New Zealand has two cities (Auckland in a tie with Vancouver for #3) and Wellington at #12 on Mercer Consultings’ World’s Best Places to Live.

Reposted from Yahoo! News

The World’s Best Places to Live 2009

No. 1: Vienna, Austria

Mercer score: 108.6*
2008 rank: 2
GDP: $325 billion (2008 est.)**
Population: 1,664,146 (total city); 8,210,281 (total country)
Life expectancy: 79.5

*The rankings are based on a point scoring index established by Mercer Consultings 2009 Quality of Living Survey, with Vienna scoring 108.6 and Baghdad scoring 14.4. Cities are compared with New York as the base city, with an index score of 100. The quality-of-living survey covers 215 cities and is conducted to help governments and major companies place employees on international assignments. The survey also identifies those cities with the highest personal safety ranking based on internal stability, crime, effectiveness of law enforcement, and relationships with other countries.

**The World Factbook.Gross domestic product is denominated in international dollars, which is based on Purchasing Power Parity.

No. 2: Zurich, Switzerland

Mercer score: 108
2008 rank: 1
GDP: 309.9 billion (2008 est.)
Population: 1,307,567 (total city); 7,604,467 (total country)

Life expectancy: 80.85

No. 3: Geneva, Switzerland

Mercer score: 107.9
2008 rank: 2
GDP: $309.9 billion (2008 est.)
Population: 438,177 (total city); 7,604,467 (total country)
Life expectancy: 80.85

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No. 4 (tie): Vancouver, Canada

Mercer score: 107.4
2008 rank: 4
GDP: $1.3 trillion (2008 est.)
Population: 2,285,900 (total city); 33,487,208 (total country)
Life expectancy: 81.2

No. 4 (tie): Auckland, New Zealand

Mercer score: 107.4
2008 rank: 5
GDP: $116.6 billion (2008 est.)
Population: 1,303,068 (total city); 4,213,418 (total country)
Life expectancy: 80.3

No. 6: Dusseldorf, Germany

Mercer score: 107.2
2008 rank: 6
GDP: $2.86 trillion (2008 est.)
Population: 581,858 (total city); 82,329,758 (total country)
Life expectancy: 79.2

No. 7: Munich, Germany

Mercer score: 107
2008 rank: 7
GDP: $2.86 trillion (2008 est.)
Population: 1,300,000 (total city); 82,329,758 (total country)
Life expectancy: 79.2

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No. 8: Frankfurt, Germany

Mercer score: 106.8
2008 rank: 7
GDP: $2.86 trillion (2008 est.)
Population: 662,000 (total city); 82,329,758 (total country)
Life expectancy: 79.2

No. 9: Bern, Switzerland

Mercer score: 106.5
2008 rank: 9
GDP: $309.9 billion (2008 est.)
Population: 962,983 (total city); 7,604,467 (total country)
Life expectancy: 80.85

No. 10: Sydney, Australia

Mercer score: 106.3
2008 rank: 10
GDP: $800.5 billion (2008 est.)
Population: 4,336,374 (total city); 21,262,641 (total country)
Life expectancy: 81.6

Click here to see the rest of the slideshow, including Wellington’s #12 ranking!

Sushi: Delight or Disaster?

I love sushi, and there is no shortage of great sushi restaurants here in Christchurch.  It’s healthy, satisfying, and fun to eat.  To clear up a common misconception, “sushi” is a specific type of rice; it does not mean “raw fish”, although many types of sushi do contain raw yellowfin or ahi tuna, salmon, eel, etc.  I would eat sushi on a more regular basis (right now, I eat it about twice per month), but it is expensive to eat often at about $10.00 per roll.  I have never made my own before, so this Tasty Tuesday, I am going to try!

For starters, I had to buy some supplies from the local Asian Food Warehouse.  There, I purchased a bamboo sushi rolling mat and rice paddle, nori (seaweed rolling sheets), wasabi, and sushi rice.  Rice vinegar and soy sauce are also necessary; I already had these at home.  In addition, I bought a fillet of smoked salmon (I do not trust the fish at the local supermarket to be “sushi grade”, or fresh enough to eat raw) and a bottle of Chardonnay to complement it.

