Crossings

From Ngaire’s journal, 25th February 1959
‘At 3.45 pm we all left home and accompanied Carol to the Airport. She was very excited and looked beautiful in her crème colour coat, crème shoes, gloves and bag, apricot frock and pale green hat. The plane, piloted by Geoff White, left at 5pm and was due at Melbourne at 9.30 pm.’

I’m sticking with the aviation theme this week.

My parents met in Christchurch in 1958. Dad  – an Australian  – was there on a working holiday, and pursued Mum after spotting her in the Durham Street Methodist Church choir. In early 1959, my mother flew to Melbourne to be reunited with him and to see (with a view to marriage) what she thought of Australia.  It was to be the first of many Tasman crossings, backwards and forwards between Christchurch and Melbourne.

My mother Carol and her brother Warwick at Essendon airport Melbourne, 1960

It’s hard not to feel a little envious of a time where passengers dressed so well and where you may know the pilot by name.  Melbourne readers looking carefully at the photo of my mother and uncle at Essendon airport may also envy the helicopter service into town. For those of you not from here, getting to our city’s airport is a journey that is neither convenient nor glamorous.

Geoff White went on to become a distinguished pilot with Air New Zealand, flying their first DC-8 into Wellington for the initial trials. I think he may now live in Australia.

And a post script. My father was hours late to pick Mum up in 1959, and she was left sitting on her suitcase outside the shed that served as a terminal at Essendon. A cleaner, locking up for the night, told Mum he doubted her  beau would show, but he did and the rest is history. He has never been on time for anything since.

A Very Hot Day

From Ngaire’s journal, 9th February 1949
‘Another very hot day. There was a sharp earthquake at 5.30 am and Mt Ngauruhoe is in eruption. I bottled plums and made jam, and went to choir practice in the evening.’

I must say that my first inclination on a very hot day – and we’ve had more than our fair share lately – is not to crank up the bottling or make jam. Not that bottling is something that can generally wait. I remember as a teenager (not desperate to help) that cases of fruit always seemed to appear on the hottest days. Mum had the Vacola set up in the laundry, which was outside, but I’m not sure how much difference that made. Warracknabeal in February is hot, and before we had air-conditioning installed in the late 1970s we relied on a portable evaporative cooler, sometimes with a huge block of ice perched on a stool in front. Of course, in 1949 Ngaire wouldn’t have had anything remotely advanced in the way of cooling, especially in Christchurch where the summers are generally much milder. I don’t imagine she would have lowered her dress standards too much either, no matter what the temperature.

While I’m keen to walk in Ngaire’s footsteps, I really couldn’t be bothered bottling today and since I didn’t have any fruit waiting to be dealt with I made a pudding involving plum jam instead. Homemade jam of course, though not by me. Thanks Andrea Webster!

Baked Cinnamon Crumb Pudding

Base: 2 oz (60 g) butter, ¾  cup sugar,  1 egg, 1 ¾  cups flour, 2 tsp baking powder, 1 tbsp cinnamon,  ½  tsp salt, ¾ cup milk, ½ tsp lemon essence

Cream butter and sugar. Add egg and beat well.
Sift in flour and other dry ingredients.
Add milk and lemon essence and mix well.
Turn into well-buttered and floured baking dish then make topping.

Topping: Rub 1 tbsp butter into 1 tbsp cinnamon and ½ cup sugar. Sprinkle over the cake mixture.
Bake at 180° for approx. 30 mins.

Sauce: Combine 6 good tbsp jam with 1 cup of water and heat. Allow to reduce until thickened but still easy to pour.
Pour the sauce over the warm cake, reserving some for serving.
Serve with cream or ice cream then have a nice lie down and congratulate yourself on having cooked anything at all on such a hot day.

Postcard found at Skufan Postcards.

Meat and Three Veg

From Ngaire’s journal, 16th May 1951
Mr Bradley and his assistant came and installed a point in the pantry for the refrigerator which up to the present has been plugged into the cooker. I went to Choir Practice this evening.”

This is a bit odd, because in 1955 (four years later to the day which surely can’t be a coincidence), Ngaire wrote that it was ‘lovely to have the refrigerator’.  I assumed she was celebrating the arrival of refrigeration, but it must have been that the novelty still hadn’t worn off .

Whitegoods aside, the thing I really enjoyed about this entry was that instead of ‘the electrician’ or Reg, Jack, Tom or Bill, it was Mr Bradley and his assistant. I hope they wore grey dust coats with their names embroidered on the pocket.
By the way (and please correct me if I’m wrong), I think powerpoints on cookers was an NZ thing.

