Waiting for Gordon

Today I did something totally irrational.  I bought a cookbook (I generally never read such things again after flicking through a few times), and queued for two hours to see the author.  That's right, Gordon Ramsey is in town.

Gordon at his book signing at Paper Plus Newmarket today.

People usually associate the man with swearing and abuse, but I have really only watched Kitchen Nightmares and found him to be genuine and helpful to restaurant owners in distress.  And he is just spot on with his advice.

With the title of his latest book being "Ultimate Cookery Course" (which sounded like I would learn something rather than just getting a book of recipes), the promise of a signature from the celebrity, and the chance to win a fancy dinner cooked by the man himself, I absconded from work to wait in line.

Finally got to Broadway after over an hour of queuing!

And what a wait that was!  The security guards at the entrance to the shop suggested that I buy a book first, so I went into the store and made my way to the counter, before joining the queue for signings.  It was only afterwards that I realised I could have joined the queue immediately, because there was a man there with a mobile Eftpos machine, carting a stack of the books around!

Although the signing session was supposed to be from 12 to 1pm, there was little movement in the queue until the celebrity chef presumably turned up at 12:50pm.  Twenty minutes later, I made it onto Broadway (the queue went from this street around the corner), and began to hope I would get my turn soon.  At 1:30pm, someone from the ZM radio station announced the winners of the dinner with Gordon, and ten minutes later I was inside!

Queuing inside Paper Plus Newmarket.

At 1:50pm, just as I was getting close to the table, the queue was suddenly cut off in front of me.  Gordon's signing hour was up, and everyone behind the arbitrary position would have to leave.  We were naturally outraged!  What?  You tell us this after we have waited two hours already?  And spent $50 on his book (or $100 in my case, as I got an extra one as a gift)?  After having been videoed waiting in line, and advertised to by opportunistic promo girls?

I refused to leave, and watched as the last of the lucky ones made it to the table.  Gordon, perhaps unaware of the situation, chatted cheerfully to each person, asking one about their studies, noticing another was their friend.  As soon as he was done, those of us behind the cut-off mark who did not already leave in disgust cried out for him to sign our books also.  He laughed and agreed, while the book store staff laid down the rules: no messages, no photos, just signatures and out the door.

It was an expensive price to pay for an illegible scrawl, but, well, I got my prize!

It's supposed to say "To Nom Nom Panda", but...

Magnum Pink and Black, Heartbrand Icecreams Around the World, and the Power of Marketing

Marketing really works.  We're not the type of people who walk down the icecream aisle in the supermarket—the boxes tend to sit in our fridge, just taking up space and getting more and more frosty—but we went and spent $14 on those new limited edition pink and black Magnums the other day.

Huge billboards at major intersections.

As soon as we started seeing the advertising for these new products a month or so ago, on giant billboards as well as in dairies and bus stops, we just had to give them a go. How's "Marc de Champagne" for an exotic sounding flavour?  And wouldn't "Black Espresso" be just absolutely decadent?

Sandwich board outside a local dairy.

These icecreams also happened to be on special at our local supermarket, which sealed the deal.  We took home a beautiful black box (nice and flat for easy storage in our freezer) for something like $7 for four sticks.

Magnum black: espresso flavour.

The design was a delight to behold.  Inside the sleek box sat the individually-wrapped portions. When you open one of the foil packets, you notice that the wrapper has a gold lining, and the icecream has an "M" proudly stamped onto one side.

Unfortunately, the flavour was rather underwhelming.  The overriding taste was that of the dark chocolate coating, which is similar to eating Whittaker's 72% dark ghana.  In order to experience the icecream inside, you needed to remove the outer layer first.  Then it is pretty much just your usual icecream with a few swirls of coffee, light in colour as well as flavour.

Did this stop us wanting to try the pink version? Not at all. The fruit and vege shop down the road sells single servings, so we thought we would just have one each, rather than a whole box.  Turns out they were $3.50 per portion, so we might as well have bought the box for the price of our two icecream sticks.

Single servings of Magnum Pink and Black at a local vegie store.

