~ True Stories Told Live ~

Last weekend, I went to our local annual writer’s festival. Each year, the festival offers a diverse range of inspiring events, rare opportunities to hear from the best writers in New Zealand and the world. This year, 200 writers converged, coming from Aotearoa, the UK, the USA, Canada, Australia, and Asia. With my writing group, the Fabulatores, we attended three out of the six days of events. The trusty notebook I’ve kept notes in since 2008 has gained ten more pages of entries! The first session we attended was the opening gala night, Thursday 18 May. ‘True Stories Told Live.’ Designed to celebrate the first fully in-person festival since 2020’s cancellation because of lockdown restrictions and the ensuing years’ reliance on Zoom for the international quotient. My friends and I found our way to the vertiginous seats in the balcony, and we were amazed by the way the Kiri te Kanawa Theatre filled. Without any doubt, the festival is gaining in popularity every year, with over 40,000 tickets sold and organizers reporting that nearly 20% of the audience were there for the first time. You could feel the electricity of excitement in the air, the joy of being in the same room as these highly talented people, and an audience of appreciative like-minded peers.

After a beautiful Maori welcome and song, Kathleen Drum, the chief executive, gave the opening address. She confessed her son had suggested she compose her speech with the help of a chatbot. But, while the resulting AI speech options had been adequate they were also ponderous, awkward, and lacked the unique touch of human perspective. Kathleen chose to write her own speech instead. Huzzah!
After another opening address or two by the organizers, we moved on to the main event. Eight bestselling/prizewinning authors were invited to stand up and tell stories, without props or script, inspired by a prompt. What was the prompt? They didn’t tell us. However, one friend from my writing group figured it must have had something to do with power as most speakers alluded to it in some way.

Dr. Hinemoa Elder set the tone, beginning with, “Words might be small but they have a vast back story. Our ears tune into the vibration of words.” “A thrust from a weapon can be parried but a verbal tirade cannot. What I bear witness to is the malignant power of online words.” And she shared the work she is doing to introduce laws to protect people from trolling/online bullying.
Joshua Whitehead spoke of his Native American Indian belief in relatedness. “We talk about being in relation to the rocks, trees, water, the animals. Our language says to be in relation to all things, all at once.”
Graci Kim confessed she’d always believed she’d die at 27. After experiencing coming close to death at that age, when a concrete truck hit and killed the two people walking behind her, she changed her life. She realized it ‘wasn’t about doing everything you can, but about meaning.’ She left her diplomatic career and started writing children’s fiction.
Bernadine Evaristo revealed the way she had to give up her old habits of ignoring any man she fancied, in order to build a relationship with the man she liked. The power of vulnerability led to a great relationship and marriage.
Dr. Que Mai Nguyen Phan said, “Along with vegetables, (her parents) fed mythology, songs, and literature to build me up, to teach me to dream.”
William Sitwell told a number of hilarious stories about his days as “a young scribbler” (journalist), incl. having to impersonate Dame Barbara Cartland in public and making the front page of the national newspaper in drag.

Kiwi filmmaker, Gaylene Preston, said when she was four she was a ‘terrible liar.’ One day she visited their neighbours, the Bones, from whose house came the smell of fresh pikelets. ‘”I told them, Simon is over.” Mrs. Bones said, “Simon from the radio? What does he look like?” I said, “He’s got freckles and red hair.” I wasn’t used to the attention. She told her husband, Jack, to come and listen. I embellished the story. I got two pikelets. I was thrilled. I’d found the power of the audience.”
And lastly, Anthony Joseph, the 2023 winner of the TS Eliot Prize, spoke of the power of love. “I tell my students, you have to love what you do. If you love it enough it’ll give up its secrets.”
We listened, learned, and laughed. It was so much fun and a great start to the weekend. Over the coming weeks, I’ll share more of the content of the writers’ festival and do my best to impart some of the flavor, though it has to be said, nothing beats being there.
Have you been to any conferences or festivals lately? What did you think?

Talk to you later.
Keep creating!
Yvette Carol

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“Everyone went to school and I was left with all these women doing housework. Of course, I had to make things up.” Gaylene Preston

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~ Another (true) Flood Story ~

I met Sal when she came into our lives to help with my son Samuel, who has Down syndrome and Autism. Three afternoons a week, I could rely on Sal’s support, and we grew to know one another well in the ten years she worked for us. Since then, Sal and I have stayed in contact, getting together a number of times a year to celebrate milestones, birthdays, and at Christmas, to exchange gifts and spend hours talking and catching up. An ex-nurse, who has dedicated her life after nursing to caring for people with special needs, Sal, is an Irish whirlwind.

