Taste of Kiwi

I have a terrible sweet tooth. I blame my father. He’s always liked anything sweet ranging from dessert to cakes and sweets. It would be much easier if I hadn’t inherited this gene, but I try to control myself as much as possible.

My father is a farmer. He’s worked hard all his life and has never had a weight problem. My sister thinks, and I agree, he should be allowed to indulge his sweet tooth. He can’t hurt his teeth since he has false ones.

He has a lolly jar that my sister fills periodically. There used to be a running joke. My sister would fill the jar and before she knew it, the lolly jar would be empty again. My father always denied everything and said that Joe ate them. (Joe was my sister’s big foot cat. He was a real character but he died earlier this year) This is how the conversation would go:

“My lolly jar is empty.”

“But I filled it a few days ago,” my sister would say.

“Joe has been in the lolly jar again,” my father would say. “He’s a real fiend. I told him off but he keeps eating the lollies.”

After Joe died, my father forgot for a minute. He tried the lolly jar is empty and Joe ate them.

“Ah-ha!” said my sister. “You can’t blame Joe. He isn’t here.”

My father is still trying to come up with a good excuse.

Those of you with a sweet tooth will probably curse me in a moment. I found this recipe for Coconut Ice in my favorite food magazine – Taste. It’s incredibly easy and uses the microwave rather than a saucepan on the stove top. It would be great for those times when you need to make something for a fete or school fair.

1 kg icing sugar or 2.2 pounds(confectioner’s sugar in US)
1/2 cup milk
200 g butter or 1.76 sticks of butter
4 cups long coconut threads
2 – 3 drops red food coloring

Mix the icing sugar, milk and butter in a large microwaveable bowl and microwave for 2 minutes or until the butter has melted. Stir in the coconut.

Spread half the mixture into a baking paper-lined slice tin. Smooth until flat. Add a couple of drops of red food coloring to the remaining half and mix well. Spread on top of the white layer and carefully smooth until flat. Refrigerate the coconut ice until firm then cut into squares and store in an airtight container.

Notes: If I’m making it for myself I make half the recipe. I couldn’t purchase the long coconut threads and use normal dessicated coconut. I’ve given the conversions NZ to US.

This is really yummy stuff.

Do you have a sweet tooth? What is your biggest sugary indulgence?

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In New Zealand we have a five plus promotion that encourages us all to eat at least five servings of fruit or vegetables per day. It’s surprising how many people don’t eat much in the way of fruit or vegetables. I know at times cost can be a factor. At other times it’s diet choice.

During the eighteenth century it was quite common for people to eat a diet consisting almost entirely of meat. Tourists from France and farther afield were very surprised at the lack of vegetables in the English diet. British seamen died in large numbers with scurvy, which is caused by a lack of vitamin C. We obtain most of our vitamin C in fruit and vegetables.

Today, I just scraped in eating cranberries with my porridge, 2 x mandarins, mushrooms, onion, garlic, red peppers and tomato on our homemade pizza.

I know it’s difficult to get kids to eat vegetables some times. I remember having to sit at the table and not being allowed to move until I’d eaten my vegetables. Luckily, my tastes have changed with age and I enjoy most vegetables these days.

Do you manage to eat five plus fruit or vegetables per day?

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I managed to fool most of you with my lie last week. Without further ado, let the truth unfold…

1. A mountain gorilla almost sat on me in Rwanda.

TRUE! Visiting a family group of gorillas in Rwanda is my number one travel experience. We walked for miles through thick bush and hilly terrain before we found the gorillas. The silverback did a mock charge and came to a halt almost on top of me and this other guy from our group. It was thrilling and terrifying at the same time. I managed to sit on top of some ants, and when I had a shower back at camp they’d bitten my backside. At the time I didn’t feel a thing. Here’s a link to a few photos and my memories of the day.

2. A tiger growled and scared me half to death in India.

FALSE! I’ve visited India twice and loved it. In fact India is my favorite travel destination. I’ve never seen a tiger in the wild, but I’d dearly love to. Maybe next visit.

3. A stingray played with me during a helmet dive in Bora Bora.

TRUE! Hubby and I did a helmet dive during our recent cruise and had a close encounter with a stingray. I’m glad I did the helmet dive but was a little nervous beforehand. (I intend to do a post on Sunday about our dive and the stingray.)

