So Eureka, New Zealand. My hometown, where I spent 17 of my years growing up into the person I am today. I couldn't have asked my parents for a better upbringing. It was truly incredible. Something that is forever close to my heart.
That is my hometown outlined in red. 90% of that was farms and 10% was community. We were about a 30 minute drive from the local city Hamilton.
The history says that why Eureka is called what it is. Because William Steele rode out with a group looking for a suitable headquarters, and reaching the hilltop announced 'Eureka I have found it'
I tried looking up online what the population is for Eureka, but it gave me no statistics. I would say 1000. It's not big and most of the area is diary farmers, so in that case more sheep then people.
This is my home. a 100 year old villa, that I absolutely loved, forever and always. Known to us as 'Te Koraha'
It was the name of a street in Auckland that my parents lived on in another villa. It means Relaxing.
73 Friedlander Road R.D.7 Eureka
That was our super long driveway, 0.5km we used to walk up everyday after school.
So welcome to Eureka, and welcome to this blog entry where you can see what it's like to grow up in New Zealand.
So there is a couple of landscapes of the farm that I was so privileged to live on. The rolling hills, acer after acer, flourishing fruit in its season and blooming flowers. It was paradise.
This is a 4 bedroom villa, upon entering the open plan kitchen/ living area you are drawn to the view. Two living areas, three bathrooms, study and a teenage wing. It was a big house. Not to mention the two chimneys which just made the winters that much more conformable and cosy.
I don't know where to begin, but since this is a food dedicated website. Seems right to start off with the food right?
Fresh Grapefruit
Fresh Tomatoes
Fresh Corn
Fresh Eggs
Fresh mandarines
Fresh Fejioas
Fresh grapes.
That is only a few listed of what we did produce in fruit and veggies, to be honest the only ones I had photos of.
We had for fruit,
Mandarine Trees
Grapefruit Trees
Plum Trees
Louise Plum Trees
Peach Trees
Nectarine Trees
Fejioa Trees
Apple Trees
Pear Trees
Guava Trees
Fig Trees
Grape Vines
Raspberry Vine
Blackberry Vine
Boysenberry Vine
Strawberry patch
Lime Trees
Lemon Trees
Passionfruit Vine
Tamarillo Tree
Wow a lot, I know and hence why still to this day, I eat a lot of fruit.
It all tasted so fresh and so sweet and so earthy I miss that taste more and more as the days go on. Our orchard was also where our chickens could run around too, we had to be careful though, that the chickens didn't get too wild and start laying their eggs outside the house. This encourages rats and bad habits of the chickens. And we don't get our freshly laid eggs for baking.
Some traditions we had as a family I still hold close to my heart and find myself doing several years later.
Stewed apple (Cooking apples, water, sugar stewed down to a puree)
-Good with muesli, pork schnitzel, or warmed up by itself.
Canned Pears (Canning jars, pears and simple syrup reduced with water)
-Perfect fruit to put on top of some hot muesli with brown sugar
Canned Plums (Canned plums,
Canned Peaches (Canned Peaches,
Dehydrated Tomatoes (Cut up tomatoes, place in dehydrator for 12-24 hours)
-Add olive oil, fresh herbs, salt and pepper to make your own sun-dried tomatoes.
Fejioa Apple Roll Ups (Puree feijoa puree with stewed apple)
-Spread on dehydrator roll up maps, dehydrate 20 hours.
So yes we were a very healthy family, but I loved it because when good habits are put in at a young age, they stay.
Fresh eggs aren't good for hard boiling so a trick my mum taught me was put one egg in a bowl of water, if it floats its fresh. If it doesn't it's not fresh.
Now onto the vege garden,
We produced,
Lettuce
Silverbeet
Tomatoes
Carrots
Cucumbers
Mint
Parsley
Rhubarb
Snow Peas
Beans
Corn
Here is mum and dad organising the vege garden. They did this every season, when we would put in different veggies for the different season.
I remember as a little girl, when it was summer I would run out to the veggie garden and pick the veggies we needed for dinner. It was probably the most satisfying thing now I look back on it, to have picked your veggies ten minutes before eating them with no chemicals or sprays.