A few weeks ago, I went to her place to have lunch and celebrate her 72nd birthday. Sal, said, “Have I got a story to tell you…” Of course, I sat forward in my chair.
And that’s when she told me her amazing flood story.
Sal was not supposed to work the night of the cyclone, Feb 28th. But, she had left some important papers at the house of Mary and Peter, her highly disabled clients, and dropped over after dinner to pick them up. After collecting her papers, Sal hurried to her car. She noticed the rain was falling more heavily, and there seemed to be a lot of surface water as she drove out of the street. However, she was not too worried.
Then she noticed police officers putting traffic cones across the T-junction ahead. The officers stopped her to say the road was closed due to flooding. She would have to go back and sit tight. Sal returned to Mary and Peter’s house, which along with four other units was set well below the level of the street in the lowest part of the neighbourhood. Though she was not worried about that. Not yet.
Sal splashed through the water around her ankles to get to the house. She went inside and explained to Mary and Peter that she was unable to leave the area until the threat of flooding had subsided. The trio listened to the radio to catch live weather updates. But, Sal also had one eye on the torrential downpour outside and the lake forming in the front yard.

The lake grew until it started seeping into the house. That was when Sal started to worry. Dirty, frigid water gradually filled her shoes and inched past her ankles. She immediately took her phone out and rang emergency services. “I’m with two highly disabled people, and the house is flooding. We need rescue.”
“Sorry, we are inundated with callouts. We don’t have enough ambulances. If you can get your clients out of the house try to get them to higher ground.”
Help was not coming. The water was rising rapidly. It was up to Sal’s knees. The fridge toppled over. The cabinet of crockery fell face forward with an enormous crash.
“Quick, the kitchen,” Sal said, thinking it was a couple of steps higher than the living room. She pushed Mary’s wheelchair up the ramp. The washing machine fell into the water next. (Later, they discovered that the power company had thankfully turned off all the power to the area when the flooding had started).
Sal quickly realized the water would soon overwhelm Mary in her wheelchair and Peter seated on his walker.
Despite having arthritis and a bad shoulder, Sal lifted Mary out of her wheelchair and laid her on the kitchen counter. The water was already creeping up the cabinets. Mary, a tetraplegic nearly slid off the counter, so Sal flung open a window and stretched Mary’s hand to the window, saying, “Grip onto this ledge and don’t let go.”

Sal rang her son. She told him to take his phone to the neighbour’s house and for both of them to ring emergency services until someone agreed to rescue them. She said, “I will have to use my other hand to hold Peter, so I won’t be able to make any more calls. Please keep ringing until you get a response.”
Next, Sal pulled Peter from his walker and pushed him into the corner of the kitchen, propping him upright by standing in front of him with one hand against his chest. With the water level rising steadily, Sal, said to the otherwise empty kitchen, “You ancestors and guardian angels, anyone in spirit, I’m calling in all my favours. We need help. Now.”
“I’M COLD!” said Peter, over and over.
“I know. Hold on,” said Sal. The water reached her chest. She started to scream “HELP! HELP US! PLEASE HELP!”
The water kept rising. Sal steadied Peter with one hand and held her good arm high keeping her phone dry, screaming over and over, “HELP! HELP!”
As the water reached her chin, the nose of a surfboard floated through the kitchen window. She could hardly believe her eyes.
“Don’t worry. I’m here!” said Douglas, the son of her neighbour. He had responded to his mother’s call that Sal was in trouble by racing down there in his van, talking his way through police cordons, borrowing a surfboard from the neighbour’s on the dry side of the street, and paddling out onto the sea of rising water, following the sound of her screams to locate her.
Sal couldn’t get any words out. She couldn’t move.
“It’s okay, don’t worry,” said Douglas, “we’ll get you all out of here.”
Out of the water in front of her, two black heads appeared. Police divers. They had responded to Sal’s son and the neighbour’s phone calls.

