Day 3
Breakfast:
Smoothie:
2 Monty's Surprise apples, 2 red apples,
20 feijoas roughly, 2 golden kiwifruit all blended with 1 cup water - locally grown in our backyard.
Mid morning snack - 1 carrot each (Hawkes Bay - 28km out of zone).
Lunch:
Googled rice flour pancake recipe:
1 cup rice flour
2 Tspn baking powder
2 tspn egg replacer (Mike allergy to eggs)
3 tspn sugar, 1/2 tspn salt
1/2 cup hot water
1/2 cup milk
Blend and fry in little oil
Great!
Can be used as sweet or savoury pancake
We
had a visit from Ben and Sarah, the French couple living in Katikati, who have
generously offered to work in our garden in return for fresh organic food. We shared a bag of feijoas and some apples
with them, they will collect fruit a couple of times a week while we are away,
to help our young German helpers consume the plentiful supply. We shared a smoothie and lemongrass tea (all
from the garden) to celebrate our impending holiday.
After
lunch, we had a cuppa tea, a final pack and hit the road to Auckland.
Driving
2 1/2hrs to Auckland, we discuss how we both miss
having lollies to chomp – a mini sugar rush to take us through our day.
I have packed Road Food – some of our previously dehydrated apple
rings. We have a few pieces and feel the
fruit sugar rush – not quite as satisfying but still good. Mike actually says he feels better for the
limited selection of food we have. We
usually have a far greater variety of food in our daily diet.
I
had brought a selection of fruit for breakfast but only a small stash of
veggies – in case we need to make something.
Providence! We plan to stop and
buy some cheese – Auckland should have some supplies that come within the 200km
zone – alas, alack and woe! It is Easter
Friday!! We discover the bustling hub of
shops and supermarket near the airport is deathly quiet. Not a shopper in sight, save some frustrated
consumers who sit in their cars, as if willing the stores to open as they wait.
We
find the airport motel has a microwave only – anyone who knows me knows my suspicion
and dreaded fear of the nuclear-irradiated food cooker! We have no choice! It’s use it or go hungry. There are no shops open – so I assembled all
the veggies, chopped them with the terribly blunt motel knife (my pocket knife
is tucked deep within the belly of my hold baggage, so I hack up 2 courgettes, some beans, 2 tomatoes
and sprinkle with tamari sauce and juice of a lime (all from our garden) – irradiate
the hell out of them, halve the avo and olives I brought, in case of emergency,
and we soak the 5 rice wraps.
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| Our humble motel-assembled meal |
Once
assembled, we feel a little more chipper, the appearance is peasant-like, but
the taste is the stuff of royalty! We
hungrily devour our simple meal, giving thanks to the blessings of home-grown
food! And to think we had thought
longingly of cheese, or even an Indian veg curry for our pre-holiday treat! Amazing how simple foods can sustain and even delight you when you are hungry and have no other choice!
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| Locally sourced-veggie rice-flour wrap |
A
cuppa tea before bed will have to suffice for dessert.
Challenges:
- Missing those lollies! We did pack some jelly beans before our hasty
decision was made – it is in the bottom of Mike’s luggage – Hmmmn, maybe we
should unpack and retrieve them! They are listed as being made in Auckland.
- We
are trying to drink less cups of black Ceylon tea, and supplement with herbs
from the garden. Bay leaves – 6 in a pot
of water, bring to the boil and add a teensy dash of honey. I think it has anti-bacterial properties and
anti-cancer properties.
- Lemongrass
tea – a 6cm piece chopped up in a pot of water, brought to the boil and
sweetened with a
smidgeon of honey – rather a nice lemony-snicket-tasting tea. It is an
anti-fungal tea, as well as a stress reducing tea, lowers cholesterol and is also anti-inflammatory.
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| Planted some lettuce the night before we left, so we have salad ingredients to come home to. |
Day
4
Woke
at 4.30am in motel, had our usual morning hot drinks – 2 coffees for me, 2 teas
for Mike. I chopped up the fruit I
brought from our garden, 1 Monty’s Surprise apple, 8 feijoas, half a pear. Put them into the 2 Ninja cups (we bought a
Ninja blender for the Challenge – figured we are staying 5 nights at the Tanoa
Hotel and we negotiated free breakfasts which usually cost F$15 each, so that
would have been F$150 for us both for 5 days – so we went and bought the
travel-light Ninja blender for $100 as the Tanoa does not have a self contained
kitchen, and we will blend some of our meals rather than cooking.