These pink beauties have a slick of edible metallic paint on the outside (a "pearlescent pink coating" according to the label), which comes off on your fingers, a bit like eye shadow.  They looked amazing, but again, under that gorgeous exterior, they didn't really taste like very much.  I certainly would never have guessed "champagne" if I hadn't been told beforehand what flavour to expect.

If Magnum's Facebook page is anything to go by, others have been less than impressed too, but clearly someone likes them, and now we can't go anywhere without noticing the signage.  The advertising pops up at the major intersections and busy areas, including:

• Balmoral Road and Dominion Road junction
• Sandringham Road shops
• Newton motorway onramp
• Ellerslie-Panmure highway
• Newmarket, corner of Khyber Pass and Broadway
• Newmarket, Khyber Pass motorway on-ramp
• Fanshawe Street, on the way from the central city to Victoria Park

We have probably seen the billboards in other places too, not to mention the signage at practically every dairy.  That marketing budget must have been huge!

Bus stop outside our local supermarket.

I have to admit I have a fascination with the Heartbrand in general. Owned by Unilever, it is known as Streets here in New Zealand and Australia, but has many names around the world, from Lusso in Switzerland to Good Humor in North America and China.  With such a global brand, I should probably have been less surprised that the pink and black icecreams are not made in New Zealand, but in Germany and Hungary respectively!

Heartbrand signage from my travels: (from left to right, top to bottom) Argentina, France, UK, and Turkey.

These new products are not bad, just not much more exciting than the other Magnum flavours. I am amazed by how much advertising Unilever is putting into them, but then again, we ended up purchasing something we would normally not have, and I am writing a blog post about it! Marketing works, and the company knows it.

Mexican Meal @ Social Cooking

Tortilla soup and churros?  I like the sound of that!  When a friend was not able to make it to a Social Cooking class they had bought a daily deal for, I jumped at the chance to try it out.

The ground floor kitchen on Nelson Street is not a place you would normally walk past, but you have a good view of the beautiful space from the street. Despite the website stating "Please arrive 15-30 minutes prior to the class starting as the demonstration starts smack on time" though, it was not entirely to schedule. No, this is not a class with a focus on speed or skill acquisition.  It is about cooking as a social event, and as such, it runs at a rather leisurely pace, to give you a chance to chat to your fellow students.

View from the street, while waiting for the class to begin.

We wandered in and stood around looking confused for a while, then we were greeted, and marked off the attendance list. "Now, a glass of bubbly is included with your deal.  Would you like to have that, or would you rather drink something else?  We have wine, beer, non-alcoholic drinks..."  The staff member took our order and promised to bring our drinks and name stickers around.

Cutlery hooks are very appropriate for hanging aprons.

The cooking demonstration started about 10 minutes late.  Fortunately, there were little packets of bagel chips on the table, so if you were already needing a bite, you could stave off your hunger a little.  The instructor cracked jokes and set a conversational tone, telling us about growing up in Goa and working on cruise ships. It was an entertaining show, but you couldn't help but notice the product-pushing.  We were working on induction cooktops from Electrolux, all the spices were from Gregg's, the frozen skinless chicken breasts were from Tegel's, and so on.

If you are anxious about cooking, this is the class for you.  The recipe is dead easy, put together with things things you can buy from the supermarket, and everything is measured out for you already.  You don't even have to crush your garlic, because there is a jar of Gregg's minced garlic waiting on the table.  Just in case you didn't know how to chop your onions though, the instructor takes you through the proper technique. (I disagree with his assertion that red onions make you cry more than regular brown ones though.)

While we were shown how to make the tortilla soup, a staff member also ran a food-related quiz, asking for instance how pizza margherita got its name, or what the original flavour of Twinkies was.  We got to take nibbles of the deep-fried tortilla strips, then sample the finished soup, watch the churros being made, and taste that too, before we were let loose to have a go ourselves.

Tortilla chips fried while cooking the rest of the ingredients. This space is actually for four couples.

