Special delivery by Kelli Brett
2019 Tastes to remember…
“For me, a good seafood chowder is a big beautiful bowl of love. I watched my mum making her version until she was well over 70, lugging huge stockpots around her kitchen and sharing the results not only at her restaurant tables but with all of the strays that she fed along the way, wherever she lived. Widowers, ageing couples, kids who had just left home, divorcees, all of them gravitated towards mum and her seafood chowder, always served just like this one in a crunchy cob loaf straight from a warm oven. A trip to the Marlborough region for Feast Marlborough (a festival that highlights not only the much-loved wines of the region but also the glorious food and the people who grow it and cook it) had me booked in at Mills Bay Mussels for a bowl of their famous mussel chowder. It felt so familiar I could almost feel my mum sitting next to me. Apart from the mussel focus, it had all of the usual ingredients including white fish, potatoes, parsley, leek. onion, butter. cream and white wine. I’m not sure if it was the slap in the face of that brisk morning air on a perfect blue sky day or that peaceful table overlooking the boats on the water, but this steaming bowl of comfort wrapped its arms around me in a huge hug that almost made me cry…
Watch this video and the team at Mills Bay Mussels will let you in on their best-kept mussel secret.”
Kelli Brett
Editor, Cuisine Magazine
Co-Director Slick & Sassy Media Ltd
Luxury escapes
Guide to Marlborough
Shellfish are universally excellent throughout New Zealand, but Greenshell Mussels straight from the Marlborough Sounds are one of the country’s culinary treasures. What better place to try them than at this humble tasting room attached to one of the Sounds’ main mussel farmers, right by the dock in Havelock? They’re served here in myriad ways.