It's the silly season. My December so far has featured christmas parties, bubbly, a tummy bug, wedding cake, friends in town, a (successful!) blind date, a midweek mini-break to Te Horo, and an incident involving a cup of wine, Band Aid's 'Do they Know it's Christmas', a knocked over table and my laptop. Not unlike December last year really, when I was also apologising profusely about lack of blogging. Aaah well.
But pre the wine/computer incident, I headed along to the Urban Harvest pop-up shop, and managed to draft the following post. Hopefully computer will be back before too long, and I'll be blogging my December shortly...
Does the thought of supermarket shopping at this time of year positively make your skin crawl? I don't mind grocery shopping at all, but not all sellers-of-produce are made equal, and sometimes the madness and chaos of a supermarket can all be a bit much. The clever folk over at small Wellington outfit Urban Harvest are setting about trying to change the way we shop, and think about what we're cooking and eating. They are an online grocer, connecting local suppliers with conscious shoppers. Their website also features some rather delicious recipes from local chef-about-town Al Brown (one lady was praising the maple parsnips in particular).
To celebrate all things festive, and to thank their loyal and growing fan base, and to show off their pop-up store in Mt Victoria (29 Hania St, open 10am-6pm mon-fri) they hosted a wee soiree last Monday, with Al and his trusty sidekick Hayden Scott at the barbecue. Peoples Coffee were pouring excellent chemex coffee and there were a lot of delicious nibbly festive treats.
I got chatting to Tink of Urban Harvest - she not only buys her delicious fresh groceries online each week, but also when a friend recently had a baby, she put together a package of goodies online which were sent straight to her friend's door. I met Matthew from All Good Bananas, and we yarned about fair trade, banana bread and fishing, amongst other things. We also talked about Kokako, which lead me to later peruse their website and find these very cute christmas gift baskets! Adorable.
My pick though? The Zuleika chocolate brownie. Now, I'm only a recent brownie convert. Earlier this year, thanks to my friend Harriet, I was alerted to a chocolate cream-cheese brownie which was later declared life-changing. I blogged it and made it on TV and have heard many reports from people praising its success. Very recently though, I found Lucy declaring that she makes the best brownie in the world ever, over on her blog the Kitchen Maid. My suggestion? Make everyone you know chocolate brownie for christmas and you be the judge!
Al Brown had taken his daughters diving the evening before and dished up some fresh paua from their efforts. We got yarning about that step before your food going on the plate, and how lucky we are in New Zealand to have that extra connection to our food, in the foraging and hunting and picking and growing stages. He described recipes as "culinary love letters" and, like food and meals, them being best when they're shared (especially if the recipe is for sugar pie, currently on the menu at his Auckland restaurant Depot). Connections, conversations and learning just that little bit more about where that strawberry has come from is something I could definitely relate to.
Urban Harvest are delivering right up until Christmas Eve, so if you're Wellington based and you'd like to avoid the chaos - maybe you'd like to be baking Brownie instead of shopping - jump on board and save some stress. Their facebook page says they're taking orders until Wednesday 21 December, and will be back in full force in the new year.
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