Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow . . .
I have a fondness for the old classics when it comes to Christmas songs. As soon as I hear Andy Williams and Dean Martin on the radio it starts to feel like Christmas. And we need all the help we can get down here in New Zealand to bring on that festive cheer. With our seasons being the opposite to that in the Northern Hemisphere Christmas falls in early summer. That means no snow, no warming fires, no hats and gloves or chestnuts roasting.
Each country has its own unique cuisine and certain elements or dishes of that cuisine are more famous than others and tend to make their way into popular eating in other countries. Spain is probably most famous for its tapas and rightly so. When I’m in Spain it’s always what I look forward to most.
Yesterday was the first of December, which also happens to be the first day of summer down here in the Southern Hemisphere. Well, in technical terms. In reality, summer comes a little later than it used to in New Zealand. The upside is that we are often still having wonderfully warm days as late as April. The downside is that summer takes a little time to get going.
When my husband travels for work it offers the opportunity for me to have a couple of nights with the apartment to myself. Far from moping around missing him (as much as I love him, of course) I immediately start to plan.
Having spent the last week at home feeling very poorly – and a little bit sorry for myself – I was unable to get into the kitchen and cook up something delicious to post to my blog. Not being a particularly good patient at the best of times, this only made me more grumpy about being sick.
I have a great love for travelling, which is no secret considering I started this blog to write about travel and food. For me travel and food go together much like, say, Naples and pizza.
When I was growing up I was one of four children. That meant every evening my mother cooked for six people. She didn’t cook three slightly different versions of the meal depending on who liked what. There was no room for fussiness or pushing food around the plate hoping to skip straight to dessert. No. Mum cooked a meal and we ate it. Simple.
Last week I talked about spices and how they can transform your food. The collection of spices I keep in my pantry is like a security blanket – I know that a delicious meal is never far away. Following on from that I’d like to share some recipes that make great use of these invaluable spices.
This is not my first recipe using the marvellous lamb loin. I’m on a mission to show how versatile they are. They can take on so many different flavours and create any number of delicious meals.
Last week I talked about my trip to the Campania region in 2015 and some fantastic places to visit – Ravello, Pompeii and Capri. All well worth seeing and easy to reach if you’re basing yourself in Sorrento.
Tracey O'Brien 
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