At this point, I had all of my ingredients, including an avocado and a cucumber from the refrigerator.  I found a video on how to make great sushi rice (such an important step!) and watched.   Then, I followed the instructions by doing the following:

1. Rinse 2 cups of sushi rice in cold water.  Strain, let dry for 30 minutes (the video advises drying for an hour, but I was impatient).

2. In a saucepan, bring the rice and 2 and 1/4 cups of water to a boil; cover and simmer for 10 minutes on low heat.  Then, turn off heat and let sit for another 10 minutes.  *My rice was slightly too moist; I could have let it sit for 15 minutes.

2. While the rice is cooking, mix 1/4 cup rice vinegar with 1 and 1/2 tbsp. sugar and 1 tsp. of salt until dissolved. *My rice was a bit too sweet and too vinegary for my liking.  Next time, I will use less of both of these.

3. Transfer the rice to a glass or wooden dish or bowl (it is important to refrain from using metal because the vinegar could react with it).  Fluff the rice with a fork. Drizzle the vinegar mixture over the rice, fluffing and fanning the rice (any newspaper or magazine will do) continuously until it cools.  The rice should have a sticky texture to it.  *I did not need all of the rice vinegar mixture on my rice.

4. Unfold the bamboo rolling mat and place a sheet of nori on it, shiny side up.  Cover the sheet with a generous layer of rice about 1/2 inch thick, leaving an inch at the far end of the nori uncovered.

5. On the side of nori closest to you, place your favorite sushi toppings.  For me, this was a layer of avocado, the smoked salmon, cucumber slivers, and a few chunks of cream cheese.

6. Then, it’s time to roll!  Use the rolling mat to carefully roll the sushi.  Apply water with wet fingers to the end of the nori to keep the roll closed.

7. When cutting the sushi into pieces (typically there are 6-8 pieces in a roll), wet the knife before each cut.  This keeps the knife from sticking to the rice.

8. Grab your chop sticks, apply some wasabi, dip in soy sauce, and enjoy with a glass of Chardonnay or warm or cold sake.

Results:

My first sushi-making experience was excellent!  The sushi was delicious, and we determined that it cost about $5.00 per roll using an expensive smoked salmon.  Without the salmon, the price per roll would be less than $2.00 per roll!  The total prep time was about an hour, including the rice.  Assembly took mere minutes once the rice was cooked.  The bottom line is that my homemade sushi is as good as any that I have eaten in a restaurant - and the flatmates also loved it!  I prefer raw salmon or tuna, so my next goal is to find some sushi-grade fish; I am looking forward to experimenting with different sushi combinations.  Now that I know how to make it myself, my sushi possibilities are endless!  I will definitely be enjoying this tasty and healthy meal more often, too.

This Tasty Tuesday was definitely a DELIGHT!

Did you try this recipe?  How did it turn out?  Leave a comment in the “Comments” section!

The Winter Garden is alive and well, although we did lose two salad plants.  There were a couple of near-frost nights that were the likely culprits.  Despite this, we have been able to harvest already several hefty salads - yummy!

A few weeks ago, we had a potato that sprouted in the pantry, as well as two red onions, so we planted them for good measure.  I have not had any luck growing them to harvest in the (distant) past, but so far they look like strong plants.

In addition, the broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower are growing well and getting big.  With this success, we have also attracted bugs that love cauliflower leaves, as they have decimated several leaves on these plants.  To remedy, I will plant marigolds nearby because the scent of these flowers masks the scent of the cauliflower (which attracts the bugs), just like tomatoes. Hopefully, this will take care of the problem.

Also on the agenda this week is a dose of organic fertiliser.  members of the Brassica family (i.e. broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower) apparently need to be fertilised often, and I have not yet done this.  Unless it comes to picking and eating what’s in it, I am abnormally lazy when it comes to gardening - all the more proof that if I can do it, anyone can!

Updates will follow after these treatments have been given!

Ginger beer is hugely popular in New Zealand, and Rus and I are huge fans as well.  Ginger beer is not the same as ginger ale (though I do not even know the difference!), and it’s non-alcoholic (although local breweries often have an alcoholic version).  It is so yummy!

I gave up drinking soda in the United States because it is made with high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), likely the single most unhealthy ingredient in the American diet.  In New Zealand, since there is no corn (and, subsequently, no powerful corn lobby!), sodas are made with cane sugar, even Cokes and Pepsis. Of course, this does not make them as healthy as water, it simply means they are made with ingredients from nature, which HFCS cannot claim.

