About me

I'm a 32 year old woman writing to you from a far-flung tropical island...which might sound so exotic and wonderful that you would trade places with me in seconds if  you could! Wallis Island is a French Territory located in the South Pacific - the 2 languages are Wallisian (a bit like Maori), and French. I am learning both, but while I'm not immersed in either it makes it a tad tricky.

While there are some great things about living here (compared with my previous home of Melbourne, Australia) like no traffic, no crowds, clean fresh air, beautiful lagoon/reef just begging to be explored, white sand islands a 15 minute boat ride away, fresh tropical food...there are also some downfalls.  Don't get me wrong, I'm normally quite an optimistic person, but after living here for 2 years there are a few things I miss about home. Things like having places to go like cafes, cinemas, my friends and family around me (or really any English speaking people!). There are no road names or numbers which makes finding places a bit tricky, it is hot pretty much all the time which makes taking my soon-to-be 1 year old baby out a bit hard at times, but the thing I find the hardest is the food! It's so different to what I'm used to at home, and although I am usually good at giving everything a go, when it is your every day life sometimes you just want the comfort of home cooked meals!

So, after living with my in-laws for the last 2 years, and share cooking with 7 other adults (making my turn very expensive if I want to cook anything half decent, and struggling through boiled fish or boiled chicken with packet noodle soup!) we have finally renovated our little house and have a kitchen!! So, with a place that only recently turned to long life milk from powdered, which lists tinned corned beef and Sao biscuits as a couple of their favourite foods, who's local cooking  (underground steaming of meat and root vegetables) leaves a little to be desired (in my opinion!) I am so excited to be able to get back in the kitchen and cook food that I (and my husband!) love! I love to eat healthy (and also have sweet tooth!), but I have found there are only so many ways to cook frozen vegetables and I really miss the choice of items that I am used to (there is one brand of milk, bread, eggs etc). The supermarket is limited, sometimes it has things, and sometimes it doesn't, so it's often potluck when grocery shopping! And everything is expensive...so with this blog I am to share the trials and tribulations of my shopping, cooking and eating experiences, from a place few have heard of -my far-flung tropical island kitchen.

Bon appetit!
Jo