“Here, love, it’s all right. We’ve got you.” They removed the phone from her stiff hand and grabbed hold of Peter. “You can let go of him now.”
“I can’t,” she gasped, “move.” Her hand had frozen in place. She could not physically let go of her charge.
The policeman prised her fingers open gently one by one. Then he took Peter. The second diver rescued Mary. More divers arrived, borrowing the surfboard from Douglas, and asked Sal if she could climb on.
Sal could not move an inch. The policeman had to hoist her up with one hand under her derriere (there was no time for embarrassment) and with another diver on the other side to help hold her in place, they floated her out of the house on the surfboard back to the road and dry land. The waiting crowd of neighbours, and emergency services clapped and cheered.
“You’re a hero, you know,” said the policeman who assisted Sal to the ambulance, where a medic checked her condition. “If it hadn’t been for you and your actions, your clients would be dead now.”
“I did what anyone in my position would have done,” Sal said. Even though she was bruised all over, saturated, and on the point of hypothermia, she would not go home until Peter and Mary had left in the ambulance. Unhurt aside from the full-body bruising, Sal said the state of shock, however, impacted her greatly, lingering for a month after that fateful night of Feb 28.
What a story. The way I understand it, family and friends have been praising this admirable woman. To her, there was no heroism involved. No, seriously, Sal. It’s reassuring to know there are people like her out there in the world who still can be counted on to put other people’s welfare before their own. You know, heroes.
I feel proud and privileged to call her my friend.
What about you? Have you ever known a real hero?

Keep Writing!
Yvette Carol
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(*Names have been changed to protect their identity)

The world is changed by your example and not your opinion. ~ Paulo Coelho

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~ The Love App Launch ~

The launch of the Love App was a great success. In a previous post, The Love App, I shared the concept behind it. An initiative started by doctors, the baton was taken up by Dr. Mary Thomas, who spearheaded the project to make it a reality. “It’s just about getting people connected,” Dr. Mary explained. “In the middle of all this chaos, we are looking for love. We need to bring the world together. We want people to send virtual messages of support and virtual flowers to uplift others.”
l was so taken by the whole idea that I jumped to become involved when Dr. Mary invited me and a full panel of speakers from all over the world to speak about love at the launch. Quoting myself, “I was struck by the feeling this initiative can do a power of good in the world, and I wanted to be part of it.”

On November 11, 2 p.m. my time, we came together for three hours online and held our mini-summit where we talked and conjugated on all the many aspects of love. I was the second speaker and I am so glad to have spoken early on because my nerves were off the Richter. Naively, I had imagined that being a Toastmaster for eight years, the days of panicking were over. Oh, no. Apparently, it is still possible after 8 years of practicing public speaking, to experience out-and-out terror. It turns out that speaking in front of your club and speaking in front of a worldwide online audience for a live launch are two very different animals. Nevertheless, my Toastmasters training kicked in. I knew to keep breathing deeply and I managed to produce the words, like surfing a giant wave and managing to stay on the crest. An hour after the launch party finished, I was still zinging, still shaking. I had given my first international speech outside of Toastmasters. I had said what I wanted to say. Whew. I was happy with that.

Dr. Mary also invited me to participate in a monthly series of conversations over the next year called The Writer’s Bureau. We started with a panel discussion on Nov 22nd when Mary asked us about “The Love of Writing.” It was a hoot. The next session of the Writer’s Bureau will happen Dec 12, when we will continue to share more about the subject of writing fiction. All the interviews will be live-streamed on Facebook and available on YouTube.
And now, I get to be involved with this initiative going forward. Dr. Mary said, “The Love community is in service to show care for the betterment of humanity.” It reminds me of my grandmother, who used to say, “Give away a smile, it’s free” – even something as simple as smiling at someone can be a spirit lifter for that person. Yesterday, I paid for the person ahead of me in the queue at a shop and that felt great too. I love the thought of raising someone else’s spirits each day. That’s a good goal.
Why not download the free app and join The Love App Community!

Talk to you later.
Keep creating!
Yvette Carol
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“When we feel love and kindness towards others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it also helps us to develop inner happiness and peace.” — H.H. 14th Dalai Lama

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~ The Love App ~

In March of this year, I gave a speech at my Toastmasters club titled Nature vs Nurture. A short time later, I turned the essence of that speech into a blog post titled Spreading the Love. A Toastmaster somewhere in the world read this blog post and told Dr. Mary Thomas, who was in the process of developing the Love App. A couple of months ago, Mary contacted me, and we started chatting back and forth about her concept. I was struck by the feeling this initiative can do a power of good in the world, and I want to be part of it.

