What a good fun weekend.

Started on Friday night when we hooked up with Wheezy & Karl, went to Turkish Cafe, I made the mistake I seem to make every other visit, which is to order the Karishik, it’s a bloody monster… Two huge piles of chicken & lamb, with rice, salad, and chopped up pita… I reckon I did pretty well, but there was still an awful lot on my plate. So next time I’ll order something more sensible, and the time after that I’ll forget about the gut busting splendour of the karishik and order it again, thinking something like "oooh, I am hungry with a big appetite, maybe it’s not as big as I remember."

Saturday morning, up at the crack of about 10.30, and off to pickup Dylzno & Mellanie, and their chubby little baby Harrison, then away to spend some time at the Food Expo, now I was in two minds about going, I’ve been to quite a few expos in my time, as an exhibitor, as an invited guest of exhibitors, and as a punter, though usually not as a paying punter… And I’ve pretty much never been impressed, the small business expo, for example, if complete rubbish. I don’t understand why anyone exhibits, I’ve been every time since it started, and I’ve never been terribly interested in anything.

Ditto with computer or big-boys-toys’ish shows… I’ve been to shows in Auckland and Sydney, and they’re just not that interesting.

So when it turned out we could only get one comp to the Food Expo, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t bother – after all, who wants to pay for the privilege of being bored & underwhelmed?

Anyway, it’s obvious from this build up that I actually enjoyed it. I liked trying a bunch of different wines, and we even ended up buying some (from Lincoln) and lots of cheeses, which again we ended up buying some of (some really nice imported feta, it’s super smooth and creamy).

Oh, and icecream. And chocolate. I was delighted that Leffe was on tap, disappointed that they had no Brune. I drowned my sorrows in baby octopus stew. And cashews. And really nice liquers from Bella Verde, I tried their limoncello, it was really strong and nice, but outshone by the feijola, which doesn’t seem to be available on the market yet, but which really is lovely. It needs to be mixed with something though, and I’m not sure what, ‘cos like the limoncello, it’s got a seriously strong alcohol flavour.

Oh, I got really tired of all the olive oil, I like to cook with olive oil, but please. Also, it doesn’t all need to be so strong and grassy. Ok, so it’s nice and fresh and artisan made in New Zealand, but so much of it?

One of my favourite stands was actually one of the simplest, the Kiwi Bacon guys were there, and you didn’t just get a little slice, you got a bacon sandwich, awww yeah. You know you want it.

Anyway, we ended up being there for a good 4 hours or so, and it was pretty fun, we dropped our friends off at their house in Mt Eden, and kicked off home, Claire needed a nap (she’d had more wine than me, by far) and I spent my time… doing I don’t remember what, probably wasting time on the internets.

Dinner time, and we went back to their place, I took Dylzno and we hit Bonzo for some fine fish & chips, TV was complete rubbish, so they broke out the Pictionary, we kicked their ass. Two wins to nil. Somehow I kept getting clues which required me to draw boobies. ( o Y o ). Aww yeah.

Sunday and we were both pretty tired, but Claire is never too tired to shoe shop, so we did a bit of that, then took George for a nice walk up the hill, Claire dropped her coffee, and I was mean. We dropped George back to Casa Del Pino. Then headed to Manukau Rd to look for some fabric Claire wants for a project, but ended up trying to find a bakery with a pie I’d be willing to eat, it wasn’t easy, so we ended up going to Burger King, which proved to be an adequate substitution.

For dinner Claire made another one of her (really, really really good) baked vegetable tarts, and some cool little cupcake sized pasties full of a lovely mix of the aforementioned creamy delicious imported feta, and handfulls of fresh spinach, dolloped into the pastry lined cupcake wells with an egg mix, broccoli, mushroom, and tomato. Aww yeah. Then topped off with a rich tomato relish, and accompanied by a leafy green salad with a respectful drizzling of balsamic and some shavings of a nice tart cheese.

Oh, I was mean (only a little bit, by my standards) about the coffee spilling because I’d just had to stand around in the cold, waiting for fifteen minutes, while she went and queued for the aforementioned coffee.