pretty blooms, delectable fruit*

How beautiful is this early illustration of feijoa flowers from a 1941 Australian magazine. I am guessing a woodcut – but please let me know if it’s some other method (I find printmaking fascinating but am not familiar with all the techniques). I would love to see the original artwork, as it appears cropped on

growing feijoas from seedlings

There is plenty of debate around growing seedling plants vs a grafted named cultivar. I have thought also that you needed the latter in order to achieve great fruiting results, but Leon (who has a successful orchard in Sydney) explains that is not necessarily so. This information was originally written as a reply to a

Eat Well (formerly Bite)

Most Kiwis will know about this already but it’s worth a bookmark for anyone hunting for feijoa recipes: if you type “feijoa” into the search bar on the NZ Herald lifestyle/Eat Well website, you will be transported into another dimension. They just need a scratch and sniff function on the screen to make it perfect.

biggest feijoa in the world

For some lighthearted fun, I’m starting a hunt for the largest feijoa this coming season (an annual kind of season – as I would like both hemispheres to take part.) So far, 423g is the heaviest I have seen recorded (in New Zealand, of course – see below) so let’s see if feijoas can get

in absentia

Kia ora. I feel a little like I am intruding, peeking back in here again. But also, hi and hello – I hope you are doing OK. My sweet child sidled up to me recently with his iPad and said, Mum, I’m looking at your website and you haven’t done anything for a while. The

apple, feijoa & maple pie

Chelsea Winter is a popular food columnist in New Zealand’s Woman’s Day magazine. She recently appeared on TV1’s Good Morning show with this spiced maple-sweetened pie that has winter comfort written all over it. CHELSEA WINTER’S APPLE, FEIJOA & MAPLE PIE Serves 6Preparation 15 minutesCooking 35 minutes Ingredients 75g butter 1½ teaspoons cinnamon 1 teaspoon

feijoa, for a good cause

My sister-in-law and I have been giggling over this, so I have to share it: a Conjoined Feijoa (affectionately known as Farr-joa) up for auction on New Zealand’s buy and sell site, Trade Me. As I write, bidding is currently at $30 and the reserve has been met. I don’t have a name for the seller but this

feijoa, ginger & coconut loaf

New Zealand feijoas are in the shops here in Queensland but the price is simply too high for me to be cooking… they remain luscious and slightly guilty treats, because of the designer price tags. But I know a lot of you in New Zealand have what I dream of… which is bucket loads of feijoas. Here is

feijoa shortcake

These cool crisp autumn afternoons just beg for something fresh from the oven… I’ve pinned this recipe to the fridge as the first to make as soon as I can secure 10 large ripe feijoas (we have fresh feijoa monsters in this house). The recipe is credited to celebrated Kiwi chef Hester Guy and found

first taste

Feijoa season is never quite real until I have the fruit in one hand and a teaspoon in the other. That taste. There’s nothing like it. And the texture. And the memories. Twitter told me back in March that the feijoas had arrived early this year and I’ve been noting disgruntled friends in other cities commiserating about the