Anyway, we tried several brands of ginger beer, and our favorite is one called Frank.  Frank Ginger Beer has a spicy kick to it, a lovely, spiky fizziness, and is fabulously sweet and refreshing.  And it comes in a brown recycled glass bottle with a retro-looking label.  It has become one of my favorite beverages ever!  Other brands lack the amount of spice, have too much sugar, etc. However, because Frank is so awesome, Frank is notoriously hard to find, and it is expensive (between $2-3 per 16oz. bottle!).

So, Rus and I did a little research (read: looked at the ingredients on the back of a Frank bottle), and as it turns out, ginger beer is not all that complicated to make.  Basically, it is just fresh ginger, sugar, water, and yeast.  We endeavored to make our own!  Our kitchen is consistently stocked with all of these ingredients, so one night, Rus gave it a whirl.

In his first attempt, Rus used an internet recipe that called for two tablespoons of ginger (I use more than that when I cook a meal for two!), a lot of sugar, the juice of a lemon, and a bit yeast for a two-litre batch.  Fearing a sticky explosion, Rus let the pressure out of the bottle several times as it puffed up.  When it was time to taste it the following day, we discovered we had nearly two litres of sugary, lemony, lightly-fizzy drink with a barely-discernible hint of ginger.  It did not taste good at all and needed to be discarded.

Our review of the first batch resulted in some adjustments in the second, keeping the batch size the same.  We left it overnight, and eagerly tasted our adjusted recipe the next day.  This one was less sweet, nicely fizzy, more gingery; however, it had a strong yeast flavour.  It was drinkable, but not exactly pleasant.  Third time’s a charm, right?

On Batch #3, we reduced the amount of water and kept all other inputs the same.  After fermentation, the first taste revealed a spicy, fizzy, nicely sweet ginger beer!  It passed the initial taste test (i.e. Rus and me) and was put into the refridgerator to cool for final approval by our “esteemed tasting panel” (i.e. the rest of 20 Derby) - which ultimately gave Rus raving reviews for the delicious, spicy drink.  But there was room yet for improvement…

In Rus’s latest brew (Brew #4), he tweaked the ingredient quantities to exacting deliciousness.   So far, the brew tastes amazing; the best yet!  The yeast flavour is reduced, the sweetness just right, plenty of fizz, and the ginger - wow!  We are waiting for it to chill for the final tasting, including a blind taste test of local brands and Rus’s Derby Brew by a completely unbiased group of other Derby Street residents.  If successful, we might take our ginger beer on the road to Cathedral Square for real public opinion.

May the best brew win!

*Preliminary tests show that Rus’s ginger beer can tame feral cats and eliminate cancer in laboratory mice.  There are no actual studies to substantiate these claims.*

I am starting a new weekly feature called “Tasty Tuesdays”!

Every Tuesday on “Tasty Tuesdays”, I will showcase a triumph (or miserable failure) of a culinary undertaking.

Rus and I have always been into cooking and love all types of food from Japanese to Italian.  We love shows like “No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain” (we miss it!), “Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern”, “Iron Chef” and others on the Food TV channel here.  We even took an Indian food cooking class this time last year.

Our style tends to be simple using lots of fresh ingredients - organic meats, vegetables (especially from our gardens!), olive oils, ginger, garlic, and herbs - and can be prepared in reasonable amounts of time.

Use it as a guide to plan your weekly meals, spice up (pun intended) your current menu, learn a new trick or two, or just laugh when I screw up (just wait until we get to breads!).  It’s up to you!  Please be sure to leave comments, especially of your results if you try something I post!

We have reverted back to Standard Time (this puts us only 16 hours ahead of Eastern Daylight Time), and there is a chill in the air.  The leaves are turning a rainbow of colors as their trees ready to shed them for the winter.  Autumn is here in full force, along with all the smells, cool breezes, flavours, harvests, scarfs, boots, and sweaters that go with it.  I am still not used to April being Autumn instead of Spring, and according to one shopkeeper I talked to recently (who is an expat from the UK), it takes three years to re-program.

