I always figure that at least half the family don't think it's "disgusting*" then it probably tastes how it oughta.

*how my almost seven-year-old describes a good 50% of what I try to feed him.

Yes, but then there's nary a dish that a child wouldn't prefer fried, and soon…

I'd like to cook more international food, but often I'm just lacking somebody to tell me if a given dish Tastes The Way That It's Supposed To Taste... I guess that could be my job here.

I always figure that at least half the family don't think it's "disgusting*" then…

the episode with the mayor who wants to hire Morricone to compose a soundtrack to his island is a gem.

Ha. I can imagine.

"Nessuno. Troppo occupato."

Piero Piccioni, film composer and pianist, most active c. '60-'80 (though he was a bandleader, as a teenager, even before the war).

Ah, but of course... Silly, silly me.

I'm also listening to Morricone (obviously), Bruno Nicolai, Piero Umiliani, Alessandro Alessandroni, Stelvio Cipriani, De Angelis fratelli, Berto Pisano, Franco Micalizzi,…

If it comes out any good, I'll hand-deliver.

Hah! You, sir, are a living legend.

I'd like to cook more international food, but often I'm just lacking somebody to tell me if a given dish Tastes The Way That It's Supposed To Taste... I guess that could be my job…

I'm on a big Piccioni kick at the moment.

I have absolutely no idea who that is. And I know, I could Google it but why not ask you to enlighten me instead?

(I didn't buy a single CD while I was there, which is just shameful)

Can I recommend,…

But you really, really, really don't want to get me started on the music.

Don't get me started.

I'm on a big Piccioni kick at the moment.

I bet, your kids are very lucky. Mum is past such endeavours, she toyed with the idea a while ago but it was all a bit too much

Can I recommend, if your mother/grandmother etc is too old for the writing, that sitting down with them and looking through photographs…

your fancy imported bug is just ordinary old yeast.

Only in the broadest sense. Your supermarket dried yeast (saccharomyces cervisiae, or sugar-eating beer fungus) makes perfectly good bread and ginger beer, as I understand it, but the original ginger beer plant is a symbiont of saccharomyces pyriformis and something vermiformis.…

Like my lovely wife commenting:

"Isn't it nice how all these men have brought their daughters to visit this place"

And wonderful to water the roots of family in this way. I grew up here in NZ with a fairly old spread out NZ pakeha family on both sides, and with a very strong sense of having family here and in Australia and the…

i think you can leave water standing in a bucket or container for a few hours and most of the floride evaporates? it's what they recommend for water in fish tanks for example.

24 hours was what I used to do when I had fish as a child.

And it's…

but onto water.

i think you can leave water standing in…

My mum is currently writing the story of her childhood for my kids. She was a preschooler in England when WWII broke out so it's a very different world to the one my boys know. Every…

It's reasonably pricey – $150 for up to 500 slides, I think. But *so* worth it, if you're into that stuff.

Completely agree – thanks for the info.

Using bottled water for the entire volume of my ginger beer seems unreasonable, but I reckon I'll keep the plant itself in the purer stuff until I get a bit more confident in keeping it alive

Seeing as you are in Wellies, head for Te Puna Wai Ora (The Spring…

They make me feel all homesick for something.

Turangawaewae.

A few years ago I visited Israel. I remember my Dad pointing out that some area was named after the plain where David fought Goliath. And then we both realised, it WAS the plain where David fought Goliath. I walked through…

I touched in my two previous posts on the role of food and objects, and a lot more could be said of rituals and symbols and language...

and the music!

Luigi Tenco (arr. Ennio Morricone), "Quello che conta", 1962

Not for long. Jimmy A want floride in it and Bob Parker has already sold it to David Henderson for $1 (well he might have?!)

Also the Riccarton Bush Trust are wanting to change the original Act…

Swapping for a non-chlorinated source of water might make a difference, even if you can't import the acqua ferrarese.

Using bottled water for the entire volume of my ginger beer seems unreasonable

I could get you guys some lovely clean aquifer water, very reasonable rates.

Giovanni, I'm loving these columns.…

Even putting aside the mushy family remembrance, some of the photos themselves were amazing – one in particular of my Aunty in the foreground with Lion Rock looming out of a stormy sky behind here…

Although, as others have pointed out, doing so in your second language is unforgivably smartass.

I know! I feel so inadequate. And hungry for fresh bread.

(I seem to have missed an instalment while I was away. Off to hunt for it...)

Gareth, my grandfather and my mother recently had…

Had he done the latter, he would have been kicked out of the venue I would think.

Ha.
"Oh great, thanks pal. That was a lovely '04 Pinot, was quite looking forward to that..."

Safe return.

I may have misunderstood the sacrament but holy crap you met Jesus in Hastings?

We did stay at the Fantasyland Motel, but I don't think it was a vision. Plus I believe Jesus turned water into wine, not wine into bread. Had he done the latter, he would have been…

I met an old Italian gentleman in Hastings who hails from Veneto and in his youth used to travel to Ferrara to swap his wine with bread

I may have misunderstood the sacrament but holy crap you met Jesus in Hastings?

Beautiful writing – on Tuesday night my family found…

Can I just take the opportunity to thank Russell for suggesting that I post this here? Sharing the trip with you all has been a thrill.

You underrate yourself: I tapped you because you write so well.

Although, as others have pointed out, doing so in your second language is…