Kiwi Cooking

A Classic New Zealand Cookbook

I recently read a New Zealand travel guide that mentioned The Edmonds Cookery Book. It says, "Almost every Kiwi household has a battered copy of The Edmonds Cookery Book, first published in 1908... The book is the first place people turn for making the sort of cakes and desserts that fill the shelves of rural tearooms... Fancier modern cafes are now reinventing these retro Kiwi classics." Apparently, the cookbook has a recipe for Afghans. Afghans are the name for a yummy chocolate biscuit (cookie). I have bough them a few times and we have really liked them. They have something crunchy in them that I really liked but I wasn't sure what it was. Maybe toffee? Maybe hokey pokey (honeycomb, very common in sweets here). I remember seeing the cookbook at the grocery store and I knew I needed it.

The Secret Ingredient. 

 The recipe divulged the "secret ingredient," cornflakes! Seriously?! Cornflakes are the yummy crunchiness. Who would have guessed? Not me.

The Final Product. Dark and Delicious. 

I baked the biscuits tonight for our family treat and they were a big hit. Like always, I didn't follow the recipe completely. I didn't want to take the extra steps of making icing and frosting them. So I added small dark chocolate bits (chocolate chips) instead. All who tasted them were pleased and wanted more. I will bake them again and again. It's good to have a new cookie to add to my recipe repertoire.

Leave Nature Alone

Not the bird in this story, but a bird near where this story took place. 

One morning while running along the beach I spotted a seagull pecking at what looked like a plastic wrapper. I thought, "Oh no! I must save this bird from swallowing a plastic object." So, believing myself as being a good global citizen, I ran at the bird to scare it away so that I could then get the plastic from it. Only then did I discover that the "plastic wrapper" was really a fish. "Wow! birds eat fish in New Zealand," I thought to myself. But, I felt so bad for scaring that bird away from its breakfast.

Lesson learned: leave nature alone.

The Home Tour

We feel really lucky to have gotten this house. I had seen it listed for rent online back in April but I thought there was no way it would still be on the market when we would arrive in July. Lucky for us it was. It was the first house we toured. It was out of our budget, but when I told the realtor our budget, without hesitation she agreed. It is in a quaint little suburb called Seatoun, right on the mouth of the Wellington harbour. It is up on a hill so we have incredible views. It is a great location for work, just a 7 minute drive or 11 minute bike ride. All my girls go to the same neighbourhood school, which is walking distance from our home. The school has years 1-8 with about 400 students. The house also has central heating and insulation, which is not the norm here.

Another reason we liked the house is because it has four bedrooms. Getting four rooms was important to us because we felt like it was the only nice consolation we could offer our daughters when we told them we would be moving halfway cross the world and leaving their schools and friends behind. Telling them they could each have their own room made at least one thing special about moving. Also, we wanted to have a nice guest bedroom for visitors to stay in. So that means if any of you come to visit, Mally gets kicked out of her room and gets the top bunk in Lucy's room and you get her queen sized bed.

As promised here are photos of our home:

The Exterior. We are on a corner with an empty lot between us and our neighbours. So it feels very spacious around the house. 

Through the front doors. We have a mudroom area to take off our shoes.

The living room with AMAZING views of the water.

Dining room.

Dining room from another angle.

Kitchen. It is large and has tons of storage. The wall not shown has lots of pantry storage space.

View from the kitchen sink. Seeing this makes washing the dishes more delightful. 

The small office room.

The upstairs bathroom. They call it the toilet here. 

Heading downstairs.

Our master bedroom. 

The laundry room. The house didn't come with whiteware (here that means washer, dryer and refrigerator) so we needed to buy all that stuff. 

Downstairs toilet with shower.

Mallory's room/guest bedroom. Check out the windows and the view!

Eva's room. It's a work in progress. Last weekend we took her bed apart to paint it a pretty shade of mint green.  

Lucy's room.

Fun fact: Sir Peter Jackson (the director of Lord of the Rings and a bunch of other movies) owns the buildings across the street from us.

Our Lady, Star of the Sea Chapel (no longer used for religious services) that Sir Peter Jackson renovated and owns. 

The Sisters of Mercy Convent. Also renovated and owned by PJ. 

Why Weta and Wellington?