It's a good thing we did not have to work in groups of more than two, because the bench space was feeling pretty crowded already, though we are used to working in a small kitchen.  It was our first time using an induction cooktop, and we were amazed at how quickly it heated food up.  However, we struggled with the touch controls, which didn't really want to respond to our frantic pressing and swiping most of the time.

Our sopa de tortilla.

We didn't want to have boiled chicken (okay, "poached" sounds somewhat better), so we modified the recipe a little and cooked the flesh on dry heat.  We followed the serving suggestion though, and wish we hadn't, because the fried tortilla strips went soggy pretty quickly in the hot liquid.  We would definitely have the chips sitting on the side or just on top next time.

To be honest, given the simple ingredients of this dish and the quick and easy steps involved, it was surprisingly tasty (apart from the frozen chicken breast which we overcooked).  And it looked impressive too, with some vibrant colours.

The staff cleaned up after us while we ate our meals, then after some more relaxing time (and offers of drinks), we were in the kitchen area again to make our dessert.  There were nine couples in the class, and only two deep fryers, so you can imagine we were hurrying through to make sure we got to one first.  We didn't manage to make our churros crisp, but they were delicious anyway, served with spiced hot chocolate (from Tio Pablo) or just sugar and cinammon.

Our churros weren't pretty or crispy, but they were good anyway.

Overall, we had a good meal (the portion sizes were huge too).  It was the first time we had used an induction cooktop or deep fryer, not to mention the first time we have tried to make tortilla soup and churros, and it's always good to try something new.  We found it hard to keep our interest levels up though, because of the slow pace of the class.  We are just not as good at making small talk with strangers as other people are.

This course is suited to beginners, and we wish this was clearer on the website.  For the price that we paid, even at the discounted rate of $100 for two people, we expected something a little more gourmet than food from a packet.  We would have loved to have been given a chance to make our own tortillas, for instance, or to mince our own garlic.

We were also not too impressed by the knives (blunt by our standards anyway) or the state of the deep frying oil (canola oil which was already dark brown before our class).  To add insult to injury, we were charged an extra $21 for the two glasses of wine we drank, one of which we had assumed would be included in the price we paid, as a replacement for the bubbly.

Although we were disappointed by the level of cooking in this class, it is likely that other classes will be more interesting.  A friend told me that she went to one for pork and fennel cannelloni, and they made the pasta from scratch.  Likewise, if you went to this with the intent of meeting people while doing something fun, you will get more out of it than if you were expecting some sort of masterclass.

We wouldn't pay full price for this event, but we did have an enjoyable evening trying a few new things. We might even make tortilla soup and churros again, now that we know how easy that can be!

This post is part of Our Growing Edge, a monthly blogging event aimed at inspiring us to try new things.  This month it is hosted by Genie from Bunny. Eats. Design.

Review: Best Ugly Bagels

The secret to success is clearly not in giving your customers what they want, or think they need. I never needed a smartphone until I got one, and now I can't live without one.  Similarly, Auckland never knew it needed an oyster bar until Al Brown's Depot came along, and his latest venture, Best Ugly Bagels, fits into the same category.

"King" bagel (lox, capers, red onion and cream cheese).

In a way, you could see it coming.  The trend these days is towards simple, well-executed food in an informal setting, where you can feel at ease and just drop in for a bite of something delicious.  It's not really surprising that Best Ugly Bagels has a queue going out the door of its open kitchen.

Fortunately, I first turned up on Tuesday, on the morning of the bagelry's official opening day, before the hordes of customers arrived.  I was warmly invited to step into the kitchen area, and the head baker took me through the bagel-making process, even getting their consultant from Montreal, Steve, to demonstrate how they hand-roll the dough into rings.

The team in action.

Naturally, the first question that came to my lips was "So how are Montreal bagels different from any other bagels?"  Apparently, these are different from American bagels because they are rolled thinner, and contain no salt.  Best Ugly's hand-shaped  bagels—so called because of their rustic, uneven look—are then cooked in a pot of water with honey, before being baked in their wood-fired oven. I was handed a sesame-coated one, just pulled from the heat, and it was softer and sweeter than other bagels I have eaten, with a beautiful shiny and golden crust.  It tasted and smelt fantastic.

