Matakana

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Whitebait season

A handful of whitebait.

The last time I spent any length of time in Auckland was August 15, 2007, a day that just happened to coincide with the opening of the whitebait season in New Zealand. Opening day for whitebait is a pretty damn big deal for Kiwis. It’s like the third Thursday in November in Paris, when Beaujolais nouveau is released, and the Fiera Internazionale del Tartufo Blanco d’Alba in Umbria, celebrating the beginning of the white truffle season, and the Kentucky Derby, all rolled into one.

Whitebait, if you don’t know, are tiny little fish, the juvenile of common galaxias or inanga, which lay their eggs on the banks amongst grasses in certain rivers in New Zealand, the most famous being Mokau River here on the North Island.

During whitebait season, crazy people take their nets and go stake out a spot on the river to try and snag as many of the little critters as they can. When you get too many people on the river (common) and throw in a few beers (even more common), it’s not unusual for people to get a little territorial and for fights to break out. Which only makes fishing for the sweet, tender little buggers all the more fun as far as the Kiwis are concerned.

When in season, you’ll see signs in the windows of just about every restaurant in Auckland and elsewhere advertising that they serve a whitebait dish, usually some sort of a fritter. But the real whitebait nutjobs have their own secret recipes. To get a sense of just how fanatical Kiwis can be about whitebait, here’s a story told by Martin Bosley about the opening of last year’s whitebait season and his 71-year-old mother-in-law (mind you, spring here is in the fall):

“It was the worst storm that spring and the river was in full flood. The whitebait were running and on one particularly large surge of the river my mother-in-law lost her net and in despair watched it tumble end over end, spilling its precious contents back into the river as it was washed out to sea. The only reason she wasn’t washed away with the net was because she had tied herself to a pine tree on the riverbank. Such is the stoicism of the true whitebaiter.

“Anyway, she leapt into her car and raced home to get a replacement net. In her haste she decided not to remove her waders, with disastrous consequences. As she pulled in to her driveway she mistook the brake for the accelerator and hurtled through a fence, across the patio, demolishing her hardwood outdoor dining table and chairs, and into the house.

“Along the way, the buckets of whitebait that she had so lovingly placed in the trunk spilled everywhere. I remain unsure what she was more upset about—the extensive damage to her home and vehicle or the loss of her precious whitebait.

“Undaunted, she was back on the river in late-August and I will not see her again until the end of November. The only knowledge I will have of her existence will be to find deposits of deliciously fresh translucent whitebait placed in my refrigerator, usually accompanied by a note proclaiming the amount of that day’s catch. With commercial prices reaching $100 per kg, I am deeply appreciative of this.

“Whitebait is one of the few freshwater fish we eat in New Zealand, and the fishing of it is symbolic of our culture. Anyone can do it. I cannot fish to save myself, but can easily catch whitebait; little skill is involved, just patience. While I personally believe that the best-tasting whitebait come from the Cascades River on the West Coast of the South Island, I have had vociferous arguments with those who believe the best comes from the North Island’s Mokau River.

A whitebait fritter, the preferred method of preparation for the little critters.

“I have had similar discussions on how to make the best fritter. I use one whole egg for approximately 100 grams of whitebait. First dust the whitebait with the lightest sprinkling of flour so that each fish is individually coated, and then lightly season with salt—do not use any pepper as it is too harsh for the delicate flavor. Beat the egg in a separate bowl and pour enough onto the floured whitebait to just bind it. Some say that the eggs should be separated, and the whites whipped to stiff peaks before folding them back into the yolks; the choice is yours. Melt a little butter in a frying pan and pour in the mix, cooking each side for about three minutes.

“Squeeze a little lemon juice over the fritter and serve it—preferably between slices of buttered toast. Couldn’t be easier really.”

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John Crone in front of the milking shed converted into a tasting room at Hyperion. Photos by David Lansing.

Yesterday afternoon I paid a visit to John Crone, a winemaker here in Matakana that Mike Smith at The Vintry told me was “kind of an odd bird.” When I asked him what he meant by that, he told me to just go out there and see for myself.

John and his wife Jill own Hyperion, the oldest winery in the district. To get to the winery, Mike explained, you go through the village, past the pottery and tileworks place, to the end of Tongue Farm Road. “Look for an old MG sticking out of a cow shed and you’ll know you’re there,” he said.

