Sunday, February 17, 2008

The Shepherd's Tale

February 12

My journey through New Zealand continued with a flight from Blenheim to Christchurch in the region of Canterbury. We stopped by Hinton's, near the airpot, for lunch, where I had baked Parmesan-crusted lamb cutlets on a potato galette with a spinach, pancetta, lemon and spiced carrot salad and a mint jus.
This is as good a time as any to point out that the United States has no monopoly on gargantuan portions. I was served three double lamb chops (i.e. six ribs). My galette must have been eight ounces of potato, and believe me they didn't skimp on the pancetta.
It was a lot of food, something of which I was particularly aware since on the way to the airport we'd stopped by a butcher shop and I had my first steak and kidney pie. It kind of reminded me of a Jamaican beef patty, but without the spice and with a comforting earthiness that I think came from the kidney.
So I was full as Kevin drove us to Middle Rock in the Canterbury high country, where we visited the sheep farm of Bruce and Lyn Nell. We tooled around the 50-year old farm, which was given to the family as part of a land grant program to World War I veterans.
The Nells have 8,000 Corriedale sheep, a dual-purpose breed, which means they're used for both wool, suitable for baby blankets (young Corriedale lambs have wool as fine as 23 microns, although 27 microns is the norm for more mature animals) and meat.
The lambs are born in October, weaned in February and sold throughout their first year. Those kept for wool and breading are shorn once a year, in September.
Commodity lamb in New Zealand is normally "harvested" (a polite way of saying "slaughtered") before they're a year old, which is interesting, because I'm told that many New Zealanders contend that hoggets have tastier meat.
Hoggets are sheep aged between one and two years. Their meat would be more flavorful but somewhat tougher in structure — meatier if you will — than lamb.
At two years, they're mutton.
At the end of the tour we met dog trainer and entrepreneur Bernie Oliver, whom rugby fans, which, it seems, includes every one of the four million people in New Zealand, will be interested to know is the uncle of Anton Oliver, the former captain of the All Blacks, New Zealand's national team.
Bernie showed us how his dogs herd sheep. He sent a little one out to round up a small herd, which the dog did by running around the periphery of the field they were in and then running back and forth in sort of a shrinking arc that motivated the sheep away from him and toward us. At least that's what I think he was doing.
Then we visited with Bernie and the Nells in the Nells’ home, drinking coffee and snacking on tan bars — a sort of blondie — while Bernie told us of one of his entrepreneurial plans. He’s selling prepared cuts of Merino hoggets at a farmers market.
Now that's interesting because Merinos are wool sheep, not meat sheep.
Mr. Nell explained that sheep with fine wool, which Merinos have, also have finely grained meat, giving them a desirable texture. But it also means that they put on bulk slowly. So pound per pound (or kilo per kilo, as it were) Merinos are uneconomical for meat, but they should certainly taste good.
After our visit, Kevin drove Bill and me to Terrace Downs, a high country sporting resort, with a golf course, fishing and, we were told, spectacular views of the mountains. It was a foggy, overcast day, though, so I'll have to take their word for it.
The folks at New Zealand Trade & Enterprise had rented a house for us for the night. In its kitchen, Graham Brown was making dinner.
Graham is a chef for the Cervena venison folks, among others, and I met him back in 2001, the last time I was in New Zealand. I even wrote a profile of his son, Hamish Brown, who was then the chef at the George Hotel in Christchurch and now is working in London.
Joining us for dinner were two representatives from Five Star Beef, which, contrary to New Zealand custom, fattens its cattle on grain (mostly barley and wheat, but also corn silage) for export to Japan. They're exploring options for exporting to the United States.
Their beef is gorgeous. Take a look at this prime rib:
Graham roasted that with Yorkshire pudding and served it with a Shiraz and white pepper sauce and Kikorangi blue cheese. We drank a 2002 Pegasus Bay Cabernet-Merlot with it. Pegasus Bay is in the Waipara region in Canterbury.
Graham insists that Waipara will be New Zealand’s next big wine region, as many of the country’s best winemakers have set up shop there.
Waipara is not to be mistaken for Wairarapa, on the North Island, which is where our 2005 Paddy Bothwick Pinot Noir was from. We had that with venison that Graham had cured in salt and raw brown sugar and then smoked it with Red Zinger tea. He seared it rare, sliced it and served it on mesclun with baby arugula (which New Zealanders call “rocket”), orange, blueberry, fried parsnip, walnut and walnut oil-raspberry vinaigrette.
Then out came a bottle of Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc, from Marlborough of course, to be drunk with Graham's whitebait soufflé in phyllo tart.
Then came the beef, along with side dishes of vegetables and potatoes, also seasoned with white pepper, which Graham loves. I mean, he loves it. He swears by it.
Here's a picture of Graham, enjoying his rhubarb fool, topped with mashed strawberries, and ANZAC tuile and whipped cream.
The tuile is made with ANZAC cookies, a staple food for Australian and New Zealander soldiers at the World War I battle of Gallipoli, at which British commanders used those troops as cannon fodder against the Turks.
Graham crushes up the cookies into a batter, spreads it thinly on a silicon baking sheet and cooks it into a tuile.
We ate it with a Grove Mill Late Harvest Gewürztraminer, from Marlborough.

