Food, food, food....

So moving to a new country holds lots of challenges - driving (huge for directionally challenged people like myself), making friends (still waiting for that to happen), join new things (life doesn't start here until Sept so we are making our own fun) and food is a huge new area to overcome.

We have been out on 2 food shopping expeditions so far - the whole family involved as it is such an eye opening experience. Our first one took us to what Paul calls "a very local supermarket" - they had good deals on strawberries, but that was the end of their appeal as I perused numerous aisles of oil, noodles and soya sauce. After that shocker we went upstairs to the more international supermarket (but read here slightly more, there is hardly any baking stuff, very little dried fruit, kidney beans in a can are in the special section - you kind of get what I mean). Seriously there is nothing more daunting than looking at some packaging for a good 5 min and you still aren't quite sure what product is held within its confines - hmmmm do you buy it anyway as it could be fun to get home and open it???? Its always great walking through their meat/fish area - you find yummy tidbits like chicken feet (marinated or not - your choice!), all different kinds of jelly (not the bright red kind either), unidentified bits and pieces that you apparently make into a soup of some kind???, any kind of meat that doesn't have an english translation on it is interesting - you think you know your meats until you are faced with it being cut differently and not being labelled, suddenly you can't even figure out how much it weighs let alone what part of the beast it is.....

Anyway the second shopping spree turned out to be much better - we went to a much more international supermarket, and other than the fact that the shopping trolleys are like our kid play ones (I kid you not, that is why asian people are skinny, the shopping trolleys only hold 3 things so they are always hungry@!!) so it took Paul with a trolley, myself and India, we managed to get heaps of our normal food. Now don't get the wrong impression, we are eating dumplings and pad thai and sweet and sour pork, but we just can't do without our home made cereal in the morning, or our raisins for morning tea - and choc chip cookies made at home are the bomb, so it is essential to find ingredients to complete these kiwi yummies.

Cereal making can be dangerous however and here are a couple of photos showing Paul administering home remedies to his burnt tongue (metal spoons used to stir cereal conduct heat - one science experience I hope he remembers!!)

That's peas on the tongue in case you didn't know!

You know how people in NZ can't quite understand why dairy products are so expensive, well I have a bit more sympathy with dairy being expensive in Hong Kong. I mean if they actually said the stuff was from around here I would be skeptical - cows is one thing I haven't seen hide nor hair of since being here - perhaps there are big herds up in the national parks roaming around waiting to be milked....???? Well just to give you an impression of cost of dairy (so you all feel better about buying it in NZ) - we bought a 750g block of Mainland cheese for $90.00 HKD which is about $15.00 NZD and it was on special!!!! Milk is really expensive too, so we are calling some of our cooking trails different names - like Hong Kong choc chip cookies. This is because butter and milk are so expensive that we are using oil and soya milk as substitutes - I need to contact my friends with dairy allergies to find out how to do this dairy free baking! So far the results haven't been so bad......

When I sat down at the computer tonight to write our blog I was flicking through photos and noticed how many we have taken of the kids eating...so thought yeah I will write about food. We had a total shocker the other night, I must have had a total brain lapse when purchasing 3 x broccoli heads. My thought was to make soup, but my mum hat must have been left at home with that decision. Paul made it that night and I thought it was lovely!!



I have never seen both of our kids turn their noses up at a meal, but lets just say there was a whole lot of shivering and whimpering going on. Lots of toast was consumed in an effort to conceal the fact that not much green soup was going down!! I even popped the ultimate carrot on the table to entice them - sliced up watermelon! But no, green soup is a kid nightmare!!!

And just to prove that I can give out treats as well as disasters, heres a photo of Noah recently eating an icecream at home while watching the Misty Island Thomas dvd. He was so enthralled by the movie we had to keep giving him commands to lick every 3 mins or so.

Finally after all the eating is done here are 2 videos showing Paul and kids playing after dinner (the whale isn't allowed to play, she just has to shoot the footage). The first one is rumbles, and the second one is an ode to the All Blacks (the Blacks as Noah calls them).