Manuka Spoon Part III - the Modus Operandi

Been a bit of a fail couple weeks for Cooking Bush. After having to work on my bush day last week, I then succumbed to the office plague and I spent the whole of this week sick in bed. Really hanging out for a camp fire.

I've been thinking about my M.O. - my Modus Operandi, method of operation a.k.a why the heck I am doing this blog.  It started out earlier this year when I was going through a bad patch with my mental health. I am bipolar and was having a very uncharacteristic extended manic/mixed mood winter. I may have mentioned before but I spend a lot of time looking at American preppers and my manic mind latched onto the idea of creating a bug-out camp. It was then a hunt for a suitable location began, and I started lighting fires and cooking stuff. 

I quickly decided my day trips would be most helpful for my mental state - exercise, introverted me time, out in the green, fire and food. To further this I endeavour to take a weekly trip instead of staying in bed playing computer games. Time to indulge and occupy myself, something for my manic brain to semi constructively scheme about. 

The problem is sustaining it once the manic moods have gone, and this is part of the purpose of this blog which is to be a spur to keep me going out. I love to write, I like to cook. It seems like a natural thing to do. Despite having spent a lot of time tramping and the odd bit of hunting I realised that it takes quite a bit of skill to cook something well on an open fire with a very minimal of gear and that became the focus of this blog. 

I'm keen to get into lots of near things - building a 'bug-out' shelter, foraging and cooking NZ wild foods, bush crafts, gear reviews. All in good time. The spoon is one of the first of my projects for use in my bush cooking. It will be divine pleasure using it to cook.

Manuka Spoon is looking rather gorgeous! After getting it into shape I scraped along it with my knife to make it all smooth.

It has a bit of a mean crack on top (it does not go right through) - I've widened it out since so that it won't trap food in it.

I started grinding the bowl using fine beach gravel and a stone to make it nice and smooth. I need to keep at it a bit more, but the grinding sound is too close to nails on a blackboard for my ears...

It has an insect hole in the bowl :( I'm planning on carving a plug and sealing it with pine resin. If anyone has any thoughts on how I can go about this let me know.

Unfortunately this is it for this week. I'm at the end of being sick now but don't have a lot of energy. Hopefully will be good as gold towards the end of next week and I'll be out rain or shine (I really do want to have a go lighting a fire in wet weather using my ferro rod).

Ka kite ahau!

5 Minute Brutal Backpackers Stove

Summer here in New Zealand is not that far around the corner. I might be known to flaunt a fire ban or two. But while it is one thing in winter to light a fire when the bush is totally wet, even I will think twice when the land becomes drier and the gusting Wellington breezes can pick a spark up and burn down some fellas shed (errrr sorry about that...). 

So I have been thinking up alternative cooking methods for this summer and have become rather interested in backpacking wood stoves. Reality is they won't circumvent a fire ban but my brain has been totally geeking out at the idea. I particularly liked the looks of the Emberlit stove which has gotten some good reviews. The price tag kind of put me off though so I did what any good reformed post Catholic would do. Using my knowledge of hell fire and brimstone I created my own stove!

Now I am as clever as an obese wild cat and perhaps was a little manic in the making of this thing of brutal beauty. I was also still inspired from watching that death growl chick from my last post. So when I discovered a can of beetroot in my cupboard that fit exactly in my giant mug so it came to be through an unholy alliance of beetroot, obese wild cats, and a death growl chick, the immaculate conception of the 5 Minute Brutal Backpackers Stove!!

5 Minute Brutal Backpackers Stove

Ingredients:

• 1 can of beets
• Swiss army knife with pliers and a can opener
• Another can opener cause that is just how brutal it was
• 5 minutes
• 1 smoky fire

Not much to it. I cut the top off and emptied the beets into another container for later devouring. I put the lid in the bottom just because it felt like it should have a solid floor to contain the hellish furnace which would soon be inhabiting it. Then I carved air holes in the top and bottom using the swiss army knife can opener. The main fire feeding hole at the bottom was done pretty much by tearing it open with the pliers. Brutal. 

It was fun to make. You can look on-line and see all sorts of pussy wood stoves made by people who can bloody well afford a commercial one. None of them did as brutal a job as myself. Most of them spent longer polishing their cans than I did to make mine. That's right buddy, burning it in your back yard is not a field test! 