The team didn't let me leave without making me a completely new bagel for free.  Yes, with whatever filling I wanted!  How's that for a pleasant surprise?  Of course I honoured my promise to return with others for lunch.

"Yodi" bagel (pastrami, Swiss cheese, and pickle), and "PB&J" (Pics Peanut Butter and Te Horo jam).

Although a fresh bagel is amazing on its own, the highlights of the menu are the non-vegetarian fillings.  The pastrami and cured salmon are both made using a secret recipe unique to the bagelry, though they are happy to share the fact that the salmon comes from The Salmon Man (farmed in Stewart Island) and the pastrami is produced by Karl Campbell in Wellington.

I wish there were a few more filling choices, maybe the offer of a side salad, and also more seating, but this converted warehouse is well worth visiting just the way it is.

Panda Recommends

Best Ugly only has three kinds of filled bagels—quality over quantity! Don't be tempted to cheap out and just get one with spreads. They are good too, but you would be missing out. You can also get some bagels to take away to eat with your own favourite toppings.

Mains: "King" bagel with lox (cured salmon), capers, red onion and cream cheese ($12.00), "Yodi" bagel with pastrami, Swiss cheese and pickle ($10.00)

Vegie Pandas
There is one filled bagel you can eat, the "TAB" with tomato, avocado and basil ($8.00).

Menu

Note

If you don't specify which type of bagel you want (sesame, plain ugly, poppy seed, or cinnamon and raisin), you will get the sesame one by default.  They won't ask you.

Although it looks like there is nowhere to sit, the tables outside Shed Five are shared.  You will still need to wait for your bagel to be made before sitting down though.  This is not a table service kind of place.

Oh, and you really need to eat these on the day they are made, unless you have kept the bagels in the freezer.  Just like baguettes, they will go hard and dry if left out.

Restaurant Details

Best Ugly Bagels
Shed 3, City Works Depot, 90 Wellesley Street West, Auckland
(09) 366 3926

Opening hours:
Mondays to Sundays 7am - 3pm

The queue moves quicker than it looks at Best Ugly, but be prepared to wait and/or  take your bagel away.

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Eggy Surprises

Easter Monday also happens to be April Fools Day this year.  My carton of jumbo free range eggs has been giving me a double-yolked surprise every time so far, but here are a couple of great ideas where you have control over the end result.

Scrambled Eggs in Whole Shell

The method shown in this video results in a scrambled egg with a completely intact shell.  All you need to mix up the insides is a long-sleeved T-shirt (or stocking) and some string or rubber bands.

Cook to your liking afterwards (not necessarily hard-boiled) and no one will suspect a thing at the breakfast table!

Cupcakes Baked in Egg Shells

The Delicious Days blog gives a method for baking in egg shells.  Other blogs use different types of cake, from a brownie filling to a red velvet one.

Brownie in egg shells from La Receta de la Felicidad.

The Cupcake Project blog has a variation which even has a "yolk" piped inside before baking.  You could also try injecting lemon curd afterwards, rather like a jam donut, but then you would have a little hole left in the cake. Potentially you could remove the egg shells and dip the egg-shaped cakes into white chocolate - then you could eat the whole thing, though admittedly it wouldn't look as realistic.

Cheesecake in Chocolate Eggs

Another dessert you could make to look like eggs is cheesecake in chocolate egg shells.  This does not require baking nor do you need real eggs (unless your favourite cheesecake recipe uses them).  I guess an unsuspecting recipient is not so much going to think this is an egg, as that the chocolate egg will be hollow.

Pudding with chocolate shell, from Gattina blog.

Doesn't it look fantastic?  And much more of a pleasant surprise than this.

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Actually, we managed to play a completely unintended prank on our house-sitter a couple of years ago.  We had left a bowl of salted eggs sitting in our fridge.  If you have ever had these before, you will know that if you crack them open before they are cooked, the whites will look like normal whites, but the yolk will be a solid sphere with an almost orange colour.  I have no idea if our friend even tasted these before he threw the lot out.

