping now, though I suspect time poverty will prevent action on that front. The beekeeper we buy our local organic honey from is in the movie. I burst with pride seeing his honey on his wee stall in Barrytown in an international movie . I've been planting/sowing flowers to attract bees and other beneficial insects into our garden for a while now, but since the movie Fionn is keen to help me choose and sow some more seeds to make a bigger effort. Back home, this was dinner: finely chop 3 large leaves of kal...

It was going to be all about me. I pulled out a skirt pattern I had bought at considerable cost five years ago and then never made up (getting pregnant did get in the way of the fitting part). I was going to push back the rubble on the lounge floor, ignore the washing basket and the other half started projects and make myself a skirt. Skirts are relatively easy as I don't have to alter them in complicated ways. Mum there is spew trying to come up with my hiccups. Plain and to the point. Coast talk you might say, though please note not offensive to particular groups Damien O'Connor type talk. I won't be making a skirt tonight. I'll be rather grateful if I can manage to finish this post and avoid the temptation to go buy some alcohol. Anyway, Lolo Houbein. What I really like about her book is she makes it easy and keeps it easy. There are not long exhortations about pure ways of gardening (or not for me anyway). You want some plants for your garden? ...