Whee! He's Three!

It's has taken me a while but here are the pictures from J's birthday at last.  He opened presents a day early (the day of his party) because we figured he'd just be overwhelmed if we spread it out!

 He's really into Spiderman at the moment, so C's gift was exciting.

 Auntie A gave him some stamps and coloured stamp pads (which he is using right now while I post this!)

The Cat in the Hat game has become popular, but it was assumed to be dress-up material at first! 

 His cake was a race track in the shape of a number 3.

 And there were shortbread traffic lights (3 M&Ms), shortbread cars (with M&M wheels), chocolate dipsticks (pretzel sticks dipped in chocolate), fruit cars (slice of apple with grape wheels attached with toothpicks), plus some veges and dip, popcorn, and club sandwiches.

We bought some Cars themed decorations, napkins and plates.

  Perhaps the best investment was in some checkered duct tape (see the edge of the countertop) and these signs...

Our friends came to play.

 And Uncle G stayed later to help J test out his Christmas present - American cricket, you know ;o)

Lovely Leftovers

On Tuesday we were getting a bit tired of leftovers from our Easter meal.  So I 'invented' something new for both mains and dessert.

Ham Salad

Combine (in proportions you have to hand):

ham, cubed
pineapple pieces (I cut up the pineapple on the ham itself)
asparagus, chopped (steamed or boiled)
green beans (I used the last of the leftover green bean casserole so it had a bit of mushroom soup too)
cooked pasta shapes (we had some gifted Italian Pesto pasta from Pappardelle's at Pike Place Market)

Dress with mayonnaise thinned with orange juice.  Serve with romaine lettuce leaves and crusty fresh bread.

Notes: adding something crunchy (like nuts) or peppery (like radishes) would be good too.

Hot Cross Pudding

This is inspired by bread pudding, strata, and "Poor Man's Souffle" - so it is basically a bread and egg bake.

Ingredients:
1/2 doz stale hot cross buns (or thereabouts!)
2 eggs
2 c milk
2 T sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp orange essence
1 Tbsp butter (plus more for greasing, or oil)
2 handfuls of blueberries (about 1/2 a small punnet? Sorry, they were frozen in a big bag!)

Method:
Grease a shallow baking dish.  Cut the buns into roughly 1-inch cubes.  Spread in the baking dish.

Whisk together eggs, milk, sugar, cinnamon and essence.

Pour over buns.  Gently turn pieces to soak up more egg mixture.  Turn on oven to 350*F/180*C.  Leave buns to absorb egg mixture while oven heats. When oven is heated, sprinkle blueberries over buns and dot with butter.

Bake for 50 minutes or until egg is cooked (a knife inserted into the centre comes out clean).  Serve warm.

Notes: Not overly rich or sweet.  Would be good for breakfast, too.  (Construct night before and bake when first getting up.)  Try substituting ginger for the cinnamon, and zest for the orange essence as neither flavour was particularly strong. Make sure you grease the dish well!

Menu Mash

Well, I got a bit behind in blogging my menu plans for Lent, and now we're past Easter Sunday!  So in no particular order here are the meals I planned.  (I've removed any repeats and you can throw in a few "leftovers" meals to make up the difference.)

• Sweet potato wedges with the works (minus the bacon, of course!)
• Salmon bake and salad
• Potato, pea and cauliflower curry on brown rice
• Smoked fish pie and veges (Our Good Friday traditional meal)
• Caesar salad
• Bean tacos
• Fish cakes and salad
• Vege stirfry
• Peasant salad (based on this recipe - pretty well-off peasants in my opinion!)
• Chicken tacos (with chicken courtesy of my friend, Bekah)
• Homemade fish and chips with salad
• Cheese burritos
• Sweet potato & salmon fish cakes with mango salsa
• Crunchy chicken casserole (from the freezer)
• Pasta with tomato and vege sauce
• Baked salmon and seasonal veges (This one has been a hit with J lately.)
• Corn chip casserole
• Burgers (eating out at JG's - a treat!)
• Chilli rellenos (I plan to blog about this one...)
• Macaroni cheese
• Salmon quiche
• Stuffed peppers
• Eggs ( in various guises)

And for Easter Day... Ham with pineapple, mustard and apricot glaze; sweet potato and carrot mash; green bean casserole; cranberry sauce; cheese and crackers; sparkling apple juice; and carrot cake and Easter eggs for dessert.