The thing is most people seem to feel concerned that the world is going down in a blaze of flames and that there is no hope for the future of humanity. Some people respond by getting negative, while others take the initiative and do something about it. Mary is a person who wants to do something about it and “bring the world together”. I admire that about her. Mary works as a volunteer doctor in the Philippines. Her friend, who is also a doctor yet wants to stay anonymous, was the initiator of the Love App. Then Mary took up the baton and said, “This is too small. We need to make it bigger.” She started developing the idea to create a 10-million-strong global community of people, whose vision is to spread love, care, compassion, and kindness. The mission statement says, ‘created by doctors who know that love is the best medicine that can bring about positive change, one person at a time.’

I spoke with Mary via zoom today. She said, “We never thought it would get this big. It started with a simple idea to send messages of love to people around the world, like the Hello App. And now, it’s going to be available in 160 countries.”
Mary has invited me to participate in the launch. I am honoured to be joining a panel of speakers from around the world for the online event happening tomorrow! Although the zoom room will be limited to guests of the speakers, the live event will be recorded and shared on nine different platforms and immediately available for all to share.

“It’s just about getting people connected,” Mary explained. “In the middle of all this chaos, we are looking for love. We need to bring the world together. We want people to send virtual messages of support and virtual flowers to uplift others.”
It’s about spreading compassion, paying it forward, and doing something positive. Now, that’s something I can get behind. I’m thrilled Mary tracked me down and invited me to be part of this project – The Love community is in service to show care for the betterment of humanity. Yeah, baby! Now, we’re talking. It makes me feel warm inside to know that there are people actively fostering goodwill, and I am proud to be part of this inspiring project. Check it out. We go live tomorrow.
Why not download the free app and join our Love Community!

Talk to you later.
Keep creating!
Yvette Carol
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Life is very simple. What I give out comes back to me. Today, I choose to give love. ~ Louise Hay

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~ SPREADING THE LOVE ~

In Toastmasters last week, during the spontaneous speaking segment of the meeting called Table Topics, I was asked this question, “How has your life changed in the last two years?” I replied, “There has been a lot more stress. Even after doing meditation and yoga each day, there is still stress. But, the greatest change has been the divisions that have taken place between my family and friends.” Apart from the impacts of illness, death, and chaos around us, the pandemic has also divided communities and families. People have become polarised over powerful feelings one way or the other. There is a lot of rhetoric on both sides. My own family has broken into two camps. Some people aren’t talking to others and are not seeing those on the other side of the fence. My friend group has suffered the same fate. As the classic middle child peacekeeper, I navigate my way down the middle, passing messages between the camps. It appears that stress has altered the normal levels of tolerance friends and family would extend to one another. Instead, people are quick to attack and denounce others as wrong. It’s sad.

Whenever I’m in doubt, I retreat to one of the most important lessons I’ve learned so far in 57 years of life on this planet. I’ve shared this message before, and anyone who has known me the last nine years I’ve been active on social media will have heard it already. Be prepared. I will share it again in the future. It is too valuable to keep to myself.
Let me tell you the story.
About thirty years ago, I was a recruit to Amway. I didn’t last long in the business, but, in the beginning, I was new and shiny-eyed, ever curious to learn more. If you are unfamiliar with Amway, it works on a tier system. As you gain more people in your business (or “down lines”), you earn more money, and by the time you reach “Diamond” level, you earn decent returns and have many down lines all looking up to you as their leader.

Our Diamond leaders were an intelligent, good-looking, older couple. They were articulate and kind. For the sake of anonymity, we’ll call them Bob and Sue. I would assume a lot of the teaching and lectures in Amway would take place online these days, but in those days, the meetings happened in person. So we would rock along to school auditoriums and church halls one night a week to hear the various Diamonds and above give talks about building the business.
On Tuesday night, I attended a meeting where my Diamond leaders were speaking. Sue, especially, was glamorous and impeccably dressed, one of those people who has star quality oozing out of her pores. She never goes unnoticed, heads turn. She and I had never spoken in person. I was a mere underling, a newbie so far down the line I had not even signed up a single business prospect. I was starstruck to be in the same room.
The meeting was inspirational, as always. When it finished, I filed out along with everyone else, and somehow, I ended up walking alongside Sue. To my amazement, she started talking to me.

