Allan Dick’s Blog – Part One

SUNDAY MORNING BLUES

 Read more of Allan's blog entries by clicking here.

 Read Part Two here.

I did something this morning I knew I would regret. I bought two of the three national Sunday papers that are on offer each week. I gave up the ritual of regularly buying these papers over a year ago because of risk to my health that came with them. It was my blood pressure you see.

I'd sit down thinking I was going to have a good read, end up taking five minutes over the job and then binning them in disgust at allowing myself to, again, be hoodwinked into buying umpteen pages of lightweight reading.

But today I heard a radio advertisement telling me that one of the Sunday papers had an expose on a central North Island town of "shame".  I missed which paper it was, but I knew it wouldn't be the Sunday News because it never has anything worthwhile and, while I also missed the town, guessed it would be Kaiangaroa or Minginui.

So I bought both the Sunday Star-Times and the Sunday Herald, along with my loaf of Vogels Fruit and Spice thick slice toast bread and jar of ginger marmalade.

It was the Sunday Star-Times that carried the story I wanted to read and the town of shame and disgrace was Kaiangaroa.

It was a good read, but it didn't go nearly far enough Ñ it should have been part of a wider expose of the dozen or more appallingly dysfunctional towns in New Zealand that are a social disgrace.

The only reason the Sunday Star-Times bothered looking at Kaiangaroa this week was that someone's interest was piqued by an outbreak of violence in the town earlier in the week. I know the media can't be everywhere and cover everything that's going on in New Zealand from the comfort and security of their offices north of the Bombay Hills, but what's happening in Kaiangaroa is repeated in plenty of others towns, villages and areas in New Zealand Ñ particularly across the central belt of the North Island.

The living conditions in dozens of these places is truly awful, breeding crime, gang domination, alcohol abuse and drug addiction.  These places are well and truly below the radar and the largely Auckland-based media lives in blissful and comfortable ignorance of them.

But the thing that really got me lying down quietly and looking at the ceiling in an effort to calm down was coverage of some sort of national pie award in the social pages of both of these newspapers.

There were photographs of happy, smiling toothsome twosomes at the annual awards and not a single one of them looked as though they'd been within 20 miles of a decent pie in their lives.

Pies, like fish and chips and common tucker that are treated with contempt by the cafe society, hoi polloi Ñ except when there's an event like this and a social pages photo opportunity for them.

Do you know what won the pie award? Nope, not a dinkum pie with chunky beef and flakey pastry made by someone in a small kitchen in a place like Te Kuiti or Tuatapere, but a trendy effete little number containing creamy bacon, mushroom and cheese that came from a bakery in Tauranga. God help us! Creamy bacon, mushroom and cheese! At least it's marginally better than a couple of years back when a fruit pie was named as New Zealand's Supreme Pie of the year!

Now listen to me because I am a pie expert. You only need to look at me to know that. I love pies! When it comes to pies, I have probably the most sophisticated palate in the country.

A pie is a pie is a pie is a pie. The basics are simple. Meat and pastry. And never EVER, under threat of death, stuck in a micro-wave and super-heated!

Driving around the country, as I do a lot, I take my meals on the run and a pie is simply the most convenient meal in the world. It's a single unit, it's ready to go, there's no waiting Ñ slip it into a paper bag and off you go. And it can be eaten with one hand while driving a car. There would be few other New Zealanders as qualified as me in judging a good pie from a bad pie.

The best pie in the world can be destroyed totally in seconds by nuking it in a microwave. But it appears I am in the minority when it comes to treating a pie with the respect it deserves. If I take a pie from a warmer and detect (with the tongs provided) that it is soggy, I slide it straight back and leave the premises immediately.

Right, my pie recommendations.

If you live in the North Island a reliable choice is always the selection of pies made by Eddie Grouten in Albany and available at the Red Bean Cafes attached to BP service stations.

Not only are these mass-manufactured pies of good quality and reliable consistency, but the Red Bean Cafe culture demands that they be treated with the dignity and care a good pie deserves. Pepper Steak is my favourite.

There are plenty of good pies that are well outside the parameters of the poncy, pretentious, creamy bacon, mushroom and cheese, cafe-culture of this year's "winner".

The Scottish-derived mutton pie of the deep south is a favourite. McGregor's is a traditional mutton pie complete with short pastry and mutton grease that runs down your shirt-front. Jimmy's of Roxburgh make an alternative that has the minced mutton, but is devoid of the grease and is encased in flaky pasty. I have been known to have two mutton pies, of any make, at a sitting.  

But my favourite pieshop of time is located in the small Central Otago town of Omakau Ñ once a typical small rural town without a future, but revived by the Rail Trail.

I have known Omakau for 50 years and seen the changes.

A year or so ago, on a boiling hot mid-summer day, I stopped at the Muddy Creek Cafe on the main street. It was well past lunch time and I'd started the day early without breakfast.  

I needed a pie and so went into the cafe expecting to find the usual selection of Jimmy's pies in the warmer and was hopeful of finding a mutton one.

Instead I saw a blackboard with a sign that indicated the pies were made in the cafe and the selection included venison, rabbit and . . . .  Well, that was as far as I read. I was torn, which did I want most? I tossed up mentally and bought a venison Ñ "the last in the oven today," said the lady behind the counter who turned out to be Pauline, the cafe owner and pie-maker.

It was huge Ñ about 50% bigger than your usual pie and I also bought a bottle of the cafe's own black sauce. Along with a bottle of Ginger Beer, I took my lunch up the road to the small, former mining town of Matakanui.

Here I alighted from my car, took a seat on a piece of schist rock and with only the sound of an occasional skylark, invisible high overhead, had a meal that was worth $100.  

I doubt that any of the self-satisfied attendees at this year's pie award function, would have the slightest idea what I'm talking about.

 Read Part Two here.