Consulting the farmer for what my next project was. I always looked up to my Dad, and wanted to be just like him. I have fond memories of garnering with him. Planting strawberry plants with him, building trellis for my berries and watering the veggie garden. There was always a time of the year where my Dad would prune down the hydrangea bush, I would always help Dad with this project and I remember always getting sticky weed stuck to my jumpers and never really being any help for my Dad but company I guess.
A little bit older and I was a bit more help for my Dad.
My dad always dreamed to be a farmer, he grew up in Dargaville (a small town at the top of New Zealand) and I still can't remember the reason he didn't. We had about 20 sheep and 20 lambs. I have fond memories of Dad herding all the kids out from the house to go move the sheep to another paddock. Dad would always be yelling at us and throwing a fit because the sheep weren't listening. One of the kids would throw in the toys and the sheep would all be running freely. Dad soon learnt he had to keep his mouth shut when we were herding the sheep and everyone do their job.
He is tailing the lambs tails here,(puts a rubber band around the tail to cut circulation) so the tails drop off and prevent diseases for the lambs.
There would always come a time when we would send the lambs off to the works, to get killed. I hated this day, always.
We did grow up having a lamb roast every Saturday night with lovely roasted vegetables.
A tradition in rural towns is to have pet lambs because at least one mother will neglect her baby or twins. So to help them survive we would raise them ourselves and bottle feed them.
Most primary schools had a day called Agriculture day. Whenever I explain this to foreigners they find it very amusing. We would train our lambs, put collars on them and teach them to lead, do obstacle courses and to run to us when their name is being called.
There are three sections in AG day,
Most obvious pet (calling your animal)
Leading (Leading your animal)
Obstacle Course (Leading the animal over obstacles, tree stumps ect)
Rearing (Knowing your animals breed, diseases it can get ect)
Everyone in our family did this, but I think I was the one who took too it the most. I loved every single lamb I had each year.
You can enter, goats (kids), sheep (lambs), cows (calves)
Here I wan first at a regional agriculture day, they asked my Mum to present the award. You then win a ribbon and go onto a championship round. I wan that too.
Honey (one of my lambs) was a beauty! She wan me two trophies and wan in every section.
You have judges with clipboards and white jackets. Then you lead your animal around a pen.
Sorry about the blurry photos, when I was younger I clearly didn't know how to stabilise the camera. This was our firewood shed. It was huge and kept the wood dry so it could burn easily for our fireplaces. This was one of the chores for the kids, to grab the wheelbarrow as the evening sets in and load the barrow with some firewood for the night. Then wheel it back to the house.
Firewood can be pricy in NZ. Most houses are old and have fireplaces as their main heat source. Dad was smart and would plant big Redwood Trees on the farm, a handful each year. So that when he cut down 8 trees, he would have some for next year. Then we chainsaw the tree logs up into smaller cylinders. Place the wood on the splitter and split into smaller pieces of wood.
I remember this would be a long weekend job, where all the boys had to help out and Dad would give them some pocket money. Sometimes the boys would invite their friends to come help too, because it was pretty physically demanding.
I would help by preparing fresh fruit danishes and coffee for smoko. The danishes would always go down a treat. I would be up before all the boys in the morning making the dough. So at 10am they are just coming out of the oven and being glazed.
Lunch would be fresh bread rolls, I made by hand. With a selection of fresh veggies, cheese, salami and dressings.
The hard workers enjoying the break and the gorgeous food.
Dinners at Te Koraha.
Definitely in summer, it was bbqs. We loved sitting outside and having quick easy meals.
On the bbq can be marinated chicken, marinated salmon, steaks, hamburgers and sausages. Coming from a family of boys it was very meat orientated.
Dad taught me how to BBQ from a young age.
Oh can I just mention, all these colourful knitted jumpers you see me wearing. My mum was an absolute fabulous knitter, she used to knit us a new jumper every winter if we had outgrew our last one, or it was really tatty. The jumpers kept us super warm in the depths of a NZ winter.
