Balloon sculptures of New Zealand History: part 2

You know what's hard to make out of balloons? Most things actually. But I was pretty distressed when I looked at the comments from a previous post and saw a request from 'Anonymous' requesting a pregnancy hippo balloon animal. I have mastered a few models. My tapeworm is outstanding.

My roundworm isn't too bad either.

But I'm sorry, Mr/Mrs/Ms Anonymous, a pregnant hippo is alas outside of my capabilities. Still, I hope you enjoy the Wiggles concert, and can put the idea of Lachie and Emma sharing their purple wiggle and hot potatoes with one another out of your head.

Instead, I am honoured to present to you an abstract visualisation of a major innovation in New Zealand history. Most readers may know I am somewhat unimpressed by John Key, our country's prime minister. However, I will give him credit where it is due, in the invention of a whole new way of congratulating a sportsperson for a major success. Unfortunately hands are yet another difficult to sculpt model. I have managed four fingers each: a fifth is out of my scope.

But as you can see: the blue hand is reaching out to congratulate the orange hand on a major sporting endeavour: he has just led is team to a famous international victory. But low! What is this? A third, purple hand reaches in, clasping over the two already shaking appendages, not wanting to be left out of the sweaty three way.

God bless you John, for your innovative three way hand shake. Now immortalised in the form of a photo of three crudely shaped balloons.

If you like what you see, I can do children's parties.

Food review! Wattie's custard with banana

Its Tuesday, I'm bored. The kids are at the grandparents and my wife is at s musical practice. I have eaten meat! And now I've realised that at a push I've had 2 of my 5 plus a day, cos supermarket sushi doesn't really count as a vegetable (even if you get the amazing vegetable spring roll sushi, or the delectable chicken cranberry sushi, direct from top ethnic fusion outlet New World Supermarket Pahiatua).

On a tangent, I had briefly considered turning this blog into some sort of crap sushi or crap ethnic food blog, but my attempts at including family were thwarted by the three year old, who when on being exposed to Japanese food for the first time, declared loudly to the whole (actual authentic and quite nice this time) sushi bar, that he would 'not eat here EVER AGAIN', on account of it not warming him up on a cool day.

Anyway, in an attempt to reach my required vitamin C intake for the day I'm currently cramming as much fruit as I can into my pie hole at 10pm. Do hops count in your 5+? I'm saying yes, anyway. And it's persimmon season! Isn't that great! But I feel I need an accompaniment for my fruity delights, and there's no ice cream. Raiding the cupboard, my eye falls on a small sachet of Wattie's baby custard. Surely Emily won't mind if I nick it? It's not like she'll be eating it?

The ingredients look far removed from my previous baby food experiences. Not just simple mushed vegetable with some starchy carbohydrate: this has full cream milk (25%), sugar, butter, and cream, to be avoided for the body conscious six month plus year old looking to fit into that perfect onesie for summer, but a great winter comfort.

It looks like gelatinous gloop. And it's the colour of curdy baby vomit. Which, when you're a six month old, is something you might try and eat back up again. When you're thirty two, it's not as appetising, but maybe that's my problem. And anyway, I'm desperate for some accompaniment for my fruit, so it will do. The smell is bananaey enough, maybe not that authentic, real fresh banana, but the fake banana smell reminiscent of the time you made esthers in sixth form chemistry if you were a hard out nerd like I am.

The taste, unfortunately is a massive let down. First and foremost it's just a slimey texture, but then there's that horrible artificial banana dairy-food taste coming through and ruining anything. What is weird to me, is the smoothness. I can't believe I'm saying this after all these reviews, but it needs some bloody quinoa in there, something to give it grit, chia seeds, anything.

Does it work as a condiment or a dip? Not really. I dipped my banana in (ooh er missus), but the sauce just slides off, that's not a custard, custard needs to adhere, to be able to smother the accompanied food item and decimate any other taste that may be present. The persimmon faired even worse, I don't know why I even bothered trying to dip. 

Frankly, this custard is a disappointment, Mr Wattie. I've seen better served up as airline food.

3/10

Chris's Balloon Animals of NZ: an infrequent series

The Baby food blog is dead. Long live Netflix and children, which is really just a poorly thought out pun referring to the act of trying to enjoy some time with one's significant other, possibly involving streamed media, but being repeatedly disturbed by your offspring waking and spoiling the mood. Whatever the cause for the title, the sad fact of the matter is Emily is old enough that she eats what the rest of us eat now, and I'm simply not game enough to try and review my wife's cooking for attempted comedic effect. So there may be food reviews, but this will now be more books, films, tv, and toddlers music (read innapropriate jokes about the Wiggles, sorry Wiggles), whenever I have time.

