Roasted by Chickens

It's already been two weeks since our big floods, though the cold and wet weather continues. It's not even May and already we feel well into winter, here's hoping it'll bring us lots of whales! It's also been a couple of weeks since our tourist committee did a big chicken roast, to raise funds for our new office and to get a few of our projects off the ground. Food sales are very popular with the local associations at the moment, particularly as territorial funds have all but dried up. So there are bake-sales almost every week, three weeks ago we ended up eating three banana cakes as well as chicken and chips all cooked for a good cause by different association! This was our turn, and we had (rather ill-advisedly) decided to cook roast chickens for sunday breakfast.
I hadn't fully realized, but this involved doing an all-night roast (in the end I was also feeling more than a bit roasted, as I finished delivering up my chickens in time for the breakfast service)! Despite being exhausting it was definitely an experience I won't forget too soon and kind of fun (as much as defrosting and cleaning 200 chickens for roasting can be), even if our timing was a bit off and we were sweating towards the end to get it all done in time.........

Another bonus was several kilos of left-over chicken livers,  which I used to make my own pate, which was really quite tasty for a first attempt. Happily we have also raised enough money that we won't have to be thinking about roasting any more chickens again in the near future!

Birthday Floods!

My birthdays are becoming more and more difficult to handle, and it isn't just becuase I turned 35 this year! Already we have the whole birthday grinch issue (i.e. my husband, who doesn't believe in celebrating birthdays or having fun! And while it's refreshingly non-consumer society, I do like to do something a bit special on my big day, even if it's just a bit of time off with my peeps!). Thank goodness for my adorable girls, who are always willing to help me eat some cake and blow out a few candles!

Anyhow, I'm beginning to think I'm jinxed. Last year, very unfortunately, my father-in-law passed away on the 11th, this year it was a natural disaster rather than a family tragedy. A freak storm hit Rurutu on tuesday evening and we had more than 12 hours of seriously heavy rain. There were powercuts and lightning to top it all off - Matotea and Heimana, inspired by Peppa Pig, decided to provide some light entertainment while the lights were off, Matotea put on her own TV show, and Heimana just liked wearing the cardboard box!

It did eventually stop mid-afternoon, after we had watched Titanic for the second time that day (even with the powercuts), then there was the inevitable cleanup afterwards. Even our new guttering couldn't stop the terrace from getting more than a little damp.....

The airport and runway were turned into a marshland (above and below), so that the regular flight was canceled and our poor guests were stranded in Tahiti until thursday afternoon, when things had dried up a bit.....

.....it reminded me a bit of a rather amusing time I spent trying to get to Cairns in a rental car with my good friend Amy, a few years ago now. It was the rainy season and predictably enough there were very heavy rains in Queensland, we were driving north from Brisbane and suddenly got to a spot in the road where someone was kayaking towards us down the highway between stranded trucks!! Needless to say we didn't get to Cairns that day! I guess the upside of all the drama is that I got the evening off, and there was a really beautiful watery sunset!

 

However I am a little worried about next year!

Cupcakes!

I managed to find a few chocolate eggs and a couple of chocolate bunnies at the local store here on Rurutu a week or so ago, so for the first time, we celebrated Easter with the girls. After gorging themselves on the chocolate bunnies on sunday, we even made some super rich cupcakes today, complete with chocolate dipped coconut nests and the last remaining eggs! They didn't last too long.....

Easter Hols

The long Easter holidays have kicked off with a big rush - this last week we were turning at full tilt with 13 guests (unlucky for some, but we don't mind!). The Easter weekend is going to be slightly less jam packed, but not much, so it's all hands on deck! I've enlisted my little helpers in the baking - together we manage to cobble together a rather respectable guava tart - which is great because this year we have guavas coming out of our ears! The girls make for a pretty crack pastry making team, though I do have to surrender a good quantity of our left over bits of pastry to Matotea and Heimana's personal mud-pie/grass tart projects (not yet perfected for the guest menu I hasten to add!).....this coming week I'm hoping to have a few moments for a few fun easter projects, not sure if I'm quite up to egg-painting, but maybe some brioche wouldn't be a bad idea, watch this space......