Moroccan-inspired meatballs

I notice that my recipe section has been sadly lacking lately, so I thought I might post some of the recipes I make up along the way - which might also help me when I try to make them again!

So here's what we had for dinner last night:

Mixed together 1 finely chopped red onion, 3 cloves garlic finely chopped, 250g lean minced beef, 1 egg, about 1/3 C flour, salt, pepper, 8 finely chopped prunes, generous teaspoon each of dried coriander, cumin and cinnamon (all ingredients entered in the order I remember adding them into the bowl!). Formed together in balls and lightly fried on each side.

Review: delicious! However, next time I'd cook the red onion first because it was a little on the crunchy side. The cinnamon and prunes were a good combo - but it was actually hard to pick once they were cooked what it was giving them the sweetness. I might reduce the prunes to about 6 next time... We had them with corn on the cob and a big green salad. I reckon they'd also be good in a tomato-based sauce and on an orange couscous...yum!

Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair...

As my flight to London went via San Francisco it seemed rude not to take advantage of a short stopover - particularly as Miles (Rachael's boyfriend) is currently living there and had a couch with my name all over it!

After arriving, wending my way through the hills of SF's suburbs in a shared shuttle bus, then getting the keys from Miles, it was off to Pacific Heights. Miles lives on the border of Pacific Heights and the Tenderloin - so near to all sorts of interesting things! Day 1 had fantastic weather which I absolutely had to take advantage of, so I walked down to the Marina, checked out the Golden Gate bridge in all her afternoon sunshiney glory, then around the coast and back up the steep cable car street home. Oh, and via Whole Foods - or as it's colloquially known, Whole Wallet... It's definitely expensive but such delicious food! With a bit of mozzarella and proscuitto I transformed Miles' fridge ingredients into a pizza...mmm...

Day 2 dawned bright and sunny again, and after a sleep-in to recover from the plane ride, I ran down Van Ness Avenue to try and make the midday free tour of city hall - unfortunately just missing it by 5 minutes! But never fear, another one was scheduled for 2.30pm so I investigated downtown while I waited. It was a bit sketchy, what with all sorts of people muttering to themselves (and yelling to themselves too), and if I wanted to buy some dodgy goods I'm sure I was in the right neighbourhood, but interesting nonetheless. It was also directly adjacent to the fancy part of downtown (Saks 5th Avenue and the like) - I guess all the locals know exactly where the borders are!

Back at City Hall I had an absolutely brilliant 1 and 3/4 hour tour with our guide Al Lopez. He knew everything! It was fascinating how the building's had such an unstable history - completely destroyed in 1906 by an earthquake, rebuilt, hosted some infamous marriages (Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio), another earthquake in 1989 (whose cracks are still visible today) and political assasinations (Harvey Milk). It's a beautiful building as well - I would definitely recommend stopping by if you're in town!

After that it was a short stroll back through the Tenderloin and again to Whole Foods where I found some tamales for dinner. I'd always wanted to try them - just to see what they were as I'd heard the name and heard that they can be delicious! I can attest that they're quite delicious and I'll keep my eye out for them in London! After dinner Miles and I went to the California Academy of Sciences for their NightLife event. It was brilliant! The museum is packed with people, there are cocktails, DJs, and the ground floor aquarium (where we spent most of our time) was all dimly lit so the amazing colours etc. of the fish can be seen really well. I particularly liked the pulsating jellyfish and scaredy-cat seahorses. Hopefully some of the photos come out! We even managed to get a cab home without waiting too long which was an absolute coup.

The next day was nice and lazy - I slept in, checked emails etc. and then ventured up to Japantown where I had to physically restrain myself from buying every single piece of crockery I saw... I particularly loved these crumpled china mugs - like these ones - but thought they might be a bit inappropriate considering how close to (ok, over) the luggage limit I was! That night Miles and I went out to a delicious Thai restaurant in Pacific Heights, then into town for some cocktails at a kind of hidden bar behind another bar - very urban cool ;)

Saturday (my last day) ended up being a behemoth (we walked about 5 miles or 8km). First we walked to Chinatown for some dim sum (or yum cha as I've always called it) at a place called Gold Mountain - at US$11 each it was an absolute bargain. Their sticky rice was the best I've ever had - definitely another recommendation! Then, to work it off we went to a place called Precita Eyes in the Mission District. This is a community-based mural art organisation - murals being a big part of Latin American culture, and with 75% of the Mission's inhabitants being Latin American, no wonder it set up shop there. We went on a tour with one of the muralists (Patricia Rose) and saw hundreds of different murals. The streets were packed as there was a food festival in the neighbourhood at the time so it felt like a really buzzy, full-on place. The murals were beautiful and it was so interesting to hear their back stories.