4. Our hot air balloon crash landed and my glasses broke in Australia.

TRUE! We did a balloon ride over the vineyards in the Barossa. The wind had picked up while we were aloft and getting down proved a problem. The basket hit the ground hard, bounced and toppled over on its side, dragging on the ground for a hundred meters. We, and the rest of the basket occupants fell in a heap. The lenses popped out of my glasses and rattled around the bottom of the basket. Amazingly, I retrieved them in one piece and was able to get them put back into the frames.

5. A baby camel tried to lick me in Egypt.

TRUE! He was a curious wee chap and got up close and personal with me. He was a cutie and it was the best camel ride we’ve ever done.

6. Elephants milled around my tent during the middle of the night in Kenya.

TRUE! Our guides had to chase the elephants away in the middle of the night. Hubby and I didn’t hear a thing, but the proof was indisputable–big footprints and poop all around our tent.

7. Some pygmies took me hunting for dik-dik in Zaire.

TRUE! We visited a pygmy village and went hunting with them. We didn’t catch anything during our hunt. They were very fit and thought it was funny when we couldn’t keep up with them. The ants also attacked (they have horrid big ants that bite) and they laughed themselves silly while they helped to pick the ants off us. We were the sideshow for the day!

And the contest winner is…. Gayle O!

Congratulations, Gayle. I’ll email you privately about your prize.

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I love receiving mail, not that I receive much these days because email has taken over, but I troop out to our mailbox each day with great anticipation to discover what treasures we’ve received. I’m usually disappointed because most of my mail is nasty bills.

It made me think about mailboxes. They can be freestanding or wall mounted. Some people inset them into brick walls while other people have a door slot instead.

When purchasing a mailbox you need to think about all sorts of things. Do you want them to match your house? How much maintenance will it require? Stainless ones last for ages while powder coated or wooden ones won’t last quite as long. The mail slot should fit an A4 letter folded over. They should have a spot for a newspaper, preferably one that will keep a paper dry. Think about having a lockable one for security.

When you’re installing a mailbox make sure it’s at a height that will save the poor postie’s back and prune back surrounding bushes so he or she won’t have to struggle past prickly undergrowth to deliver your mail. They should bear a clear number to avoid confusion.

Our mailbox is green and everyone who lives in our street has the same style. In the old part of our area, there’s a real mishmash of boxes. Some are decorated while others are plain wooden ones.

When we came back from our recent holiday all our mail had holes in it. There was a snail lurking in our box, busy eating all the envelopes. I made hubby deal with the hungry critter. He mentioned that some mail boxes house cockroaches. I’m praying none decide to move into ours!

Do you have a mailbox? What does it look like?

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I’m visiting The Romance Reviews today and talking about Tiger By The Tail. (The post goes live at 3.00am).

While you’re over at The Romance Reviews please take a look at their contest. They have some wonderful prizes on offer.

I received an excellent review for The Bottom Line from Whipped Cream Erotic Romance.

“Shelley Munro does a wonderful job of catching the reader’s attention and keeping it all the way to the end. With characters that endear themselves to you, and those that make you hate them, this is a book that should not be missed.”

Here’s the link to the full review for The Bottom Line.

Recently I’ve immersed myself in 1940s England and writing a historical romance set during the war. I finished it today and sent it off to my editor at Carina Press. I love this era, so I hope I’ve managed to hit the right note in my story. Hitting send for submissions still makes me very nervous!

I thought the cold weather here had halted growth in my mushroom farm. I was thrilled to see five tiny mushroom buds pop out of the peat a couple of days ago. It’s fascinating watching them grow. I’m certainly looking forward to eating them!

Our foster puppy, Patch Adams is up for adoption on the SPCA page. I keep clicking over to the website to see if he’s found a home. Fingers crossed! I’ve just been over there and he’s gone. Someone has adopted him. I hope they’re nice to him…

And finally, tomorrow I have David Bridger visiting to tell us about his debut release, Beauty and the Bastard.

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I’ve been writing all day, and when it came time to do a blog post my mind was like a blank canvas.

“What should I blog about?” I asked my husband during our evening walk with Patch.

“Why don’t you ask everyone what they have for dinner? How do they decide what to have and do they get sick of trying to think what to have for dinner like we do?”

“Good idea,” I said, desperate for any type of topic.

