Raro Markets

The Punanga Nui Markets in Rarotonga are an absolute must visit experience, especially if you want to try some island food. Like these Raro donuts. So delish.

Poke is another one of my favourites. This is paw paw cooked in coconut milk thickened with arrowroot, and on the right is banana.

Head Ei's. The flower crown trend has been going strong in Raro since way back.

Raro Holiday #2

I realised after my last Raro post that I hadn't included any pictures of the beach. Ridiculous! Here is one of a bebeh on the beach to make up for it.

And here is one of Dog Patrol, owning the beach. He was looking great. (remember my last Dog Patrol post?)

Cute Raro houses.

This is the workshop of the carver who worked on Dad's birthday present.

Ika Mata (marinated raw tuna). Damn I miss eating this every day.

Raro Holiday

As I mentioned in my last post, we just returned from Rarotonga. We had a big family celebration for my Dad's 70th birthday. Even though it's Winter in the Cook Islands, it's still warm enough to go to the beach, and eat tropical fruits.

Beautiful flowers. Hibiscus flowers only last for a day so my Mum picked a new batch every morning for the table.

We gave Dad a tuna harpoon for his birthday, and commissioned a local carver to work on the handle. It turned out so good!

Huge avocados off our tree.

Massive grapefruit!

A teeny banana!

Preparing rukau, made from taro leaves. You have to remove the stemmy middle, which has that fuzzy mouth taste similar to kiwifruit. Otherwise it tastes like spinach.

Mr Meet-Cute lending a hand.

Coconut buns.

Taro cooked in coconut cream, and ika mata, which is fresh raw tuna.

Le Bon Vivant Bakery and Cafe. We had a delicious lunch here.

They make their own version of 'Mayonnaise', which is a classic Raro potato salad, made with tinned beetroot to turn it pink.

And donuts, which are another popular Rarotongan food, though traditionally they're not made with sugar and cream like these ones.

Raro Houses

Finally, some more Raro photos to share with you! I had about 6 rolls of film after this holiday which I've slowly been getting developed. I took a whole bunch of pics of the colourful houses in Rarotonga, bright electric blue, lavender and turquiose are pretty standard colours there. So tropical!

Raro Foods

I Love seeing pictures of peoples food, so I thought I'd share some of my own. Below is a selection of Island foods eaten while in Rarotonga.

1 // "Mayonnaise", or Raro potato salad. Traditionally made with relish and canned beetroot to turn the salad bright pink, topped with grated hard boiled eggs.
2 // Jam jar pina colada! Not unique to Rarotonga, of course, but a traditional Island drink nevertheless!
3 // Whitebait fritters, actually not island food at all, my Dad bought the whitebait over from New Zealand. I just couldn't resist posting the pic because they were so damn delish!
4 // Umu food. An umu is the Raro version of a Maori hangi, where food is cooked in an oven made in the earth. This one had pork, eke (curried octopus), taro, and creamed rukau (taro leaves cooked with coconut cream). Most people who haven't grown up eating taro can't stand it, but my Dad has an ace way of cooking it where he boils it, and then grills it in slices to go crispy. Is bloody good, especially when served with creamed rukau.
5 // Banana wine. Unfortunately this was as bad as it sounds. A relative of ours makes it so we decided to try some out. I think I managed to force down one glass before I gave up on it.
6 // Bananas! This massive bunch were cut from a tree in our backyard. So good that now when I eat store bought bananas I am like "Pah! Where is the FLAVOUR?!"

All these photos were taken by my sister, who has a super cool fashion-y blog, you should totally check it out here!

Dog Patrol!

I may have gotten a tad carried away taking photos of this dog who lived by the beach we went to in Rarotonga. He was such a great dog though! He would run up and down patrolling the beach and barking at anyone coming from further away. And during the time we spent at the beach he ended up fishing not one, but two stonefish from the water. Stonefish are extremely poisonous and can be fatal if you stand on one, but somehow this clever dog managed to disperse of two of them making the waters safer for us all!