Cinderella Pumpkin Soup

The huge pumpkin that my coworker Laura bought me for $4 last week has fed us for a week! Three different soups, two lasagnas, two loaves of pumpkin bread, and a pumpkin pie.


Today's dinner was Cinderella Pumpkin Soup, made with wine and garnished with crystallized ginger (mmmm):

Cinderella Pumpkin Soup

2 cups cooked pumpkin
1 cups chopped onions
2 Tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic
2 cups chicken broth
3/4 cups white wine

freshly ground pepper
kosher or sea salt
cream or milk

Optional garnishes:
grated nutmeg
chopped crystallized ginger
croutons or
freshly popped popcorn

Lightly brown onions with the olive oil in a soup pot. Add garlic and cook until it softens but doesn't brown, about 1-2 minutes. Add the pumpkin, broth, wine, salt, and pepper, stirring to blend. Cook for about 30 minutes over medium heat. Puree soup. Serve hot with 2-3 T cream or milk in each bowl. Garnish as desired. Serves 4.

Interviews are kinda fun

Interviews are a lot like going to the hair salon, where it's acceptable to get to talk for an entire hour about your hair, or it's like going to the dentist and discussing interesting aspects about your teeth. It is kinda fun to just sit there at interviews blabbering on about yourself and your ideas about things and no one can really argue with you.
It must be how managers usually feel.

Seriously?

This morning Miley Cyrus' music video Party in the USA came on at the gym and I almost teared up seeing the American flag. Dude. Homesick much?

The Differences between our Parallel Universes

When you visit New Zealand, one of the first things you notice is that other than some of the plants and the people driving on the left side of the road, it's almost exactly like the States. The feeling makes you feel comfortable and happy. Happy, because if you're from Seattle like me, you realize that you're in a place that's like home but Sunnier. Which is definitely a good thing.

There are rolling green hills and vineyards that look just like San Francisco, but maybe better. The pine forests seem a little like Bend, OR or Lake Tahoe. There's Denny's, Burger King, McDonalds, Ford dealerships, and Blockbuster. Radio commercials use familiar jingles, and the evening news uses the same icons as ABC World News. Friends, PBS, Dateline, The Simpsons, The Nanny, Glee, Heroes, Lost-- almost all the tv shows are imported from the States or the UK. Children develop US accents from watching the Disney Channel.

Moving to a new place so far from home, yet so similar to home, really makes me notice the differences between the two countries. The differences are striking and surprising, because here you are merrily living in your new home in exactly the same way as you lived in your old home, and -bump- what was that? You do what? You call that a what?

• Children are allowed to say "damn." Even very religious adults will say "damn" at work. It's a riot to sit there as the prude American and listen in on all the swearing.
• When people say, "Hey we should have tea/lunch/breakfast/beer sometime," they really mean it. It's not a way to end the conversation. If you don't follow up it's pretty rude.
• Pumpkin. People eat lots of pumpkin here, and you know what? It's wonderful. I don't understand why we don't eat more pumpkin in the States... didn't it originate in the Americas for goodness sakes?
• Most kiwis, for all the pumpkin here, have never had pumpkin pie.
• While we're on the subject of food, please don't ask for "turkey sausage" at the supermarket (as I did my first week here). You will get a blank look. There are turkeys here, but they're about as common as goose in the U.S.
• The Ministry of Education encourages me to make decisions about how I interact and treat my students based on their ethnicity. I make notations on my caseload list on the race of my students. Can you even imagine that happening in a public school district? Litigation city. But actually, treating people a little different based on their different cultures is getting results in NZ-- while Maori and Pacific Islander students in NZ are still below white students in academic achievements, they've made huge gains in the last 10 years because of recent initiatives aimed at supporting them.
• Many young educated professionals leave NZ for the UK, causing a serious brain drain. The NZ immigration department has developed polished advertising and websites in order to lure skilled immigrants to the country. I am always asked why I moved here, which shocks me. Isn't it obvious?? This country is absolutely gorgeous. I was philosophically told by one young man, though, that "You don't really see how pretty a place is when you've lived there your whole life."
• There are absolutely gorgeous, to-die-for properties available that kiwis poo-poo because they aren't in the best socio-economic area. These properties, with their views, would go for at least a million in the States.
  
