"My Nutrition Levels Have Disappeared."

Just re-read some of my old posts and I can't believe I haven't discussed the food I've eaten at length. What the hell.

In addition to all the jumping off of and out of things that NZ has been, this has also been a really delicious epicurean trip.

First of all, the meat (beef, lamb, pork, chicken, goat, ostrich, lama, venison...and kangaroo for Australia's sake) is legitimately free range and hormone free, because when your entire country only has like 25 people (give or take 4 million) living in it, you don't need to produce the ridiculous quantities that places like the USA does.
So, meat just tastes better because in my head, the animals are living happier lives.
With accents.

The fruit and vegetable selection isn't so different from home, except some things are cheaper because they're local, such as avocado, mango, kiwi, and apples. The apples here vary like crazy but for the most part, the Sundowners and Cox's Orange Pippin are my favorites. (If you were unaware, I have a thing for apples.)

There's a lot of trans-Asian cuisine so lamb/chicken/beef satay is big. I like that.
Also, sushi is big. And cheap. Because the fish is caught 20 feet away sometimes. And the sushi comes in these long rolls that are more reminiscent of an open-ended egg roll than the circle things I've had back in the States. I like that, too.

And, for the most part, the breads are just excellent. Not the sandwich shit you have to buy at the cheapo Pak N' Save because you can't afford the other cheap shit at the more elite supermarkets, but the breads you buy at bakeries, of which there are many. Bakeries are everywhere, and people use them. Daily-baked fresh bread is as easy to find here as unclear-as-to-when-this-was-actually-made-Chinese-food is in delis in NYC.

The sandwiches are typically ham-based. Ham and cheese and tomato, ham and cheese and pineapple, ham and cheese and cheese and ham. They also use a lot of avocados and chicken and tomato, which I think is a great idea. Eggs and ham and cheese and tomato, also common.

The meat pie is a big thing here, an obvious leftover from the Brits and the Irish and the like. I have to be honest, meat pie makes me dry heave. I've tried all kinds of combinations---steak and mushroom, mince meat, potato and meat, cheese and meat, whathaveyou---and they're all too salty and generally just too much for me. But if you're poor (I am) and you need sustenance (I do) and you have $3.50 most of the time (I hope), then meat pies are a pretty frequent meal.

The pizza here is generally a travesty, and any sort of "red sauce" dish is just unacceptable.
I miss Villa Maria's.

The side dishes are usually pretty potato-based; fries are called chips and chips are called crisps. They're all pretty good. Wedges are by far the favorite child of all potato sides. But let the record show that Fuel and Fuddle still holds the no. 1 spot for most incredible sweet potato fries.

Also---the sauces are worth mentioning. The sweet chili sauce is incredible. Ketchup, or "tomato sauce," is not. There's no mustard to speak of, which, in my opinion, is disgusting.

As for desserts, they know what the hell they're doing.

The ice cream is creamier---by which I mean, low fat and sugar free and diet-friendly ice cream is much harder to find. Which is good, because ice cream is not diet-friendly. If you're dieting, don't eat ice cream. That's a diet.

But they make this real fruit ice cream that has quickly become my favorite way to spend $5.00: it's either plain vanilla or plain chocolate ice cream with frozen fresh fruit---blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, boysenberries, blackberries, peaches, mangos, etc---blended in. Incredible. And if you want, you can mix them all in at once. Don't though, it's only going to let you down.

Moving on to other desserts, I should mention the Pavlova. I thought this was an Australian thing since Justin made it, but apparently it's originally a Kiwi delicacy. Basically it's just egg whites and sugar and cream and fruit, and I can't explain it in any other terms besides: diabetic.

I've saved the best for last, by which I mean: Vanilla Slice.

Slices are the general southern hemispherical term for what we northerners might call bars or brownies, and they're all Really Fucking Good. The Vanilla Slice, however, is in a league of it's own. It looks really plain and sort of boring, but it's not. It's not, whatsoever. On the bottom, it's got a sort of pie crust/pastry dough/cookie consistency that's really buttery and almost salty and flakey enough but not too flakey. Then it's got this vanilla pudding kind of thing but it's a bit firmer, almost a mix of pudding and batter. Then there's another layer of the pie crust/phyllo dough, then another layer of pudding. And then, it's topped with this incredible vanilla frosting that almost defies description: it's firm but gooey, sort of like carrot cake frosting mixed with whipped cream. Or something. If anyone knows where this can be procured in the USA, please let me know. It's the one reason I sometimes look at the real estate postings in the information centers in little out of the way towns we stop at to use the public toilets.

Unrelated to food, I recently went Zorbing (Google it) and caving and saw glow worms and taught our 19 year-old tour guides the correct chorus to "Juicy" by Biggie Smalls.
I also got to eat a traditional Maori dinner (which was pretty much picnic foods...?) and learned a little about their culture, which, like the aboriginal people of Australia, has been wiped out and then restored poorly, by white people. Go white people, go.

Unrelated to any of that, I also just got into a fight with a douchey gap year-aged Welsh kid named Paul who, after I told him I was from the USA, asked me if I knew where Wales was with a very smug look on his face, and when I said, "yeah, do you know where the States are?" told me, "Yeah, it's that country with all those [n-words], right?" Way to go, Welsh kid.