(Isn't it strange how J and C have  mirror image expressions in this photo?)

Needless to say, I'm not planning to keep blogging my meal plans, but this week features a LOT of leftover ham! :o)

On reflection, we haven't been particularly successful in keeping our Lenten fast (due to Spring Break temptations and a couple of guests that we've eaten out with).  In fact, I have reached Easter Sunday with more guilt than usual, especially as I haven't been consistent with my devotional time either.  Thankfully, I serve a Lord who is gracious and merciful, as the Easter event reminds us each year.  Here's praying that I can maintain my prayer life more regularly and meaningfully in the coming year, and that next Lent (or Advent) I submit to the discipline of fasting with more success. 

Doomed and Delighted

This week's menu is doomed before we finish it!

First, the chilli I defrosted on Tuesday night from our freezer was mislabeled "vegetarian" so we broke our fast unintentionally.  As my brother put it, "This eggplant tastes really meaty!" (wink, wink)

Second, I have no idea what veges I'll be picking up in our food co-op produce tomorrow, so I may have to rethink half of it.

Third, we hope to do an overnight trip sometime this coming week as N is on Spring Break, so that will throw meal planning out the window anyway.

But for what it's worth, here's the plan:

Wednesday: Homemade Fish'n'Chips with salad

Thursday: Cheese Burritos

Friday: Sweet Potato (Kumara) cakes with Mango Salsa

Saturday: Crunchy Chicken Casserole with seasonal veges

Sunday: Pasta with tomato and vegetable based sauce

Monday: Baked Salmon with seasonal veges

Tuesday: Corn Chip Casserole (yes, more Tex-Mex!)

The good news is that we've been enjoying the company of guests this week: my brother and our friend, Kristen.  A few late nights talking so far.

J also took delivery of an 'I-Spy' quilt that Grandma had sent over.  He has had lots of fun finding all sorts of things on it, especially stars and kiwifruit and vehicles.  He's had it on his bed for the last two nights and naps, and we are delighted that he slept through the night both times (for the first time in ages).  Yay!

Vegetarian, here we come!

So as Lent continues, here is my meal plan for the coming week:

Wednesday: Salmon quiche with pear & cucumber salad and roasted Jerusalem artichokes.  (Yes, they're still hanging around waiting for me to do something with them! And now our produce basket this week has an excess of pears and cucumbers.)

Thursday: Pasta and vegetable-based sauce (since we missed out last week)

Friday: Baked potatoes and salad

Saturday: Pork chops and veges (in the freezer from last week, too)

Sunday: Eggs of some description (omelet, poached, scrambled... I'll see what we feel like)

Monday: Pumpkin and chickpea casserole (a new recipe I am trying)

Tuesday: Vegetarian chilli (also in the freezer)

We've done meal planning on and off all through our marriage, so it's nice to be back in the habit.  Having said that - I've learnt that it's always just a plan.  I don't think I've ever set up a week of meals and done every single meal on the day I'd planned to do it!  I'm trying to be smarter about leftovers though, so I can take it easy some nights during my boys' "witching hour" (usually 5-6 p.m.) by just pulling out something from the fridge or freezer that's all ready to be heated.

It has been a dull day outside, and the blokes are all a bit snuffly or croaky with a cold going around, so I made these cookies as a treat with the cranberries I'd frozen at Christmas time.  Yum!  They won't last long around here.  I think I've already had five (instead of lunch).  It makes 3-4 dozen.

My modifications: I prefer ordinary chocolate chips over the white ones, and no more than a cup.  Today I had lime zest rather than orange.

P.S. 1 cup butter = 8 oz = 2 sticks = @250g
P.P.S. There is a lot of sugar in these to offset the tartness of the cranberries.  You could easily use less.

A Different Season

Wednesday marked the beginning of the church season of Lent, a time of preparation and reflection before Easter.  We didn't attend any Ash Wednesday service this year, but I hope to make it to more in Holy Week.

As we have for the past couple of years in community, this year we are having a Lenten fast of meat.  We're also using the tradition of 'breaking the fast' once a week (Saturday most times this year we've decided).  I find this makes the other six days easier (for any meat lovers and for the menu planner) and we'll still have fish (mostly for the nutritional needs of a toddler and breast-feeding mother!)