What about you? Do you have any eggy April Fool's stories to tell?  Or do you have some tricks planned?

A Titanic Affair

It's a bit like setting yourself up for a disaster, really.  We had a Titanic themed party recently (a first for me), and I offered to look after the food.  Fortunately it was just a party, not a dinner party, so I only needed to provide finger food, rather than ten or so courses.

Actually, it turned out to be a perfect party theme. The Titanic was in the news just the other day. People had the opportunity to dress up, decorations were easy and impressive, and I didn't feel too pressured about the food, with the reasoning that if something turned out to be a failure, well, that's kind of "in theme" too.  So I dared to try new recipes I had not seen before, venture out with skills I had not previously practised, and basically have fun.  There were things that weren't perfect, of course, but overall, I was pleased with how they turned out.

Vegetarian Foie Gras ("Faux Gras")

Freshly shucked oysters, served in their shells on a bed of ice, would have been classy, simple and delicious all at the same time.  But after considering cost, ability to be prepared in advance, food safety and general appeal to the less adventurous, I opted to go for something that sounded equally extravagant, without actually being so.  I made a vegetarian foie gras, or "faux gras", if you like.

Faux gras, served with crostini and fruit preserve.

There are many variations of fake foie gras.  Some people substitute the fatty delicacy with other animal-based dishes, for instance chicken liver pâté (sometimes mixed with goose fat), black cod liver, or avocado wedges steamed in a seafood broth. More vegetarian-friendly ideas include a mushroom mousse (vegan), the chickpea-based recipe in the book Wine Bar Food*, and those from anti-foie-gras campaigners, which use ingredients ranging from tofu, seitan and lentils, to "chicken style wheat meat" with bechamel sauce.

* For some reason, many people refer to this as Oprah's recipe. However, hers looks more to me like the same recipe than one "adapted from" the book.  From what I can see, the changes (apart from rephrasing "1 onion, thinly sliced" to "1 thinly sliced onion") are simply notes to the reader that:

• the butter should be slightly softened
• vin santo or tawny port is dessert wine
• allowing the mixture to cool takes about 1 hour
• it can be served spread on a toasted brioche

I chose a recipe using caramelised onions and walnuts, similar to the popular faux gras made by The Regal Vegan company.  Rather than lentils, though, I made mine with tinned butter beans, which I happened to have on hand, and which I believed would give the end product a lighter and more authentic colour, to counter the darkness of the soy sauce and marmite (yes, the last scrapings of the original version rather than the new).  I even added a bit of butter to the pâté, after discovering how good those pale streaks looked when I removed it from its grease-lined mould.

Butter beans, toasted walnuts and caramelised onions.

The verdict?  Not bad, particularly if you are a fan of beans and walnuts, as long as you are not really comparing it to foie gras. The texture was a bit grainy and dry, but I imagine that could have been fixed by using a better blender than my cheap stick mixer, and throwing in copious amounts of butter. I also found that my well-toasted walnuts overpowered the flavour of the sweet onions—my guess for what was meant by "a bag of walnuts" was clearly incorrect.  I ate the reserve batch of my concoction in a sandwich with grilled portabello mushrooms a couple of days later though, and it was beautiful.

Fail Factor
People don't expect a vegetarian substitute to taste anything like real foie gras, so I was happy to make something that looked like it and was flavourful too.  Unfortunately, in my haste, I did not properly dry the fancy lettuce leaves I served it on, and some of the little toasts I placed on top went soggy.  Salty and wet completely hit the spot for Titanic influences though, right?

Scones and Seaside Sugar Biscuits

What is more iconic for the British upper class than tea with scones and biscuits?  While I have quickly thrown scones together many a time, I have never tried to ice biscuits before, and I wanted these ones to have a nautical note.  The closest I have come to icing, up till now, was when I "glued" a gingerbread house together for the first time ever at Christmas, just a few months ago.

Cake stand with scones and biscuits.