We established I was one of her downlines. We wandered slowly out to the car park. Sue was in full swing, talking about the benefits of the business and the usual speel. Then we faced one another to say our goodbyes. Sue grabbed my hand, and she said, “You know what, honey, if you forget everything else I have told you tonight, it’s fine. There is only one thing I want you to take away. There is one rule I try to follow every day. It’s more important than everything else, even the business.”
I nodded. My focus was on her 100%.
“Whether in your business or in your life, there is only one thing you need to do every day, and that is to SPREAD THE LOVE.”

Even then, I could feel the tingle, the reverberation of those words. The moment and the message were profound. They engraved into my memory. I took the message away with me that night, and it completely changed my outlook. I’ve never forgotten it, and I have endeavoured to apply the wisdom in the years since. Whenever in doubt about any situation, big or small, I remember Sue’s advice. Spread the love.
Within the current climate of disintegration, I remember that life lesson again. Have hurtful things been said to me by family and friends? Yes. Have hurtful things been done to me? Yes. Has misunderstanding run rife? Yes. But do I respond in kind? No. Do I stand in my corner pointing fingers, telling others what they should think or how they should behave? No. Do I belittle and demean others for their choices? No. I come back again and again to that shining woman in that dimly-lit car park, throwing the business narrative out the window to impart the most valuable truth in her life.

I think, how can I SPREAD THE LOVE?

Talk to you later.
Keep creating!
Yvette Carol
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“Our task must be to free ourselves… by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.” ~ Albert Einstein

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~ HOW TO MAKE MY MUCH-LOVED FRITTATA ~

It’s Christmas Eve tomorrow. If your festive season is anything like mine, you will have been invited here, there, and everywhere. Each time, people asked you to bring “a plate” (or food to share). Last weekend, I joined a group of my oldest friends for our usual Christmas get-together. Normally, we meet at restaurants for long, boozy dinners which are an absolute hoot.

But, this year, with the lockdowns and current restrictions on movement, we opted to meet for a late lunch at one of my girlfriend’s houses. She asked us to bring a plate. My go-to, and I mean nearly every time, is to make a frittata. It is adequate for lunch or dinner. Having a recipe you know like the back of your hand is mighty useful, especially in the festive season when there are so many extra jobs to do and quite frankly, the brain is fried (pardon the pun). A frittata is delicious, too.
My tip: Everything tastes better home-grown and homemade.

Whenever I make this dish, people ask me for the recipe. I thought I would share it here as well. It is an easy and tasty meal for eight to ten, although you could halve it for a family of five. Left-overs will freeze and can reheat perfectly well at a later date. If reheated, I like to add a little sprinkle of fresh cheese on the top before baking it again.

Ingredients List for Frittata:
1 large potato, a large carrot, and kumara or sweet potato
2 decent-sized slices of bacon
1 red onion
I zucchini
6 large fresh mushrooms, sliced
12 eggs
1 small block (250g) of mild cheese, grated
Black olives pitted
Small oblong tomatoes, whole
Capers or any other yummy things you like

Here’s how to make your Frittata:
There are a few things to do in advance. It’s possible to prepare the first elements the night before without spoiling. You boil or steam the chopped-up root vegetables. I used potatoes, carrots, and kumara. Alternatives that work just as well are pumpkin, parsnip, and swede.
When you need to make the frittata, you start by frying up some short strips of bacon. I used two big strips and cut them up to pinkie-size. Then put them aside to dry on paper towels. The paper towels soak up the extra oil. Fry the mushrooms, the zucchini, and the onion separately. Let them cool on separate plates with absorbent paper towels.

Grease an oven-proof dish. I used a rectangular oven tray with tall sides. I think it tastes better if you can make a deeper frittata with more layers.
Now’s the fun part – building your layers!
Spread out the root veggies on the bottom of the dish. Set the bacon strips in between.

At this stage, sprinkle a layer of cheese – and season with generous salt and pepper—it makes a big difference to the taste. Next, set out the mushroom and onion mixture over the top of that. Add another layer of root vegetables and bacon.
Beat together the eggs. Season with salt and pepper. Then pour the egg mixture over the vegetables until you have covered the filling.
Dot in big black olives and small oblong tomatoes (like the Sunburst variety) and sprinkle a few capers on the top. Season with salt and pepper and cover in the grated cheese.

