Dear Diary,
My sister Binky had a diary, pretty sure she did. As a child, most of my thoughts weren’t really about my feelings so I guess there was no compulsion to write them down. And hard to believe, but whatever fantasy world I created and was living in, I was actually happy in it.

Plus, my penmanship was horrible. Still is.

One of my creative writing classes at the UP was memoir writing and I went all in. At the end of the semester, it was over a hundred pages long, held together by a binder clip, typed single-spaced and filled with sketches, collage and paintings. Ninety-eight percent of it wasn’t real of course- my life then was nothing, but in my head it was rich, boundless and exuberant.

I lost that book after showing it to someone and I still mourn its loss to this day.

I found an old Moleskine notebook that I started writing on in December 2019 with the entries petering out when the Covid lockdowns happened and I thought why not, let’s continue writing and recording if only for the simple and uncomplicated reason of writings for it’s own sake.

Cassia
So Michelin stars were given out recently to a smattering of New Zealand restaurants and while Cassia was on the guide, it didn't get a star. Not that it matters. We’ve been wanting to try it out for the longest time and when we did, they were in the middle of a renovation. So the new (pop-up) location is at this Grey Lynn cafe called Ozone.

The cafe leases its space so the restaurant staff literally carts all their stuff in and then out every single night; they could have closed temporarily, but…

The only drawback is that we were offered an abbreviated, but still very satisfying menu. Spoiler alert if you ever book before they reopen (with a full menu) sometime in August- don’t order the curries (there are only three anyway). If the sirloin steak with rogan josh was any indication, it was just okay and not Michelin okay. We figured that a sampling of the smaller plates would have been the better strategy, but three outstanding entries in spite of their size, was quite filling.

Skip the wine, not that I’d ever order one anyway, but the cocktails were sensational and satisfyingly boozy. It’s a shame to skip the reopening, but we’ve already booked at Ahi- and yes, they do have a Michelin star lol.