I used to work for a man who didn’t mind when I called him Voldemort, Harry Potter’s dark lord of evil. That kind of gives you an indication of how strange and twisted he was. Having said that, he wasn’t 100% awful, he definitely had moments of being kind and nice but mostly, and until he got married he was a strange tyrant that you could hear demanding things like a petulant baby his loud vice roaring across the room “All I want is….” was a frequent cry.
“Expecto Patronum!” I used to mutter under my breath during this time. Luckily he only had the vaguest understanding of the Harry Potter series. These two words in the book were what Harry or other wizards would say when needed a protector and a weapon against predators and Dementors. I was hoping that the spell would work to appease tyrannical bosses.
The Harry Potter series is one of my favourite series of books, ever. I’m not much into the fantasy genre but there was something that immediately grabbed me (and millions of others). I love the way the author J.K. Rowling’s mind works and how imaginative she is. And like with many of my favourite books there is also an element of food. One of the foods that she created was Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Jelly Beans. These are like muggle or non magical jelly beans except that there is a huge range of flavours good and bad. Alongside more regular flavours there were ones like earwax, bogey, vomit and dirt. As such they were marketed as “Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans – A Risk With Every Mouthful!”
And I woke up one day and said out loud in excitement “These would be perfect for Halloween!”
I didn’t quite have any inclination to replicate a vomit flavoured jelly bean but I decided to make jelly beans in a variety of flavours including some not so nice or non traditional jelly bean flavours mixed in with your regular flavours. Having a look in my spell cupboard… ahem pantry I took out the following flavours: coconut, chocolate, pear, black pepper, lemon myrtle, vindaloo curry, violet and strawberry and paired them with colours.
Finding a recipe for jelly beans was hard-very hard indeed. What I realised is that nobody really makes jelly beans because they are easy and cheap to buy. But because I was under the Confundus charm spell I paid no heed of the warning and made a batch without having any molds and they just melded into one and didn’t look even vaguely jelly bean shaped. I regrouped and bought some molds that in truth look more like mini Easter egg molds than jelly bean molds although they were sold as the latter, and made them again. The flavour of these jelly beans was distinct. Clear and quite scary for people picking up a red jelly bean and expecting a hot cinnamon or strawberry jelly bean and instead getting a mouthful of garlickly vindaloo!
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There could probably be reams of paper wasted on how hopeless I am at following directions. Even though the eatery 13B has the very street number in the lane, I was the person looking around confused and scowling with a facial expression that reads “Where is that damn place?”.
I finally figure out where I am and enter the black walled and small eatery with some quirky, whimsical touches. The lunch menu has a total of 14 items including some version of pizzas and sandwiches which do sound awfully good. But me I’m just besotted by the current slider and mini burger trend and the fact that the burgers come with fries (which I feel all burgers really should). Formerly called The Safe House it has been renamed to 13B because of course that is the number where it sits on Burton Street in Darlinghurst (not that that helps me). There are black walls and ornate gold candlesticks and the atmosphere is welcoming and warm.
Chai $6
The chai tea comes in a teapot with a milky loose leaf Elmstock chai tea. I had to ask for the honey which was quickly furnished and a teaspoon was all I needed for a sweet, aromatic cup of milky chai.
Mini burgers $13
The burgers come out on toasted slightly hard buns with a herbed pork and veal mince which is moist and juicy like a sausage mince filling with a good amount of garlickly aioli sauce, caramelised onions for sweetness, tomato, lettuce and melted tasty cheese. They’re very good and even though I only meant to eat one of these I ate both quite happily. The only thing that I would possibly change is the buns to be a softer bun as they were a little harder to bite into. The chips are more oven baked wedges which have just the right amount of seasoning via some rosemary and salt on top.
Prawn risotto $18
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Happy Weekend to you Dear Reader! 
I have another easy giveaway for you today with an easy poll to enter to win a $100 Corningware Etch set, a 1 kg bag of Saxa salt plus a $50 Coles voucher!
I’m sure almost all of you somewhere in your cupboard have a Corningware set. The nostalgic brand is one which mums pass onto their kids when they move out of home-in fact my mother actually passed on some Corningware to me when I got married. Their Etch range however is the more modern version and comes in two colours: sand and grass. Like all Corningware, it can go from the fridge to the oven to the table to the dishwasher.
There are three prize packs each with a $100 selection of Corningware Etch (and you can choose the colour that you want because I know that is important!), a $50 Coles gift voucher so that you can buy something to cook in it and a 1kilo bag of Saxa Rock Salt.
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I was always hopeless at Maths at school. I looked at it like some sort of strange wizardry and my teachers used to be frustrated at how I just could not wrap my head around things as simple as calculus and I kept wondering why they would try to make me do something that seems as natural as a fish riding a bicycle. I maintain that to this day I’ve never had to use calculus in life-not that I know of course because I only have a fleeting familiarity with it. My maths anguish was combined with the fact that my sister breezed through 4 unit maths whilst I floundered in 2 unit and well you can see how when someone tries to talk maths with me I cringe. I much preferred English as a subject.
I grudgingly have to admit that ratios do play a large part in my life. Ratios and fractions are crucial for cooking and baking and if you get the ratio wrong, well you can change a dish completely and for the worse. Mr NQN is not fond of baked bready things-he finds them too stodgy and dry but I knew that when he tried this bread with what appeared to be a fabulous ratio of bread to filling then he might be won over.
Povitica is a swirly Croatian or Slovenian bread dough much like a sweet brioche that is rolled out until paper thin, slathered with a sweet spread like ground walnuts or poppyseeds and then rolled up and then baked. The resulting bread has a lovely marbled effect inside and resembles swirls or the layers of a tree trunk. And as soon as I saw it on the Daring Bakers website I knew I wanted to make one and not just screeching in before the deadline. Povitica are not easy to find here in Australia and our hostess Jenni told us of first trying these at a American Farmer’s Market where they were $25 each!
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A normal person’s first reaction to a lodge such as Matakauri Lodge in Queenstown, New Zealand is usually that of unbridled bliss and happiness. Truthfully this was my first reaction. But then my second one came swiftly. It was the urge to work. And by the urge to work I mean the urge to work and then in turn earn Bill Gates or Oprah type of money so that I could live here permanently and I could take my friends and family along on trips with me.
Matakauri Lodge is the last lodge of our luxury NZ lodge tour with Relais & Chateaux and what a tour it has been! Bordering on the edge of Lake Wakatipu and owned by New York Hedge fund multi billionaire Julian Robertson it is one of three luxury lodges that he owns. The other lodge, Kauri Cliffs recently hosted a dinner with Heston Blumenthal, Thomas Keller and Neil Perry which understandably sold out in record time.
We’ve just arrived at Matakauri and barely have enough time to breeze through the doors when we are hit with the view. Yep see that mountain? It’s a stunner and part of the aptly named “Remarkables” and the whole of Matakauri lodge is followed by this beauteous mountain view. We walk through the common areas and check out the library which is where guests can dine privately if they choose to.
The library
The common rooms are breathtaking with a warm colour scheme designed by the incredible luxury lodge interior decorator Virginia Fisher. The warm oranges and reds give it a warmth and the floor to ceiling windows contrast against that just to keep your mouth gaping.
The outdoor area on the way to the rooms
The lounge area in the room
Private patio
I’m shown to my suite and the colour scheme follows through. Again the view. There’s a steamer far off in the distance that has been shipping people back and forth for about a century now but no-one is going to see me do my happy dance from that distance.
See this painting in the lounge room above the fireplace? Guess what’s behind it?
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