My North Island culinary quest has come to an end. I've sampled ice creams and gelato from every major destination Lou and I have stopped in. The rough guidelines I set myself were sample either tastes native to New Zealand or the place's flagship flavours, both if possible. Here are the results in chronological order, marked out of 10 Mr. Whippies: 1) Valentino's - Auckland Flavours: Boysenberry Zabajone Zabajone is basically a custard gelato and b...

Greetings all. We are now one week into a WWOOF in Takapau, helping out (another) Brit who has defected to the other side. Don't worry too much, the midges are currently still deterring us from following suit. Paul who we are staying with is setting up his house to become a homestay, so we are helping sort out the gardens and forest areas on the property to be a bit more hospitable. This means - machines! We have been using a plethora of different high powered...

Hello from Art Deco style Napier. We have had a wonderful week on the East Coast, with gorgeous sunshine, architecture, food and drink. We should have an album up shortly so you can see how beautiful it is for yourselves. Being so far East we were treated to a stunning sunrise down from the beach, just five minutes from where we were staying. Anyway, enough of that, what about the wine? We went on a tour on Tuesday afternoon with 'Vince's Wine Tours.' Although...

Greetings from rainy Rotorua! We arrived in Rotorua on Saturday morning in glorious sunshine, and I am now writing this surrounded by soggy clothing. Not all glamourous this travelling lark. It's been a while since we've blogged, so will get you up to speed. We visited Raglan for the day which is lovely if tiny with black sand beaches. Whilst staying at our second WWOOF with Leanne we explored Maungatautari Nature Reserve and scaled to the summit - sometimes ...

Welcome to the first of my kiwi culinary musings. We start with a general overview of eating fresh in New Zealand. As with anywhere you can eat a load of old crap. However if you ask around and look a little harder you can find some top quality food, made great by it's ingredients. Lou and I have been fortunate enough to stay on a small holding with Burton, a man well up on his biodynamic farming, and Alison, a professional chef with a sound knowledge of organic...