Here’s one more picture, just for fun, of Bill and Graham.

Mutton birds, blue cod, wild venison and complicated menu items

February 12

After learning everything we were going to learn about green-shell mussels, and more about what New Zealand creations the Australians took credit for, we checked into the Hotel d’Urville in Blenheim, the largest town in the Marlborough region, which is of course known for its wine in general and its Sauvignon Blanc in particular.
I’ve been to wine growing regions before, but none with such vast vineyards. Marlborough is no narrow valley like Napa. It has wide, flat plains planted with rows and rows of vines that seem to stretch on for miles. It’s really spectacular.
We checked in to the Hotel d'Urville, one of those quaint hotels where each guest room has a different theme (I was in the New Zealand room, with shells, Maori artifacts, and banners from different sports teams — I assume mostly rugby).
We met with Kevin Parish and John Grant downstairs for drinks before dinner, but Bill and I got there early and had a chance to peruse the restaurant’s menu, and it filled us with mild dread, so convoluted did each menu item seem. The lamb had a chocolate mint sauce.
I had a cocktail made from a vodka infused with feijoa, a popular New Zealand fruit, followed by a local brown ale, and then we repaired to the dining room.
I started with a pâté of venison game (that is to say wild venison, not the farm-raised variety in which New Zealand specializes) and field mushrooms with pistachios, Cumberland jelly and mango gastrique and forest mini-mushrooms. (Look up. There it is!)
That was followed by lemon peppered “Chatham Island” blue cod resting on a shrimp and green pea risotto, trio of steamed mussels (by which they meant three mussels) with a tarragon, almond and orange hollandaise and Prenzels lemon oil. Surprisingly, it was all quite tasty.
We drank a couple of Marlborough Pinot Noirs: a 2006 Astrolabe and then a 2006 Clayridge. Marlborough is a fairly new region for Pinots, with more established vineyards on the North Island in Martinborough and Wairapara, and down south in Central Otaga, but I think the Marlborough ones are my favorite.
Kevin later showed me a picture of a blue cod, which doesn’t resemble a cod at all, although it is a bottom feeder and so it has a similar diet.
John says the blue cod fishery, unlike the North Atlantic cod one, is still robust, and fishing there is easy.
Over dessert (I didn’t photograph the dishes, but one of them was a “chocolate vision," comprised of a chocolate terrine sponge and Clayridge Excalibur chocolate mousse quenelle in a chocolate teardrop with a chocolate sorbet and citrus reduction), and a 2006 Konrad Sigrun Noble Riesling (also from Marlborough), John told us about the mutton bird, or titi, a delicacy of the Maoris on the small islands south of the South Island, appropriately called the Mutton Bird Islands. Only Maoris of the Naitahu tribe are permitted to go there. Mutton birds migrate there all the way from the Bering Strait to nest. They leave their hatchlings and return home, and then the Maoris catch the birds and eat them.
“So these birds migrate across the world to breed and then you eat their children?” I asked.
“It’s sustainable,” he said with a shrug. And it probably is. New Zealanders are serious about that stuff.
The hatchlings are about the size of quails and are sold brined in buckets for about NZ$10 per bird.
The next day, after a visit with Blair Gibbs of Spy Valley Vineyard, a medium-sized winery that produces about 130,000 cases of wine annually), we went on to the Blenheim airport, where the story of my visit to New Zealand began with me running into MJ Loza. It was great to see him.
With him was Brad Farmerie, the chef of Public restaurant in New York. I later learned that he had been cooking at The Dinner Series at Waterfall Bay. He was headed to Auckland to do a demonstration of Venison dishes for writers at Cuisine magazine. He looked well.
Our next stop: Canterbury.

Eggs N' Veggies



Serves 2

Ingredients:
2 eggs
1/2 cup of broccoli
1 small onion
1 small tomato
1/2 a bellpepper
1/4 cup of grated cheese (of your choice)
1/2 teaspoon of cumin
1 teaspoon of olive oil
Salt & pepper

Dice all the vegetables, and in a non-stick pan start adding the olive oil, onions then the rest of the vegetables. Whisk the eggs then add, and mix them all together. Add the cumin, salt and pepper then the cheese.
Serve with pita bread.

Hope from Isaiah


Do you not know?

Have you not heard?

The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.

He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

Isaiah 40:28-31 New International Version