So here is the menu for our week so far:

Wednesday: Pasta with tomato & vegetable sauce Well, my planning didn't quite work here.  We still had a mile of Santa Fe Chicken Casserole left over from the night before.  It had already been frozen so we needed to eat up the leftovers.  Guess we've broken the fast already!

Thursday: Spinach & chickpea curry (Alison Holst recipe, very yummy)


Friday: Corn fritters and green salad

Saturday: Pork chops (maybe fish instead!) & seasonal veges (we have cauliflower, yellow zucchini, and Jerusalem artichokes in the fridge, plus frozen veges too)

Sunday: Eggs (as they come) and leftovers

Monday: Vegetable stirfry (maybe with Thai curry paste?) on rice

Tuesday: Tex-Mex beans & rice

Peaches

Today I was feeling a bit down, but rather than dwell on all the stuff that makes life not so peachy, I thought I should count my blessings. So in their order of appearance, here are my peaches today: 1. J slept through from 11.30pm to 7am; 2. The mechanic didn't charge us for resetting the engine light on the dashboard; 3. Two new medical bills that arrived were both for less than $20; 4. I got a letter from my mum, with a clipping from the Dominion Post featuring my sister and brother-in-law's cafe; 5. Both boys fell asleep for about an hour, so I could rest too; 6. I made ginger crinkle cookies and reminisced about first making them in out Ferguson St flat when newly married; 7. I didn't have to think about dinner because a friend from church brought it to us from EatZi's - delicious! Maybe there are more before I head to bed, but that's plenty for now.

Food Course: Taste and See

Our class was really a book discussion on May 15. Our reading assignment was "the WHOLE book if possible"... that is, "The Supper of the Lamb" by Robert Farrar Capon. I had read this book for the Christian Thought & Culture class last year, so this was a pleasant refresher for me.

Capon focusses on the need to be mindful of the world we live in, in order to appreciate God's goodness more fully. He sees our role in the world as priests; making meaning in our actions, living in a posture of thanksgiving to God, paying attention to things for their own sake and appreciating and using them at their best. Our discussion ranged far and wide, bringing together many strands of our previous classes.

The whole book is quotable, so here are some of my favourites that the class picked:
“… let us eat. Festally, first of all, for life without occasions is not worth living. But ferially, too, for life is so much more than occasions, and its grand ordinariness must never go unsavored” (p.18).
“Against all that propaganda for fancy eating and plain cooking, I hope to persuade you to cook fancy and just plain eat" (p.144).
"Man's real work is to look at the things of the world and to love them for what they are. That is, after all, what God does, and man was not made in God's image for nothing" (p.18).

In the afternoon, we had a visit from a friend and farm meighbour of the Wilkinsons, Sherri Koster. Sherri is a clinical counsellor, and we had a helpful Q&A time with her about food disorders from a medical (and Christian) point of view.

Our final mindful meal was centred on a Turkish theme:

We ate appetizers with headscarves on, before Debbie read a New Testament passage about our freedom in Christ. We were then invited to either remove our headscarves, or to eat with them on, in solidarity with persecuted Christians around the world.
Olives, Hummus, and Pita Bread

Roast Lamb, Kabouli Palau, Eggplant Bake, Greek Salad (accompanied by raki/ouzo... much better with water!)

Halva, and Turkish Apricots Afterwards, Ben set up a houka for some to smoke...

and some of us just enjoyed the turkish coffee...or giggled our way through some belly dancing!

The night ended with a little talent sharing... poetry, banjo, piano, story reading... and an impromptu campfire on the beach.

Food Course: The Hungry Soul

The discussion this day focussed on food disorders: obesity, anorexia, bulimia, and the greatest food disorder, hunger. Mary Ruth explored three basic roots of all these disorders - geographic change, cultural change, and familial change.

The conversation about geographic change focussed on the effects of urbanisation, changes in the size and nature of farms, and the change in how we use our homes (especially how zoning and consumerism 'feed' our lifestyles in the latter). We talked about how cultural changes are shown in the denial of real stages of life (e.g. in fashion, aging or anti-aging, tween culture), conformity to a prescribed beauty, and denial of classic sources of wisdom (family, place, and self are replaced with media influences). Familial change reflected the impact of households where both parents work, changes in food preparation and preservation, and children's schedules that rival their parents.