Speaking of which, does anyone else get that Wake Up Jeff song? Cos speaking from experience as a man of medicine, most guys don't need much encouragement getting their Purple Wiggle to rise in the morning (Sorry Wiggles).

Anyway, balloon animals! Do you have a favourite moment in NZ history that you would like to see lovingly rendered in balloon sculpture? Let me know in the comments! This is an offer that is bound to explode in my face!

In the mean time, may I present Gareth Morgan's high horse? Just like the real thing, it's having a hard job of standing up by itself, and will eventually end up a flaccid disappointment!

Classic Children's Book Review: How Do Dinosaurs Get Well Soon? By Jane Yolen and Mark Teague

This blog has hit a snag that surely we all knew it would eventually, when Emily lost interest in eating baby food, and started eating what we do. Frankly, I don't think I can really do a banana true justice in a review, so I've had to turn my hand to other pastimes, like work, and spending quality time with my beloved family. We go to the circus, to which Luke asked if I would run away with him. We watch Fireman Sam (my favourite episode is the probably the one in which Station Officer Steel stays in his office all day polishing his helmet). And tonight, Emily and I live tweeted The Bachelor NZ (warning: shameless cross platform plug contains some strong language and adult themes).

But now I find myself with the kids asleep, Rachel out, and some time on my hands, and what else do I have to do but some reviewing? Well... Paperwork, fitness, wash the dishes... But anyway.

I find the premise of How Do Dinosaurs Get Well Soon, albeit well meaning without a doubt, still to be a troubling one. The story follows, in simple rhyme, the exploits of a group of parents whose offspring contracted probably upper respiratory tract infections, and their trips to seek medical attention for their young. But the fruits of the loins of these mothers and fathers aren't your regular snotty nosed kids, no, somehow, these mums have given birth to dinosaurs. And not just any run of the mill T-Rex or stegosaurus, but some quite exotic dinosaurs at that. Here, for example, is the universal childhood favourite the Tuijiangosaurus pretending to read Vogue magazine whilst waiting to be seen, while their GP has presumably suffered a catastrophic sudden loss of vision in being unable to find them in the room.

And herein lies the next problem, as on the next page, the young reader is told that a sickly dinosaur would listen to the doctor as doctors know best. 

Now, as a training general practioner, I feel qualified to comment on the accuracy of this statement. If  a petite young mother were to bring a sneezing, fully grown dilophosaurus into my office, my first reaction would very well not be 'stand back, I know best, here's a lollipop for you, you adorable non-opposed-thumb bearing dinosaur, now you go get well.' First would likely be a sharp explanation to the point of 'JFC there's a giant carnivorous reptile in my room.' Secondly, I would probably express surprise that such an obvious humanoid young lady could be related to such a hideous prehistoric beast. And thirdly, I would unfortunately have to point out my degree is in human medicine, so no, I would not have the first clue in how to treat your offspring's cold.

But unfortunately, there's more, as it's not just the human/dinosaur interaction trap that HDDGWS has fallen in to. Jurassic Park and its inferior sequels have unfortunately a series of serious questions to answer when it comes to their influence on dinosaur taxonomy trends. For this is not a picture of a velociraptor, it is a deinonychus. 

But I suppose, however much we may wish it so, scientific accuracy isn't the end goal of this book, and in the end the dinosaurs do tuck themselves up in bed, take their medicine, and in deed get well soon. So maybe I am just being harsh when I give it a 6/10 for the storyline, but 2/10 for the science. 

The Resurection: Only Organics minted peas, black currant and lamb

Sorry guys, I had to stay late at work. But here I am back with renewed vigour, enthusiasm, and a load of baby food reviews you simply cannot do without. Today I have a lovely concoction I accidentally bought on special. Normally you'd pay top dollar for organic lamb on a bed of minted peas. Chuck in a few black currants, and I was sure at $1.69 this will be an absolute steal.

The lovingly rendered artwork on the front of the sachet doesn't give much away as to the contents of this mash. A few fresh peas in a pod, some artfully scattered currants, and a few mint leaves are tossed in front of a bowl filled with a foul green mush. Not one cute, fluffy baby sheep, alive nor dismembered to be seen. Turn the pack over, and you find a different story altogether, however. 'VEGETABLES', declares the ingredients, first off. Sweet potato and carrot turn out to be most prominent, unsurprisingly, with only 8% pea, with an added 0.01% mint to add flavour. The total lamb content comes in at 6%, less than both completely unannounced apples and water, but more than ground rice. At one percent (ie less than the component of quinoa in most quinoa containing baby foods), the black currants seem to be present only to give the impression that 'whoa, this food is such a whacky combination!'