To be honest, I found using a piping bag fiddly and inconvenient, especially since I only had one tip for fine lines. I had plans for all sorts of elaborate designs, but in the end, I gave up, stuck to two colours only, and even resorted to using a small paint brush.

Fail Factor
I didn't mix the dough for the scones very well, and they turned out very crumbly, threatening to fall apart from mere buttering.  The biscuits couldn't really be classed as a failure, as everyone raved about them, but the moisture from the icing (that, or being left overnight in the cooled oven) did soften them slightly.

Fruit Custard Tart

A fruit custard tart not only looks impressively elaborate, it is also the perfect balance between something appealingly healthy and light, and something closer to a rich, decadent dessert.  Actually, I made this for the first time to take to a summer party earlier this month, but it would fit in just as well in a Titanic party, not least because you could use all those egg whites left over from the custard to create a giant iceberg-shaped pavlova!

Fruit custard tart (not yet glazed), with glazed mini tarts at the back.

I would recommend that you at least double the recipe, because it does take a long time to put this tart together (I divided the work over several days), and you might as well get more out of it at the end.  Also, you will find that one tart serves no more than 6 or 8 people, because no one is going to hold back on the size of their slices!

Orange wedges look juicier if you slice off the membrane covering each segment.

Fail factor
Apart from not making enough of the dessert, I tried to rush through the job too quickly.  I didn't wait for the chocolate lining to set in the refrigerator, resulting in dabs of molten chocolate on the fruit and on the pastry brush when I glazed the tart.  On the topic of glaze, mine was made using a delicate elderflower jam I'd bought in Germany.  First I tried to apply it while it was lukewarm, leaving thick lumps on my fruit (as seen in the mini tarts above).  I then heated the jam until it became runny, which meant it spilt onto the plate below, rather than staying where it was brushed on.  Oh well, the tart was delicious either way.

Iceberg Punch

As soon as I came across the idea of having a large block of ice in a punch bowl somewhere online, I just had to have it, even if it meant days clearing out food from the freezer to make space. I couldn't use an ice cream container to hold the water, because a rectangular iceberg would just have looked odd.  Instead, it took a bit of thinking, juggling and spillage in the freezer before I obtained the ideal home-made chunk of ice.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find a large enough clear bowl for my punch.  Once the ice was in there, there was barely room for anything else, especially when you took into account the possibility of the lump melting and spilling liquid all over the place.  I needn't have worried.  Hours after it was brought out, and many refills on the punch later, the block was still nearly intact, despite the warm weather.

Fail factor
Obviously, I was over-zealous in the ice making.  People had real trouble trying to manoeuvre the ladle around the "iceberg" to reach the drink.  This was probably just as well, as the punch was really quite potent (I became tipsy just from breathing in the fumes in the cooking process).

Other Food

We did have other food at the party, which I didn't have to put any effort into.  This included bread and cheese (it was heart-shaped too!), served with fruit like grapes and slices of pear and apple, as well as a platter of nigiri sushi.  Totally agree that Asian food was out of place, but at least it tasted of the sea.

Heart-shaped cheese and fruit.

Apart from the oysters and iceberg-shaped pavlova that I gave up on, I would have liked to have had chocolate eclairs on the table.  Or perhaps something else from the last meal on the first-class menu, like Waldorf pudding, whatever that is.  I'll believe food blogger Paula Costa of Dragon's Kitchen, when she claimed this, or at least one interpretation of it, was not that nice.  After all, she went to the trouble (and expense!) of recreating every single course of the final first-class dinner on the Titanic pretty much by herself, after having tried out many variations of recipes for some of the dishes.

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If you are thinking about hosting a Titanic party too, now is a good time to get into action!  On 14 April 2013, it will be 101 years after the Titanic sank.  Okay, the 100th anniversary makes for a rounder number, but there's no turning back time, and 101 is palindromic (I was hoping maybe long-short-long would mean SOS in Morse code, but no such luck).

Here are some ideas I have gleaned off the internet, stolen from friends, or come up with myself...

Tickets/Invitations
Design your tickets or invitation cards based on the boarding pass for the Titanic.

