HB&B Blog — New Zealand
Wine & Food Killers: Fried Artichokes with Wild Garlic Pesto and Still Life Sauvignon Blanc 2022
Claire Bullen Natural wine Natural Wine Killers New Zealand White wine
Recently, I’ve fallen for artichokes. I enjoy the appeal of their unyielding exteriors and thorn-tipped leaves, the knowledge that they need to be plucked and peeled and sliced, eviscerated of their fluffy chokes, before any eating can commence. This time of year, they start piling up in greengrocers, the globe artichokes big as softballs. For this recipe, though, I opted to use baby purple artichokes, drawn in by their hue and their bite-sized scale. Inspired by the Roman-Jewish dish carciofi alla giudia, in which artichokes are deep-fried, I did the same (after simmering them in lemon-infused water first), watching them bloom into...
Wine & Food Killers: Oyster Mushroom, Wild Garlic and Chipotle Quesadillas with Kindeli Tinto 2020
Claire Bullen Natural wine Natural Wine Killers New Zealand Red wine
If I am guilty of one thing every spring, it is of losing my shit over the annual return of wild garlic. I’m aware that I make a slightly parodic picture: The wayward urban forager who runs to that secret patch in the local woodland armed with a pair of kitchen shears, trying to keep my scarf from collecting too much dirt as I hunch over another patch of those glossy green leaves. But I’m happy looking foolish if it means walking away with a big ziploc bag stuffed with the seasonal bounty, trailed by an allium scent cloud that follows...
Fundamentals #113 – Fierce x New Zealand Beer Collective Hokey Pokey Stout
Fierce Beer Fundamentals Matthew Curtis New Zealand Stout
I’m someone you could describe as being highly Kiwi-adjacent. My partner of the past 13 years is a proud New Zealander, and HB&B supremos Jen and Glenn also hail from there, for whom I’ve been writing this beer column for almost seven years! This has given me a deep affection for Aotearoa New Zealand, and I’ve been lucky enough to spend quite a bit of time there. It is – as you might expect if you’ve ever tasted a beer made using NZ hops – home to a hugely exciting beer scene, particularly in its larger cities such as Auckland and...
The Beer Lover's Table: Southeast Asian Crab Cakes and Urbanaut Horopito and Kawakawa Gose
Beer Lover's Table Claire Bullen Gose New Zealand Sour Urbanaut
There’s a genre of food that I can’t help but categorise as “restaurant cooking”. It’s not because those dishes – the category also includes French onion soup, beef Wellington and grilled oysters, by the way – are impossible to cook at home, nor that they’re not rewarding to do so. It’s not even that they have an inherent fussiness that makes them ill-suited to small urban kitchens. If anything, that classification system is born of a kind of complacency – because I have only ever had these dishes while out on the town (and maybe also because they carry a...
Fundamentals #51 - 8 Wired iStout Affogato Imperial Stout
8wired Fundamentals Matthew Curtis New Zealand Stout
I remember the good old days, when beers were beers. I’m talking about 2012 of course, and trying iStout – the revered imperial stout from New Zealand’s 8 Wired – in a quaint Shoreditch bar that is now part of a large chain owned by a well-known Scottish multinational brewery. This was an imperial stout of stature. One that roared with malty molasses and rambunctiously bitter hops. It may have been very expensive at the time, but shared among friends it was a real treat. We’ve always been lucky to have a small shipment of 8 Wired beers arrive in...