While there are distinct seasons here, they tend to be mild overall, as I discovered this past Summer. Growing up on the East Coast of the United States meant consistently hot and humid Summers, comfortable Springs and Autumns, and cold, windy winters with frequent snow. Christchurch’s Summer was, on most days, more like mid-Spring on the East Coast.  I am told that the average Winter temperature here hovers around between 5-9C (around 45F), which is considerably warmer than the Winters I am accustomed to (I guess numerous palm trees around the city also gave that one away).  Temperatures, however, are quite deceiving, as there are other factors that determine weather here.

Dissecting Crazy Christchurch Weather

Christchurch is located on the East Coast on a plain between the Southern Alps and a smaller mountain chain.  Weather comes from the warm Tasman Sea in the West, from the ocean in the East, and from Antarctica.  Occasionally, weather will even make its way down from the North.  Basically, Christchurch is in the middle of a battle between all of these winds, which contributes to its fickle and inconsistent weather.  Because it is next to impossible to predict even a few hours ahead, the weather reports are all over the place.  Combined with graphics a few decades behind, they are the butt of jokes everywhere.

Temperature means next to nothing based on the wind and the sun.  If the wind is coming from the South and it is brisk, this will quickly drop the “real feel temperature”. This means that you might need a jacket on a 24C (75F) day.  Additionally, the intense direct sunlight can easily add 10-15 degrees Fahrenheit to the “real feel temperature”, which, to my pleasant surprise, makes a 13F (55C) day feel more like my ideal weather of 24C (75F).  Strange!

Understanding some of the weather factors, the arrival of Autumn and (eventually) Winter does not seem so daunting as it did living on the East Coast of the United States (I have always equated it with walking down a long, dark tunnel with Spring at the distant end).  For example, last night was downright cold (and we might even have had frost); today, although the temperature started out near-freezing, the clear skies and bright sun has made it a beautifully crisp and pleasant day.  If Winter is like this, I think I am actually looking forward to it.

Last Sunday and Monday, Rus and I decided to do a tramp (trek + camp = tramp) at Banks Peninsula.  We chose this trail because it is accessible to Christchurch via bus and ferry; we did not want to rent a car.  Christchurch sits on an area of flat plains (known as Canterbury Plains) between the Southern Alps that run the length of the South Island and the mountains of Banks Peninsula.  Banks Peninsula has a series of “fingers” that reach into the ocean and create several picturesque harbours along it (Lyttelton is one of them).

We left Darby Street around 11:00AM after a hearty breakfast, with our packs full of gear.  Though the tramp can be done in one long day, we decided to bring our tent and sleeping gear and turn it into two short days.  We walked down to the casino (about a kilometre away) to pick up the #28 bus to Lyttelton.  Once we got to Lyttelton, we barely caught the ferry over to Diamond Harbour.  It was a perfectly clear, warm day, and being on the cool, aqua water was great - all seven minutes of it.  We departed the dock at Diamond Harbor and began our trek up to the top of Mount Herbert.  At this point, it was a little after 1:00PM.  We walked along one of the fingers and up through the woods to a small residential area, then on to a farm road.  We did not bring a “topo map” (a.k.a. topography map) for this tramp since it was fairly straightforward, and Rus brought his GPS to help us find the route.  Since we are new to the tramping scene, we did not know to look for the trail markers - and we simply followed a farm road that seemed to lead to the top.

The afternoon sun was positively blazing, and I quickly stripped down to my racerback tank top (and applied some serious sunscreen).  There were no trees, just tufts of dry grass on this trek.  Not used to carrying around so much extra weight, my pack was already feeling heavy and uncomfortable.  We had barely started!  About 1.5 kilometres into this tramp (which would take us from sea level to 900m in 6km of walking), we stopped at the only trees in view for a quick lunch break.  I took off my awesome new hiking boots to discover some serious blisters forming on my heels and applied Band-Aids accordingly.  I could deal with a little discomfort but open blisters would have proven to be a problem on the trip back down the mountain.

The next couple of hours were hot and tough - parts of the mountain were steep, and the relentless sun, the heavy packs, and sore feet made the trip less than comfortable.  All the while, however, I took photos of the increasingly amazing views.  As our altitude increased, we could see part of the bay, than the whole bay and several harbours, the Alps in the far distance, and the ocean on two sides - breathtaking!