Then it was off! Our taxi driver home from the Mission (and mine onwards to the airport) had been to NZ recently and was a great find - chatting all about this and that. I worry that I didn't tip him enough - it's so difficult to know what to do!! As with all other NZers I fervently wish the whole thing just didn't exist...

And then to London where a whole lot of new adventures await!

Chillin' in Port Macquarie

Thanks to my wonderful Qantas airpoints, I managed to get a short trip in to Port Macquarie to see Chloe, Israel and Alana on my way to London. I love the little planes that take you up there - there's really something about seeing the propeller whizzing around so fast until it becomes see-through which helps you imagine how it must have been like flying in 'the olden days'.

Chloe et al live in a great house which borders a huge reserve on two sides - full of kookaburra and frogs (which I heard), kangaroo (which I saw) and snakes (which, thankfully, I neither heard nor saw). Maybe the presence of Indie, their boisterous bull terrier puppy helps to scare them off! It was such a nice, chilled visit. We basically just hung out playing with Alana who's now eight and a half months old and cute as a button (particularly the hands and feet which rotate around like crazy whenever she's happy or there's food nearby - that generally makes me happy too so I completely understand), and had a few excursions to the beach and into town. Port Macquarie has such a lazy atmosphere - and considering it was 23 degrees and the middle of winter I completely understand!

It was lovely seeing Chloe again too - it's sometimes a bit of a challenge keeping up with everyone when we all live scattered over the globe but it's great when you can talk to someone and it's like no time's gone by at all, you're exactly as you were. Hopefully we can meet up again in London soon!

No photos yet as I've resorted to using my old film camera in place of my sadly departed digi. Hopefully they come out ok! The excitement of anticipation is half the fun though anyway.

Next stop, San Francisco!

Krazy Kroonstad

Kroonstad was definitely not somewhere which we had read about in the Lonely Planet and thought, my gosh, we absolutely can't miss it! In fact, I don't know if I even bothered to read past the introduction...

But, as the only place worth mentioning on the way between Lesotho and Johannesburg, it was where we were destined to spend the last two nights of our trip. We rocked on up to the near deserted, yet enormous, campsite. In fact, the only other people camping were the some workers...obviously Kroonstad's not a big winter camping destination! After spending the night out at a very 'interesting' Afrikaaner biker bar watching the Spain vs Germany game, we realised why - it was freezing! Luckily we had our fantastic Basotho blankets to keep us nice and toasty.

After a hearty breakfast of stale fat cakes rolled in sugar (we really were sinking to new lows of coronary meltdown by that point), it was off to explore! The tourism office was barred closed, but once the workers got over the shock of seeing some tourists, let us in to look over their paltry selection of pamphlets and gave us a list of the top 20 things to do in Kroonstad. While the white lion breeding centre could have grabbed our attention on another day, we were all animal-ed out, so instead decided to spend the morning doing practical things (i.e. the internet) then a bit of a historical jaunt around town.

While Emilia and I were at the internet cafe, Adrian and Dan managed to strike up a lengthy conversation with an extremely friendly local who owned not only the bargain goods shop, but the fish and chip shop next door. Next thing we knew we were being shouted a massive fish and chip lunch! And that was only the beginning of the generosity of the Kroonstad locals...

After lunch we decided a walk around the place was warranted. We checked out the market (Emilia narrowly avoiding, yet again, buying a traditional African dress which while very cool, was several sizes too big and probably would have languished helplessly in the back of the wardrobe waiting to be altered), then went to the local church. It was quite impressive, all round turrets and manicured gardens. One of the gardeners saw us trying the door to see if it was open and got the caretaker who gave us the grand tour! The door key was enormous, as were the bibles inside and the beards of all the ancestors in the photos on the wall! Inside it looked more like a theatre than a church, but still in quite an austere style - I thought it was a great combo.

After the church we decided to make for the jukskei museum. Jukskei I hear you ask? It's a traditional folk sport which is kind of like petanque - you throw these big sticks at another stick in some sand - and it's awesome fun! It's a really big deal in South Africa (mainly among the Afrikaaners) and the people at the museum were so friendly! The guy showed us round the museum, pointing out all the interesting things, and then actually took us outside for at least an hour and showed us how to play! I had a freakishly good start, knocking the stick over in the middle every time for my first three goes, but my form rapidly deteriorated after that... It was definitely beginners' luck!

Another braai followed the jukskei and then it was our last night in the tents and last night in South Africa... A drive up to Joburg the next day and straight on the plane! Strange that it was all over.

I will definitely, definitely, be back in Africa soon. It was absolutely wonderful and I'm dying to see more!

Where can you see lions...

Here are Adrian's photos of South Africa, and then of Lesotho. His are much more animal heavy than mine given the fancy nature of his camera and awesome zoom lens! If you ever want to see more animal ones, give us a shout - there are hundreds more where these came from...