Some possible small steps we discussed were:

• refusing to buy into fads - thinking carefully before we buy/do things
• choosing to walk - a way of promoting community, exercise, safety, slowing down...
• reducing meat consumption - awareness of animal care issues, sourcing food resulting in intentionality, seasonal eating, meat flavour trumping size
• modelling healthy attitudes to food and our bodies - acknowledging that most people hunger for love, joy, acceptance and approval... and that churches ought to be places of healing in these areas too

Our reading was from two books: Harvey Levenstein's "The Paradox of Plenty" and "In Defense of Food" by Michael Pollan. The quote I chose comes from the latter, page 81: “But the industry’s influence would not be nearly so great had the ideology of nutritionism not already undermined the influence of tradition and habit and common sense – and the transmitter of all those values, mom – on our eating.”


Our mindful meal this evening was an Indian meal with a focus on our senses. We started by washing our hands. The meal looked beautiful, as did the spice illustrations. We ate with our hands (even though we tried to use only one - as is traditional). We smelt all the beautiful spices as the group cooked and tried to identify them at the table. We tasted a wide variety of flavours: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, hot... And we heard the crack of poppadums, the crunch of radishes, the gentle whisper of naan scooping up dhal, and the satisfied sounds of diners as they tasted the chai tea icecream!
The menu was:
Appetizer - Poppadums serverd with Mango-Apple Chutney, Lime Pickle, Cucumber Raita, Cilantro (Coriander leaf)-Onion Relish Salad - White and Red Radish Salad Entrees (Mains) - Basmati Rice and Naan Bread with Baji Dhal (East Indian Spinach and Lentils) and Roasted Vegetables Dessert - Chocolate Cake with Chai Tea Ice Cream

This day also happened to be Mel's birthday, so the chocolate cake became a birthday cake...

complete with a hidden thimble - a la Nancy Willard's book, "The High Rise Glorious Skittle Skat Roarious Sky Pie Angel Food Cake" (illustrated by Richard Jesse Watson).

"Open your mouth and taste, open your eyes and see -- how good God is." Psalm 34:8

Food Course: Food for the World

On May 13th we started our class by watching some excerpts of the film The Future of Food. It looked at the issues surrounding GE seed modification and patenting (from a negative stance). We discussed "mono-cropping" (only growing limited varieties of limited foods) and how political agendas can affect food supplies around the world.

Soohwan has worked for Food for the Hungry in south-east Asia, so she was an invaluable contributor to our discussion. While she acknowledged the relief that food aid brings to hungry communities, she identified some downsides of foreign (usually western) aid: that the seed supplied was often patented (so local farmers were not allowed to save seed but had to buy it for subsequent crops); the seed provided through aid programs often wasn't appropriate for the local growing conditions; food aid often altered the local diet (sometimes to the detriment of general health and well-being); and that political arrangements sometimes meant foreign food was sold below cost, so local farmers found it difficult to sell what they were able to grow.

I must admit that this discussion got us all a bit glum about world food supplies and how our governments sometimes contribute troubles to those already suffering from hunger. Although I can't vouch for its practices, if you want a free opportunity to contribute rice to an aid programme, click the "free rice" link on the right-hand side of this blog. It takes you to a little game where you can 'earn' rice by correctly identifying word meanings. The rice is paid for by the sponsorship banners at the bottom of the game, and the words are interesting too. My highest vocab level was 46.

Our reading for this class was to browse the coffee-table-book Hungry Planet, by Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio. Each photograph showed a family's food for a typical week, and was accompanied by an essay describing the family, their occupations, eating habits and culture. My quote comes from the interview with an Equadorean family from a village in the Andean mountains.

“Has anyone in the family ever eaten fast food?”
“One time, when I was at a course of study in Ambato,” says Orlando. “It was meat on bread [a hamburger]. It was okay, but a bit strange. And I wasn’t able to see how it was made” (p. 116, my italics).

Is being able to see how our food is made an important part of our food culture?

After the heavy discussion, the day ended with a celebration of American culture as another group (all American) presented their mindful meal: Food From the New World. Each dish was accompanied with a reading (myths and legends, information about its source or original development, poems, etc.).