I loved how it fit in my cup. That was cool. I loved how the paper label, which I left on, engulfed the whole thing in flames when I lit it. I loved how the cup fit perfectly on top. 

Unfortunately I don't think enough air got in while the cup was on top. The embers blocked up the bottom air holes after a small while. I found that to keep it going good and hot I had to continuously feed in wood and blow on it at the same time - and just like burning the bowl for my Manuka Spoon I got lungs full of smoke and a hole in my face. Also the bottom of my mug was a mess. 

In the end it took about 30 minutes to boil my giant cup of tea. Brutal. 

Implements of Conception

Quality Craftsmanship

A closer look at the efficient and brutal workings

My muse, the Emberlit stove

Nailed it!

Manuka Spoon Part II

The spoon is taking awhile and I am a bit behind posting about it. I actually still have not finished it but it is almost there. The amount of time I spend sitting relaxing by a fire is pretty minimal as I always end up starting late in the day and inevitably charge about just trying to get where I want to go, finding wood, cooking, choking down my food, and then hoofing it back home to beat the dark. 

I have to rethink my whole approach to get a bit more relax time. The whole point of it all is to enjoy myself in the outdoors and not worry about things like phones and deadlines. Instead I spend a lot of it racing against the clock. The simple answer, of course, is to get up earlier....*shudder*.

So the spoon bowl. I don't have any fancy carving knives except my awesome Mora kniv. But I learnt a technique from Survivor Lilly on youtube - essentially you want to scoop up a good hot coal from the fire, a little one does the trick, hold it down with a stick and blow on it hard. It works surprisingly well as long as you don't mind getting dizzy, accidentally sucking massive hits of smoke and burning your cheek with a hot ember flung from a coal. I has a hole in my face :( .

Very interesting how the heat has changed the character of the wood in terms of how it carves. It almost feels chalkier if that makes sense, and really is not as pleasant to work with. 

Most of the bowl was done on my Rimutaka Rail Trail trip, and I gave the shaft a good working over on the trip to Smiths Creek. I'm really loving how it is taking shape. In hindsight it was possibly the wrong kind of wood to use being all gnarled, knotty and cracked. On top of that an insect had burrowed a winding path through the entire length of the wood. But I reckon not many people can say they have a Manuka Spoon!

Doing a bowl on the Rimutaka Rail Trail

A good Smiths Creek shafting.

Knicker-less Barbaric Steak Sandwhich

I intended to start exploring the Akatarawa forest today. Despite it being almost on my doorstep I don't think I have ever been there. What intrigues me is the big chunk of wilderness in the middle with no official tracks on any of the maps I have seen. It promises to be a little wild and perhaps an opportunity for a deer or pig. But I think I will explore the existing tracks first.

So today I woke to a very grey cold damp morning. With a strong icy breeze it looked like going out would be a miserable affair. Cold enough to freeze my nuts off if I had them. It does not help that after my shower last night I realised I had no clean knickers to wear! So it was an easy decision to stay home and play skyrim instead and I have spent the day blissfully bare bottomed in bed with my laptop and a continuous cup of coffee. 

Such hard work builds a mean barbarian hunger that can only be satisfied by bloody bloody meat!

Knicker-less Barbaric Steak Sandwich

Ingredients:

• Porterhouse steak (you need something with a bit of gristle and flavour - if you want something that melts in your mouth you should be eating your girlfriend instead. A real steak has bite. Also for barbarians sake never remove the fat!)
• White bread
• Butter (well I use proflora active cause my cholesterol is a bit high, no surprises there, but I feel better about eating animal fats with it)
• Large Onion
• Salt

Before you can make this you have to get in the mood:




Ok now we can begin. First remove knickers. Just note that if you shave your bush then your sandwich is gonna come out tasteless. I can't emphasises this enough that you need mature bush - 6 months grown minimal. Cook your onions and steak. Put on bread with butter. Add salt. Devour it with your hands tearing chunks using your eye teeth washed down with coffee from a Wonder Woman mug ROAAARRRR! 

