The grimmer things get, the more I enjoy cooking

That's how it goes

Things I have learned this week and this year:

Number One.

The unbelievably godawful weather that began in Tāmaki Makaurau on January 2 and has not yet relented, ie: dire, wet, gloomy and intermittently ruinous, almost like something might be happening to the climate, has left us without Jacaranda flowers.

It sits in our neighbours’ garden, beneath one, th…