What to have for dinner seems to be a never ending topic at our house. We tend to eat the same things all the time, which can get a little boring. Our standby dishes are risotto and pasta. Lately we’ve been eating quiche quite a bit and, since it’s winter, we have roast veges and cauliflower or broccoli cheese. If it’s just me for dinner, I’ll have soup or baked beans on toast. We like to make our own pizzas, using tortillas as the base if we’re in a hurry.

There aren’t a lot of options for fast food around here. We tend to cook at home because it’s much cheaper. We don’t eat out very often these days either–we’re busy saving for our next holiday.

Who decides what to eat for dinner at your house? Do you tend to eat the same things each week? Is deciding what to have sometimes more trouble than the actual cooking?

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We went to the Farmers’ market last week. We haven’t visited for a while and there were some new stallholders plying their trade. One of them was selling fresh mushrooms and small mushroom farms in buckets. I’ve always wanted to try my hand at growing mushrooms so I purchased one straight away.

This is my mushroom farm on the day I purchased it.

We keep the farm in the lounge because it’s the warmest room in the house. It only needs a misting of water every two to three days and needs to be kept out of draughts and excessive light.

Here’s one of the mushrooms. Mr. Munro said I needed the kiwifruit for a size comparison. We’ve eaten about three of our mushrooms so far, and they were delicious.

The bucket is meant to produce mushrooms for 6 – 8 weeks under ideal conditions. It’s been very cold here but there are actually some tiny pinhead mushrooms appearing. At one stage we thought we were only going to end up with five mushrooms.

Do you like mushrooms?

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As a romance reader, I’ve been reading about overstuffed chairs for years. The description always stops me dead. I mean, they sound so uncomfortable.

Overstuffed? I had no idea what this meant or what to imagine in my mind’s eye.

I let my imagination loose. (as a writer, I’m good at that.) I came up with chairs with bulging cushions. Fat chairs. I pictured a man in a factory trying to force more stuffing in places it didn’t want to go. I imagined people falling off their chairs because of the excessive stuffing. And, I summed my conclusion up in one word.

Uncomfortable. That’s right. My opinion didn’t change.

I came across the term in one of the books I was reading this week. After my initial frown faded, I thought, right! I’ll google it.

And so I did.

I found a definition in the Free Dictionary.com:
overstuffed chair – a comfortable upholstered armchair
armchair – chair with a support on each side for arms

I found a photo of one on nextag.com

Imagine my surprise. All this time I’ve been sitting on an overstuffed chair, and I never knew!

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Although ereaders have been available for some time in America, it’s not easy to get our hands on one down here in New Zealand. We can’t purchase a Kindle in New Zealand (you can in Australia) and we can’t purchase a Sony reader even though we have Sony stores. (They don’t stock them)

It was a real surprise when I received a newsletter this week from Whitcoulls, our NZ bookstore chain, saying they were selling the Kobo eReader. They’re $295 each (about US$230) and take up to 1000 books. I tried one out when we went to the mall during the weekend and was actually quite impressed. Not that I’m going to purchase one – I’m hanging out for an iPad, which is due to hit here around July. (I test drove one in Waikiki and fell in love.) But I have to say congratulations to Whitcoulls for moving into the future!!

I’m still busy with edits, but I have two very special guests visiting me this week. Jane Beckenham will be here on 2 June and Kaye Manro is here on 4 June. I hope you’ll come and say hello.

What are you up to this week?

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During our recent cruise, Edward our stateroom steward used to service our room in the morning and do a turn-down service at night, complete with chocolates on our pillows. As part of his visit to our room he’d make the tissues and the toilet paper pointy. Every time we went into the bathroom, he’d folded the toilet paper to a point.

When we arrived home, I complained to my husband that I wanted to be on holiday again and boo-hoo – my toilet paper wasn’t pointy. I wanted pointy toilet paper!!

I know most hotels and motels make their toilet paper pointy, and I wondered why. It came up in conversation when my brother-in-law and his wife came for dinner a few nights ago. My sister-in-law used to work as a Meticulous Maid and she said they made the toilet paper pointy so they knew they’d cleaned the toilet.

Yesterday I went to the restroom and low and behold, my toilet paper was pointy. I looked around for Edward, who I seriously loved and wanted to bring home with me, but alas the paper folder was my hubby. He knew how much I wanted pointy toilet paper and had crept in and done it for me. He’s such a sweetie, and he definitely made me laugh.

What is your theory on pointy toilet paper? Why do you think the hotel room attendants fold the toilet paper to a point?

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