On the third day of Christmas… Going to a pre-Christmas lunch or BBQ? Take a goodie basket.

Boy it’s great being a food writer – especially when you belong to the NZ Guild of Food Writers. We get to go to all these neat foodie places and eat lots of delicious food. Last night I was at the newly opened Nosh food store in Mt Eden for our Christmas party. No chips and dips here!

Wonderfully hospitable Nosh staff kept our glasses brimming with champagne, wine, sparkling water or juice. Others carved hot roast beef and fresh ham off the bone. Intrepid food writers slapped generous slices on sour dough with dollops of grainy mustard, pesto, beetroot salsa or gourmet relish. And forget the platters; we had whole tables laid out with cold meats, roasted tomatoes, green and black olives and enormous hunks of brie and blue cheese. The brie tasted great with the walnut bread.

But what really caught my eye were the cane baskets filled with whole fresh apricots, cherries, plums, German icy spiced gingerbread, chocolate biscuits and chocolate sticks. They looked fantastic. A group of us gathered to sample each delicacy. “Try the chocolate biscuit. Do you think those are nuts or praline on top? I love these German gingerbread. I make a gingerbread house each year for Christmas.” As we discussed the intricacies of making gingerbread houses we all agreed that these baskets would be perfect to take to a lunch or BBQ.

So that’s today’s idea: empty out an old cane basket (perhaps not the one that sits in the toilet filled with magazines for leisurely reading), weave some vine or olive leaves around the edge and fill with fresh fruit and other goodies. I could have hung out by these baskets all night but then I remembered one of the cardinal rules of weight control at parties – Don’t stand by the food. I moved away to find a non-food space but there wasn’t one. Even as I left, the kind Nosh and Regal Salmon people gave me goodie bags laden with fine food. This sure beats the fortified toddler milk powder we get at dietitian meetings!