PICKING THE RASPBERRIES

Picking the raspberries when they are ripe.
Ripe strawberries in the garden.
I firmly believe that berries taste best just seconds after they have been picked from the bush. 
I wait patiently all summer, watching the green orbs of raspberries and strawberries, growing in leafy hollows behind the water tanks in our backyard. Finally, one day near the beginning of autumn, they are all a deep red.
When I go to pick the raspberries, I am no longer patient. I do not wait to eat them inside. Instead I stand there, listening to the wind and the bees and the squeak of the washing line as it turns round. These outside noises - combined with the first sharp burst of raspberry flavour on my tongue - these two separate sensory experiences go together like peas in a pod. 

CHEESE BOARDS

A really delicious cheese board with NZ cheeses, olives and crackers
 
If I was to die tomorrow, then today I would go out and get all the ingredients for a cheese board:

A strong blue cheese.

A perfectly aged sharp cheese.

One soft and nutty cheese.

Two packets of crackers, the best kind I can find.

A bunch of spiced, stuffed and seasoned olives dripping in oil.

A fruity chutney.

Two bunches of grapes.

And, last but not least, a bottle of red wine.

It was our tradition, each week, to get all of these things together, me laying out the olives in small bowls while Oliver opens the wine. Then we would sit and feast.
There is no greater pleasure than that of a cheeseboard - the mingling of creamy, salty and pungent flavours with the sultry headiness of the wine. I love the way it brings together such simple ingredients - the fruits and labours of the earth, of my home country, and makes each one shine out in its pure state of being. 

 

DAISY JEWELS

How to make a ring out of a real daisy.
Summertime in New Zealand is an explosion of daisies in green grass. The daisies only open after sunrise, after the tree-shadows retreat from the lawn. 
Sometimes I sit for an hour, weaving the daisies into crowns, or making them into fragile rings - one for each finger.
To do this, I carefully peel the stem into two parts till they reach the spongy middle section of the daisy. I wrap the divided stem parts around my finger, then twirl them until they have looped together, to make the whole thing stay. When I wear my daisy rings I am very cautious with my hands and my movements are quite delicate. 
“One can get as much exaltation in losing oneself in a little thing as in a big thing.

It is nice to think how one can be recklessly lost in a daisy!”
— ANNE MORROW LINDBERGH