We
ate our fruit salad at the airport, and shared half a left-over carrot. I felt a little lightness of being, with no carbs, so we
stopped at an Asian outlet and bought Made in New Zealand Milk biscuits – it was
just what we needed! There was no actual
area listed. We bought some Allens
Mackintosh toffees – also just listed as Made in New Zealand, but I suspect
there are some imported ingredients used!
We snacked on a cup and a
half of Chilian guavas I picked before leaving home. On board the plane, we snacked on half a
Ceres raw fruit bar (made in Auckland from imported ingredients - the food miles would be as long as my arm for that little bar!). What we had not
realised was that Fiji Air provides breakfast for all on board, so being
egg-free veggoes, we declined the cooked egg option and had a Made in New
Zealand fruit yoghurt and a small pottle with 2 bites of pineapple and papaya –
origin unknown. Possibly a tropical location.
It
is a little tricky travelling with this 200km radius food rule, but it makes life a little
fun too – figuring out what is okay and what is not. We were picked up by a friendly Indian taxi
driver Narayan, in Nadi, who kindly took us to the Vodafone store to sort my internet
toggle (so I could keep up with The Challenge!). At first they kept on coming up with a
firewall, so sent us off to a PC shop to help us, they figured out that all was
fine, so back to Vodafone we went to get the toggle set up. It took some time, until they finally figured
out that they hadn’t changed the time or country!! So now all is fine and I am back online! Sort of. Can't seem to load any of our photos - shall have to do that later.
I
found the Shrine of Existence – a local fruit and veg market – a veritable Aladdin's Cave of Splendiferous plant foods! I was
in Heaven! Unfortunately, I could not
carry all that my heart desired (we abhore plastic bags and try to use our small re-usable shopping bags), but I managed to purchase green sweet bananas,
guavas, eggplants, half a small pumpkin, carrots, pineapple, ginger, 4 papayas, avocado and
limes and a large coconut which we drank straight away! All for $25! Such is life – pleasure and pain! The pain of travel and the digital world, the pleasure of tropical
heat and tropical fruit!
We
were still feeling light in the stomach, with so much uncooked fruits, so we
bought some street food – suggested to us by Narayan; 2 potato-filled rotis,
and 6 pea flour gulgans (or some such name) – basically fried spicey pea flour
balls. They went down a treat – though
we felt a little overcome by the sudden overload of wheat and fried foods! Apparently Fiji has NO grain grown here –
much of the packages state that it is the Product of Fiji – but Narayan explained it has simply
been processed here – e.g – Product of Fiji Rice – is rice from Australia or
Vietnam, de-husked and packed here. So
our wheat rotis, though made here – were sadly not a grain of Fiji. So that snack cost us plenty food air miles
(not sure where it comes from, possibly India, at a guess).
We
are staying in a well-appointed, self-catering unit in Wyndham Worldmark
Denerau. In the afternoon of our arrival, after settling
into our unit, we realised we will not be able to cook much since we don’t
have the basics – oil, onions, spices and water! So we caught the WestBus to town, which seems to be
mostly to ferry all the resort staff back and forth, instead of catching a $10
taxi, it costs us $2 on the bus. We were warned that on Sunday
and Monday all the shops are closed for Easter, so we rushed off at 3.30 and
were back at about 5.30 for a quick dip on the pool before our dinner.
Tonight,
we shall dine on the flesh of our drinking coconut (good source of protein) and
papaya and guava. The smell is driving
me wild!! In fact, I think that’s why
the average Fijian family has so many children – this local food is clearly
aphrodisiac!!
Challenges:
Mike
is complaining that he needs more carbs, so a milk biscuit does the job of grounding us! Travelling creates
challenges which are difficult to control. We look forward to having an onsite restaurant meal tomorrow, with local foods.
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| REAL FOOD, feel it, smell it and taste it!! Alive Food! Oh, Fiji, we love you! |