Sure enough, there was the MG, its tail end sticking out of an old shed and looking like it was blocked in by a clump of wild nasturtiums. Out in front of the house pushing an old mower through heavy, wet overgrown grass was a middle-aged woman who turned out to be Jill Crone. She told me John was in the milking shed. Evidently the winery at one time was a dairy farm (probably part of the old dairy co-op where they used to make Matakana Creamery Butter, “The Delight of the Table”) and John, being practical as, I’ve discovered, most Kiwis are, turned the old milking shed into a tasting room.

I parked my car on the just-cut grass. John, in a plaid red shirt and stained green khaki pants, was standing in front of the wide cellar door holding a couple bottles of wine. John, who is tall and lean, has the air of a retired university professor. He named the winery Hyperion, he told me, after the mythological sun god, one of the Titans, a race of giants descended from Gaia (the Earth) and Uranus (the Heavens). All of his wines are named after these gods (“I was going to name one of the wines Uranus but Jill didn’t think that was such a good idea,” he said, “but I may do it yet”).

We sat in the dark, cool milking shed, just the two of us, and John poured us both rather large tastings, beginning with his Chardonnay, named Helios (a later Sun God), followed by Eos Pinot Noir (goddess of the dawn), Zeus Merlot (son of Kronos), Gaia Merlot (Hyperion’s mother, the earth), and Kronos (god of agriculture), a blend of Cabernet, Merlot, and Malbec. “This is our main wine,” said John as Jill passed in front of the milking shed still pushing the lawnmower. “It’s our big exporter. You’ll find this in some very nice restaurants in London. A classic Matakana. There’s a dusty, earthy profile to it and a slight hint of smoke. I’ve always wondered if that comes from when, hundreds of years ago, they burned off all the bush around here and maybe some how that ash was mixed in with the clay soil. Could be, could be.”

We finished off with a glass of Titan Cabernet Sauvignon, which John tasted slowly and with relish, as if for the first time. “That’s a lovely wine, isn’t it?”

It was. Bold, elegant with a delightful aroma of cassis. John took another sip. “Do you know what wine is?” he said, holding his glass up to catch the rays streaming in from the open door. I figured this was a rhetorical question so I held my tongue. “Wine is sunlight held together by water.” I nodded. “Galileo said that,” he told me. He stood up, grabbed our glasses, and put them in an old stained sink. “I think I’ll go take a nap,” he said. And he was off.

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Mr. Smith the assassin

Could James Bond make a chef's platter half this attractive? Photo by David Lansing.

So anyway, I went in to have lunch at The Vintry although my real reason for stopping in was to get the bartender, Mike Smith, to tell me more of his story. Last week when I was in there, Mike told me that he was originally from London where he’d been in “the wine trade and luxury food division,” and then had moved, on a whim, to Matakana after doing a Google search for “Farmers Markets New Zealand.”

Something about all that just didn’t sit right with me. Who just gets up and decides to abandon London, very quickly, so they can go work in a wine bar in a little village in New Zealand?

Anyway, I sat down at the bar and ordered a chef’s platter and a glass of Takatu Pinot Rose. While Mike was in the kitchen working on my lunch, we had a little chat. I asked him what, specifically, he had done in London.

This and that, he said, his back to me as he shaved meats onto a cheese board.

Like what sort of “this and that?” I asked him. He stopped cutting meat, wiped his hands on his apron, and without turning to face me, said, “Ever heard of the MI6?”

Well, yes, of course. This is the British Secret Service, the counter-intelligence and security agency where James Bond and Miss Honeypenny worked.

“You worked for MI6?” I asked him.

He didn’t answer me and went back to shaving meat.

Remember Chuck Barris, the impresario of “The Gong Show”? A very whacky guy. Back in the ‘80s, he wrote a “memoir”—Confessions of a Dangerous Mind—that, in 2002, was turned into a farcical film with George Clooney and Sam Rockwell, among others. In both the book and movie, Barris claims to be an assassin for the CIA. In fact, in the book he said that he went on frequent foreign trips in connection with prizes awarded on his game shows as a cover for his purported assassination assignments.

Now usually, the CIA just routinely refuses “to confirm or deny” stories about its operations and who works for them. But after Barris’ memoir was published, they took the very unusual move of having a spokesman label his book “ridiculous.”

A game show host is an assassin for the CIA? Almost as absurd as a London bartender working for the same outfit James Bond is supposed to have worked for. But I will say one thing for Mr. Smith—he makes a mean chef’s platter. And who knows—maybe someone will come along and want to make a movie based on his story. It’s happened before.

