hello, world.
so hello everyone. it’s been a wee while, no? more than a wee while. a long while.
we have been travelling a bit. first we went to queenstown. it was still quite wintry down there but gosh it was beautiful. we walked along the lake, drank lots of coffees to warm up, ate excellent pizza from winnies, travelled on the earnslaw steamship to celebrate fathers’ day .. it was a good time.
L and i spent a few days in pahiatua with my mum and dad. it’s quite different to queenstown, let’s say. i like it though. it’s friendly. people say hi in the street. the countryside is quite cool. there are excellent op shops. and brockies cafe makes a lemon and date slice which alone is worth the trip.
pahiatua is close to palmerston north – the place to go if you want to do a big supermarket shop. there is not a lot else there, i’m sorry to say.
and most recently, L, the rockstar and i went to brazil. we spent most of the time in brasília which was in the middle of the rainy season and not terribly photogenic, bless it. there was a lot of family time. but we snuck away for a night to pirenópolis, a colonial town about 2 hours’ drive away (in central-west terms, that’s practically nothing). it was good to get away, just the three of us.
and a bonus piece of hee-larious brazinglish for your pleasure and delectation. the best bit: this shirt was spotted in quite a chic store in shopping iguatemi brasília, a very very exclusive mall for those who prefer to not to rub shoulders with the great unwashed (which also happens to be the nearest source of decent coffee to the rockstar’s mum’s house; hence my presence there). binge drinking! it’s the new hip trend from the west!
so yes! i am back. i will write more shortly – right now i have to go and stop L from pulling all the CDs off the shelves and then proceeding to chew the corners. as i write she is nomming down on feminist sweepstakes by le tigre. that’s my girl.
até!
cross cultural relationships: guaraná vs irn-bru
observant readers of this blog will know that the rockstar and i were born in different places. he is a native of brasília in brazil; i am straight outta AB25, the aberdeen royal infirmary. but then i lived in brazil as a teenager and developed a taste for brazilian street food and melissa shoes; he grew up listening to the beatles, wearing doc martens and playing in bands heavily influenced by the gang of four and siouxsie. so we have more in common than we don’t, really.
but there is one matter on which cultural differences might always remain. and that is the question of whether guaraná or irn-bru is better.
i refer, of course, to the signature soft drinks of our respective countries.
both date back to the first decade of the 20th century. both are made of exotic ingredients: guaraná from the fruit of the tree of the same name, irn-bru supposedly “from girders” (the ads said this for years, although according to the bible that is wikipedia, “though the closest one can come to substantiating this claim is the 0.002% ammonium ferric citrate listed in the ingredients”. mm, tasty). both are eye-achingly sweet.
and, above all: in their respective markets, both outsell coca-cola. now ain’t that something? i even remember hearing that scotland is the only market where something other than coke is offered as the default soft drink with your mcdonalds combo meal.
today at the ontrays emporium in petone i picked up a can of each so that the rockstar and i could perform a taste test. at first sight, the guaraná is a pale ambery colour — the irn-bru bright, bright orange. though there are many brands of guaraná available in brazil, only one ever seems to get exported, and that’s guaraná antárctica, the biggest seller of them all.
the rockstar took a generous swig of the guaraná, then a slightly more cautious one of the irn-bru. he declared the guaraná “sweeter” and the irn-bru “more bitter”. this is from a guy who routinely takes 5 sugars in his coffee. i am not sure the word bitter had ever been used in the same sentence as the word(s) irn-bru before today, so i instantly had to confirm this for myself.
guaraná is supposedly made from a fruit and the drink does taste fruity. god knows i’ve tried to pin down exactly *what* fruit. i can only come up with this: imagine a strong synthetic apple taste with an overlay of a not-acidic-at-all fake orange flavour. there’s some kind of tropicalish aroma floating around as well .. think passionfruit or mango “juice drink”. i’m not helping at all, am i? it’s sweet and yet weirdly refreshing. it goes down smoothly. on a hot day where there’s churrasco on offer, i actually prefer diet guaraná with ice to a cold beer. yum.
irn-bru is instantly brighter on the tongue with a way more intense fizz. like guaraná, the taste is instantly recognisable and practically indescribable. a mild bubble gum, maybe? not at all bitter, except if we’re talking the sour effect of carbonation, i guess. if you’re accustomed to the taste of guaraná, this is maybe a harsher drop. but as an accompaniment to a traditional scottish pudding supper it would be supreme. i tried to convince the rockstar to take a mouthful of irn-bru to wash down a bite of another great scottish institution, the tunnock’s caramel wafer. it’s amazing he didn’t fall into a diabetic coma on the spot, really.
anyway. the rockstar’s verdict: the irn-bru wasn’t horrible, but he wasn’t sure if he’d choose to drink it again (sacrilege!!). as for myself: both can co-exist happily in my culinary universe. much to my dentist’s despair.
