Rosemary Potatoes

March 25, 2003

There's that jocular saying about boys and their toys. Believe me, no matter how old the boys are, toys are very important.

I have watched The Spouse try to come to grips with a series of cellphones over the years. They say Kiwis are quick to embrace any new technology and there he was, lined up with the best of them, when the first mobile phones came out. He had this thing that looked like it had been manufactured at a brick factory. It had quite an imposing aerial and a pretty solid battery. It certainly wasn't a subtle number you could slip in a shirt pocket.

A string of mobiles followed, each a little smaller that the previous one. They became increasingly sophisticated. Along came car chargers, hands-free operation.

Then there was WAP technology and goodness knows what else.

Some disappeared back to their maker fairly promptly, having developed a fault, or having been recalled. The last one developed a curious rattle - a death rattle, as it happened. And so, at the weekend, The Spouse had another cellphone to play with.

He made the mistake of producing it at the dinner table on Saturday night. The three other men who had joined us for a meal took this as their immediate cue to bring forth their own personal communication weapons. Sizes were compared, weights, screen colours. Then came a more detailed analysis. The computer expert quickly established whose did what. The Spouse's new one was, fortunately, fairly state of the art. The human resources bloke had been sold a lemon, the young manager had a fairly small but perfectly formed one with a flip out speaker.

We then had a recital of ring tones - some regulation ones, other downloaded from the internet.

Being the only woman present, I felt severely outnumbered. My modest little purple pay-as-you-go number couldn't compete. It stayed out in the kitchen, although I smugly noted that mine seemed to be the only one with a built in hands-free speaker - very useful when you're in a noisy street trying to troubleshoot a son's computer in another country, or sort out some other domestic crisis.

I have at last embraced text messaging - but only since I discovered Vodafone has a web-to-text facility on its internet site and I am a much faster typist than texter. Am I the only person who pecks away for minutes then loses the text message I am trying to send? Or who sends the recipient their own name and cellphone number instead of the message I have been labouring over?

Anway, the meal itself was a sort of spontaneous affair after the friends called in late in the afternoon, with another toy - a car one of them was test-driving. That, of course, warranted a thorough inspection under the lid. All very clean and tidy, as far as I could see, the bits requiring owner attention carefully colour coded in yellow. Aren't car designers clever to think of something like that! There was the regulation scrutiny of the boot, the massaging of the upholstery, the assessment of the stereo, the checking of the throatiness of the exhaust pipe noise… It scored for me in the most important department - the colour.

The Spouse decided to throw something on the barbecue. The vegetarian looked hopeful it wouldn't just be carnivores' night. Fortunately I had done a big vegetable shop during the week and there were plenty of coloured peppers, zucchini, an interesting white eggplant, freshly pulled shallots, Florence fennel and other goodies for a bowl of roasted vegetables and a salad.

Another good vegetable dish to accompany a barbecue is baked potato chunks. Simplicity itself and great if you happen to have a rosemary bush in the garden.

Rosemary Potatoes

Several large pre-washed potatoes
Oil (I used grapeseed oil)
Maldon sea salt
Freshly ground pepper
Several sprigs of rosemary
Balsamic vinegar

Give the potatoes another rinse and check them over, removing any blemishes. Dry them and cut in half lengthwise then into chunks. Place in an oiled roasting pan and drizzle over some more oil and give them a brisk shake to coat them all over.

Sprinkle with Maldon sea salt and finely chopped rosemary leaves. Be generous with the rosemary. You can also sprinkle on other flavourings - ground cumin is a good choice. Some Dukkah mix is another option.

Pre-heat the oven to 200C and cook the potatoes, turning them over once or twice, for about 35 minutes. They will become golden brown. Check with a fork or knife tip to see if they are tender.

When they are ready, empty into a serving bowl and sprinkle in a little Balsamic vinegar and a grind of pepper. And watch the boys scoff them!