I hesitated about writing this post, because not long after Nish and I held this dinner party in Christchurch, the earthquake happened. The morning I awoke to news of the quake striking the lovely city I’d been in only days before, was not a calm morning until I ascertained that just about everyone there was alive. Shaken, but alive.
It was very surreal viewing the photos, watching it flash on the news, reminding myself that this was happening in my country… in my previous line of work I dealt with disasters etc so much, that sometimes I thought I was becoming numb to all of this – and that my heart had turned to stone, because I no longer always reacted with emotion. Sometimes my mind willed it all to disappear, or to let it wash over.
Except, really, you can’t just push it away entirely.
You can’t pretend that people aren’t suffering, because they are, and you can’t pretend disasters aren’t striking – all over the world – more than you realise – because they are.
The only thing you have the freedom to determine is the way you live your life, and the way in which you respond to things beyond control, and the way in which you love, I guess – and I don’t mean in a cheesy way!
Which is where I am coming from as I write this post. Yes, the quake left devastating effects. But the night we had this dinner party, we were focused on feeding friends, eating together and enjoying life for what it was – and now, post-quake, there lies something undeniably horrible, without a doubt! – but a chance to build something better too, hereon.
Here’s one thing we can do… donate to Christchurch earthquake relief efforts here:
Nish and I had fun preparing all the food (well, I did anyway, since most of the work was done by Nish, hehe!) and we were waaaayyy exhausted by the end of the night… but it went well, and we had leftovers a’plenty to last us all of the next day!
Our menu in short:
- Garlic prawn & vegetable skewers
Green salad with Thai dressing (not photographed)
Portobello mushrooms with garlic & red wine vinegar
Potatoes with creamed spinach
Pumpkin with cinnamon and brown sugar (not photographed)
Chocolate tart with gingersnap crust
Sticky date pudding
treehousekitchen 
That chocolate tart looks just incredible!
Agree with you about the earthquake – we were so lucky up here that it wasn’t bigger.
The earthquake has certainly shaken us and many of our friends even though we weren’t there – Harvey grew up near Christchurch and has family all around – so we understood this post, Mel, and thank you for it.