Bake at 150 degrees – slowly. I left it in the oven for about an hour or more. You know it’s done when the cheese has pleasant colour, and the mixture stays solid when you wobble the tray.
Bon appétit!
If you try this recipe, let me know what you think.

I wish you good eating, celebrations with loved ones, and joy. Happy holidays, everyone!

Talk to you later.
Keep creating!
Yvette Carol
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When you get up in the morning, you have two choices–either to be happy or to be unhappy. Just choose to be happy. ~ Norman Vincent Peale

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~ Te Po ~

Recently I went to see the award-winning play Te Po with my friends, and to say I felt blown away would be a giant understatement. I consider myself a total Luddite compared to my friends. Right from the start, when I met my girlfriends in high school, they invited me to do such cultured things as take grapes to the park and read poetry. They fascinated, enlightened, and challenged me in many ways. As adults, they have coerced me into going to art galleries, shows, and performances I would never attend on my own. I have been to one other play in my life, Stop the World, I Want to Get Off. I was twelve. I felt a twinge of resistance when my friends suggested we attend a play together. But that is why these ladies are so good for me because they force me out of my low-brow comfort zone.

We met early in the evening for minestrone and then made our way to our local events center. Te Po, they told me, was part of the centenary celebration of New Zealand playwright Bruce Mason’s birth. The performers would appear in a theatre named after the playwright, and it was only on for two nights. Like a pop-up store, it was a pop-up theatre. Blink, and you would miss it. Luckily, I let my friends twist my arm, and we attended this lightning in a jar. Te Po, written by Carl Bland, is a comedy, as told by a policeman, a blind man, and a priest, about missing playwright Bruce Mason. And it is laugh-out-loud funny. Though sometimes, we wept.
Te Po is Maori for The Great Darkness, a destination for the dead. It is a place where the dead can revisit their potential and attain knowledge. The elderly Maori character anchors the piece, sings the songs, speaking melodic Maori and English, as the wise man who knows all. He bridges the gap between the worlds and brings spiritual depth.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Te Po. Live theatre is an enlivening experience. Who knew? The combination of a great story, plus fascinating human beings in 3-D, with lights, music, and special effects, was immersive, transformative, and captivating. I felt drawn further and further into the world they created. The mystery deepened in the first acts, and strange things happened, like, the furniture shifted unaided across the stage, giving us a visceral sense of being unsettled. At times, they closed the curtains, plunging us into darkness and playing the sounds of a wild crashing storm. The stage was incredible, with a writer’s office with windows that opened and bookshelves and chairs that moved across the stage. Towards the story apex, the colors deepened to sepia tones, and the whole set began to slide backwards, making the scene appear to dwindle. The effects were well done. Special mention must go to the puppeteer, who created a believable seagull and a captivating giraffe head that took our breath away.

It was interesting to compare how the script for a play follows similar conventions to writing fiction. The writer asked a question then withheld the answer. There was foreshadowing going on and red herrings that became important later. There were expectations set up then dashed. Though somewhat truncated, the characters each had an arc. And the rules changed most refreshingly as the story went along until we finally caught up to speed with the surreal nature of the piece. By then, we had abandoned ourselves to the ride anyway and didn’t care anymore. In the end, when the priest finally gives his last sermon, as promised, it provoked belly laughter from start to finish. We laughed till we cried. It was glorious.
I walked out energized, excited, and with a slightly altered view of the world (the whole intention of art). Now I understand why people around these parts have raved about this play. I am a convert to the wonders of live theatre. It is like a whole new world. Woohoo!

What about you, have you been to a live show lately?

Talk to you later.
Keep creating!
Yvette Carol
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Be at peace with where you’ve been and where you are. That’s how you win the battlefield of the mind. ~ Andrena Sawyer

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~ HOW TO MAKE MY LEGENDARY CHOCOLATE WALNUT COOKIES ~

The weekend before last, I hosted my girlfriends here for a garden tour and a picnic lunch. What I needed was a dessert that could do double duty as a delectable after lunch treat and a take home treat for my guests. Cookies, or “biscuits” as we call them down here in New Zealand, seemed the perfect answer.

Whenever the occasion calls for cookies, I always go to my favourite ever treat, my legendary chocolate walnut cookies. It’s a dreamy dessert I concocted years ago when I got sick of making plain vanilla biscuits. I’m a big fan of adding nuts to baking. When I first devised this recipe, which is basically a richer version of a chocolate chip, I used macadamia nuts to contrast with the brown of the chocolate. But in the interests of making them more affordable, I changed to walnuts with some pecans thrown in for a variety of taste and texture.