The food itself gives a good impression of that pictured in the aforementioned bowl on the packaging
art, except that to fill such a bowl from a 120g sachet, it would have to be quite a small one indeed. Mainly a sickly yellow-green, and coarsest granular rather than mashed, but with the occasional fleck of purple-black: is that evidence of a currant skin? A fleck of lamb? Some stray chia seeds from another organic batch? A fleck of paint off the hipster manufacturer's thick framed glasses? Who knows. Surprisingly, the smell is strongly of peas. On the odd occassion I may trick myself that I smell the slight whiff of mint, but then it's gone again, dashed into the rocks of realisation that this is going to be another disappointingly bland taste test.

The taste is strongly of mushed peas. The subtle mint smell is decimated by the starchiness of the sweet potato base. There is a vague hint of the texture of a few strands of pulled lamb, but the flavour isn't strong. I held long in my mouth, vainly searching for some meaty quality, but alas, this only exposed me to an after-taste, no, an after-texture of the discarded shells of peas across the roof of my mouth. This is not pleasant. In fact the closest I could describe it to is the feeling you get on burning your mouth, popping the resulting blisters, then playing with the loose flaps of skin left behind by the
destruction.

To be perfectly honest, I'm really disappointed by this food. The description, the packaging promised so much. Even with the named ingredients constituting only 15.01% of the total recipe, I was hoping for a puréed delicacy. Instead, I got blister mouth. This is not a lamb dish. It is a sad pouch of mushed peas. You could warm it up and serve it with soggy fish and chips in a poorly lit pub in northern England.

In fact, you could feed it to vegetarians. They wouldn't know the difference.

3/10.

Classic book review: The Munch Bunch Series

I loved the Munch Bunch as a kid. Before the age of seven or so, my two go to series that never failed me were the Mr Men, and the group of anthromorphic fruit, vegetables, and later a few select nuts who had escaped from certain doom at the green grocers, and lived at the bottom of the garden around the shed. Part of the allure was the almost unattainable aim of collecting the whole series, but
just as you thought you'd  completed the set on the back of the book, the publishers would release
more!

Anyway, Luke discovered all my old books at my parents' house today, so we've been having loads of read alongs. I'd forgotten so much, but generally the rules seem to be:

1. All the berries are naughty, but don't pay much in the way of consequences.
Billy Blackberry and his friend Scruff Gooseberry decided to build a tunnel for the purposes of stealing the stock of the local confectionaire in order to fully stock their own shop. Despite the seemingly incriminating evidence of the entire inventory of one shop turning up in the only other similar outlet in the neighbourhood overnight, it actually takes several days for local constable Merv Marrow to overhear a confession. But instead of arresting him on the stop, Merv puts together an elaborate plan involving secret tunnels and diversions to land Billy and Scruff directly in jail for a lengthy sentence of... 'Not long.'

Rozzy Raspberry got it a little bit harsher, though her punishment could have been labelled slightly more inappropriate and dangerous when she was locked out of her house overnight for playing a few pranks on her friends.

2. Racial stereotypes are OK 
The Munch Bunch have no difficulties making sweeping stereotypical generalisations of whole populations. To start off with, there's Ollie the cowardly French onion, who's always crying.

Pedro the Orange, who wears a sombrero and strums an oversized mariachi style guitar.

Lizzie the Leek, meek, subservient and wearing a Welsh hat.

Supercool the cool cucumber, who seems to be a caricature of a Rasta, with his oversized hat and glasses, though appearances can be deceptive I suppose.

I guess it probably took all the restraint the author and illustrator had when they created the New Zealand spin off character Charlie Kumara (pals with the other Kiwi special releases, Kiri Kiwifruit, Ted Tamarillo and Patty Passionfruit)

3. So are inappropriate fancy dress costumes
Olly hosts a fancy dress party, presumably one of those frat-house-style ones with a bad taste theme. Tom Tomato decides to try on some cultural misappropriation with a Native American headdress. But, holy crap, is that Professor Peabody behind him, one upping the inappropriateness in a Ku Klux Klan hood?

4. Quackerry is all the rage, medically
Nurse Plum is the resident medical staff, keeping a small hospital to treat any injuries or illnesses which may strike the Bunch. There's no doctor in sight, but that's OK, some nurses are plenty competent enough to manage on their own. Nurse Plum, however, does have an approach to medicine which could be  described  as unconventional, at least.

