Fancy lunch out :) It’s birthday month!

Greetings from sunny Hawke’s Bay!

Paul and I started our birthday month in style, with lunch at our favourite winery, Craggy Range in Havelock North.

It was a stunning day and so nice to dress up. I wore my pleather trousers from Blue Illusion, red Hogl shoes, and a gauzy mini-leopard blouse from Farmers. With my Prada bag of course. And Dior sunglasses circa 2003 from when I worked there. Happily the flat oval shape is back in style. Yay!

I had red nail polish and chose to not wear my sleeve and glove for the afternoon. Just took my puffy hand along a la naturelle :)

 

 

Craggy Range does a divine lunch menu throughout the winter months and we caught the tail end of it for our birthday. The lunch was my mum’s birthday gift to us :) The theme was ‘An Early Thanksgiving’.

 

 

 

They do gluten-free very well, and the homemade bread comes in a gluten-free version also, served with camembert butter and honey. The light sprinkle of salt on the butter is such a nice touch. I mean, you could go home quite content from the bread course alone, but Paul and I were troopers and stayed for the whole menu :)

 

 

 

Paul had the pork belly for his entree, and I had the gnocchi. There was so much richness and flavour packed into every bite. I don’t really eat pork products, just not a fan, but I would eat anything put in front of me here as long as it’s gluten-free, it is just that good. (The gnocchi sauce was pancetta flavoured, with tiny cubes of pancetta too. It tasted amazing even though I don’t eat pork haha.)

 

 

For our mains, Paul had the turkey and I chose the salmon. Paul enjoyed his turkey although I think he has enjoyed other Craggy Range lunch mains more, and my salmon was delish. I loved the bright vegetables accompanying it too.

We started off with a glass of Tattinger champagne each, and had a glass of Gimblett Gravels Chardonnay with our mains (it was like drinking a glass of butter, and I mean that in the best possible way, le sigh!)

 

 

 

And for pudding there were donuts, but you can see they are more like donut holes. The pumpkin cheesecake underneath tasted like buttercream it was so rich and good.

 

 

 

 

And because it was our birthday we got a little extra plate, it was an ice cream cake and we managed to polish that off too :) The chocolate Happy Birthday was melted dark chocolate, so good with the ice cream.

They asked us whose birthday it was when they brought the ice cream cake over, and we both said ‘Mine!’ since we have our birthday later in the month on the same day. Such fun.

 

 

It was just such a lovely lunch, and we went home with happy tummies.

 

 

Yay for a most excellent start to our birthday month!

I hope you had a great week last week too, no matter what you got up to.

x Fiona

 

PS. I’ve been writing! I know! I’m so excited for being back in the groove again. It’s been in-out-in-out this year for sure :D

I am working on a book that I’d already written almost half of pre-cancer-diagnosis and I am completing the remaining chapters. It’s a goodie and I can’t wait for you to read it.

In the meantime, browse my 28 other titles here to see if anything takes your fancy!

Or go to fionaferris.com to see all my links.

 

 

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