Ingredients List:

125 g butter

¾ cup Demerara sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence or extract

1 large egg

1 cup walnuts and pecans, roughly chopped

Kingsize block or 125 g dark chocolate, roughly chopped

2 cups organic white stone-ground unbleached flour

1 tsp baking powder (organic if you can get it)

Solid pinch of Himalayan salt

Here’s how to make your cookies:

Cream together butter and sugar until lighter and texture. Add egg beating well. Add a generous pinch of salt. Sift flour and baking together, mix into butter and sugar mixture. Add chocolate and nuts, mix to combine.

Form into small balls, setting them out on an oven tray. Flatten slightly with a fork.

Bake at 190 degrees Celsius for 12 minutes.

I made these cookies the day before the garden tour. Once they had cooled fully, I filled the cookie jar for our table at lunch. Then I packaged two to three cookies into each small cellophane bag. These I popped these into my plain brown paper bags.

I added a fresh sprig of bay leaves from our amazing bay leaf tree to each bag. And then I could send each guest home at the end of our lovely day together, with cookies and fresh bay leaves. Everybody loved it. People like a slight gesture and it makes them feel special. Mission accomplished.

Enjoy!

If you try them, let me know what you think…

Talk to you later.

Keep creating!

Yvette Carol

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I’ve got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom. ~ Thomas Carlyle

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~ JOINING THE FLOTILLA ~

The America’s Cup has been a fiercely contested yachting race since the schooner ‘America’ won a race around the Isle of Wight against the British boats in 1851. Shortly afterwards, the New York Yacht Club Commodore John Cox Stevens donated the hundred guinea cup to the New York Yacht Club, stating it was to be “a perpetual challenge cup for friendly competition between nations.” Friendly and not-so friendly competition has carried on ever since, with New Zealand winning the “oldest trophy in international sport” yesterday for the fourth time. No one has yet beaten America’s original record, however, of winning the trophy for 132 years straight, the longest winning streak in the history of sport.

When a friend invited us on their launch last weekend to join the flotilla watching a day of the America’s Cup racing, I jumped at the chance. What an unprecedented opportunity to get a front-row seat on Match Day 3. The challenger, Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli (ITA) would race against the defender: Emirates Team New Zealand (NZL).

On Saturday, another mutual friend collected me and my son, Samuel, from our house. We travelled to the marina in the city where we met everyone on the pier at one thirty in the afternoon. It was a happy gang of people, loaded down with beers, wine, food and swim gear who boarded the motor launch.

“Hold on,” said our esteemed captain, “once we get going, the water is seriously choppy out there because of the number of boats.”

He was not wrong. It amazed us to see thousands of boats on the harbour. As a result, we pitched about wildly. There was no point at which our boat levelled out. I was worried about Sam–he had to hold on to solid surfaces with two hands just to walk from one spot to another. I shouldn’t have worried. Sam took it all in stride. He donned his headphones and listened to the radio. He did some colouring in at one stage at the tiny table, and mostly he ate his way through the afternoon. The amiable ladies on board with us had brought cheeseboards, sushi, chips & dip, quiche and a fruit platter. They set it out on the table and kept encouraging Sam to eat more. So he did! Still, it kept him occupied.

“Look, there goes the Luna Rossa!” someone said. We glanced to our left. They restricted harbour traffic to five knots. So the lead boat towing the Italian yacht and the two police boats seemed to fly past us at lightning speed. Much farther to our right, Emirates Team New Zealand, was similarly being towed to Course Area A.

Our esteemed captain had a tough job navigating the teeming waters. Hundreds of boats flanked us or followed in our wake, while ahead lay two thick walls of boats stretched either side of the racecourse. Once we reached the sideline of Course A, we downed anchor and marvelled to see every imaginable water vehicle, from the floating palace with an H on the side, to three people astride a jet ski, to Little Toot, the tiniest tugboat you ever saw.

The luxury launches dotted everywhere sported beautiful young women sunbathing in bikinis on deck between swims. Young men jumped off the top decks, showing off, and meanwhile, more boats arrived, every minute jostling for space.

Two enormous launches crammed full of people did an impressive job of threading their way through the already crowded flotilla to reach their privileged spot at the front.