Decorations
Lay a wooden plank on your doorstep, that people have to walk on to enter the party.  Decorate the room with portholes, deckchairs, life jackets/rings/boats, oars, netting, and other items of a nautical nature.  You can hire props to jazz up your event, such as a ship's wheel from First Scene (that place is amazing—it's worth having a party just for an excuse to check out their things, from suits of armour to giant statues to period telephones). Lay your table with fine china or silverware.  Because my event was not a formal dining one, I just bought silver-coloured plastic plates from New World (five for $2.50 on special).

Entertainment
If you have the budget for it, a live band would obviously add much to the occasion.  Otherwise, you could play music/clips from the Titanic movie.  Some party sites suggest dividing your event into two sections: a formal party for the first half, and a disaster in the sea for the second half.  I guess it  makes more sense if you are going to have party games along these lines.

Costumes
The Titanic theme is great because it is easy to dress up for.  Guests could come in period costume or simply dress up for a black tie affair.  Others could some as sailors, and those who really can't be bothered can just swagger in as a drunkard.  We even had pirates turn up, though I don't remember hearing about any in connection with the Titanic.

Speeches
Make references to the theme, such as starting off with "Welcome aboard".

Hope you have an epic party!

This post is part of Our Growing Edge, a monthly blogging event aimed at inspiring us to try new things.  This month, it is hosted by Danielle from Keeping Up with the Holsbys.

Fruit Salad with Mayo @ Pasifika 2013

I absolutely shocked and quite possibly horrified a workmate the other day, when I told him that my family used to have fruit salad with mayonnaise.  "Are you sure it wasn't yoghurt?" he asked, incredulous.

This is actually a chicken fruit salad, though it looks like the fruit salads of my youth.

In case you didn't realise, the Chinese (my family included) don't have much in the way of salads.  We like our vegetables heated, even tomatoes and lettuce (though not generally together—the tomatoes are often eaten with steamed or scrambled eggs, and the lettuce wilted in soup or meat dishes).  The northern Chinese have cold appetisers, but even then they are made of cooked potatoes or boiled peanuts or something.

I have always thought it a bit odd that we had fruit salad with mayo at family feasts.  Quite apart from the fact that having a salad at all was novel, mayonnaise seemed like such a Western ingredient, yet my Kiwi friends used it only for savoury mixes: potato salad, egg salad, coleslaw, maybe pasta salad.  Apart from the fruit, we also occasionally tossed in cooked potato cubes or hard-boiled egg chunks, making it somewhat closer to what the majority of New Zealanders would be used to.

Anyway, it turns out the Chinese are not alone in adding mayonnaise to salads involving fruit.  The Russians do it.  The Koreans have something similar, throwing in crab sticks and egg with the fruit.  And despite some Americans having negative reactions to fruit salad with mayonnaise, others seem to like it or even consider it unusual for fruit salad not to have mayo!

Today, we went to eat at the Pasifika Festival, an annual celebration of the cultures of the Pacific Islands. We strode past the "village" of Samoa, which was the first we came across and had extremely long queues. Instead, we fed ourselves from a stand in the Tuvalu cluster, where the men were busy grilling meat over a barbeque.  The women served us and scooped a salad swimming in a milky liquid onto the side of our plate—you guessed it, mayo dressing.

Barbequed lamb and chicken with a fruit and vegetable salad in thin mayo dressing ($10).

You only see some remnants of the salad in the picture above, but it was made with a mix of fruit and vegetables, including:

• orange
• apple
• pear
• avocado
• cucumber
• carrot
• cauliflower

and probably some other things we don't remember.  And you know what, it really worked!  It was an important component in a delicious meal, which was probably the healthiest plate you could have ordered at the event, since nearly everything else seemed to involve coconut cream, fried bread or dessert of some form.

Watermelon with ice cream ($10).

Fried bread, with margarine and some kind of sauce ($2).

It's far too easy to eat way too much at festivals like this, but hey, it's only about once a year, and you can blame it on cross-cultural culinary research.  In this case, I discovered more ways people make fruit salads with mayonnaise.