• There are so many business opportunities here, from property to restaurants to products, that it drives me a little nuts and makes me wish I had a business degree. (There is a grungy shopping center in a nicer part of town that would be huge money maker if it were made over. The country is in dire need of pedicurists. A few more Mexican restaurants wouldn't hurt. An Old Navy or H&M franchise would make big bucks. And that prime view property isn't going to lay fallow for long...)
• NO window screens. No window screens!! When I asked a kiwi about this, she laughed at my silly aversion to bugs, and said, "Well this isn't Australia you know," (which has tons of very awful bugs).

• It is considered normal to have baked beans on nachos.

• If you have an important person in your life, be that a boyfriend, fiance, spouse, or whatever, that person is called your "partner." It is a nice word that covers everyone that reminds me of "Ms."
• In the office, names are alphabetized by first name. Even in Outlook.
• Having your cell phone go off during a meeting is not considered a huge faux pas. It is not even a little faux pas.
• Phone numbers do not have always have 7 numbers. They could have 5 numbers, or they could have 8 numbers.
  
• Hedgehogs are not pets here. They are animals that carry diseases and that run wild in your backyard. I saw my first (live) hedgehog today crossing the street; I just had to stop my car and look at it, it was so cute!

Need to get on that...

During a skype conversation with Bryce's dad and Tammie last weekend, the issue came up that I'm not on health insurance. I'm not really sure how I overlooked that little task item. Bryce is covered on travel health insurance, because he lost his work health coverage before I did and took care of it.

Health insurance is not automatically offered to us as part of our benefits package at work. NZ doctor visits and prescriptions are subsidized by the government. My recent ER visit was only $250 NZD ($177 US). It would have been less if we were residents.

As a skier, I definitely need to get moving and sign up for health insurance. My dizzy spells which I've had infrequently for about 2 years have gotten more frequent and stronger in the last week. I almost fell over while standing around and talking with friends on Wednesday. I have been to a doctor in the States about this and he wasn't really worried-- so I suppose I shouldn't be too worried. But I'm a little alarmed that I might suddenly keel over during a therapy session--I've had to concentrate really hard this week to continue working with a child although I felt that my head was swimming.

A little bit of a misperception...

Today on the radio this DJ said something along the lines of,
"So it's Four-Twenty Day in the States right now. It's like a holiday! That's right, in the States you get to take the day off work to smoke weed!"

Gym Membership and Take-out Pizza

Bryce got a killer deal texted to him-- $10 a week for the gym, and the first month is free. I met him at the train station to sign up (the gym is at the train station which is awesome).

Since we were so healthy by getting a gym membership we decided to reward ourselves by going to our favorite pizza place, Hell Pizza. Mmmm.


We normally get the Limbo but settled on the Purgatory Pizza this time ;-)

Tuis

Tui (pronounced "two-ee") birds are one of our favorite things about New Zealand. They sing as I can ready for work in the morning, and they sing as I make dinner. There's tons of them around our house, which is a little unusual. They have two voice boxes, so they sing and make cool clicking sounds. Their sound is really distinct.

Here's a tui singing by our house:



They have a white ball of fluff on their neck, so they're really easy to spot. They have the funniest flying pattern too, they flap their wings a few time and then stop, so that their bodies swoop downwards. It looks like they're zig-zagging along as they fly through the air.

pumpkin madness

I've been making pumpkin bread a lot lately. It's called "pumpkin cake" by coworkers to get around the idea of pumpkin being used as a sweet instead of as a savory. It is well liked and earlier this week a group of coworkers literally cheered when they saw me bring it in to the staff room one morning. One of my friends at work left a giant pumpkin on my desk chair yesterday that she picked up at the supermarket-- a hint, I think, to make more pumpkin bread. Our kaitakawaenga (Maori liaison) noticed it still sitting at my desk today and said, "Hey aren't you going to do anything with this?" Meaning: aren't you going to make something to eat with this? I gestured to my colored markers nearby and said, "Well I'm going to decorate it right away!" The strangest expression passed over his face. A little while later I showed off my painted new jack-o-lantern to him and others. I got a lot of befuddled looks and comments for 1) decorating a pumpkin and 2) decorating a pumpkin and it's not even Halloween. (When handed a pumpkin, what do Americans do? Decorate it, of course!) The kaitakawaenga gave me a hard time for being so silly with my pumpkin but then later came by my desk and said, "You know what would would make that pumpkin look really cool? A knife stabbed in the top or something." "Great idea!" I enthusiastically told him. I knew he'd come around.

