A particularly special message from Katie's kindred cook, Matt

 Hello dear friends of an angel, so glad that you you've popped in for a wee visit. 

 I am delighted to share these wonderful thoughts with you.. 

sent to me via Facebook this evening by my Matthew 

& published with his permission : )

If you haven't visited "our" angel in the kitchen blog yet

you are most welcome & will find us just here

Although its only the very beginning of August, this morning the ever looming consumer driven ethos of Christmas had already arisen in my ever pondering mind. However, I then remembered upon returning home to my parent’s last Christmas day for the first year in five, that together as a family we’d enthusiastically decided that no longer were we going to buy into the modern concepts of Christmas. We had already come to the insight that Christmas is a ‘time’ to get together from across the country to spend as a family, not just simply a day. And so instead, as a foodie family, we were going to give each other wonderfully interesting offerings of the edible kind. Now several months down the track, I’m really quite enthusiastically looking forward to this coming Christmas. However, since our re-evaluation on festive priorities, Mum and I, like any other year, just as the seasons change, week by week have discussed all of the new, and interesting, and unusual foods we’ve found. Whether from tucked away in little whole-food shops or amongst our local weekend farmers markets, we’ve conversed about food. We’ve taken photo’s of the food we’re cooking and of our edible creations, and via one electronic means or another have wowed the other with a colourful display of yumminess. But, this only lasted up until a month ago, when the discussions and pictures were no longer suffice. At first, amongst the mail one day, I received a bunch of lovely fresh aromatic thyme. Then it was a bag of ‘earth gems’, that were bright yellows, and reds, and purples, and looked like little plums, smelt like beetroot, and tasted in between a really waxy potato and a yam... Then in return, I sent her a couple of loaves of my freshly baked sourdough that I’d concocted from my ten month old sourdough bug, bundled up with a couple of incredibly deep-purple organic kumara. The following week I had an uncle arrive on the door step, while passing on business, accompanied by a large box of glorious fresh Hawke’s Bay grapefruit, oranges, mandarins and tamarillos. Not to mention my now favourite kitchen accessory; a green vintage cast iron enamel frying pan. And even now, I sit here while a rather large bowl of Mums citrus fruit soaks, awaiting its transformation into a marvelous batch of thick delicious marmalade, of course which, a jar or two will find itself in the back of a postal van on a journey to the other side of the country. However, I’m now faced with the predicament, as this enthusiasm for food escalates; what do we now do for Christmas? For as it seems, our concept of giving edible wonders as Christmas gifts, has now become the cross-country offerings of a daily evolving culinary journey. My excitement is no longer on the coming Christmas when I visit home for our vegetable filled family time. Its now focused on our everyday life as a family, lived from a distance, but quite fortunately one of the most functional relationships I've known. Of course, I also find childish Christmas-time excitement in pondering on what the next thoughtful parcel might contain? But that, I couldn’t even begin to predict.

Katie’s Kindred Cook,
Matt.