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At this time of year, the sun doesn’t reach our little studio until around 11am. That is if it does actually appear. The ghastly inversion ( Wānaka’s dark winter secret ), which drapes the landscape in its icy grey pall, usually arrives around this time of year.

From the top of the Crown range it can be a perfect bluebird day without a cloud in the sky. Down the valley it looks like the countryside is covered in a fluffy cottonwool blanket. As you descend under the blanket, a glacial grey cold envelopes you and everything around you in a biting damp chill.



Last year it lasted for a full month. No sun from dawn to dusk. There’s only one thing for it, and that’s to light the fire and get the stockpot on.

A big brew of soup or a hearty winter stew are about the only things that can dispel the cold and warm you up. Whenever I roast a chicken, I’ll freeze the leftover carcass, and then, when I have about 2 or 3 bags of bones, I make a big pot of chicken stock, adding in the green ends of leeks, organic carrot peelings, organic onion skins, a couple of bay leaves and a teaspoon of black peppercorns. I don’t any salt until I am ready to use it, as the stock boils for a couple of hours and reduces to a stock that jellies on cooling, so you can end up with a broth that’s way too salty.

Having a container of this rich, jellied stock in the fridge or freezer is the quickest way to a tasty noodle bowl, soothing risotto or flavoursome stew that I know of. Fish stock I’m .

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