Do you find yourself dreaming of life beyond borders?
Iadmit I am beside myself at being able once again to enjoy conversations around the dinner table at my favourite local spots, and heading off as much as possible to discover new delights in regional areas on weekends. However, those blasted social media posts don’t help, do they? The ones that continually flash up to remind us of this time last year in Singapore, or this time three years ago in Italy. So, in this gorgeous issue we thought we might offer you a little escapism in the form of cooking the occasional meal that will take you back to a favourite holiday or perhaps onwards to somewhere you hope to visit next time. Team Cuisine has jumped in with great enthusiasm to provide you with some kitchen-table travel through some of our favorite recipes from afar.
Although we have always led the way with regard to showcasing the people who grow and produce our food and drink, we’ve put a heightened focus on highlighting ingredients that you can seek out to support your local producers. To give you some terrific ideas for making spectacular meals served in the comfort of your own home, we welcome acclaimed chef Des Harris from The Hunting Lodge in Waimauku, along with the supercreative team at Ceviche Bar by Besos Latinos who meld Kiwi produce with thousands of years of Latin and South American techniques.
As always, the crew of talented people behind these pages have outdone themselves for you and our Cuisine wine panel have diligently worked their way through hundreds of juicy reds to report back that New Zealand’s superstars are holding their own against the rest of the world (page 106), but if there were one article that I would urge you to read it would be Lauraine Jacobs’ conversation with four of our leading innovators within the food sector (page 32). How might we build a food nation that we can be proud of on a global stage? There is no better time for us to drive our New Zealand food story in the direction that we want it to go. Who knows? We might all finally evolve from the role of unempowered food consumers to becoming fully qualified food citizens and help create a celebration of our food, restaurants and food tourism (with a little help from our government policymakers) in a way that is a win-win for all of us...