Hello world. We finally have internet!!! We have been in NZ for 54 days. We have been in our house for the past 38 days and that whole while we have been waiting, waiting, and more waiting for them to install our internet. It finally happened. Horary! Now I can get back to blogging.

The Windy Welly Sign. This is pretty close to Stephen's office. 

I wanted to share why we choose to leave CA for NZ. It all started on January 2, 2018 as we were driving back to CA from our annual Christmas pilgrimage to UT. As we were driving the looooong drive home I was looking out over the barren NV landscape and asking myself "How many times have we done this drive? Too many to count." I then started thinking about our life in the Bay Area. We had a nice home that we just finished renovating. Stephen had a good job. The girls were all in good schools. We had great friends and a nice church community. I was feeling like our life was pretty good.

Then the next moment a very clear impression came to my mind which said, "You should think about Stephen working for Weta." Well, that was out of the blue I thought back. I knew that Weta was the movie company that did 'Lord of the Rings' all those years ago and I knew that Weta was in NZ. So, I quickly answered back to that prompting. "Sure, maybe in 4 years."

Stephen and I had never seriously talked about moving to NZ. I remember after him finishing grad school he looked into Weta once but they can only hire people outside NZ with 4+ years of industry experience. So, at that time it wasn't an option.

I didn't think too much about this impression. I didn't mention it to Stephen, except for a few nights later while we were brushing our teeth I said to him, "What if in 4 or 5 years you try to get a job at Weta and we try living abroad." To which he said "Sure." Just like I knew he would. And I thought that was the end of that for a while.

By the last week of January Stephen told me that his boss was leaving their group and he should maybe start trying to find a new job. No, I thought. That is so stressful. So Stephen started to see if there were other job opportunities with other groups at Apple. While I started thinking that Stephen was just fine where he was. It was his boss that was leaving. Stephen could just keep his job and life could go on as usual. Then after a few days passed Stephen called me from work to tell me that he saw that Weta had some openings in his field and he was asking for my permission to apply for them. I can remember throwing my hand in the air and saying, "I already know what is going to happen and I guess I better start learning about NZ."

And sure enough he applied, interviewed and got the job. Though, it did take about 2 months for everything to be settled.

I am so glad that I received that prompting. It made the whole decision and process moving here so much more comforting. I truly believed that God invited us to come and live in this amazing place. I feel so secure knowing that God loves and takes care of us.


On my next post I plan on showing pictures of our house here. We really lucked out and got a great house. The views are amazing and seeing them makes me happy all day long.

Absolutely Positively Wellington

The motto of this town is "Absolutely Positively Wellington." And I think it really does live up to that. So far everything from the weather, views, landscape, food, people... have all been very positive and lovely. Very quickly we found a nice home to rent. It has four bedrooms. Each girl gets her own room, which they were happy about. The house was above our price range, but the manager didn't hesitate to give it to us at a price within our budget. The home as amazing views of the Wellington Bay. And its walking distance from the beach and a gelato shop. I can already imagine how we will be spend our summers.

Speaking of summer, its winter here. It was weird to fly into winter from leaving sunny summery CA.  Our first 3 days here were pretty rainy and windy. I can totally see why they call it "Windy Welly." The wind is powerful and loud here. As we were running from our car to the church building Lucy nearly blew over from a strong gust. I had to hold her tight. I thought it was quite funny and amazing to feel the intensity of the wind. At church I asked a boy in Lucy's class if it is always windy here and he said, "Not 1% of the time." I liked his response, but I have found it to be incorrect. Mostly our days have been calm, sunny and beautiful. It feels much like winter in the SF Bay area.

View of the city from the Cable Car Museum

Daffodils and a cute kid at the botanical gardens.

 The food here is delicious and continues to impress. Wellington has heaps (meaning a lot) of cafes and restaurants. Nearly every other business is a restaurant. As were go out and about each day discovering the city we always manage to find a bakery and get awesome treats.

Another amazing meal.

 Wellington is totally a walkable city. On foot we can get nearly everywhere in a short amount of time. Our Eva lead us to Eva Street. I love the way they decorated it. On a side note, Eva seems to be a very popular name here. Nearly everyday we overhear of another girl with that name.

Our famous Eva at the famous Eva Street. 

