The short answer is yes – you can eat mussels if you have high cholesterol. Mussels are low in kilojoules, cholesterol and fat. The little fat they do have is mostly healthy unsaturated fat with plenty of omega-3’s to help stabilise the heart muscle, reduce triglycerides (a type of fat in the blood), make arteries more elastic (which helps reduce blood pressure) and reduce blood clotting and inflammation.

Douse your mussels with butter, cream or other saturated fat and they will be more of a heart hazard than anything else. But if you eat them as we did at the Boat Shed Cafe in Nelson (northern tip of New Zealand’s South Island) – steamed with garlic, wine and parsley and served with a local pinot gris – your heart and your taste-buds will be very happy.

Last week we jumped on board the Pelorous Sound mail boat which chugs the length of Pelorous Sound three times a week delivering mail

We were on our way to Picton to catch the ferry to Wellington but I couldn’t leave without popping into the Blenheim farmers market. As we walked past fresh vegetables, apricots, cherries and nectarines a friendly lady offered me a plate of pikelets topped with chunky apricot and rhubarb & ginger jam. “Would you like to try one? It will go well with your bottle of Riesling.” I was momentarily flummoxed. How did she know I’d bought Riesling? Then I recognised her. It was Chris from the Vavasour winery. I’d staggered in there yesterday on my brief afternoon cycle around the local wineries. “This is my other job,” she explained. “I make my jam without water – just fruit and sugar, cooked slowly over a low heat. You get a much more intense flavour – no watering down.”

“Sshh, I think it’s a kiwi.” We stopped on the bush track, silent, listening to the rhythmical scuffling in the bush a few metres away. We couldn’t see anything but I’m sure it was a kiwi. “They’ve let about 100 into the bush around here,” my mum told us later. We were walking the Kohi Point track from Whakatane to Ohope Beach – a 2-3 hour walk along a ridge that was once a Maori pa site. Up and down through native bush, along a coastal path high above secluded beaches and rock pools, down into Otarawairere Bay, accessible only by boat or steep walking track, and up and over a final killer hill to Ohope Beach. we stopped a few more times along our walk to hear the same scuffling noise, to admire the breath-taking view and to allow my almost 80-year-old dad to catch his breath on the steep parts. Mind you he beat me on the downhill and rocky parts. As sure-footed as a mountain goat he traversed the sea battered rocks along Otarawairere Beach with ease. That was this morning.

Now I’m writing this post sipping coffee and nibbling my mum’s pineapple fruit cake. Spread out before me is a 180 degree vista of garden, ocean and islands. White Island – an active volcano about 30km offshore – is quiet today. Not even a whiff of smoke so the visitors won’t need to wear gas masks today. Yes – this is one live volcano you can walk around. To the left is Whale Island (Mohutaroa) and further away the Rurimu’s – a government protected sanctuary for the endangered tuatara lizard.

We’ve stopped off in Whakatane on our way home from a weekend in Gisborne. It’s a two hour drive from Gisborne to Whakatane past vineyards, citrus and kiwifruit orchards, up over the often treacherous East Coast ranges and down the winding Waioeka Gorge. I still can’t imaging how my grandfather cycled this route for business – it’s bad enough in the car. Perhaps it explains why his son is still such a ‘mountain goat’ at almost 80 and his grandsons’ (my brothers) idea of relaxation is a 70km bike ride or a 20km jog.

So what about the food highlights of this long weekend? “Write about my poached eggs and hot chocolate, Mummy,” my son suggested. He was talking about our late breakfast stop at Woodturners Cafe about an hour’s drive from Auckland on the road to Ngatea/Paeroa. It’s my favourite place to stop when heading south. The coffee is good, the eggs are free range and the delicious bread takes three hours to bake every morning.

“How do you make your bread?” I asked the owner. “It’s a secret,” she replied. “Lots of people ask us for the recipe. All I can tell you is that we use a variety of flours and seeds but it’s not gluten free,” she apologised. Gluten or not, it sounds healthy to me. “Can I feed the animals,” my son asked as he scooped gooey melted chocolate from the bottom of his cup. For $1 you can get a bag of pellets to feed the plump pampered chickens, the baying donkeys and the hungry horses. If you don’t like getting your hands dirty then try your hand at life-sized drafts or just sit at the outdoor tables and enjoy the gardens and paddocks beyond.

The Blueberry Corner, just outside Whakatane is our other favourite place to stop. Blueberry season is early this year so although it’s only mid-November the blueberries are sweet and delicious. We eat them like lollies. Actually, who would want to touch a lolly when you can eat these super-yummy, super-healthy berries packed full of antioxidants. We’ll be buying more on our way home – but I doubt they will last the 4-hour journey!

Right now I’m off to pick lemons and grapefruit. It’s a lot more fun than driving to the fruit shop. I’ll be doing that soon enough back in Auckland. Bye….

“The food and wine here is as good as you’ll find anywhere in the world,” announced the Mayor of Hastings, Lawrence Yule, as he welcomed New Zealand’s food writers to his region. Three days of tasting and three kilos later, I think I agree! My pantry is now over-flowing with yummy Hawkes Bay food with not an added colour or preservative in sight. On my bench sits Damson Plum jam, paste and liqueur. The paste goes really well with blue cheese and the liqueur is the best product I came across during the three days. It brings back delicious memories of sipping walnut aperitif each night before dinner at the French farmhouse we rented at Mercadiol, a hamlet just south east of St-Julien-de-Lampon, in the Dordogne region. (If you want to see a picture look at Stephanie Alexander’s book “Cooking and Travelling in South-West France. She stayed there too! ) I can’t wait to re-create the memories on a warm, sunny Kiwi evening – if one ever happens!