There was a shout, and we raced out of the cabin in time to see the NZ Air force fly overhead in formation. It was exciting. At that stage, at the start of the day, the Match had tied 2-2. We were all eager to see what would happen next, knowing if the Italians won too many of the races it would make it harder for us to win the cup.

Race 5 began at 4:15pm. We stood on the seat to look from the open sunroof as Luna Rossa won the race. The flotilla was silent. Race 6 began with all of us hanging off the bows and sterns, delighted when Emirates Team New Zealand won Race 6! The crowds aboard the surrounding flotilla waved NZ flags above their heads, jumping up and down and whooping. The volley of boat horns was deafening. This left the Match tied at 3-3. A glorious end to a glorious day, as my dad used to say. How lucky were we!

To see Emirates Team New Zealand win the 36th America’s Cup yesterday was the icing on the cake. Wonderful! Well done to them, and to the Luna Rossa team, who were gracious in defeat. Did you watch the race?

Talk to you later.

Keep creating!

Yvette Carol

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Looking forward to what you desire is the key to renewed hope. ~Simone Butler

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~ IWSG: BLOGGING BUDDIES ~

It’s time for another group posting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group! Time to release our fears to the world or offer encouragement to those who are feeling neurotic. If you’d like to join us, click on the tab above and sign up. We post the first Wednesday of every month. Every month, the organisers announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG Day post. Remember, the question is optional!!! Let’s rock the neurotic writing world! Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG.

February 3 question – Blogging is often more than just sharing stories. It’s often the start of special friendships and relationships. Have you made any friends through the blogosphere?

I have! Before I started out on social media about 8 years ago, I expected people to be hostile and for other writers to treat me like the competition. I feared I would shout into the silence and hear my echo, but it’s been the absolute opposite experience. I have found the online writing community to be warm and welcoming. It’s been wonderful. Of course there has been the occasional troll and the occasional pain in the a.. e, but you get that in actual life too. It’s not exclusive to social media.

I’ve mostly met incredible, inspiring and supportive folks.

When I first started out, I was following the advice I’d read in a book by social media guru Kristen Lamb. She had launched an online support group called WANA (We Are Not Alone), which I joined straight away. I set up a group called Writing For Children. The fab group of writers I met were there at the very start. I attribute to them nearly every step forward. At their advice, I branched out into many platforms; I set up my website, had a professional author photo taken, joined critique groups, and had the courage to instigate my email list and to release a monthly newsletter.

Best of all, I established a firm foundation of friends with whom to navigate the world of online writers, and to bounce ideas off along the way.

Some friends I met doing online writing courses and they’ve become my most faithful pen pals.

Some friends I made because we were always commenting on the same blogs and followed the same authors. Those beautiful souls invited me to like their pages in other places. We ended up becoming friends on Facebook and keeping up a steady banter and the usual well wishes at birthdays and in the holidays throughout the years. One cool gal I met through commenting on the same blog posts was a blogging queen. She ran three at once for her different styles of fiction.

She said, “I just love the discipline of sitting down each week and writing new posts.”

It was 2014. Though I knew Kristen Lamb and my friends in KiwiWrite4Kids strongly advised to write a regular blog as a tool for writers to reach readers and to practice their writing in a different format, I was too nervous to do so at first. I felt terrified of the idea of having to come up with something new to say every week. (Seriously, when do I run out of things to say?) I didn’t want to commit to readers and then be responsible to providing material for them. (Seriously, when was that not part of being a writer?) I feared falling flat on my face and no one liking or responding to anything I said. (Seriously, when was that not part of being a writer?)

But my dear friend from Writing for Children, Robyn Campbell, said to me, ‘If you write posts regularly, the people will come.’

And come they did. I started my blog. Week by week a few likes and comments trickled in. I didn’t fall flat as I’d feared. People literally replied to me and were really nice. Then a pal from Writing For Children, suggested I join IWSG, as she was a nervous blogger and had found succour there. So I joined. The joy of putting out a blog post each month and having a regular handful of people like it and comment was great. The joy of popping around a bevy of other bloggers and reciprocating was so fun it was infectious. I’ve met cool people, joined more groups and made more friends. What’s not to love?

Have you made friends through blogging?

Keep Writing!

Yvette Carol

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Reach out to other writers, encourage one another, and come up with some new strategies. ~  Alex J. Cavanaugh,

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