Here's to Winter

As I write this it is raining outside. Not exactly groundbreaking news, I know, as it has felt like it has been raining since last spring. The consolation, as I am warming myself beside the fire with a coffee, is I am also scoffing my face with cake. It was a cake I dug out of the freezer and slapped some chocolate ganache on. I really wasn’t that excited about the cake as it had been slowly dying in the freezer for over six months, a leftover from one of the many shoots we had in spring for our cookbook. Food waste is always on our minds as recipe testing and shoots all produce a lot of food. Much is given away, some is put in the freezer and anything that can’t be eaten is either sent to the worm farm or put out to be picked up by the council food scrap collection.

Back to my neglected pre-frozen cake, which turns out is delicious! I know I shouldn’t be surprised, it’s the basic vanilla cake in our latest cookbook. It’s a recipe, like many in the book, we love to cook; a foundation recipe you can turn into so many more. But it turns out it is just as good after many months in the freezer with little more than a bit of chocky icing.

This quarter has been an exciting one here at Nourish HQ, with the cookbook arriving. I also jetted off to Mexico for a couple of weeks. You can read more about this and a tour we are taking next year in the spring issue.

Harriet’s been testing beef bourguignon recipes, which is possibly why my freezer is overflowing. Read her story and discover the end results on page 38. On page 34 we highlight cauliflower, including some tasty morsels, which may even please the nugget loving kids in your household.

Back to cake, on page 57 Emma Galloway has a beauty made with kūmara. And on page 43 Fiona Hugues praises parsnips. The sun was shining when we headed up to beautiful Opito Bay earlier this year to meet Perry and Erin from Opito Bay Salt. Read about their journey to create award winning New Zealand sea salt on page 8. On page 63 we also meet the ladies from the Heritage Trading Company, a new space in Cambridge that you have to check out!

This winter we are running the Matariki Dish Challenge in Rotorua for the second year. This is a great excuse to rediscover Rotorua and some of its great eateries, including last year’s winners –Ambrosia. Read more about them on page 67.

Happy reading and here’s hoping the rain stops. And if not, can it at least be filled with cake!

Vicki Ravlich-Horan Editor