 The vegetation similar to forests on the SF Peninsula, but more lush and green. We spent Saturday afternoon hiking to Mount Victoria. It was a steep hike and just when we thought we had reached the top the trail keep on going up. There were great views from the top, so it was worth the climb. Near Mount Victoria is were a scene from Lord of the Rings what filmed. We think we found the location.

Looking for Hobbits near the movie site for Lord of the Rings.

Last Friday we went car shopping. We needed a car that could comfortably fit our girls plus have room for grandma and grandpa, who we hope will come and visit. Minivans are hard to come by and expensive. Plus, petrol (gas) is more expensive here, so we wanted to find a smaller car. We feel very satisfied with the car we bought. It is a Honda Stream. It fits 7 with 3 rows of seats. Plus, the back seats will fold flat so we can haul things. I really like the car. Sadly, they don't sell this kind of car in the states, or I think I would buy one.

A view of the inside of our new car. Just think of all the junk I can haul in this.

I have been so pleased with every place we have visited. The Te Papa National Museum is amazing. It's larger-than-life exhibits are so well done and interactive. They really take pride in their history and culture. We visited the zoo this week. I was surprised with how excited I was to see a kiwi. It was so cute! It looked like a little fuzz ball poking away in the dirt. I was again surprised with how much I loved petting the kangaroos. I thought they would feel rough and be aggressive. But, it was so soft and gentle.

It was so amazing to pet a kangaroo. It was so gentle and soft. 

That's enough "Absolutely Positive" things about Wellington for now. I'll share more later.

Welcome to New Zealand. Would You Like a Root Canal?

Just an update on my toothache. On July 1st I started having a major throbbing toothache. I have never had one before. It was horrible! There were a few times the pain brought me to tears. At the time we were traveling in Tijuana, Mexico visiting my brother. Seeing a dentist in the midst of traveling from Tijuana, to LA then to Wellington seemed impossible. I can only deal with one big thing at a time and then my focus was on getting us to Wellington. So I just had to deal with the pain. Painkillers did absolutely nothing. It didn't matter how many I popped in my mouth. Orajel did nothing either. The only moments of relief I could get were when drinking small amounts of water and swishing it around my mouth. So, I carried water bottles wherever we went and I went to the bathroom a lot!

Once in Wellington we couldn't call a dentist until we had NZ phone numbers. And with all the things we had to do to get settled in, getting phone numbers wasn't our number one priority. But on Tuesdays we got our new numbers and made our first call to a dentist. It took calling a few dentists until we could find one that could see me that day. I was able to see a dentist and it took a little while for him to figure out which tooth had the problem. He told me I would need a root canal and then he told me how much it would cost. I then cried in front of him and took a tissue from the box of tissues on his desk. We set an appointment for the next day to start the process of a root canal. I walked out of his office in pain, scared about the procedure and nervous about the cost of it. This was not the way I expected to be introduced to New Zealand.

Yesterday I went in for the root canal and I have to say, it was worth every penny. The procedure was painless and thankfully took all my toothache away. I still have a few more appointments in the coming weeks to finish the process, but I am feeling so much better, even if our bank account will be feeling the pain now. Having a painfree and happy mom and wife is well worth it.

Kiwi Language Lesson: When someone says to you, "I hope that tooth is all fix and not causing your jip." It means, "I hope that tooth is all fixed and not causing you pain." Jip means pain. 

Keep Left!

Look, their license plate is my initials. Too bad I wasn't born in 73.

I wasn't nervous about learning to drive on the left side of the road, that is until I had to finally do it. It definitely takes concentration and complete silence from the 3 kids in the backseat. I have to keep telling myself, "Keep left! Keep left!" I have managed to drive about Wellington a few times now and I feel a great sense of pride every time I make it to my destination alive and without too much trouble. Driving in Wellington CBD (City Business District) feels a lot like driving in SF. Narrow streets, tall buildings, and traffic. Driving outside of CBD isn't as nerve racking. In the suburbs the streets are wider and there is less traffic. But speaking of traffic; the traffic here is NOTHING like Bay Area traffic. Rarely is there stop and go traffic. Cars are always moving along, not stopped.
The only time you need to stop is for a stop light. We can get anywhere around Wellington within about 20 minutes. Which I think it pretty cool (they say cool here a lot).