Rozzy Raspberry, who as you may remember is a bit of a trickster, presents with an arrow through the head, having been 'shot by Indians' (there's that cultural sensitivity being laid on thick again). It's a trick, of course, but never mind that for now. Rather than preparing for neurosurgery, or, you know, examining her patient adequately, Nurse Plum is quick to lay Rozzy Raspberry up in bed and prescribe a course of  milk and sweets. You may think this is just the good nurse being kind, but no, she does actually say 'this will make you better in no  time'. Of course, th injury being a cruel jape, the worst thing that happened was Rozzy got locked outside for the night, but were an actual traumatic brain injury to present, the moral of this story would be a lot darker than 'be nice to your friends'.

5. The Munch Bunch diet is awful
You may have noticed this already. Obviously, any attempt to eat a healthy diet with five plus fruit and vegetable servings daily was going to end in grim canibalism.  So the Munch Bunch turn to sweets. A new sweet shop opens, with 'every type of sweet imaginable', and the whole town has turned out. Not only that, but when sweets start going missing frim said shop, it's a tragedy  that resonates throughout the township, enough to bring several townsfolk together to thwart the thieves to end the biggest local crisis since  the last spring harvest.

And we've already addressed the sweets as medicine fiasco.

This sort of book may have been OK back in the loose eighties, but you're probably safer sticking to reading your toddler Game of Thrones these days. That said, at least the skateboarding Rasta cucumber isn't too cool to use appropriate safety gear.

MEAT! Wattie's Pumpkin, potato and beef

I'm scared.

I'm scared on a few levels in fact. Firstly, this isn't really a review I'm allowed to do, so let's get it out the way quickly. My wife is a vegetarian, and I love her for the conviction she has in trying to avoid all meat. I remember her anguish on finding she'd eaten a slice of bread 'fortified' with 0.05% fish oil. I didn't hear the end of that one for weeks, and as such, decided it best not to mention a few years later, on a trip to Australia, that I thought the chips we were eating were flavoured with chicken salt. This deep hatred of the ingestion of slabs of dead animal has spread to our kids. Luke has on several occasions come close to nicking s delicious chicken nugget off a friend, only to be reminded he doesn't like chicken. Never mind the fact a chicken has seldom been near any chicken nugget.  So, in short, we're not meant to have meat-laced baby food within the house. But this was on special, I was at the supermarket, I needed something to draw readers back in to my blog... So here we are.

and that brings me to the second reason I'm scared.... Now I have to eat the bloody stuff. Still, babies eat it, apparently, so how hard can it be?

Contains: Vegetables (61%) (Pumpkin (50%), Potatoes (6%), Carrots), Water for cooking, Beef (10%), Corn semolina, Cornflour, Herb

Here we go again... Lots of pumpkin, not much of anything else. In fact, I'm going out on a limb here and I'll say that this is going to taste more of pumpkin than anything else. hey Watties, why not just make it entirely pumpkin, aye?

Of note, however, is the mystery 'herb' listed in the ingredients. Singular, note. Is it basil? Thyme? Rosemary? Sage? Do babies even like herbs? I don't know. I'll tell you who does like herbs, though, and that's Sean Connery, though only partially.

First impressions: looking at the label of this, I'm expecting a nice roast dinner. Like one of Willie Wonka's three course gums, but instead of a gum, it's a puréed mush. Beautifully sliced roast beef, and a whole crown pumpkin appear enticingly on the tin. Opening the can, the appearance of said mush isn't as inspiring a sight as the package art work. Very watery looking, bright orange ochre, not the most appetising thing I've seen today. Surprisingly, savoury beef lingers long on the nose, along with water. Very little pumpkin or potato, though I don't really know that potato really does smell like anything, truth be told.

Taste test: guess what? Tastes of pumpkin! There are a few nuggety soft chunks which put me in the mind of small flecks of budget mince in a university flat bolognese, but the beef flavour doesn't really shine through that well. Maybe they don't want to save the finest cuts of sirloin for the under 8 monthers, but Watties could still try and give the meat content a bit more believability. Strangely, the water and potatoes make more of an impression, though the carrot is about as anonymous as it is on the label, however. Guess what, though! Right at the back of the palate, there is indeed the slightest hint of parsley!

And you know what, just for once it is nice to eat a baby food not trying to indulge itself in superfood wankery by trying to include a miniscule portion of quinoa, so ka pai for that, Watties.

Overall: still, despite the lack of pretentiousness, tasting only of pumpkin, yet promising so much more does let this food down ultimately. 4.5/10

Enjoy: you could try with a nice central Otago Pinot noir, but that would be a waste of good wine. My advice would be ditch the food, just buy some proper steak.