(Unrelated, if you don't vaccinate your kids you are a waste of space - sorry, just watching some idiot on youtube while I type saying we should let kids get polio, TB, hepatitis, mumps, measles etc cause it builds their immune system. What a dick. Not only will you endanger your kids but everyone else's too grrrrrrr)

I have a few tips for cooking a good steak. Firstly get your meat up to near room temperature. use a paper towel to remove any surface moisture, brush with oil and in it goes. You should pre-heat your fry pan to a moderate heat for a good 10 minutes. I cook the onions first so by the end of that the pan is well hot. If you are using cast iron then it will cunningly tell you when to turn your meat over because the steak will stop sticking. I like mine a bit bloody so maybe 2 minutes a side. Don't forget to let it rest. Apply salt to taste. 

Barbaric Ingredients

I was not kidding

frying onions

OMG add garlic yes!

Awww yeahhhh!

mmm white bread, the perfect vehicle for meat

Steak!!!

Can I get a hallelujah!

Watching my man Troy from the off grid project. Have a good weekend everyone!

Pencarrow Emergency Eta Peanuts

After my big walk last week, which left me a little sore for 3 days, I wanted to do something a little more easy going. I have also been thinking about cooking fish and mussels on a beach fire, getting all stone-age and cooking with no implements besides sticks and rocks.  I also wanted to work on my spoon in earnest and try out an experimental hobo stove I made in 2 minutes. I will put the results of these projects in future posts.

So Pencarrow seemed like a good deal. Flat track, short ride, fine day... I should of done my homework...

Pencarrow emergency Eta Peanuts. One lighthouse perched behind on the top of the hill, and the other bellow waiting like vultures.

Ingredients:

• 200g Eta Salted Peanuts
• Whole fish
• Green lipped mussels

The first thing you want to do is take your fish, and your mussels and throw them in the bin. Pencarrow is pure evil and no food should ever be cooked there. Only Eta Peanuts can be consumed.

The start of the Pencarrow gravel road is at the end of the sealed road running around Eastbourn, the east coast of Wellington harbour. It is just around the corner from the entrance to Butterfly Creek where you can, incidentally, make some excellent Butterfly Creek Black Bread . The road gives you access to the Parangarahu Lakes area, which includes a number of short tracks around the lakes and up to the old Pencarrow lighthouse on the top of the hill. 

Pencarrow will seem rather pleasant at first. It does not look far, maybe under an hour on bike. The sun shines, there is a gentle wind behind you. The Pencarrow road runs along a number of shallow bays and there are great views of the South Island, and Wellington. On the maps you can see two lakes which look to be an explorers wonderland!

Pencarrow is literally a shit hole, literally. Just around the corner from the Pencarrow lighthouse is a charming sewage outflow. The trail is festooned with a plethora of signs informing you of this. Don't swim in the sea. Don't eat anything caught from it. While you are at it, it might be a good idea not to breath for a bit aswell. To make you feel just that extra special once you get just around the tip of the coast you will be bathed in a beautiful soft sewagey sea spray. Delightful!

The lakes, while making my Ecologist heart go squee look squalid. The whole region is barren, and swept by winds intent on punching you in the face again and again,draining you of any moisture and possibly part of your soul too. There was no way I would cook in this unholy and unhygienic land. 

The whole place is made of hate and evil and once it lures you in it won't want to let go. As soon as you turn around to go back, regardless of the weather, you will be into a howling head wind. The sun, which until now was a gentle kiss on your neck, is now also putting the boot directly in your face. The wind and sun will conspire to flay you skin until it feels like this. 

Contrary to your now desiccated face, your nose will run and the wind will tear the salty line across your cheek as if dragging a miniature cat with salt dipped claws. For some added torture there will be a 20 second lull in the wind in the middle of each bay. But this is only because the wind has gone off to get a bucket of sand which it will gift to you as soon as you get around the corner. As well as adding to the general misery your skin and eyes, the sand will get into your bike which will start to screech and wheeze like a bag of metal bones. My bike got very angry and took a bite out of my leg. I don't blame her.

Don't go there. Stay home and play Skyrim.

The peanuts were good but you can eat those at home.

Pencarrow Road. You can just see the Southern Alps of the South Island top right.

Wellington, so close yet so far....

If you look along the beech you can find plastic bottles and other detritus. 

This is a new sign.....evil

Fuck you Pencarrow, fuck you.

