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During isolation we asked our favourite Kiwi personalities for a sneak peek into their lockdown lives. Here’s what three of them – Peta Mathias, Karen Walker and Te Radar – had to say...
Peta Mathias
dish discovered author, chef, broadcaster and culinary adventure guide Peta Mathias doing isolation with her usual panache
Where are you right now?
Peta: I’m in Auckland – I was supposed to fly to Vietnam today [March 27] for my culinary tour. Don’t know when I’ll be able to go to my other French life as France is in really bad shape. Uzès [where Peta has a house] is a ghost town.
Who’s in your isolation bubble?
P: I am alone except for a mouse who is practising extreme social isolation. My neighbours are close and we talk every day. My family and friends are doing lots of hilarious communal Skype, Facetime and Zoom cocktail meetings.
Any projects for the next four weeks?
P: I put lipstick on every day, dress in something beautiful and keep a routine (online yoga etc). Fortunately I’m writing a book so I have lots to do – it’s on fashion and clothing. I’ve also started recording uplifting videos where I talk about fashion, food, travel, read from my latest book Eat Your Heart Out, answer agony aunt questions, sing songs, cook recipes. You can find these on Facebook, Instagram and my Youtube channel.
What’s in your larder?
P: I have lots of pasta, sauces, frozen meals, rice, lentils, bread, tinned tuna, flour and sugar. I’m keeping my meals simple: salads, fruit, sourdough sandwiches and pasta mostly. I made a great salad from what I had in the cupboard; boiled Maori potatoes and eggs, Curious Croppers cherry tomatoes, capers, parsley, and a drizzle of mayonnaise and vinaigrette.
What are you glad/regretting you stocked up on?
P: I am really glad I stocked up on Nespresso capsules and wine but regret not buying enough gin – a month talking to myself and the mouse is a long time.
SIX WEEKS LATER...
What’s the first thing you did under level 2?
P: Kiss and cuddle my great-nephew Charlie, the most beautiful baby in the world. The second was to go to a café and have a proper coffee. We sat in the sun and it felt lovely but strange; I felt like I’d emerged from a coma like Sleeping Beauty but with grey roots. In the evening I dined out in a restaurant and was happy to be with people and eat really good food. I felt hysterical with relief that the poison in our land has probably been conquered.
What did you learn from lockdown?
P: I learned superficial things like I don’t need to spend money and maybe from now on will spend less (high hopes). I did much more walking than I normally do so will continue to fast walk every day. I learned deeper things like I can be nicer than I normally am – to neighbours, strangers – and that I can eat unlimited amounts of chocolates and not get sick. I’m pleased to report the gin lasted. I learned that although I’ve lost everything in terms of work, even at my age, I can get it back but in a different way. I worked on my fashion book and it’s clear the fashion world will change. There will be less fast fashion, less wastage and more recycling. I’ve kept most of my designer clothes from past years, only because I couldn’t bear to sell them. Now I’ve realised I can still wear all those beautiful garments; they haven’t dated or worn out. My life will be different this year because I have to stay in NZ. I should be on my way to host a culinary tour in Marrakech. Instead I’ll be happily teaching cooking classes and doing the speaking gigs in New Zealand that I normally have to turn down. I am also putting culinary tours together to Australia for the end of the year which I’m very excited about.
Karen Walker
The fashion icon on hunkering down with Tom Hanks, her ‘super-geek’ podcast pick, and the pantry items she’s most grateful for.
Who’s in your bubble?
Karen: My husband, Mikhail; my daughter, Valentina; and my dog, Laika.
What’s on your reading/podcast/ movie list?
K: Over the past two weeks I’ve done a Tom Hanks trilogy: Castaway,
Saving Private Ryan and Apollo 13.
Two reasons: 1) Tom Hanks had the virus, and 2) He’s so perfect as the ‘everyman’ thrust into a seemingly unwinnable, overwhelming and dangerous situation. They were amazingly comforting and there were some true moments of wisdom in there so now, on the rough days, all I need to ask myself is: “What would Tom Hanks do?” We followed that with season 10 of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
I adore Larry David, and having him with me this past week’s been a real treat. Normally my podcast library’s pretty heavy on current affairs and history. Now I’ve cut right back on current affairs and the history’s taken the front seat. I love In Our Time on BBC Radio 4 as they go super-deep on subjects I often have very little knowledge about and cover culture, history, philosophy, religion and science. It’s super-geek stuff. They have a huge back catalogue, and my favourites from over the years that I’m re-listening to include The Gin Craze, Picasso’s Guernica, the Covenanters,
The Evolution of Teeth, Politeness, and Feathered Dinosaurs. Music-wise I’m sticking with Glenn Gould – always my favourite. But I’m interspersing that with some lifelong favourites including ‘Wild is the Wind’ (Nina Simone), ‘Be My Baby’ (The Ronettes), ‘My Name is Prince’ (Prince), ‘Babies’ (Pulp), ‘Perfect Day’ (Lou Reed), ‘Ghost Town’ (The Specials), ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ (The Beatles) and ‘Move On Up’ (Curtis Mayfield). I’m reading
The Collected Stories by Grace Paley.
