A Walk with Lunch

This past Thursday our walking group met here, at the Anchor, for our walk along Spanish Banks which form the southern foreshores of the Vancouver Inlet. After the long winter and a rather cold spring it was a beautiful warm day.

We enjoy this is the view across the harbour towards the North Shore mountains when we take this walk. Afterwards we were invited to lunch by one of the members of the group. We were very much looking forward to this as our friend is a very fine cook and in fact teaches at a local cooking school.

She lives in a townhouse with a small patio but manages to grow many of her own herbs to use in her cooking.

Well she does have some flowers too, lovely hydrangeas in containers.

Maybe real men don't eat quiche but they are surely missing something, especially my friend's quiche. It has the most amazing texture and she generously shared her secret with us.


It was accompanied by a simple salad and french bread.

Cheese and crackers followed along with grapes but the pièce de résistance
was the Pavlova Roll below

My friend is a New Zealander and of course both Australians and New Zealanders claim this dessert as their own creation. However the rolled version is slightly different in that the meringue is cooked for a shorter time, since it would be impossible to roll one which had been cooked to the crunchy stage. It is normally filled with whipped cream and fruit, whatever you like, but on this occasion raspberries were the deliciously tart fruit and hazelnuts had been sprinkled on the top to give some added crunch. Even though our servings were very generous we took slow small bites so as to savour every mouthful and make the delicious taste sensation last.

There is nothing better than a good walk on a wonderful day followed by a delicious lunch in the company of good friends.