Skip to main content

Kiwi Barbecue

Kiwi Barbecue
Carl at the grill
I hosted my first "Hey-bring-the-whole-family-too-many-people-stuffed-into-a-house" dinner party tonight. What started as an invitation for my friend, Jade, and her family, morphed into, "Maybe I should invite some other folks and make it a party." I'm going to blame Sean for that one. Without fail, any get-together at our home was preceded by, "Hey, why don't we also invite..." Sean flicked out that suggestion anywhere from 1 week to 1 hour before the event. I figure he saw it as a way to reconnect with friends we hadn't seen in awhile, and to connect those friends to each other. He was like a crochet needle, looping one person in with the next, in with the next...
Feeding the hungry rascals
Anyways, tonight's dinner for 7 became a barbecue for 20. Don't tell my flatmate – it's her house (this is a joke, because she often reads this blog, and knew about the party beforehand). I asked Helen, the co-founder of a group for widowed parents, to the fest. She told 3 friends, and before you know it – instant party. It's the kind of thing I did in Spokane. There's something about a home that's been well-laughed in. It's never the same again. I'm not talking about cookie crumbs in the carpet or wine stains on the wall (and Amy, if you are reading this, none of that happened tonight), but instead, the memories of Carl tending the grill, Jade spooning mango mash into her baby daughter's mouth, or Robbie scrubbing up at the sink. You remember the faces around your dining table or kitchen counter – they add to home's warmth and character.
Janet & Honor
Fiona, Callen, Coco
It's not even my house. I asked my flatmate before we moved in if it would be okay to entertain. "Sure," she said. "As long as I have a heads-up." Deal. Plus, I like things neat, so post-party clean-up is a no-brainer.

If someone invites you to a party in New Zealand, they'll often ask you to "bring a plate." This doesn't mean they lack dinner ware – it means potluck – bring a dish to share. I didn't even ask my guests to bring anything -they offered. I learned in my new migrants' class (and through experience) Kiwis feel compelled to contribute. Saying, "It's alright, don't bring a thing," is futile. Pick an item and be gracious, or you could wind up with 5 extra kilos of meat and 2 dozen bread rolls when the night is over. There are worse fates. 
Small sample of what guests brought
Tonight's feast included the aforementioned side of cow, an entire roast chicken with lemon, potato salad, green salad, sausage rolls, a couple dozen bread rolls, a pavlova (Kiwi national dessert: "...Colloquially referred to as "pav", it is a cake similar to meringue with a crispy crust and soft, light inner..." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavlova_%28food%29

Also, Kiwis eat heaps of meat. I told one invitee I'd bought chicken sausages and marinated chicken. "I love chicken, but the boys like meat, so we'll bring some burgers, sausages, bread rolls..." NZ has one of the highest per capita rates of meat consumption in the world. Numbers from a couple years ago show New Zealanders eat nearly 200 pounds of meat per person each year (and the number has dropped as meat prices rise): http://www.fmcg.co.nz/news/national/163-meat-consumption-decreases Think about that before buying tofu burgers for your next NZ bash (not that you planned to, anyways!)
Helen's kiwi pavlova
Thanks to my industrious (and probably very hungry) guests, the meat got grilled, children got fed and dishes got rinsed and stacked in the dishwasher. One hour after everyone's left, I've swept the floor, hand washed whatever wouldn't fit in the dishwasher, and put away food. The guests are gone, but they've left behind snippets of conversation, kilos of meat and even a partial pavlova. The kitchen looks as if nothing hit it. Shh...don't tell my flatmate. She'll never know.
"After"

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Remove Before Flight

Remove Before Flight “The elevator’s trim, rudder’s trim, mixture’s rich, flaps are at ten degrees…” Pete, the PAHT-nah (partner), is talking through a pre-flight checklist as we wait to taxi from the Tauranga airport. In the nearly 12 months we’ve known each other, Pete’s talked about taking me flying. Now, with my departure from New Zealand less than ten days away, the weather, schedules, and aircraft maintenance have obliged so Pete can fulfill his promise. The sky is overcast, but the cloud ceiling will allow us to fly at 2,500 feet; it’s the weekend, so we’re not competing with flight school students for air time; and there’s a new-ish plane (called FCO, or Foxtrot Charlie Oscar) Pete has enough confidence in to haul what he calls “precious cargo,” which is me. Pete checks the Cessna 152 single-engine propeller aircraft as I watch. He walks the plane’s perimeter, inspecting flaps, wheels, the rudder… He gives me a couple wooden door-stopper-looking blocks (called chocks). “Remo
4 comments
Read more

Murder House

Murder House (MUH-dah House) The deed is done              “I don’t wanna go to the dentist. It’s gonna hurt,” says Fiona. I can hardly deny my eight-year-old the truth, but I can tiptoe around it.             “They’re going to rub medicine on your gums to numb them,” I tell her. “And they can put your tooth to sleep with a needle.”             Fiona gasps, “I don’t want a needle! No!” Oops. I shouldn’t have used the “n” word. Fiona starts her high-pitched screeching if she thinks a needle exists in the next room. When I got the kids immunized in preparation for dragging them round-the-world, Fiona cried as the nurse swabbed her upper arm with iodine. You would’ve thought someone was whacking off her limb with a rusty saw, yet the needle lay feet from Fiona’s body. New Zealand is not the place for dental work for a squeamish, sobbing little girl. I learned after bringing Fiona to a dental clinic during the Christmas school vacation (otherwise known as summer holidays) that sch
9 comments
Read more

The Affair

The Affair Ohope Beach, NZ I had an affair last week. I’m not ashamed to tell you, either. It was sweet and sad. It made me laugh, cry, sigh and dance in my chair to James Brown and Rupert Holmes. My Kiwi PAHT-nah, Pete, even facilitated the tryst, though neither of us knew what to expect beforehand. Pete watched the kids while I was gone for five nights. Five whole nights.  No kids. No TV. No partner.  I enjoyed a dalliance with my late husband, Sean (though I should write instead, ‘dead husband,’ because Sean hated being late). It happened in a wood-paneled house across the street from the ocean, in Ohope Beach, New Zealand. I attended a writer’s retreat to work on the memoir. I revised six sections totaling more than 40,000 words. In the course of revising- subtracting old text and adding entries from letters Sean had written me when we first started dating, plus journal entries he wrote around the time Fiona was born - I fell in love again. With Sean’s openn
2 comments
Read more