A date with Sarah-Kate; Kate’s home truths

Sarah-Kate feels the big chill in her hometown

I’m a summer girl at heart because when it gets cold, my fingers shrink and my wedding ring falls off. I use this as an excuse to make the Ginger take me to warm places in the winter or, better still, to send me to warm places without him.

But this year, work (what a pesky invention that was) is keeping us both at home and when I say home, I mean Dunedin where he is temporarily domiciled. I tried staying in Auckland without him, but eventually all the food he’d prepared in advance ran out and I got hungry, so southward I headed.

As much as I love the south – I was born in Central Otago and lived in Dunedin until I was eight – my wedding ring’s been in a state of permanent digital departure. It’s cold!

But on the plus side, there’s Southland Sushi, otherwise known as cheese rolls. If you’re new to this concept, it’s basically cheese inside a rolled tube of white bread which is then baked.

If you’re not new, you want to check out Annabel Langbein’s version, which includes evaporated milk, cream and onion soup powder. Even better than biting into these gooey, crunchy wintry delights is the fact that you can freeze them, uncooked, then just whip ’em out and bake ’em when you’re in the mood. Which can be morning or afternoon tea, or lunchtime or dinner. Or even the boring bits in between.

One of the cafés I frequent here serves them with soup. Another uses dark rye bread – controversial! Just don’t go suggesting the crusts be removed because you’ll quite likely be strapped to one of Dunedin’s shore-side molar sculptures and left there until spring. Of course, were you descended from one of the hardy Scots who settled in Dunedin in the 1800s, it wouldn’t bother you.

I went out for dinner the other night with one such gent who was wearing a short-sleeved shirt with nothing else on top when it was four degrees outside and I was wearing so many layers, I looked like a pile of secondhand duvets.

The interesting thing was, the gent was my brother. Sure he’s lived in Dunedin for a while, but how we both ended up with different temperature gauges I can’t quite fathom. Maybe I’ll acclimatise if I stay here long enough and get down to wearing a single duvet and having fatter fingers. And not have to wear two hats and have teeth that don’t chatter.

The hardy Scots would no doubt tell me to toughen up (although my brother seemed to know better).

There must still be a few hardy Scots around because I have so far spotted haggis on two different menus. I’m interested in it as a cultural quirk, but as it’s made of sheep innards and I’m a non-meat eater, we’re unlikely to ever do the Highland fling together.

However, give me enough whisky on a chill winter night and och aye the noo, anything could happen. (Although according to a friend of mine who hails from Scotland, och aye the noo is not a thing.)