Fried Jam Donuts

I want to talk for a moment about fried jam donuts. Here in New Zealand, on every major street, in every neighborhood, sits a greasy fish-and-chip shop, a modest squat little building with greasy yellow smoke curling from a greasy little chimney. They're usually owned by Chinese people and they are basically just a counter in front of a bank of bubbling vats of oil. There's usually a menu of chips and burgers, battered blue cod, oysters and sausages and a fairly extensive selection of Chinese dishes too.

It's delicious, quick, affordable, and extremely bad for you. If the fat doesn't kill you, the guilt will.

But there's a part of the menu that almost no sensible person would order from: It's the fried dessert section, which includes fried donuts, fried ice cream, and fried candy bars, etc. So, they take something that's already quite bad for you, and they throw it in oil and fry it, and then they roll it around in sugar for good measure.

The other night we finally tried a fried jam donut. $1.40 NZD. The exterior: fried golden-brown, crispy and crunchy with sugar. The interior: moist, warm dough, and jam made hot and runny, superheated by the frying. It was so uberdelicious. So wonderfully wrong. So tasty and sweet. So ... very good. So deadly.

We know we can never ever eat one again.

Bathtime

Being spoiled.

For the last 3 weeks, Max has been coddled, cuddled, spoiled and snuggled. He's the celebrity of the family having had his picture taken at almost all of his waking (and sleeping) moments. And all because he's the newest member of the family. Someone new to love and welcome into their lives.

We have been lucky to have my family (parents and sister) visit us from thousands of miles away. I say lucky because the new, sleep-deprived, extremely tired parents (us) had the chance to find some extra sleep, shower, brush teeth, and eat a few meals together. It's very likely that my family didn't even think that they were doing us any favors. They just wanted to meet Max. Hold him close. Hear him coo and cry. Watch him smile at the faces they made. But these very things gave me and Chris a welcome break to this new adventure called parenting.

Just a simple visit, for a simple reason: Max.

But the results were far more profound:
My parents saw me as a parent for the first time. Chris and I learned how to leave the house with Max for longer than an hour. We learned that sometimes Lolo (Grandpa) is best at calming a screaming Max (and that this is the first time my dad has ever held a baby since his own.) We know that we will return to the U.S. soon enough to be closer to our families.

My family visiting us here in Dunedin, meeting Max, staying at our rental house, helping us move into our new house, walking on our favorite beaches, eating at our favorite restaurants. ... they are witnesses to our life here in New Zealand. Somehow it makes it more real.

Chris and I know how difficult it is for anybody to visit us here in New Zealand. So naturally, we're thankful and appreciative to my family. Thank you.

You are already missed - mom, dad, and Jojo. We will see you soon and never be away for too long.

And don't worry, dad, Max will call you soon ... and often. (ETK)

More Dunedin Graffiti

I like this one a lot. I've decided that, here in the Kemp household, we're all owls in a lark world (even Max, although he's only two-months-old and doesn't really know that he's an owl yet). I just think it's a good policy to follow. It makes sense.

There's something oddly beautiful about the phrase too. Owl in a lark world. I love it. It was there in the morning, by the railway station and the Saturday market sun. I bet it's already been scrubbed away or painted over.

By larks, probably.

Incidentally, the collective noun for larks is an exultation; and for owls, it's a parliament.

Here, in our little house, we are a parliament.

Just Like His Dad

Max's doting paternal grandparents have sent, all the way from Greece, by the wonder of modern technology, some scanned thirty-five-year-old images of me as a baby. I was quite surprised to see that my son does actually look quite a bit like me. I'll try to find a photo later of Max from the same angle, to see if I'm just imagining the similarity.

We'll see if we can get some baby pictures of his mom up on here too.

DISH

I wrote an article for a New Zealand-based glossy food magazine called DISH recently. What I really like about the magazine are the efforts that go into the production. It's a beautiful product, lovely images, good writing, full of interesting recipes to try. So I pitched them an article on harvesting and cooking with local seaweed. And they told me to write it.

It came out about a month ago. It's been fun. I've been recognized a couple of times, because there's a photo of me and Emeline standing in the water tasting seaweed. We went to our favorite breakfast spot and the server told us she'd seen it and asked herself, "How do I know those people?" before she worked out it was us. The same happened with a couple of coworkers, and the real estate agent who takes care of our house.

Yeah. We're famous.

Yaaaaaawn

Life is tough. Seriously. When everything is done for you, and audiences applaud enthusiastically if you giggle at them, life is a seriously tough thing to get through. Poor Max. Seriously. How will you cope?

Port

Emeline, Max and I are excited to report that we are landowners (or at least homeowners). We've taken the leap of buying a little house for our little family. A home is an important place for a child, and a rented house just doesn't cut it. My own childhood home was filled with its own mythologies, the hidden corners of the back garden, the closets converted into cramped afternoon dens. It had its own character. I knew the noises it made as it settled into the ground. Part of me will always be there. We wanted to give Max a place like that. So, we bought a house.

It's over there, in the photo, on the other side of the water. In Port Chalmers.

On March 23rd, 1848, a ship called the John Wickliffe docked at Port Chalmers, carrying settlers from England, some of whom had been on the ship since it left Gravesend the previous November. A couple of decades later, gold was discovered in central Otago and Port Chalmers became a busy port, a new world, a frontier, a dreamscape.

Port Chalmers -- or simply Port to those who live there: its steep thin streets, haunted by the tired ghosts of prospectors and pirates. Little box houses, with dusty model ships standing sadly in the windows. Fog rolling in off the Pacific.

For Max.

Cutest Picture of the Week

Easily. No contest. Just getting a bath from dad and posing for mom.

Belly Laughs

A couple of weeks ago, Max treated us to his first smiles. At first we thought he was grimacing through some nasty wind but, sure enough, they were big dimply grins. His eyes shine darkly and his chin doubles and then triples, with his amusement, until he looks like a little laughing Buddha.

When he smiles, we feel like the luckiest people in the world. It's like he's bestowing on us a gift.

The simplest gift: a smile.

Non parents, please forgive us these indulgences: we know they're boring to almost everyone but us. But Max has started to laugh now. As with almost all things, he entered this world unable to laugh but this week, he seems to be in the middle of learning how to do it properly. It starts with a smile, and then becomes a big gummy open mouth, accompanied by a strange noise, halfway between a cough and a strangled yawn. It's not quite right. His tongue isn't quite sure where to go. But he's got impeccable comic timing. And every day this strangled yawn becomes a little bit more like a giggle.

On the one hand, I can't wait until he finally giggles at me. It'll sound like music. On the other hand, when he's practicing, and throwing his little head back at some joke that only he hears, I think I could live happily in that moment for ever.