Party Food for Girls in Christchurch and the Sonny Bill Williams'cup

Party Food for Girls at Mercato, Christchurch Photos by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Yesterday we arrived in Christchurch and on the same afternoon we presented the book in a lovely shop called Mercato. The wonderful staff at Mercato had prepared some tasting from the book: Petit fours, grissini, vanilla sugar balls, choux pastries and puff pastry pizzette, and the children discovered the joys of chocolate bombs (blocks of chocolate to dissolve in your hot milk for a lovely hot chocolate). I was also lovely to meet Christchurch food blogger Zo of Two Spoons (in the bottom right pic, on the left).

Today we went to Plain FM for a couple of radio interviews, and tomorrow we will be at the Farmers Market in Ohoka in the morning, and then at the Children Bookshop in Chch in the afternoon (see details below).

My readers overseas may or may not know that there is the Rugby World Cup here in NZ at present, with the finals on this Sunday. I haven't talked about it on the blog, since I am far from being a rugby expert, but I went to see two live games (the firsts ever!) and I am learning the basic rules of the game. Yet, after all these weeks, I am still not able to recognize most of the All Blacks, and I get confused with their names and faces. In the plane to Christchurch my children tried to give me a 'crash course', and I asked my daughter which one is the one that all the girls like. Ah yes, Sonny Bill Williams! 

Air NZ served us coffee in All Black paper cups and I am not sure who was the player on my cup, but I thought that it would be a good memento to get my hands on Sonny, so I asked the stewardess if she had him. She told me that probably his cup was there at the back and that she would get me one.

After a while I saw her walking up and down, and then finally she came up to me and said, quite loudly:

"Ah, you are the one who wanted Sonny Bill Williams, sorry I didn't remember where you were sitting, I'll bring him to you right away!"

Of course everybody turned to look at me. I guess they were a bit deluded when all I got was a cup with his photo, but it is going to be a while before I'll ask for a rugby player again!