A Word About Food

Erika writes:

We have made it to Auckland. We were totally out of touch while we toured the North Island. We didn't stop anywhere with internet access for a week. We left Wellington last Wednesday and drove up the east coast. We toured wineries and breweries and cideries (probably my favorite), were among the first to see the sunrise on Saturday (thanks to the old date line being so close), had a wonderful time staying in a friend's beach house and toured the Coromandel Peninsula, which is a gorgeous place with beautiful coast roads. We have mostly been working on logistics for the Australia segment of our trip since getting to Auckland but we've been able to see the city a bit. We are currently staying with old friends from Roanoke, Dale and Joan Furbish. It's been wonderful to end this segment with friends and in a relaxed manner. They've been very understanding, being great travelers themselves. We called our parents for the first time in 3 months today! That's by far the longest that we've ever gone and it was so refreshing to hear their voices. Thank goodness for email but there's nothing like hearing a loved one's voice. If only they would get on Skype, we could see their faces!

My friend, Lo, reminded me recently that it's about time to hear a little about the food here. Kristen and I are pretty dedicated to eating and to seeking out new food experiences. That has certainly remained true here. Our food on the trip has varied a lot because of the vastly different ways that we've been spending our time. I think it's fallen into four categories, so I'll say a little bit about each of those now.

1. Road food. Listen, when we were on bikes, all of our food had to fit into 2 panniers. Sometimes it had to last us for days. We also were limited in cooking facilities--2 pots and a stove that burns really hot. We ate gigantic helpings of pasta, peanut butter and honey sandwiches and fruit, concocted some very strange rice recipes (mostly adding veges and powder flavor packets) and discovered the mightily restorative powers of boiled eggs. I'm actually pretty proud of the egg thing. We were pondering snacks on the road and I realized that for less than $5, we could boil a dozen eggs and eat on them for days. They are a tremendous food and even have their own handy little carrying containers. Yep, life on the bikes was limited but we sure appreciated every mouthful.

2. Us cooking for real. Both hostels and campgrounds usually have kitchens and often have kitchenware as well. When we stay in one of these, especially for more than one night, we take advantage of these facilities. Please consult the food chronicle we compiled after one particularly gluttonous episode at Jewel's blog www.legitadventure.blogspot.com This illustrates both how many calories we need when biking and how truly crazy we've become. When traveling, the one privation we feel the most is the absence of Mexican food from our diets. You can sometimes find Mexican restaurants but they are always pretty expensive for us and end up being disappointing. My mom makes incredible food (of all kinds, of course, but especially stuff she learned growing up on a reservation) and we come to crave that food above all else. We have a rule that no one is allowed to mention Mexican food, of any kind. It's very hard to hold to that rule. Recently, in Wellington and our stint at the beach house, we've treated ourselves to some Mexican food of our own making. It is not the same. In fact, it's often not even that good. But we convince ourselves that it is similar and it fits within our budget. Our last venture starred guacamole because avocados are grown here and are delicious and cheap. That part was great. The part where we flavored processed meat with taco seasoning was incredibly weird. Still...oddly satisfying. Definitely looking forward to real beans again, though.

3. Food at restaurants. We mostly eat out at lunch and we've found some delightful restaurants and cafes throughout our time here. We've eaten lots of meat pies, something we don't really have in the States but is a product of British influence here. I would not have classified myself as a meat pie person before this trip but New Zealand has done some great things with the pie and I've enjoyed them a lot. We've had venison pies, steak and cheese pies, mince (the word for burger) pies, lamb pies, chicken, apricot and brie pies...been on a little bit of a pie tour, really. One small chain called Trisha's makes pies with very flaky crust and interesting flavor combinations. They are always fresh and the middles aren't the weirdly gelatinous stuff I objected to before but gravyish without being too drippy. We've had fun exploring the options there.

We've had fantastic food in organic/vegetarian restaurants (surprised me a little--I'm a meat eater, for sure). We had a meal up on the Coromandel that stunned us with how delicious it was. We shared pancakes and a sandwich and dahl plus a couple of milkshakes, which sounds fairly commonplace but was, in fact, food that had been stolen from the table of the gods. It was incredible. I have a page of description in my journal.

The other meal that we've tried to sample pretty frequently is fish and chips. We are not huge seafood people and, actually, Jewel is allergic to fish, but we love the chips and we like the fish a lot. Most of the shops that serve fish and chips also make burgers so, being a meat lover, I often get one of those. The burgers come with beetroot (sometimes pickled) and a fried egg on them. I love this. We ate at one burger place in Queenstown, which our friend, Andy, assured us served the best burgers in the world. Honestly, he might be right. They were incredible and came with all kinds of fascinating toppings. They were also HUGE. Very satisfying, even for us.

4. Food given us by hosts. And this is where life goes from pretty great to a recognizable gift from God--the food kind people have cooked for us. In general, food in NZ is a meat and potatoes kind of affair and we have had some beautiful roasts: venison, lamb and beef. We've also had great sandwiches made with leftovers from those roasts. We're here in the fall and we've had delicious pumpkin soup in a couple of places. We've developed a love of seafood that has taken us by surprise. A friend worked at a salmon farm and had just built a smoker so we ate lots of freshly smoked salmon. It was awesome. I've never liked one taste of salmon before and I was suddenly eating it by the pound. We also ate crayfish that were pulled from the ocean hours before and stabbed through the head, right next to me, moments before I ate it. It was also great and I've never liked shellfish at all. I guess everyone was right when they told me the key was to get fresh fish--it's made all the difference.

I made a list a few days ago with the long title, "things I'll miss from NZ" and realized that most of them are food related so I'll post that here to close.

• Tui (brand of beer)
• Speight's (same)
• Steinlager (ditto)
• Sunshine Beer (yeah, so there's a pattern)
• pavlova, lollycake, hokey pokey anything (these are desserts, pav is a kind of egg white confection, lollycake is a crazy, no bake cake that is really sweet and kind of addictive and hokey pokeys are little bits of crunchy goodness in ice cream and other desserts.)
• meat pies
• flat white coffee (a little more foam than I'm generally a fan of but pretty and tasty. incidentally, also seems to have caffeine, isn't that awesome?)
• banana milk (do we have this at home? they have banana flavored milk and it's actually really good.)
• Razorback wine (the vineyard we worked at. we drank more than we probably earned)
• burgers with eggs and beetroot
• giant crayfish (I guess we would call them lobsters. They can be almost a meter long.)
• L&P (a drink that might only be available here. kind of like ginger ale. my new favorite)
• Moro bars (incredible candy)
• men in stubbies and chaps (stubbies are short shorts and men here really wear them to work in. Seriously)
• men in stubbies and gumboots (those are galoshes, folks. picture it. it's a real thing.)

I'm still working on the list. I'll let you know if I think of anything else interesting. I'm planning to post pictures soon. We'll see how that works out.