Oops, its already Tues­day.  Too busy at WOAP Pecha Kucha Imbibe last night!

I have to start this week with lunch on Sat­urday at Haya café, and in par­tic­u­lar the galak­to­boureko (an exper­i­ence for the tongue in many ways!).  A greek sweet with semo­lina-based cus­tard in phyllo, often served with lem­on, orange or rose.  On this occa­sion it came with orange syr­up and slith­ers of can­died orange, and was pretty damned fine (as was the glu­ten free chocol­ate cake I’m reli­ably informed).

Haya is a small deli/café in Aro Val­ley doing deli­cious hand­made food Wed­nes­days to Sundays and simple BYO-wine din­ners on Fri­days.
Zealandia entree

And then came Kai and Kakapo as part of the WOAP whirl. Because this one is done for the year, I shall tell you about it, but please feel free to skip to the end if this isn’t your cup of kawakawa.

An even­ing mini-tour inside the fence to meet Sirocco the kakapo (who’s become the spokes­bird for kakapo sal­va­tion) was fol­lowed by din­ner using nat­ive ingredi­ents through­out.  And done very nicely.  Sirocco spent the time with us wan­der­ing along the win­dow and check­ing us out so not really sure who won that meas­ur­ing con­test.

The din­ner star­ted with kawakawa pesto with crut and piko piko fronds, fol­lowed by horo­pito smoked fish with roas­ted kumara, taro (we appar­ently have a NZ-spe­cif­ic one) and Maori pota­toes in a kawakawa coconut sauce, with a salad of water cress, baby rock­et and nat­ive greens of rareke (puha), pir­ita (sup­ple­jack) and ti kouka (cab­bage tree), and a manuka honey dress­ing, and to fin­ish, a nat­ive flax­seed and manuka honey cheese­cake with a horo­pito and lem­on truffle, a kawakawa short­bread wafer and a shot of homemade kawakawa tea on the side.

Phew!

The truly remark­able bit is that the kit­chen team have been grow­ing all these plants and har­vest­ing all the com­pon­ents over recent months in pre­par­a­tion.  All accom­pan­ied by a sus­tain­ably pro­duced Kaimira Estate chardon­nay or Bee’s Bless­ing Eld­er­flower mock­tail (soooo good that they made an effort for the non-drink­ers), this exper­i­ence was truly home grown and very smart.

Zeal­and­ia are exper­i­ment­ing with this type of food for their Rata café, so def­in­itely anoth­er place to keep an eye on (and Sirocco is there until 3 Septem­ber if you fancy meet­ing a spokes­bird).
orange and ginger jam

And to fin­ish this week, a fine jar of orange and ginger jam from the win­ners of the high schools 2013 Lion Found­a­tion Young Enter­prise Scheme Dragons Den com­pet­i­tion (go Tawa Col­lege!).  Although not yet tested to sup­port label claims, the group decided to make a jam that had vit­am­in C nutrit­ive value from oranges, aloe vera, lem­ons and ginger (and the oblig­at­ory sug­ar for body and pre­ser­va­tion).

They’re con­sid­er­ing altern­ates to the use of sug­ar and are aim­ing for Mas­sey Uni­ver­sity nutri­tion test­ing for their nutrit­ive con­tent.  Man there’s some smart young­sters out there.

I’m hav­ing a hanker­ing for scones, jam and cream now.  Until next week…