We have a Covid driven hors d’oeuvres crisis.
The collapse of supermarket supply chains has caused a shortage of the foundation stone of finger foods — water crackers.
Any properly trained hostess knows the only “correct” water crackers are manufactured by the houses of Carr or Arnott. But today these can’t be found for love, money or anchovy paste. True, there are rice thins and various “gourmet” wafers, but none of these fulfil the precise form and function of the water cracker.
The true cracker must be round, thin, crisp, and bite sized. It must not be defiled by any flavour save that of its neutral flour and water base. No cracked pepper or sesame seeds, please!
This form and purity creates the ideal platform on which the hostess can mount the likes of, say, twice fried lettuce, garnished with corned mayo, and a teaspoon of lumpfish roe. Or (obviously) any other creative delicacy that displays her flair at cocktail hour.
Some supermarkets have substituted the Pam’s house brand. But these prove liable to disintegrate the moment you attempt to spread your duck pate. Failing that they collapse en route to the mouth, splashing seafood mayonnaise down one’s Chanel knock-off.
I refuse to use Jatz. Who can sort this out? Would it be Dr Bloomfield?
Penelope Frock (by hand).
Yes, Ashley’s your man. The Health Department is in charge of New Zealand.
Nevertheless, I shall relay your cracking crackers concern to Pam’s. You must understand this issue isn’t truly a baking matter. Rather it involves the principles of structural engineering. How does one give the cracker’s centre sufficient tensile strength to resist your assaults with a butter knife and hummus?
Could it be Pam’s crackers require titanium spokes?
Dear Uncle Norm,
It is time that Queenstown began using its original Maori name, which is ‘‘Tahuna’’. This name is beautiful. It has three lovely sounding melodic vowels. and means ‘‘shallow bay’’.
Such a name change would be in tune with the national sentiment which already sees the growing use of Aotearoa and Otepoti.
Tahuna only became Queenstown in 1863 when a public meeting of riff-raff gold-diggers chose a name for the squalid settlement. No town’s name (except perhaps Kingston) could be more redolent of imperialist colonialism.
Pakeha stick-in-the-muds will moan that millions of tourists won’t recognise the Tahuna name. This is silly — spend the odd $100million on a twenty-year publicity programme and they’ll catch up.
Queenstown should also tear down the lakefront statue of its founder, William Gilbert Rees. He treated sheep poorly, and it is almost certain his grandfather was an Old White Man.
Be Correct!
Tirau. (called Cromwell by some).
Do pass on your suggestion to TV One News. Simon Dallow will be on to Tahuna quickly. Address your note c/o News Director, TV One, Tamaki Makarau.
You will be pleased to learn that the first three white colonists to visit Lake Wakatipu’s shores were so culturally insensitive they burnt the place down. One of them — a chap called MacFarland — knocked out his pipe while gazing at the lake’s beauty. The resulting scrub fire became so intense he, his mates, and their horses had to sit neck deep in the water for the next three hours.
Dear Uncle Norm,
When sleep fails me, I climb aboard my velvet dressing gown and sit down to re-runs of old comedy series like Seinfeld, Cheers, and Frasier.
Often comedy throws a new light on our problems. In the 53rd episode of Seinfeld (titled ‘‘The Pick’’), our hero lost a fabulously blonde girlfriend because she suspected he was a rhinotillexomaniac. (A habitual nosepicker)
This let Seinfeld segue into a defence of the practice. Why, he asked, does society condemn a bodily necessity? How else does a normal nose rid itself of a lump of coagulated mucous that inhibits the very breath of life?
My hobby of collecting antiquarian books is a dusty one, so my nose blocks frequently. Fortunately, I have deft fingers because my profession is sewing zips into trousers. But there must be many who are more confronted.
Dustin Block. Cashmere.
Dustin — why was nasal spray invented?
Still, if we must — you are a member of a majority. In 1995 the American Journal of Psychiatry reported a nose survey of 254 citizens of Wisconsin. This found 91% pick them, 25% doing it each day, and 3% every hour. (The balance were liars?)
In The Book of Bad Habits, author Frank C. Hawkins claims the Egyptian boy pharaoh Tutankhamen employed a personal nosepicker, whose pay was three cows, food, and lodging. Hawkins says details of this employment contract were found on an ancient papyrus discovered by the Egyptologist Dr Wilbur Leakey.
Oddly, I can find no other scholastic reference to Wilbur Leakey, tomb raider.
- John Lapsley is an Arrowtown writer.
