Australia Day doings

 

 

Again it has been too long since my last post. You can blame the Australian High Commissioner for that as I was thrown into helping his wife, Denise cater for the formal Australia Day dinner. 375 people were invited and we catered for close to 250 people!! Our menu was quite ambitious for none of the i-kiribati women had any experience with catering for such a large number (indeed I don’t either!) or cooking western style food!!

My biggest contribution was 54 Pavlovas, which I had never successfully made one but with a little help from Donna Hay, an oven thermometer and a wooden spoon (to crack open the door of the oven!) I achieved it. I also churned out 12 dampers and spent the rest of my week heavily supervising the i-kiribati women on how to make mini meat pies, sausage rolls, snags with caramelised onions, beef and fish sliders, beer can chicken, beer battered fish and our scrummy dessert Mango and Passionfruit Aussie Mess!!

 

 

Pavs in the 'cool room' awaiting being turned into a Mango and Passionfruit Aussie Mess.

 

Denise, Kristy and some of the i-kiribati staff helping to prepare the feast!! Including 12 dampers

The night went well and I think enjoyed by most. It is not every day one gets to say they cooked for the president, but indeed I did and he sent me his compliments!!!

 So the whole of last week was a blur, poor Kristy talk about being thrown in at the deep end, she helped every step of the way and must be wondering what she has come too!!!

So the veggie garden and everything else got terribly neglected and yesterday I picked all the ripe tomatoes and capsicums, what an amount and that is only half of what is on the bushes!!

 The island has again run out of rice and flour and we see the i-kiribati lined up each day at any shop that still has some to buy a 2 pound limit. Thank goodness we are not big rice eaters. The rest of the food stores on the island are very low and our little garden and freezers are keeping us going. A ship was due in yesterday but it hasn’t been sighted yet....

 The kids are all having a ball together. We finished the school holidays with fish and chips in the maneaba with Pavlova for dessert. The kids, indeed the adults too all gobbled up their beer battered tuna in record time! School has started back in the compound, Jack is still waiting for his material from Katherine, School of Air so we are concentrating on some reading and writing and games. Kaitlyn and Gemma having most of their material have started in earnest. The kids meet after lunch to resume their playing and we don’t see much of them!!

With the excesses of Australia Day and being home again over I have taken up a six week exercise and clean eating challenge. Up at 6am for the 1^st of the day’s 2 exercise routines I am already exhausted so had a short power nap. I am sure my energy will increase as my body gets back into the swing of clean eating and adjusts to the smart cardio I am doing......if not it’ll be a long six weeks!!!

Ti a bo

Jodie