Their menu consisted of:

• New England Clam Chowder in a Sourdough Bread Bowl
• Mixed Greens (some wild) with Apple Cider Vinaigrette
• Haida Sugar Salmon (Wild Pacific Sockeye)
• Black Krim Heritage Tomatoes with Herbed Polenta and Goat Cheese Ricotta
• Rosemary Roasted Red Potatoes
• Steamed Asparagus with Butter, Cracked Pepper and Salt
• Apple Pie and Hand-cranked Vanilla Ice Cream
• Cafe au Lait with Roasted Dandelion Root

The clams were local and the salmon had come from Siberia. Loren took note of Robert's hand-carved spatula, too. The tomatoes were beautiful and delicious. We were all blessed by this group, who saved the tomato seeds, dried them, and gave us each some. (After a bit of research, I was able to take them (legally) through NZ Customs and give them to my grandad. Hopefully he'll get them to grow this summer!) The asparagus was divine (as it always is)! The "pie a la mode" was great, too, with that beautiful creamy icecream. The dandelion coffee would take a bit of getting used to, if I was to drink it all the time, but the story behind the similar use of chicory root during the Civil War was fascinating.

Food Course: Our Mindful Meal

One of the assignments for the food course was a 'mindful meal': "students will work together to plan, cook, serve, and present an evening meal to the class. The presentation should include 1) their rationale for the choices of the particular meal; 2) any history they can discover about the food used, the cooking methods, ethnic origin, and so on; 3) the point of origin and transportation details of the food items. In other words, their job is to awake in us a mindful appreciation of and sense of responsibility for what we are eating - AND a delight in food as a gift of God in creation."

My group discovered early in our discussions that we all came from different countries... me from NZ, Esther from England, Matt from USA, Elly from Canada, Claudia from Austria, and Soohwan from Korea. Consequently, we planned our meal around a simple lamb stew. Wanting to bring a bit of ourselves to this meal, we chose to unite 'homestyle' elements of each of our food heritages, in the same way a stew brings together many ingredients to add flavour to one another. Since the majority of our cultures were western, we chose not to include a Korean dish, but instead, to eat our meal in the context of Korean manners, where traditional ettiquette is governed by social class and respect for elders.

Our menu was as follows (sources in italics):

REFRESHMENTS
Beer, Water, Wine
Beer: Matt’s kitchen (with transport via the ferry with Roxy)
Water: from the farm well
House Wine: from the Wilkinson’s cellar
APPETIZER
Spinach Dip in Bread Bowls with carrots and bread for dipping
Spinach: Matt’s garden (again, thanks to Roxy)
Bread: made right here
Other ingredients from Vancouver Island
MAIN COURSE
Lamb Stew with Dumplings, Garlicky Mashed Potatoes, and Green Beans
Lamb: Campbell’s Farm, Saturna Island
Beans: canned by the Wilkinsons last summer
Fresh Herbs: from the Wilkinson’s garden
Other ingredients from Vancouver Island
DESSERT
Topfencreme
Quark: from Foothills Creamery, Alberta, that makes European style cheeses
Other ingredients from Vancouver Island

We each wrote about why we had chosen these foods and how they represented our cultures, and included this information, along with a summary of Korean table etiquette, on our menu sheets. My ingredient was lamb so I wrote about NZ sheep farming and my grandparents' farm. Our table decorations were 'homestyle' too: bouquets of grass, driftwood to sit breadbowls and hot dishes on, and simple candles.

Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Matt's beer and his spinach dip were great (and I don't even like beer much!) There was enough lamb stew and dumplings for two dinners (Esther and I made it stretch a long way, based loosely on this recipe). Elly's green beans and mashed potatoes were gobbled up quickly. Claudia's topfencreme (see recipe below) was delicious. By far, the most difficult part of the evening was sticking to the Korean manners that Soohwan explained to us - but that made for a lot of laughter, learning and conversation.

TOPFENCREME

• 250g quark
• 250g whipped cream (250ml whipping cream)
• 500g vanilla yoghurt
• sugar
• mixed berries (fresh or frozen)

Defrost berries if necessary. Add sugar to berries to taste.

Mix quark and yoghurt until smooth. Fold in whipped cream. Add sugar to taste.

Serve cream mixture with berries drizzled over. (Leftovers... if there are any... make a nice topping for sweet pancakes or waffles.)

Serves 4.

