Billie serves up Foodstyle Review an absolutely delicious beef-and-pork cabanosi with onion jam, tomato sauce, aioli, and mustard from the Banger Boys’ mobile venue at the Villa Maria estate near Auckland Airport. The concert event is the Day on the Green with Diana Krall 20 February 2010. Halfway through her concert Krall hesitates to swipe a summer bug from the keyboard of her big Steinway piano. “There’s something living on here … reminds me of Julia Child making a bouillabaisse. Wanna hear the story?” The audience bayed for more and Krall puts on a convincing Julia Child accent. “First catch your eel – nail the head to a board and skin it!” Then she sang Joni Mitchell’s (a fellow Canadian) song ‘A Case of You’ from her Blue album (1971). "Oh I could drink a case of you darling. And I would still be on my feet.”

Annie braves the sweet-tooth junkies stalking the isles at Foodtown in Mt Eden, Auckland, with her samples of Kohu Road ice-cream. The country’s most expensive ice-cream is made in West Auckland and comes in just five flavours - the most popular is Golden Syrup and a very intense Dark Chocolate is flavoured with 72 percent cocoa sourced from France. The boutique ice-cream business was set up by Greg Hall in 2007 with partner Yayoi, a Japanese chef. They have a new factory/retail outlet at 44 Portage Road, New Lynn, Auckland and you are all invited to turn up and sample. Always let your ice-cream soften (or breathe) before eating, says Greg. “It’s like red wine. You decant it before serving to allow it to open up.”

Salote from Kia Ora Sea Foods put her shucking skills to good effect feeding the hordes at the Auckland Seafood Festival held earlier in the year. The three-day seafood festival is part of Auckland's Anniversary Weekend's festivities held on Viaduct Harbour, with entertainment and cultural events that includes the Seafood ITO National Fish Filleting Champs. Shucking oysters is not for the uninitiated and requires practice. The easiest way, say professionals, to preserve most of the oysters' liquid, is the ‘hinge’ method where the oyster is placed on its flat side and the tip of proper oyster-opening knife is worked into the seam that runs down the edge of the oyster and then firmly but gently twisted to pop open the oyster like a paint can lid. Leave it to the professionals like Salote.

John from the Little Karoo company promoting kangaroo sausages at the Matua Market Day at Matua Valley Winery north of Auckland. Little Karoo was set up by John and Gill Millward in 1998 from their interest in ostrich and other leans game meats and has since developed under the Great Taste Brand representing a cluster of artisan Kiwi food companies producing an extensive range of wild game products, native herbs, and unique products including kangaroo, venison and wild pork sausages and salami made in a traditional style by a Hungarian sausage and smoking producer in South Auckland. John says there is so much public interest in the kangaroo sausages that they will soon be sold in the deli sections of retailers.
 

Ally Mondillo has something to smile about after the 2008 Mondillo Central Otago Pinot Noir was served at a royal function for Prince William earlier this year and then picked up a gold medal at the Royal Easter Show Wine Awards and took out Champion Wine of The Show. Mondillo wines was set up by Domenic and Ally Mondillo in Bendigo in 2001 and the 2008 vintage was a reflection of one the best growing seasons Central Otago has ever experienced, they say. The pair has enjoyed quite a few accolades for every pinot noir vintage they have produced. The Mondillo 2005 pinot was named ‘pinot noir of the year’ alongside Villa Maria Reserve Pinot Noir 2004 by WineNZ magazine, and both the 2006 and 2007 vintages picked up gold from the New Zealand International Wine Show.

Ruth from the picturesque Hanging Rock Winery in Victoria, one of 30 ‘cool climate’ Mount Macedon wineries are renown for their great sparkling wines, pinot noirs and chardonnays. Hanging Rock Winery overlooks a huge Aussie visitor icon, a volcanic outcrop of weathered and fractured rock made famous in a book called Picnic at Hanging Rock written by Joan Lindsay (1967) and even more famous in a film of the same name made by Peter Weir in 1975. The fictionalised spooky events of a group of local school girls going missing on February 14, 1900 on Hanging Rock has become so ingrained in Aussie folklore that it widely believed to be true. The story is a great visitor pull for the region and one that the wineries are certainly not complaining about.