Dad always taught me how to cook the burger patties or steaks. When you press down on them and they leak out a lot of red blood, keep cooking until the liquid is clear.
Even when it wasn't summer weather we tended to pull the bbq out for a healthy quick dinner. Takeaways was a never in our family. For a big family to go and get takeaways would easily cost $100. That is a lot of money. As opposed to feeding them nutritious food for $20, brown rice, vegetables and meat.
I think it'd good because now in my adult years, I rarely get takeaways because it doesn't taste great and I can see how much money I can save.
Coming into summer we used to shear the big wool coats the sheep had for winter to keep them warm. We would shear them in our yards.
Sheep wool isn't worth much in NZ though.
Another big family tradition was to play tennis. Everyone in our family played, and most of us still play now in our adulthood. We were so privileged to have a tennis court and basketball court. Dad was a really good tennis player (one of the best in NZ in his time) so he really pushed us to play hard.
I remember I always got angry when Dad would choose to play a game with the boys instead of me. Because I didn't challenge him enough. But overtime I hit the tennis court, I made sure it was in style, ruffle tops are red high socks. Dannng.
Always after a game of tennis, the family would all come out and sit on the deck and have drinks and nibbles. I had a business called Snakes Bar. I used to take everyone's order (off a menu I made) and bring them their snacks and drinks. Then everyone had a Sankas credit card I made for them out of cardboard, and they would pay for their drinks on my handmade cardboard box that was designed as an eftpos machine.
I think a big thing why I am so creative to this day, is when you live on a farm you don't have things to entertain you, you have to entertain yourself. You can't go shopping, go to the movies, go round to friends houses. ect.
I used to make campfires out of pieces of wood of a tree Dad has cut down. I used to make food for my soft toys our of leaves, flowers and fruit. I would feed the soft toys their dinner and play with them till the sun set.
I used to also make up fake post and put it in envelopes, then ride round my bike dropping off the mail to each person in the house.
I used to do gymnastics and dancing, filming cooking shows.
I get the question a lot when people see my blog, what made you get into baking?
And I remember as a little girl, sitting up on the kitchen counter even when I was 2-3 years old. Mixing muffin batter with my mum, I mainly licked the bowl then helped but I would always watch her.
My mum was a fantastic cook and baker and I think that was a big influence. I would turn up to school with the nicest lunches, homegrown fruit, homemade muffins, homemade bread on my sandwich.
I also have 3 older brothers who loved to eat when they were on the farm. And the satisfaction I would get when they eat my baking and enjoy it was the best gift in the world. I loved surprising them with new recipes, and them letting me know their favourite. The boys definitely helped influence my baking.
Also my Dad, what a fantastic cook he is too. Always on the roast lambs, xmas hams, eye fillet. He was our meat man. Dad could always pull together a pretty decent salad too. He also tried his share of beverages, ginger beer, fresh squeezed juice and smoothies.
I think my childhood was just filled with such wholesome food it became a lifestyle not a choice in my further life hood.
This is my best friends horse, she lived on a small farm too, she was a big fan of horses. She tried teaching me overtime I went over to hang out with her. I wasn't bad, but wasn't something my heart was set on so didn't further it.
Instead of lambs, they raised kids (baby goats) and she would take a kid to Agriculture Day every year like I would but with a lamb.
Our family dog, Ana. We used to name a lot of our animals after tennis players. Ana Ivanovic the Serbian tennis player.
Myself and my brother would pay this game poisonous ball. You couldn't let it fall off the tramp, but you couldn't touch it either. Hahah I always wan being smaller.
I went to two country schools at primary level. Newstead and Tauwhare. The schools were about 80 kids each and 3 classrooms. Here I am tearing away with the hockey ball, notice another one of my mums knitted jumpers.
Family is a big part of our family, being the youngest on both sides was hard because I always got picked on.
But my family should be very thankful I was into photography at such a young age and was always capturing times we were together. Now I look back at these as I write this blog post and these are priceless memories.
