high heels, high hopes, heartbreak and pie

1. High Heels

The weekend, which feels like it only just finished because yet again last night I partook in a half-arsed gym session completely exhausted, began last Friday night with bubbles. Bubbles, and dresses and high heels and that annoying spring windy sun. It was then off to an engagement party of one of the coolest couples around - I've been bitter about couples in the past, and still now some behaviour induces plenty of scorn. These friends though are awesome. And engaged! We drank bubbly, indulged in delicious canapés (rare beef and bearnaise? don't mind if I do) and I wore my latest acquisition - espadrilles!

Being 6ft tall I've tended in the past to shy away from making myself any taller. Likewise, due to my man-sized feet, I've tended to also shy away from drawing attention to them, and to my inability to walk in a coordinated fashion. It also makes me despise shoe shopping and more often than not you'll see me in jandals or chucks. My behemoth foot size did come in handy once though: earlier this year I found myself involved in a long-distance fleeting fling, and when said man-of-the-moment was in town for the weekend, the sun gloriously shone in the antithesis of the forecast. For one of the most romantic strolls along the waterfront I've ever been involved in, jandals were the only answer. I leant him my spare pair, which fitted. Like a weird-reverse Cinderella I was both gutted and stoked and the same time.

At the moment though I'm going through a phase of embracing both my height and my feet and thus, new heels I have! So girly. So awesome. Thanks to my flatmate for her commitment to shopping, and for making me try and buy them. I'm in love!

2. Shenanigans! 

The weekend continued with ciders in the sun. Friends were down from out of town for both the engagement party and Toast Martinborough and between the events two such friends and I sat in the sun, at one of the best garden bars in Wellington, and drank jug after jug of delicious delicious cider. Following the dating and burger blog, there was lots of good chat and good laughs around dating, and it was good to get both a boy and a girl perspective. There was talk of embarrassing kissing games, tarnishing, sugar-daddys and obsessive phone calling. Hilarious times in the Saturday sunshine.

Sunday then brought around the Toast Martinborough wine festival. It was a very fun day out, and drunkenly dominating this Ruth Pretty Steak and Kidney Pie in the sunshine with an Ata Rangi Pinot was one of many many highlights. I will spare you the details of the bruises, the voice loss, the house damage, the dancing, and the Sunday night deep-and-meaningful conversations, and the general shenanigans which ensued in the van ride back and later on at home. When will I learn to stop behaving like a drunk labrador? Probably never.

3. High Hopes

My week began slowly, but I was both thrilled and humbled to discover I have been nominated for a blog award! The Bloggers 2011 are run by Concrete Playground who are searching for New Zealand's best online writers, and I'm in the food and beverage category.

If you would like to help the judges choose heartbreak pie in all its drunken antic filled self-deprecating food filled glory, please shimmy over and click here and chuck me a vote! Choice.

4. Here for the Heartbreak? 

With such a nomination, hopefully comes a raft of new readers. Haere Mai! Welcome!

I started this blog because I love food and because my then-relationship had freshly and traumatically just ended. A slowly accumulating subtle crisis appeared to be the best catalyst for starting something I'd toyed with doing for ages before.  


In a cold and lonely flat with people I didn't know, baking made me feel better. Was I eating my feelings? MAYBE. But I was also, in a way, re-jigging my post-uni, post-relationship still-in-Wellington life. In an unconcious attempt to get through it, I started writing. About food. And heartbreak. On the internet. And it's been awesome!


What has come about is first and foremost I got over the break up, but equally importantly I've discovered that writing about food is way more fun than being a lawyer. I've also been able to relive my fourth form drama class monologue performance, in which I had a cooking show, by cooking on TV. It also meant that in August I was able to go on 17 dates in 17 days and eat 17 burgers and write about it. I win!


And although I feel like an imposter sometimes because I'm nowhere near the world's best cook, I just love it. Food, cooking, drinking, eating, writing.

Most importantly though, it has made me realise how many amazing and supportive and hilarious and wonderful people there are in my life and just how extremely lucky I am. Thanks for reading! And for generally being awesome.

5. Maybe you just want the Pie

Lucky for you, I've updated my recipe index! And I made three tasty, seasonal treats on Good Morning last week. So you can have a look around and find yourself something tasty for dinner. Or maybe a nice cake. You won't find smug boring stories about me and my boring boyfriend's dinner (well, because I don't have one, hahaaaaurgh), but you might find the one about that time my friend pashed the guy I'd been chatting up at a party. I'd like to think we've both come a long way since then though (she lives and hopes...).

There's plenty more of all of it to come, summer's nearly here after all. Cheers!