We continued up the farmers’ road (which was little more than two tyre tracks worn into the grass) until we finally met up with the “real” trail.  The whole time, we were in sheep- and cow-grazing territory.  Several times we had to let ourselves in paddock gates to continue on our journey.  Many of New Zealand’s trails go through private property at some point - and they owners do not mind!  Not once did we have to worry about a shotgun-wielding farmer stalking us as we were trying to enjoy the weather and the scenery (or pee in the woods) - sweet as!

So… we continued our ascent of Mount Herbert, taking short breaks to checkout the scenery and catch our breaths.  As we continued toward the summit, we passed by a few people who were going down (typically, trampers drive to the other side of the mountain, take a short climb to the summit, take pictures at the top, and descend the steep area we were attempting to ascend - hence the comments about how steadfast we were?).  It is an easy one-day hike from the summit to the bottom but could easily turn into a two- or three-day hike they way we decided to go from Lyttelton.  At this point, we were experiencing a bit of relief from the sun in the way of a cool ocean breeze.  This inevitably made the journey easier (especially since we were being stared down by the numerous cows with which we came in contact, as if we were naked or something!) and thankfully, too, because every time we thought we reached the summit, we could look even further and see the next one - and the next one.

Finally, around 4:30PM, Rus and I decided that our feet had had enough, and it was time to stop.  The problem was that we were still on the trail and had not yet reached the hut where we were supposed to spend the night.  As a matter of fact, we were only about one kilometre from the summit, but we wanted to err on the side of caution regarding our blister situation.

Ultimately, we decided to pull about ten metres off the trail and found a suitable place to tent for the night.  We took off our boots and put on our sandals, set up the tent, and got in to get out of the blazing sun.  From there, we boiled some water for a reconstituted meal (which tasted pretty good!) and rested.  A few hours later, we were able to watch the sun set and see the lights come on in Christchurch.  With the sun gone, the temperature started dropping rapidly.

Eventually, it was completely dark, and we were getting sleepy, and although it was not yet 9:00PM, it was time to go to bed.  We covered the packs with a pack cover and got in the tent, leaving one mesh side uncovered so I could look at the stars.  A couple of cows were grazing nearby, and we could hear their occasional mooing.  Other than that, it was quiet.

A few hours after we fell asleep, the wind started picking up.  It was flapping the tent cover loudly, and I thought some of our gear might blow away (the wind was that strong).  We got up and secured the tent cover and everything else, and got back in the tent.  While we were out, we looked up to see the Milky Way in the dark, clear sky.  The stars never ceases to amaze me!

Eventually, we went back to sleep, tossed and turned through the night a bit and woke up when the sun was above the horizon the next morning.  We watched the light unfold across the landscape while we packed up everything for the trek back.  We decided to skip the summit and head back to Christchurch.

Now knowing where the “real” trail was, we decided to follow it back all the way and discovered that walking down is just as difficult as walking up - it just goes faster.  Though the landscape was the same - short green grasses, tufts of dry yellow grasses, thistles, skittish sheep and cows, paddocks, and lots of poop - we traversed through a few valleys instead of on the tops of the hills.

A few hours later, we reached the head of the trail and made our way to Diamond Harbour.  We had a few minutes before the next ferry arrived, so we took off our boots and put our feet in the cold bay water - ahhh, sweet relief!  The ferry took us to Lyttleton, and the bus took us back to Christchurch.  Another short walk, and we were home.  Showers and a nap dominated the rest of the day, and sore muscles prevailed over the next few.

Overall, an excellent first tramp; I am looking forward to the next one!

We continue to post growing numbers on The Starbuck Report, thanks to faithful readers and all people new to this blog!

Here is the March 2009 statistics summary for www.thestarbuckreport.com:

Reported period: Month March 2009
First visit: 01 March 2009 - 00:16

Last visit: 31 March 2009 - 23:59

Unique visitors: 330

Number of visits: 1016 (3.08 visits/visitor)

Pages: 5040 (4.94 pages/visit)

The unique visitors came from 28 different countries!  (I am pretending that most of these are not just spam bots).

In addition, the blog has been picked up by the feed readers at Technorati and Super Eco, which means these sites scan The Starbuck Report for newsworthy articles to link to on their sites - exciting!

March was a bit haphazard, and my goal for April is to be more consistent with posts.  Here are some upcoming blog topics:

- Banks Peninsula tramp

- Mobile phone use in New Zealand

- Christchurch City Council’s new rubbish scheme: a model for universities, corporations, cities everywhere?

Stay tuned!