One thing we would like to do in summer is a waterslide. We didn't have a pool, so we had to drive to our local town Morinsville. But sometimes we liked to pitch up the waterslide. We got like Dad's gardening black tarpaulin and would lay it down the hill. Fill up recycled bottles with water to act as weights. Then we would use water and dishwashing liquid and slide front, back, sideways down the slide in the late afternoon.
Now onto another tradition for the Goulding's.
Dad would plant pine trees every year, so that we would always have the right sized and shape xmas tree for each year. Some years they were really big, touched the roof of the house.
Dragging the xmas tree back to the house, where we put it in a big pot of soil. Go mum.
Myself and mum would decorate the tree together, we had a huge chest full of decorations because Mum used to make decorations every year for the cousins. From little knitted stockings, to felt gingerbread men and felt puddings. She really was clever. It made decorating the tree a lot more fun with more selection.
This tree is literally sagging because it has so many decorations on it. Thats a good Xmas tree.
Now I don't think I have met another Dad who takes his craft so seriously of the xmas ham. God bless Dad for taking so much care with the xmas ham because it taste outstanding. He would marinate the ham at least 8 times over low heat throughout xmas day. Mm juicy.
Mum serving up the salads making sure we get our green intake on xmas. We used to have an asparagus farm next to our farm so we would always have asparagus on hand. Beetroot is good for the blood Mum would always say.
Another year, another ham, another happy man!
Xmas for us wasn't filled with presents, my parents didn't believe in buying so many presents for everyone. We used to do a secret santa between our immediate family and would have a different theme each year. Must be fair trade/ organic, must be handmade ect.
I mean as a little girl I hated this because I wanted presents and presents. But it has definitely taught me how to save my money and buy the things I want when I can afford them. I can look at my parents morals now as an adult and justify why they did what they did. But growing up as a girl, seeing all your friends get the newest barbies, or a polaroid camera and the newest clothes.
Family holidays. We didn't take many because we were a big family and it is expensive. But one iconic holiday we had every year was our beach holiday in the summer school holidays. We would go for 5 weeks and live at the beach, invite friends to come to our family beach, have cousins over, aunts and uncles and family friends. I always loved going to the beach because it was busy and lots of people around with plenty to do.
We holidayed at Pauanui beach, because that is where our Grandfather build the family batch and handed it down to my parents to share with his sisters and brothers.
This was my last family beach holiday, although it wasn't a family holiday anymore, all the cousins were working professionals, getting married and living their life. I began taking 3 friends on my holidays so I wouldn't get so lonely.
I didn't know at the time it would be my last beach holiday but as I look at this picture now it is making me quite homesick.
A typical dinner for the Goulding's, invite all the cousins around (who will be staying a couple houses down in another batch) Oh batch is a New Zealand slang for holiday home, I forget it's slang. We used to have bbqs everynight, sit out on the deck and enjoy each others company.
Before dinner, around 5-6pm we would all rally down to the beach and all jump in for a swim together.
Night activités would include competitive games of cards, go home stay home, toasting s'mores and playing spotlight in the local Kennedy Park. I always like spotlight because I was a little pocket rocket and I was small so I could hide anywhere and usually always came out on top.
The beautiful ocean. I remember Dad would take us out in the ocean and teach us to bodyboard. I remember him always take me far out the back to get the big ripper waves and ride them all the way into shore.
Our batch was tiny, it had 2 bedrooms with sets of bunk beds, a master bedroom and an open living area and kitchen. So most times we had about 3 pitched tents on the lawn, so when we brought along friends and family they had somewhere to sleep. It was great because there was always so many people around to do activities with.
In the evening we would all sit around the big table and talk over food and wine. It was the simple days like this that I really miss.
And now for some family beach photos throughout the years,
That was my childhood in a compressed blog entry. I could have made this a chronicle series, but I figured that isn't the main focus of this blog. Its to give you a detailed background story to maybe who I am today and what I am doing and why.
The upbringing I had I wouldn't trade for all the money in the world. It was truly magical. Thank you mum and dad.
Forever in my heart Te Koraha, Eureka <3