milestones
my little girl turned three months old last week. and naturally it made me think about how fast the time has gone. in some ways, it’s hard to remember what life was like before she was here; in others, the time has flown past. every day she changes. i took her down to nelson last week for a couple of days so she could meet her little cousins .. we were only away three days but the rockstar said in that time she had grown taller, her hair darker.
it’s kind of de rigueur to include your birth story on your blog these days, i gather. but i’m not going to. not because i think it’s TMI, but it was a very intense experience and summing it up in words still feels hard. but i will tell you about something that happened on the night of L’s second day on this earth.
by this time, i had spent about five days in hospital and i was dying to get home. it was to be our last night in the post-natal ward but my sweet darling L would not settle. at all. she cried and cried inconsolably. something was badly wrong, i feared.
a fabulous midwife came and spoke to me. she asked me to express some milk while she took L for a little walk — ostensibly to calm her but mostly, i suspect, to give me a break. about ten minutes later the midwife returned with a quiet L. “how did you do that?” i asked, in awe. “oh, i just didn’t pay attention,” she said breezily. “she’s pretty annoyed at me now though”. and true enough, i looked at L and she had fixed the midwife with this killer stare. if it’s possible for a two-day-old baby to give someone the evil eye, L was doing it.
but soon she was crying again. a paediatrician came. baby panadol was given. more midwives came. no-one could find anything wrong. by this time it was about four in the morning and L was still crying. and then the first midwife came back. “you know what,” she said, “i think she just wants her mum.”
so we set up my bed so that L could lie beside me rather than in her crib. she lay in the crook of my arm and gradually quieted. curled up like that, we slept.
when i woke, i looked at my little girl’s sleeping face. indeed, it seems like she just did need her mum. and i vowed then and there that whenever she needed me, no matter where or when or how old, i would be there for her.
happy three months, sweet baby girl. we love you xox
recent and decent
1. mother’s day flowers from L. beautiful dragon tulips.
2. me and the baixinha 
3. smoked mackerel and potato hash at floridita’s. one of my favourite things to eat.
4. fashionable water at la bella italia, petone.
5. macarons at la cloche, thorndon.
6. water at the chocolate fish cafe, shelly bay.
food, love, our daughter. this is what life has been about lately.
no more walls
I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger than reason. I am so thirsty for the marvellous that only the marvellous has power over me. Anything I can not transform into something marvellous, I let go. Reality doesn’t impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls.
— Anaïs Nin
(thank you deanne!)
makara beach
a short trip on good friday. ice creams and sea air .. and L’s first look at the sea
(hokey pokey. of course. and it was delicious.)
more from our weekend to come. hope yours was delicious, too. xoxo
simplicity
sometimes the simplest things are the best.
1. above, a perfectly simple lunch at nikau cafe in civic square. grilled halloumi, perfectly ripe tomatoes dressed with a faint sprinkling of oregano and a goodly pinch of salt. a squeeze of lemon, a slice of grilled bread. damn, it was good.
2. via the mighty boon, an important question: is moleskine going too far with their new offerings? their iOS app certainly sounds pretty rubbish. i used to be a die-hard moleskine devotee but lately i’ve been craving something new. again, the key might be keeping it simple. note to self offers elegantly designed notebooks, made in NZ and with a perfectly small range. i’m going to order some.
3. mondegreen is getting a lot of noise for bringing pamela love’s jewellery to NZ, but for me their dresses are the real draw. considered, clean, lovely materials. i can’t decide between the bambina in seal grey and the ma belle. now that the weather is turning decidedly autumnal in wellington (read: horizontal rain and 120kph winds the other day) sweatshirt dresses are an extremely good move.
4. a sunny day, a walk along the waterfront with my two loves. coke zero in a glass bottle as a treat, sitting in the shade and watching the leaves against the sky.
definition
a conversation at my old work in london:
colleague 1: oh stop being such a hairy old socialist, jessica.
me: i am *not* a socialist!
colleague 1 (sneering): that’s true. you have far too many shoes to be a socialist.
colleague 2: now that’s unfair. jessica believes every man, woman and child should have the right to have as many shoes as she does.
me: now *that’s* socialism.
who, what, where. especially who.
well hello there, gentle readers. i sorta took a little break there, didn’t i?
the reason is this:
yes, there has been something of a population explosion here at ninetwelvetwentyfive. in early february i gave birth to a gorgeous baby girl.
what, you mean i didn’t say anything here?
well, there were reasons, i guess. i wasn’t sure that i wanted to be so public about the details of my pregnancy. it also wasn’t a particularly stylish time, let’s say. you northern hemisphere chicas don’t know how good you have it. here in NZ, maternity clothes are either extremely expensive and corporate looking (and i was not about to drop several hundred bucks on something i’d only wear for a couple of months) or super-cheap, probably sweatshopped and reeking of VOCs. there’s not a lot in between, at least, not that i could find. (oh, and proprietors of maternity boutiques should feel free to e-mail me telling me how wrong i am. i’d love to compile a list of sources for other suddenly-fashion-challenged mamas.)
