Child of the Planet

I was on a hike over the weekend and we stumbled across the Haewai (Maori for light reflecting on water) Meadery by accident. We popped in to the homestead and participated in a tasting. They have an emphasis on using organic ingredients (including spring water sourced on the property) in their herb infused meads. These herb infused drinks are not subtle in taste and pack a bit of a wallop in the mouth. They have a strong presence in the room, and I've had a number of comments from folk who are around me when I'm drinking these brews. Less like wine, more like spirits. The infused mead have a medicinal heritage and a wag in our group quipped during the tastings that sipping the samples 'was like taking your medicine', to which other members quickly replied 'in the nicest possible way' HAEWAI MEADERY Wind Gardens 236 Houghton Bay Rd Wellington 6023 New Zealand. www.haewai.co.nz View Larger Map

We're back at the Douse for a second dose of gallery music. Entrance is free if you want to join the audience but there is a Koha bucket (Māori version of 'tip jar') which floats around while the band plays. We had the $30 pizza (from the cafe) deal that includes a large pizza and two glasses of wine. Not sure if it was good value but the chicken pesto and spiced walnut pizza was tasty. Once again, the air con failed us and the room got a bit muggy by the time the band has finished banging out their set. The music The Shot Band Guitar three piece, with the members picking up drumsticks, a banjo, and a harmonica as needed. Spine tingling harmonies, reminded me of Crowded House's Woodface album. Songs ranged from pacy light hearted (drawing chuckles from crowd), to quite soulful pieces. Always fun when kids get up and dance in front of the band. http://www.theshotband.co.nz/ 45 Laings Road Lower Hutt 5010, New Zealand (04) 570 6500 dowse.org.nz

Last couple of years, I've noticed that alcholic cider has started to 'take off'. The rapidly expanding range of ciders has started to dominate the refrigerated cabinets in the local bottle shops. Truly scrumpy? Cider has boomed, but its success may be too sweet to sustain... In lean times for alcohol, one drink has flourished. Consumption of alcoholic cider increased by 46% between 2002 and 2011 (see chart). The tipple is in a demographic sweet spot. A decade ago 35- to 44-year-olds were the biggest cider consumers; now 18- to 24-year-olds are. A generation reared on alcopops has taken easily to fermented apple juice. www.economist.com I started drinking cider back in the early nineties when it was pretty unfashionable in Oz. I had a mate who I worked with and sometimes at the end of the day, we would occupy a couple of stools in a 'local' and he would get gently smashed.  I didn't drink and this time. He decided that it was unacceptable behaviour

A After five weeks, this is the result. Our penultimate loaf of Sour dough. final recipe cup of water 1  ½  Tsp dry yeast 600g  flour Tbs salt Cup of Ferment Tbs oil Tsp sugar

The skins lived in a bowl, which we sat in a warm dark spot on top of the cupboards in the kitchen. Peel twenty apples Around the eight day mark, Gary reckoned he could smell a yeasty odour. The next day I could smell it too, wafting through the house. After ten days the skins were browning and the water had a dusty look. I decanted of the liquid in to a second bowl, mixing in a couple of cups of plain white flour. The bowl returned to it's perch in the kitchen for another couple of days. First loaf Apple skins after ten days It was time to make our first loaf and ingredients were dumped into the bread maker. After four hours the resulting slice of loaf had a dense crumb, and chewy crust. Perfect for toasting. Not quite as tasty as I'm used to from Sour Dough but that could be due to the immaturity of the Forment. To feed the ferment, I mixed up a flour and water paste into the gloopy puddle by hand. It felt strange. Not like anything else I've

Recently Gary handed me a recipe for making sour dough bread from scratch. I'm a big fan of Sour Dough so I enthusiastically took on the project. First up, I needed the peel from twenty apples. They were 'out of season' but Gary found a bucket load for a decent price at the Saturday markets. The first problem was, what do we do with all the apple flesh, which for the first time, was a bi-product? Lots of baking was the answer! I churned out a Strudel, a pie, some sauce for pork, and we produced so many muffins we had to freeze most of them to keep them fresh. Sour dough bread from scratch : Experimentation  

Instantly apparent is that the Aviary interface is clean and modern, while Perfectly Clear looks dated and cluttered. Both have download-able features that can be purchased. Aviary's plug-ins add extra Instagram type 'looks' that are applied to photos. Perfectly Clear doesn't do 'looks' so features that are included in Aviary, such a 'teeth whitening' and 'blemish removal' cost extra. The image cleanup in Aviary might not be as good as it is in Perfectly Clear, but Aviary is much better value for money. ( Reviewed here ) Straight capture from phone camera Perfectly Clear     Aviary

I'm a regular traveler and I'm constantly on the look out for Apps that allow me to make the most of photos taken with my mobile phone. The interface for Perfectly Clear is really busy compared to something like Aviary ( comparison here ). I'm reminded of interfaces that I used to see on Amiga and Atari ST computers. There's lot's of feedback on the App workings, as pre processed images are 'peeled off' the shiny new result. I think Perfectly Clear should have included the add-on portrait functions in the base. these functions cost extra and currently the App isn't great value for money. As a technical 'aside', it's a shame that phones don't shoot in raw to give apps like this more data to work with. What I don't get, is why Adobe hasn't released a phone App (I don't have a tablet so not interested in their current series of Apps) that improves photos and or video? Google recently purchased Nik Software, makers of