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Ceiling of the Paradiso cinema with its 32,000 paper flowers on the ceiling. Photos by David Lansing.

I went back in for lunch at The Vintry yesterday to see if I could get more of Mike Smith’s story (to get caught up, read http://davidlansing.com/?p=3457). More on that tomorrow. This little wine bar and café is located in the lobby of the town’s only cinema complex, which is quite convenient if you want to see a show while enjoying a nice glass of Brick Bay Cabernet Sauvignon or maybe a little Ascension Chardonnay.

Imagine: you’re sitting at a wine bar gnoshing on some chicken satay or seafood fritters, sipping on your white wine, and your date says, Oh, gosh, it’s about time for the movie to start, so you just pay your bill, grab your wine (after asking Mike to top it off), and walk across the lobby to the theater. To finish your wine there. How civilized is that?

This would never happen in the U.S. There are just too many rules and regulations to get past. And eventually, of course, even if it was possible, some idiot would sue the theater owner after they fell out of their seat because they’d been allowed to imbibe a glass of Zinfandel. Adults in the States, it seems, prefer to be treated like children and told what they can’t do because if allowed to do it, they will only get in trouble.

The movie house itself is pretty amazing. It’s actually three boutique theaters, each with its own special charm. The largest, Tivoli, has a huge amber 95-bulb chandelier suspended from a domed ceiling above the seats, which include reclining armchairs and double snuggle seats. The Roxy, the smallest of the three, has draped fabric suspended from the ceiling giving it an exotic, tent-like feel.

But the coolest has to be the 80-seat Paradiso where, yesterday afternoon, Sex and the City 2 was playing. The name of the theater—Paradiso—says it all. They wanted to make the theater feel really cheerful—a place to chase away the mid-winter blues—so they festooned the ceiling with some 32,000 colored paper flowers that were fixed by hand to a wire frame, while 100 tui birds and fantails, made from palm leaves, wing their way across the walls. Fantastic! And if you can sit in comfy, over-sized chairs with thousands of flowers over your head while enjoying a nice glass of wine, so much the better.

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The Cream of Matakana

Sign for The Cream of Matakana. Photos by David Lansing.

One of the places Heather suggested I check out was The Cream of Matakana. “It’s in the dairy co-op building,” she told me. That sounded interesting. Taste a little New Zealand butter or what have you.

Except, of course, the old co-op, where they once made Matakana Pure Creamery Butter (“The Delight of the Table”) hasn’t churned out any dairy products since 1963 when it closed down. Now it’s a bit of an arts complex with a place to do pottery and an eclectic design store called The Cream of Matakana. Out in front of the store, sitting at a wooden picnic table, was a young woman in a straw bonnet and sunglasses soaking in the sun and reading the newspaper. When I started up the steps of the store, she turned half way around and said, “If something catches your fancy, just give me a shout.”

I went back down the steps and asked her if she worked there. She said she did. “I should be inside,” she said, “but it’s too bloody cold. The building was designed to keep the milk cold you know and they did a good job of it.”

She was right. Inside the store, with its concrete floor and high ceilings, it was like a meat locker (remember it’s winter down here).

Now, I’m not the one to call The Cream of Matakana an eclectic design store. That’s what they call themselves on the little sign attached to an old push lawn mower in front of the store. But I think they’ve got it right. There were necklaces with little resin birds in red and black and blue; a brooch of glass jet planes that looked like they could have been little candies; blocks of lavendar or cinnamon soap; jars of colorful bath salts; tie-dyed baby hats; pink or lime watering cans with flowers on them; pillows made from recycled vintage blankets; and lots of framed photographs of what looked like local scenes—the beach, smooth stones, water.

What I settled on was an odd painting with six stylized portraits of what looks like the same cartoonish woman, one with a crown on her head, another with a blue page-boy haircut. It was as if a six-year-old had decided to make six little portraits of her mother in different moods from silly to sad.

I went back outside and told the woman sitting in the sun that I’d found something that caught my fancy. She came inside, picked up the painting, and gave it a good luck. “Oh, yeah, that’s nice isn’t it?” she said, as if this were the first time she’d ever seen it (and maybe it was). I asked her if she could wrap it in bubble wrap or something since I was going to have to transport it back to the States.

“Is it a gift then?” she asked.

It is, I told her. For a woman I knew who had multiple-personalities. “You never know which one is going to show up.”

“This will be perfect then,” she said.

Yes, I told her. Perfect.

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