Food Course Intro

I am currently on a course called "Food: Creation, Community, and Communion," held on Galiano Island, one of the Gulf Islands off the west coast of British Columbia. I am one of 25 Regent College students who are privileged to be participating in this course in its inaugural offering. It is being taught and hosted by Mary Ruth and Loren Wilkinson, who have taught me (separately) in other courses I've taken at Regent.

So far, we have had a busy time. Our general daily rhythm is lectures in the mornings and rest or chores in the afternoons. We have 50+ pages of reading for each class and some evenings we watch food related movies.

On Sunday night the class arrived at Galiano Island (rather late) and we had gingerbread for dessert and settled into our places of sleep. I am staying at the Fee/Martin house, about 7 minutes walk from the Wilkinson's farmhouse. It has a beautiful view of the water, looking out on Salt Spring Island.

Monday morning saw us consume crepes and multiple toppings for breakfast, before our first lecture in the Wilkinson's living room. Our scripture reading was from Luke, where Jesus invites his disciples for breakfast on the beach. We then introduced ourselves to the class, saying where we were from (before Regent) and why we had come to the course. It was amazing how diverse and how similar many of our answers were!

Mary Ruth then spoke about the main components of a meal: tongue, table, guests and grace. She read two children's books, An Angel for Solomon Singer and Mrs Moskowitz and the Sabbath Candlesticks, and based her lecture on our two readings (selections from Margaret Visser, The Rituals of Dinner, and Leon Kass, The Hungry Soul). It was interesting to see how aspects of a meal we take for granted are quite significant in "being human."

For lunch we had nettle soup (yes, some of the nettles we picked and prepared, Nath) and "biscuits" (scones). Then my group had a 'rest day' so I read and napped in the afternoon.

I picked my 'daily quote' from the required reading for our class anthology from Visser, page 14: "…(the Maori word tapu is the origin of our “taboo”)…" It formed part of a discussion of the etiquette of cannibalism amongst Maori and other cultural groups! I thought it was particularly interesting, given my understanding of tapu as holy, and its use for conserving resources in local areas.

Dinner was kedgeree. Yum! It was an opportunity to put some 'cultural context' around the food. I know kedgeree as a British breakfast dish, derived from India (when occupied by the British). This was confirmed by our two UK students, Debbie and Esther. I explained this to Soohwan, our Korean friend who has spent a lot of time in Bangladesh, and she laughed: "Kidgeree is a dish made from leftovers or the mash fed to babies! I've never had it with smoked fish."

After dinner there was a showing of a Danish film (with subtitles), Babette's Feast. It explored community, acceptance, gratitude, and generosity. A fine way to end our first day.

Thanksgiving Dinner

Here is our Canadian Thanksgiving dinner before: And after:We had roast chicken with cranberry sauce, roast sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, and green beans. For dessert we had pumpkin pie with whipped cream (sorry, I forgot to take a picture).

As you can see from the first picture, I got the cranberry sauce from a can, and a ready-made pumpkin pie from the supermarket bakery. I had not intended to do this. Being on a budget, however, I was surprised to find that it was cheaper to buy both these items rather than to make them from scratch. Even cheating - by making it with pumpkin pie filling in a can - was more expensive!

Apparently, the North American art of baking is being lost. It is rare to find someone who has the time, budget, and inclination to cook from flour, sugar, butter, etc (except in food blogs - see links). Maybe this is why the faculty are gobbling up my baking so readily! It is generally accepted that cookies come from a tube of dough, frosting comes in a can, muffins are packet mix with milk added, pie crusts are not made but bought, and afternoon tea for guests is bought at a bakery on the way home. This is a tragedy! (Can you tell I'm calling for a counter-cultural revolution?!)

The tragedy of packet cooking aside, the other possible tragedy of big dinners is wasted leftovers. So the chicken and veges were made into potato-topped pie and the pumpkin pie was happily consumed in the following days. My one dilemma was what to do with the cranberry sauce because most of the can was leftover. After a stint in the freezer as I deliberated, the sauce was drained of excess liquid and became the filling, along with a red eating apple (skin on), for a cranberry & apple shortcake. Here it is with some apricot yoghurt, before being devoured.

P.S. Check out the library blog my mum contributes to here. It is a great resource for teachers and lovers of children's books. She is 'Lynn, P. North', and you can see a picture of her display "Kikorangi Blue" there too. Well done, Mum!