Roasting pans, beloved businesses and media blows
Itransported a roast dinner to my younger son and family recently, it was cooked and carried in a covered Hyglo aluminium dish that had belonged to my mother. It was perfect for the job, the lamb leg and vegetables fitted in snugly and everything had ample resting time as I did the delivery.
Hyglo cookware is New Zealand-made, it was a big thing 50 or more years ago and as well as my mother’s circular roasting pan I’ve got another larger, rectangular one that I was given as a wedding present. These humble dishes distribute heat perfectly and they have launched untold roast dinners in our family. I love their longevity.
They’re still doing the same excellent job that they were designed for last century, albeit with a few dings and extra baked on bits that no amount of scrubbing can erase.
Longevity, going a fair distance, seems worth celebrating in these perhaps more precarious times. So on the back of roasting pan nostalgia, a nod at a couple of my favourite businesses – food and fashion – that are marking significant milestones, as well as a lament for a muchloved media business that’s being shown the back door after more than 30 years.
On food, Hamilton chef Mat Mclean last month opened his third incarnation of Palate Restaurant in almost two decades. Mclean is a stayer in a notoriously fickle industry: setting fresh goals, mixing things up, championing Waikato producers, earning more awards than you can poke a spatula at, and continuing his solid commitment to hospitality.
Mclean launched Palate in Hamilton’s south-end in 2005, a modest 45-seater in the former Hamilton Hotel premises. He later moved to Alma St, to a bigger, riverside location with a more sophisticated fit-out, and now he’s doing Palate III at Skycity on Victoria St, frontand-centre in the CBD.
At Skycity, Mclean’s reinvented his menu and the new beast in the kitchen is a wood-fired asado grill, a South American style-barbecue. He believes the switches of premises and cooking techniques have been important to his longevity in the industry.
“It’s about evolution, you have to keep moving forward, keep yourself and the public interested, and keep things affordable. It was time for us to redesign, freshen things up.”
He also says you need to have a good business brain, and to build a loyal customer base.
“We genuinely want people to have a good time at our place.”
Mclean is still having a good time at the pass: “I haven’t had a day when I’ve felt I don’t want to do this anymore.”
From food to fashion, and a trip to an out-of-towner, Wendys Boutique in Tauranga, where I’m an occasional holiday shopper. The eponymous Wendys was opened by Wendy Simister in 1984, and it has just marked its 40th anniversary. Simister is still at the helm, meeting and greeting customers, constantly refreshing her store’s style and stock, and offering outstanding service.
It’s the place where staff members remember customers’ names and preferences, and they go the extra mile for them. One summer, a few weeks ahead of the wedding of my younger son (the roast dinner recipient) I still hadn’t found a mother-of-the-groom outfit.
I’m not a big online shopper and I had no time to go to Tauranga to check out Wendys. I phoned the staff, they selected some potential pieces, put them on a courier, and among them was the very thing I’d been looking for.
It’s still in my wardrobe, another staple and stayer. Hanging with the 40th anniversary t-shirt I bought last week.
The next bit is not so flash, about longevity turned sour, the axing of the 6pm television news bulletin Newshub. To be gone by mid-year at the behest of its multi-billionaire American owners Warner Bros Discovery.
The blow landed last week after more than three decades of award-winning reporting by some of the country’s finest investigative journalists.
Newshub was launched as 3 National News in November 1989, the first serious competition for the state-owned TVNZ, and it has been my news bulletin of choice for all that time. I continue to admire the quality of its work, and feel particularly bleak about its demise.
Newshub anchorman Mike Mcroberts has said they’ve survived cuts in the past but losing the whole news operation, an entity so entwined in the fabric of society in Aotearoa, is heartbreaking.
Now, of course, there are significant and worrying job cuts looming at TVNZ, with up to 70 staff tipped to go.
It’s complicated, and much has been written since the Newshub announcement about the continuing shrinkage of journalist numbers in New Zealand, plummeting advertising revenue, the movement of viewers away from mainstream television, and the knockon effect of Newshub’s departure on democratic processes, and on public information and understanding.
There have also been questions for Broadcasting Minister Melissa Lee around the progress, or the lack thereof, on the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill that aims to make platforms such as Meta and Google pay for news that appears on their social media channels.
Lee, seemingly indifferent to Newshub’s fate, has been opposed to the Bill, although more recently she says she will wait to hear back from the select committee overseeing it before deciding whether to proceed.
There seems no likely prospect for Newshub of a refresh and reinvention, no silver-lining with this one. We will be the poorer for its loss.
To circle back, and end on a positive note, the lamb roast delivered in the Hyglo dish was a pretty decent thing. It was a fragrant Cypriot recipe with a cinnamon stick, bay leaf, wine and lemon juice.
Tweaking and refreshing the roast traditions of my mother’s day, balancing old and new, and hopefully ensuring the longevity of some of the things we know and love.