Later that day, I showed off my new decoration to another co-worker. As an aside, she told me that to the Maori, playing with your food is taboo. Whoops! Well, for we Americans, pumpkins aren't really even considered a food (our pumpkin comes from a can) so maybe we can have a loophole?

I know, that's terribly ethnocentric of me to think that way. So, Mr. Pumpkin is now in a bag and his comment on his top, "Don't eat me!!" hidden forever.

Incomplete list of things to love about NZ

1. the birds, the birds, the birds (especially pukekos!)

2. gorgeous scenery and beaches.

3. clear night skies; the Milky Way and touchable stars.

4. NO BEARS (or cougars)

5. friendly people who are always telling you that the weather can change in an instant and be sure to wear your sunscreen and a hat because our sun is very harsh here.
6. The harsh sun is saving me several hundred dollars in hair coloring fees. (Whoo hoo!)

7. Taking the train to work along the harbour and watching for whales.
8. There are supposedly penguins here, and orcas sometimes come into the harbour.

9. Cute lambs.

10. Sophisticated "we aren't the center of the world/we know a little bit about the world around us and actually physically travel there" attitude.

Mt. Taranaki

After work on Friday we drove to Stratford-- a 6 hour drive (normally 4 hours; traffic and a nice long dinner at cafe slowed us down a bit). On Saturday we started our hike up Mt. Taranaki with the objective to climb as high as we could.

Getting to the top is very do-able (for most). Mt. Taranaki is probably the steepest mountain I've ever been on. When trails in New Zealand encounter a steep area, they goes straight up the hill instead of "switchbacking" (going back and forth) up the mountain. Along with the steep slope of the trail, loose rock (called "scree") near the top of Taranaki made it really difficult to walk up and down. Part of the mountain was so steep that steps going straight up were installed-- there must have been 500 steps in a row to walk up-- with no hand rail. Walking down I had to work hard to quell hysterics and force myself to only look one step ahead of me. I really had no idea that I was afraid of heights until I moved to New Zealand.

Bryce could have made it to the top, but I had to make us stop because climbing on the scree was so difficult. I waited at a pretty (and steep) vantage point to watch a glider and the views for about 40 minutes, while Bryce climbed even higher. It was a gorgeous day.

Mt. Taranaki is even beautiful when viewed up close-- really close.

Near the base of the mountain. Some parts of NZ are so gorgeous I spontaneously start humming the Jurassic Park theme song.

Hiking in NZ is wonderful-- no wild animals to be scared of! There are wild boars I suppose, but it's hard to wrap my mind around the fact that there's wild pigs out there.

You can easily see in this picture where the boundary for the park lies. In the distance Mt. Ruapehu (where we ski) can be seen.

NZ fun facts

My cousin Matt just asked me for some fun facts for his son Sean to present at school about NZ. Here's what I came up with:

1) People here say different words. They say "rubbish" instead of "garbage" and "shop" instead of "store" and they call McDonalds "Mackers". They say "carpark" instead of "parking lot," "boot" instead of "trunk," "mate" instead of "friend."

2) The steering wheels are on the right side of the car and everyone drives on the left side of the road.


3) there are 4 million people and 44 million sheep


4) They eat a lot of pumpkin here. They make pumpkin soup, pumpkin ravioli, and even pumpkin lasagna. (But no pumpkin pie).


5) The main sports are rugby, cricket, and netball. The most popular sports team is the rugby team called the All Blacks. They do a native ritual dance called a "hangi" before every game to make the other team scared of them.

6) There are Chinook salmon here (I think it was a gift from the Native Americans?) and there are orca whales here too.

7) there are NO squirrels, raccoons, bears, cougars, or skunks in NZ. Hedgehogs are never pets here, they are pests that carry diseases and that cars run over ;-)

8) The native people here are called the Maori. They arrived on the islands around 800 years ago. They hunted a giant bird (bigger than an ostrich) called the Moa to extinction. (That's Bryce holding a Moa bone in a cave on the South Island).


9) The national bird is called the "kiwi." Kiwis have no wings and are really fat. They have giant eggs. Kiwis are nocturnal so Julie has never seen one :-( Julie thinks that kiwis, like penguins, are part of a giant NZ conspiracy and don't really exist. Possums and dogs that were brought to the islands by immigrants are killing the kiwis because the kiwis can't run away fast enough.

10) New Zealanders like to call themselves "Kiwis."