#200 and beyond...

It's hard to write this. How do I explain how much we have been looking forward to our 200th issue? We began planning it at the end of last year and we were so excited at the prospect of bringing you this glorious celebration of all of the excellent eating, drinking, learning and laughing that we have shared with you since 1986.

   About three weeks before our scheduled print date we were madly reorganising our travel stories to fit the pending travel restrictions and holding our breath to see if or when restaurants would close and whether we could run our much-anticipated restaurant reviews. Just ten days before lockdown we were judging the finalists of our Pāmu Deer Milk Ice-Cream Competition and becoming acutely aware that social distancing was about to become the norm. We had already activated our working from home plan for team Cuisine and spent a great deal of that week supporting our hospitality industry across digital platforms as they desperately tried to retain some income by developing take-out menus and home-delivery plans. Then all of a sudden we were at level 3 and given 48 hours notice before complete lockdown. At that time we were given every reason to think that we would still go to print as normal and we powered on, tweaking our content wherever possible to bring it into line with the realities of living in a very necessary lockdown. We watched in amazement as supermarkets ran out of flour and instant yeast and New Zealanders discovered the joys of making their own sourdough starters and sharing recipes for using up all of the tinned and packet staples that they had stocked up on in case they ran out of food. We worried endlessly that our beautiful 200th edition of Cuisine would not be relevant by the time we went to print. If we went to print.

And FINALLY, we did...

   As it turns out, now is the perfect time for you to be returning to cooking for pure pleasure rather than just for survival. If you are reading this magazine, you understand that good food is essential and that there has never been a more important time to support our local growers and artisan producers. New Zealand’s future was looking so bright because of these innovative professionals; we need them to still be there when we come out on the other side of this and work out what our new normal will be. So, we want you to snuggle up in your favourite spot and explore the pages of our 200th edition with the same passion with which we have produced them for you. Make the most of more time at home to whip up Emma Galloway’s luscious preserves, celebrate your pantry staples Cuisine-style with Will Bowman and Jane Lyons, experiment with the glorious harvest recipes that Ginny Grant has created for you and plan your first celebratory dinner with friends outside of your bubble with help from Fiona Smith. I know you will love the tips from Jamie Robert Johnston over at Everybody Eats as he creates meals that use up absolutely every part of the vegetable, and from Josh Niland who gives us a fresh approach to using up the whole fish. You might also be intrigued by the cook-off between Grant Allen and Giada Grilli, an interesting look at two completely different takes on some classic New Zealand favourites. I know you will devour the Cuisine artisan award-winning salted caramel cookie recipe from Leeds ST Bakery in Wellington. It's a keeper.

   Lockdown or no lockdown, the food and drink we consume continues to need our attention with regards to the use of plastic in packaging: be sure to read two very different perspectives by Micheal Hooper and Samuel Scott. Most of all we hope you will celebrate this important issue of Cuisine with us and know that we have no intention of throwing in the towel. We intend to be here to shout from the rooftops when our restaurants, bars, hotels and cafés are open again and we hope you will also do everything you can to support your favourite local establishments. When you order a take-out or home delivery make sure you use their preferred method of delivery to ensure that they are receiving a fair percentage of profit and when they do open again for dining in, understand that they need to charge sustainable prices to be able to keep their doors open. As for us, we intend to continue to share the stories of our people and our food with you for a long time to come, and with your continued support we can. I'm incredibly proud of the writers, photographers, recipe developers, food writers, copy editors, prop stylists, illustrators, graphic designers that work with us on Cuisine. I work very hard at making sure that we enable a wide variety of talent - all at very different stages of their careers - to contribute to our beautiful digital and printed content. In view of changing times, it is more important than ever that you recognise the skills and talents of this terrific group of professionals and help them to continue to evolve and grow while sharing our New Zealand food and drink stories with you.

Kel

PS. Our New Zealand subscribers should start receiving copies in their letterboxes from Wednesday 6 May and supermarkets will be fully stocked from Monday 11 May. We know that’s still a few weeks away so we are offering an early release of issue #200 in the form of a digital edition, this will be free of charge to our print subscribers and was also offered free of charge to our newsletter subscribers. We hope this keeps everyone inspired and well-fed with some fresh new stories to read, while they wait for our printed version to become available.

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