Set mostly in the New York of the
‘50s and ‘60s, the stories bump about between moving, hilarious, tragic, the personal and political and feminist. Mostly her stories happen at kitchen sinks and kitchen tables and on apartment stoops.
What’s in your larder? Do you have 20 cans of chickpeas and one carrot or are you pretty sorted?
K: I’m pretty well sorted actually. My pantry’s always well-stocked and my neighbour’s a great back-up for fresh herbs, spices, etc. Also, I’m lucky enough to have had a very good honey harvest this past summer so there are about 60 jars sitting in my pantry thanks to my clever little bees.
What are you glad you stocked up on?
K: I’m glad I brought the coffee machine home from work and got my delivery from Coffee Supreme in time. Also that I got my big delivery of Storm + India’s Imperial Earl Grey tea.
Who’s been doing the cooking?
K: It’s everyone for themselves at breakfast. My husband does lunch. I do dinner. My daughter does one dinner on the weekends.
What’s the first thing you’ll do when isolation ends?
K: Seeing my work team face-to-face instead of via Facetime.
SIX WEEKS LATER...
What was the first thing you did under level 2?
K: I treated my team at work to morning tea to celebrate level 2 – The Caker made us a lovely cake in the shape of a 2 plus a couple more of their classic cakes to celebrate birthdays we had not been able to mark during lockdown.
How do you feel about the whole experience, looking back, and what lessons did you learn
K: I still feel rather knocked about by it and exhausted, to be honest, but I’m also feeling curious about what my world looks like on the other side of it all. Lessons?: I learned how to make coffee and how to make dinners using whatever arrived in the weekly mystery food box: 100 ways with carrots!
Te Radar
The hilarious writer, presenter and comedian on why he’s acing this lockdown thing, and his fears arising from his wife’s podcast habit…
How are you finding isolation?
Te Radar: My parents sent me to boarding school, and I used to joke that they wanted me to get used to being institutionalised. As it happens, it prepared me very well for lockdown, because the entire country has essentially been grounded. Only this time I’m in the comfort of my own home with a wife and four-year-old instead of a swagger of fetid adolescent boys determined to defy the crushing authoritarianism of the wardens. That role’s been taken over by the four-year-old, and ironically, I’m now the warden.
Any projects for the next four weeks?
TR: I’m supposed to be writing a new show on the New Zealand Wars, but I’ve had a tower of timber cluttering up the garage for about four years that was supposed to be bookshelves, and now, lo and behold, it is. I can also see a mountain of concrete rubble from my office window that needs moving, and some bamboo roots that I should finish digging up. As soon as I’ve done those jobs and the myriad others that I’ve put off for years, I’ll definitely get around to writing the show. Right after I’ve read the research books I’ve just put on the shelves.
What’s on your reading/podcast/movie list?
TR: I’m aurally addicted to a band of Nordic noise merchants called Heilung. They describe themselves as playing “amplified history from early medieval northern Europe”. So, yeah, they make a mesmerising, trance-inducing cacophony from instruments including goat skin drums and human bones, taking lyrics from runic inscriptions, and throwing in a little throat singing along the way. Give them a whirl. You’ll be altered in a very primal way.
What’s in your larder?
TR: If there’s another thing boarding school taught me it was the joy of a structured treat. We had fish and chips Friday then, now we have chocolate biscuit Friday. I’m also having a lovely late harvest of apples, oranges, and lemons from my dwarf-chard, a little line of miniature fruit trees I brought home from my time filming Radar’s Patch.
What are you glad/regretting you stocked up on?
TR: A freezer. I’d had a couple of old ones I wasn’t using and I got rid of them a few years back as we tended to shop every couple of days. I ordered one a few weeks ago and it was due to arrive on |a Thursday. As it happened that was the Thursday after the Wednesday of the lockdown. Result: I have the empty space where a freezer should go and now I can’t freeze my rhubarb.
Who’s doing the cooking?
TR: Currently my wife, as it gives her a chance to relax and listen to a podcast. Although, now I think about it, she’s a My Favourite Murder fan, so I’m hoping it’s for entertainment and not research.
What’s the first thing you’ll do when isolation ends?
TR: I’ll be off to a playground. If she’s lucky, I might even take my daughter.
SIX WEEKS LATER... What’s the first thing you did at level 2?
TR: We remained in level 2 for a week longer because we felt no real need to leave the house and because we were planning on heading to the Waikato to see my parents, so thought a little extra precaution wouldn’t go astray. We also wanted to let people’s level 2 fervour dissipate a little before we emerged from metaphorical hibernation. So after nine weeks at home (I self isolated early because I picked up an illness at an event) I enjoyed a lovely drive for lunch with my parents.
What lessons, if any, did you learn?
TR: We enjoyed the experience, bar the flood of emails cancelling events I was booked for, and my phone reminding me I was due on a flight that no longer existed. The biggest realisation was what mall rats we’d become prior to this, often buying “something important” that was in reality utterly superfluous. So, yeah, I think I’ll be a little more judicious with flimflam and frippery.