I’ve been using my cooker to turn out Ngaire’s spectacularly good  (and very thrifty) Roll-up Meat Loaf. It made meat-and-three-veg night quite exciting, and it’ll be meatloaf and tomato sauce sandwiches for the next couple of days.

Roll-up meat loaf

1 ½ lbs (700 gms)  minced beef, ½ lb (350 gms) minced pork, 1 onion and 2 stalks celery  and a small handful fresh herbs (parsley, sage, thyme) all chopped finely.
¼ tsp dry mustard, salt and pepper.
4 slices bread made into breadcrumbs, ½ cup milk, 2 eggs lightly beaten, 1 tbs Worcester Sauce.
3 or 4 large rashers of bacon

Soak the breadcrumbs in milk and mix well.  Add beaten egg and Worcester Sauce.  Combine meat, vegetables and herbs then mix through the bread mixture (I gave my 13 year old a pair of gloves and he was very happy to do this).

Turn the mixture out onto a large sheet of baking paper and shape into a rectangle (should be about 1.5  cm thick).  Spread with the stuffing and roll like a sponge roll.  Top with the bacon rashes and bake at 350°F (180°C) for 45 minutes.

For the stuffing

6 – 8 slices of stale bread (I like using a grainy or rye loaf), 1 small onion roughly chopped, 1 ½ tbsp finely chopped fresh herbs, ground pepper, about ¼ cup melted butter. I also added dried cranberries to mine because I had some in the pantry.

Put everything except the butter in the food processor and whizz until breadcrumbs are fine.  Add enough melted butter to combine the mixture (needs to hold together but not be soggy).

On the Sauce

From Ngaire’s journal, 13^th April 1955
This afternoon I drove Carol to Kaiapoi and we bought 10 dozen small bottles of soft drink for the dance next Saturday week.  They are 6/- per dozen less 3/- when the empties are returned. I went to Choir Practice this evening.”

Morning tea Stafford Orchard 1965

I remember going to the Kaiapoi lemonade works with my grandparents as a child; on visits to Christchurch it was one of the first stops.  ‘Fizzy drinks’ were a special treat in our house, so being allowed to select a mixed dozen was beyond exciting.
I still associate lemonade with morning tea at the orchard, sitting outside the packing shed in the sun, or on the front veranda of the house.

If lemonade still came in glass bottles I could have used them for the sauce we made today. My thirteen year old has been wanting to make sauce ever since we stayed with our friends Ashley and Chris in Canberra last year. They make a fabulous batch every year, and the bottle we brought home with us lasted no time at all.

 

There are two recipes for tomato sauce in Ngaire’s book – one from Mrs Shasky (a neighbour in Prestons Road), and the other from Auntie Phyllis.  We went with Auntie Phyllis of course, but I reduced the amount of vinegar and added  garlic and ginger root as recommended by Mrs Shasky. Max chopped all the tomatoes,  operated the Mouli and tasted the brew at very regular intervals!

We were a bit worried about the acidity at one point but, thanks to some quick Googling, managed to correct it by adding a grated carrot and baking soda. We’re very chuffed with the result – what’s the point in homemade if you can’t brag about it.

Tomato Sauce (Auntie Phyllis with a little help from Mrs Shasky)

12 lbs (5.4 kg) tomatoes, 6 big onions, 6 big apples, 3 lbs sugar (1.4 kg), 4 oz (115 gms)  salt, pickling spices (tied in netting), 1/4 gallon malt vinegar (1100 mls), 1 large carrot (grated) 4 cloves garlic, large piece of ginger root, 1 heaped tablespoon cornflour, 1 heaped tablespoon curry powder.

Peel and core the apples then roughly chop along with the tomatoes, onions, garlic and ginger. Put in a large saucepan with the pickling spices, sugar, salt and vinegar (reserve about 1/2 cup for later).  Boil for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, stirring from time to time. Add the grated carrot towards the end of the cooking time.

To thicken, make a paste with the cornflour, curry powder and reserved vinegar. Mix in some of the hot liquid then gradually stir the mixture into the sauce.  Bring back to the boil, stirring constantly.  Turn off and allow to cool.

When cool, put through a Mouli and bottle.

Note: If you’re concerned about the acidity, adding Baking Soda will help.  Add 1 teaspoon at a time, checking the taste as you go. Boiling the mixture for too long will increase the acidity.

Another note: I’m wondering if the works at Kaiapoi was Alexander and Co. Would love to hear from someone on this. M