Kapiti cook-up

Last Thursday my children and I went to a solar cooking get-together with a group of home-schooling friends in Kapiti, hosted by Nikki.

It was lots of fun and somehow we had managed to choose the only day of the week that turned out to be sunny!

I love to see an army of solar cookers all working away together.


Lynda made these ingenious frankfurter cookers (I think they are from recycled Pringles containers?)


We were so hungry by the time the food came out, that we all forgot to take photos. About three quarters of the way through the meal I stopped and managed to get a bit of the wreckage ...



It was a lovely day. I even scored a nice new red cardi, as Free brought along a huge bag of un-needed clothes to share.

It was great to finally get to see Nikki's impressive garden, after reading and hearing so much about it. Maybe Free will have to hold the next solar cook-up so I can have a nosey at hers too. :) (Lynda's gardens I'm familiar with already - and they have been beautiful for as long as I've known her. I still have fond memories of that fresh-off-the-vine grape juice ...)

Solar cooking backyard get-together

So New Zealand now has a right-wing government, and Roger Douglas is back. I should be feeling angry and miserable, but actually I feel great.

Today, we had some lovely people from Wellington South Transition Towns round for a solar cooking get-together - and it was the perfect antidote to Terrible-Election-Results Blues. Who cares what the government does, when Transition Towns communities are starting to get together and try sorting things out for themselves?

It was just an informal event. We set up our solar cookers - one bought - two home-made, and invited TT people to drop round any time during the day. We had curry, peppermint tea, and pavlova on the go. (Thanks to Heather for the pavlova inspiration.)

Just a few people came in the morning, and then more in the afternoon.

It got extra fun when Jean-Fabien and Rose brought some tin-foil coated cardboard and started cutting out more panel cookers ... and more ... and MORE!



Lots of different ideas for constructing and using solar cookers were flying round - as well as thoughts for another solar cooking event.

Meanwhile, our curry and pavlova were steaming away. My daughter was absolutely desperate for the pavlova to be ready. Luckily Wayne and Ping had brought some chocolate biscuits for the interim. Whew.

A lot of people had to go before we got the food out, but hopefully they enjoyed the afternoon anyway.

The curry turned out great.


The pavlova was good too - um - in it's own way. But I'm going to contact Heather for some tips.


All in all, it was a fantastic day, and we even got two nice little bunches of flowers out of it.

Anne brought this from her garden - a fully edible bouquet. Very cool.


And Rose picked these on the way.

And there's our cat, the publicity hound, again. It even managed to get into Rachelle and Rimu's photos at the Transition Towns website.