Land of the damned

Mysterious massive concrete structure on the beech. I'm not saying it was aliens, but it was aliens.

Picturesque Lake Kohangapiripiri surrounded by stunning gorse.

That way be EVIL!

Pencarrow lighthouse at the base of the hill, with the South Island mountains just in sight on the horizon.

Old Pencarrow lighthouse on top of the hill (I think the top one is decommissioned)

Close-up of the lighthouse on top of the hill.

My bike is pissed off at me.

Satan is watching you suffer

The traumatised face of a survivor. It will haunt me for the rest of my life.

Smiths Creek baked Kumera and Yams

It is a bit of a New Zealand classic to bake potatoes in the hot coals of a fire, and then putting large chunks of butter in the finished product. I might do this on another trip, but I wanted to put an different spin on it as this is something I have not seen done (though I am sure it has).

There was a bit of an uproar last week because of the exclusion of bacon from my recipe. Porridge and bacon simply did not appeal to me, but you are welcome to add some if that sounds good to you! I think I made a mistake this week adding it because I'm baconed out. The flavour did not really penetrate into these root vegetables and it did not enhance their natural sweetness. But it sure looked pretty. 

In the US and the UK you would call these vegetables different things. The orange vegetable in the picture below is an Orange Kumera, which is very similar to an American Yam (or sweet potato). The New Zealand yam at the bottom is something else entirely. I think it is called an Oca in the South American Andes (actually I know for sure cause I googled it).

Smiths Creek baked Kumera and Yams

Ingredients:

• Kumara (any kind will do)
• Yams (Oca)
• Tinfoil
• Bacon (I would not include this again)
• Smoky Fire

I'm rather chuffed with how I cooked these. I buried them in coals and then covered it all with sand from the river bed for a more controlled temperature. I kept the fire burning around it. I left them to baked them for just over 30 minutes. Next time I would take more tinfoil and wrap more layers as the sand sneaked it's way in and my vegetables and gave me some gritty mouthfuls. 

Smiths Creek is in the Tararua range. The car park has been shifted next to Camp Kitoke which adds a bit of time to the tramp and the sign says it will take 2-3 hours. At a fair clip I did it in 2. A department of conservation website lists it as an Advanced track and I would tend to agree, your grandma would not make it unless she is built like hyena. 

In the beginning you make your way over the aptly named puffer saddle which takes about an hour. The entrance side of it is not too bad, but the Smiths Creek side is rather full on and in a heavy rain would be totally treacherous. You have to contend with very slippery mud and tree roots. The track is often very rocky and it would be very easy to turn an ankle or have a fall. Some of the steeper sections require you to use your hands to traverse and walking along the creek has a number of hazards. 

Once over the puffer you need to cross a number of streams and negotiate slips and the occasional tree fallen across the track. Definitely a tramp that requires some excellent boots (I had some fairly hardcore single piece leather upper boots which were perfect), decent balance, a good pair of legs and a least moderate fitness. Always pack for extreme weather even in summer when heading into this place. If you are a tourist I can't emphasise enough how quickly the weather can turn in NZ and leave you frozen solid on a ridge on what was the sunniest of days,

The smiths creek side of the track is just wow. Beautiful mature dense, dark, rich, wet NZ bush. Ferns, podocarps, beach, pidgeon woods.... moss, epiphytes and lianas carpet the ground and drape from massive old trees.  Total bliss. I'm not religious and don't believe in a higher power, but my wonder of this forest borders on the spiritual.

The entrance side of the puffer

Smiths Creek side of the puffer

One of a number of streams you have to cross

Gorgeous!

Couple old ladies sharing a kiss

Beautiful Matai tree bark

The detour looked more grim than getting across the slips! I choose the later

Mysterious purple penis headed fungus

Smiths Creek Shelter is rather unpleasant, but I would rather be in than out in a downpour.

Back country graffiti

I dug up this awesome photo of the first time I went almost 30 years ago. I was only 10 years old on a school trip and we took the longer Dobson track. You won't believe it but here I am munching on a Bacon Sandwich!!!! I remember lugging a bitch of a heavy frying pan, but it was all worth it to enjoy in front of my teacher while he had his miserable muesli bars.

Nicole today!!