so style blogging became a little tricky for a while. at least for me. others are doing better: the wondrous miz fashionwestie is looking utterly fabulous as she progresses through The Miracle Of Womanhood. i bought a couple of pairs of maternity skinny jeans (irony!) and a really cool wrap dress from womama. apart from that, i lived in tunic dresses, the aforementioned skinnies and high heels. not quiiiite blogworthy.
but now miss L is here, i am back in my normal clothes and it is coming into winter. and all my favourite designers are having really, really strong seasons. ooh yes. while i was pregnant, i had quite a bit of time to think about a new personal approach to style. i’ll talk about that a bit more in an upcoming post.
and then there is this whole new life, this whole new person, to write about. don’t worry, this isn’t going to become a mama-blog. not that there is anything wrong with mama-blogs. but i figure if you want to read about nappies, organic amber teething beads and such, there are lots of women out there writing far better about it than i can.
instead, i may well write about what an awesome person my little girl is and how, despite being unable to talk or even hold her head up unaided, she is my best little buddy. how the rockstar is an amazing daddy and how she gazes at him with her big blue baby eyes. and how she already has an impressive wardrobe of shoes (people call them “booties” but we know better, hehe) and likes it when her mama wears breton stripes. it’s the black and white, apparently. newborns dig monochrome. very directional.
all this to come. for now, i am just easing back into this blogging lark. so, hi there! thank you for still reading! why don’t you leave a comment and tell me what you’ve been up to all this while?
xoxo
brazilian street food: hot dog or cachorro quente
There is no real reason why the name for a hot dog in Portuguese – which is a completely literal translation, cachorro quente – should be so amusing to those of us who speak English. Somewhere along the way, we decided to give a sausage-in-a-bun such a bizarre name, so why shouldn’t Brazilians adopt it? All the same, it makes me smile a little bit, thinking about all the other weird names we give to snack foods (angels on horseback, pigs in blankets, mousetraps) and how the names lose any significance until you come across them in another context. Another language, another country.
And make no mistake, Brazilians have taken to the hot dog with the same gusto that they’ve adopted – and adapted – many other types of street food from around the world. All over the country, as night falls, packets of franks are slit open in kitchens and hot dog stands materialise on street corners. Debate rages about the best cachorro quente to be had in any city, and so it is in Brasília – from the chatter of social media to the elevated pages of Veja magazine.
We asked around in Brasília (the rockstar’s home town) and were pointed towards 308 Sul, the shopping area universally identified as the “street with the little church”. And in front of the little church – actually the Igrejinha de Nossa Senhora da Fátima – we found an excellent hot dog.
So how is this different to your standard New York frank and why does it merit an inclusion in this series? Well, first off, while this is still a sausage in a long soft bun, Brazilians have taken the concept and tweaked it into something different.
Rather than floating in a slightly rank and oily brine, the sausages for cachorro quente are heated in a tomato sauce which permeates the meat. The split-open bun will usually be doused with a little of the sauce before adding the sausage. It’s delicious and it helps to take away a little of the aggressively smoked flavour of your average frankfurter.
Then, the major point of difference: the toppings. The rockstar says the very bare minimum of adornments for a cachorro quente should be tomato ketchup, yellow American-style mustard and mayonnaise. So far, so unexceptional. But then come the extras .. and this is where it gets a bit crazy. For each cachorro quente, our maestro dipped into plastic tubs of fillings. At this cart, a “completo” includes tuna, onion mayonnaise, sweetcorn and fried potato sticks. And it can get weirder: the mighty Wikipedia mentions mashed potato, beetroot, toasted cassava flour, even cream cheese. In my opinion (and the rockstar’s) none of these things have any place on a hot dog. But it seems we were in the minority: while we ate, a steady stream of customers came up to the cart and almost all of them ordered all the trimmings.
With this amount of sloppy filling to tackle, it’s unsurprising that cachorro quente are usually eaten standing up in the street, accompanied with plenty of paper napkins. And the verdict: the rockstar declared this to be a particularly fine example of the genre.
You don’t have to travel all the way to Brasília to experience the cachorro quente, by the way. Unlike the pastel, this street food is easily replicated at home. Sweat a sliced onion and a sliced green capsicum in a small amount of olive oil, add a tin of tomato puree and a tin of whole peeled tomatoes, season to taste and leave to thicken a little. Then add your sausages: I used Heller’s Continental Frankfurters which the rockstar pronounced “just like back home”, the highest possible accolade. Heat until the sausages are piping hot and then serve in a soft white roll. Tomato ketchup, mustard and mayo are, as we’ve already seen, mandatory; I’ll leave the corn, the tinned spaghetti and the chocolate sauce up to you 
Cachorro quente stand, in front of the Igrejinha, entrequadra 308 Sul, Asa Sul, Brasília — and on street corners all over Brazil ..
