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(Image: Tina Tiller)
(Image: Tina Tiller)

KaiMay 4, 2022

Introducing The Boil Up, our brand new weekly food newsletter

(Image: Tina Tiller)
(Image: Tina Tiller)

Sign up now to get the first edition delivered fresh to your inbox – and go in the draw to win a three-month supply of Boring Oat Milk.

The Spinoff’s first-ever weekly food newsletter is here! The Boil Up is written by me, Charlotte Muru-Lanning, and will feature a collection of Aotearoa’s best in food and beverage, delivered to your inbox every Thursday. Produced in partnership with Boring Oat Milk, the newsletter will bring you the political, social, trendy, personal and delicious aspects of this country’s diverse and ever-changing culinary landscape. From new restaurants to historic family recipes, cocktails to cookbooks, there’ll be something for all tastes.


Subscribe to The Boil Up here and go in the draw to win a three-month supply of Boring Oat Milk and cool Boring merch.


It seems apt to introduce a newsletter called The Boil Up with a recent encounter with the dish itself.

Last month, I spent three days at a tangihanga. On the second night, dinner was boil up. When it was my turn, I tonged a heap of the watercress out of the silver catering tray onto my plate. The brilliantly green strands and leaves had thankfully managed to net up some doughboys and a few bite-sized pieces of pork. Even then, my plate was mostly watercress. One of my cousins asked with slight horror whether I’d turned vegetarian when she saw my meal. “Nope,” I replied. It might be blasphemous to say, but my favourite part of a boil up is the watercress anyway.

Sharing boil up with whānau on big round tables in the wharekai got me thinking about all sorts of elements of food that I hope will enrich this new newsletter as it bubbles and brews over time. 

Boil up represents a continuity of Māori food traditions. Though it was adapted from ingredients and cooking techniques brought to Aotearoa by Pākehā, boil up is inextricably Māori. It’s a dish that, while technically similar to soups and stews from around the world, is unique to this land. Within the context of the pandemic, eating boil up reminds me of the vital importance of kai in bringing us together (safely), especially since, like most foods, it’s inarguably better when shared. Using relatively simple ingredients that you have on hand, boil up is a manifestation of the mantra “waste not, want not”. What’s left over from last night’s boil up should absolutely be eaten for breakfast the following morning. 

Boil up at home. (Photo: Charlotte Muru-Lanning)

As someone who has always lived away from the pā, I’ve often felt frustrated that opportunities to buy kai Māori are sparse in the city. But as I’ve grown older, I’ve come to think it may be a good thing that I can’t get hāngī delivered via Uber Eats or order a bowl of kānga pirau with a long black. That kai, which is so intrinsic to our culture, exists primarily in pots on the stove in the family kitchen or in wharekai, outside the realm of business and profit imperatives. Speaking on Māori contemporary art, Te-Whānau-ā-Apanui artist Cliff Whiting said that wharenui and other marae buildings were the galleries of Māori. To him, Māori art was first and foremost art that existed in these spaces. I think the same could be said of Māori food. Wharekai and whānau kitchen benches and dining tables are the eateries of Māori. Boil up is our lure to go home and pick up a tea towel.

That’s what I hope The Boil Up becomes to you, a shared table where we can gather to break bread and contemplate the meaning of food in our lives. 

Each instalment will include a round-up of vital food media and news from the week just been, what I’ve been eating and cooking and insights from interesting New Zealanders on their relationship with food. In the first edition, we’ve got five of visual artist Hiria Anderson’s favourite places to eat (which fortuitously includes the kitchen at my marae), a snack review, an interview with Boring founder Morgan Maw and more. 

For something we do so often, we might forget how important food is to so many parts of our life. It defines our happiness and health, it’s a cultural expression of Aotearoa in 2022 and it’s an essential part of our economy. Talking about food means talking about everything from the taken-for-granted bites we whip up in the kitchen at home to some of the most pressing political and social issues. I can’t wait to capture that broad definition of food and send it straight to your inbox every Thursday.

Keep going!
Pig Out Point
New Plymouth’s Pig Out Point is named for a reason: it might be the best place in Aotearoa to scoff burgers in your car. (Image: Tina Tiller)

KaiMay 1, 2022

Is Pig Out Point the best place in NZ to scoff burgers and fries?

Pig Out Point
New Plymouth’s Pig Out Point is named for a reason: it might be the best place in Aotearoa to scoff burgers in your car. (Image: Tina Tiller)

You’re hungry, you need to eat, and you don’t want to scoff a burger sitting in your car on the side of the road like a Nigel No-Mates. You need a view. We scoured the country to find the best spots in Aotearoa to indulge in an in-vehicle feast.

Brackens Lookout, Dunedin

I spent four of the best years of my life in Dunedin in my early 20s, and a large number of those hours were spent parked up at Brackens Lookout that peeks across a relatively quiet part of the city to the harbour. What it lacks in inspiring view it compensates for in privacy, mystique and general buzziness – it’s down a narrow road flanked by the Dunedin Northern Cemetery. And it has great access to the underrated Botanic Gardens. It was also a good place to park up and study – although it could occasionally lead to being invited into an accidental hotbox.
– Simon Day

Princes Wharf, Auckland

Princes Wharf
A seagull enjoys the view from Princes Wharf

The end of Princes Wharf is a gorgeous, plaintive end to any great night out. Grab a McChicken down at the Britomart Maccas, or if you’re feeling fancy, a burger from Burger Boy, wander down the wharf past the Hilton, and shack up there, watching the twinkling lights of Devonport and various boats, and feel the harbour air chill you down to your very drunk bones. Can’t beat it.
– Sam Brooks

Greta Point, Wellington

Wellington’s Greta Point is the perfect quiet place for a takeaway lunch. The kids can safely run around, you can watch the ferries and sailboats and sometimes if you’re lucky you’ll see kororā, the littlest and cutest penguins of them all.
– Emily Writes

Pig Out Point, New Plymouth

Pig Out Point
New Plymouth’s Pig Out Point is named that way for a reason

KFC, McDonald’s and Burger Fuel are just a couple of blocks away. Once you’ve grabbed your goodies, head down the end of Hobson Street and into a cul de sac with stunning views looking out across the ocean. I spent nine months in New Plymouth on my own and loved to eat at this spot, as the sun set, the water glistening off the rocks below (it’s not as depressing as it sounds, promise). With Fitzroy Beach one way and the Coastal Walkway the other, there are plenty of options to go work off that chocolate shake and king-sized fries afterwards.
– Chris Schulz

John Wilson Drive, South Dunedin

Dunedinites are spoiled for choice when it comes to vehicular dining vistas. For a daytime option, it’s hard to go past John Wilson Drive or “Johnny’s”. Just a stone’s throw from the South D takeaway strip, the long stretch above St Kilda beach offers ample parking and the opportunity to dine with a vast, uninterrupted view of the southern horizon. Also popular with dog walkers and loud car enthusiasts.
– Calum Henderson

Miramar Peninsula, Wellington

The pleasures of ingesting greasy food in a car have nothing on consuming food after a bike ride. As one of the happily car free, I recommend getting your burger of choice in Kilbirnie or Miramar then biking to one of the many pebbly beaches along the Miramar Peninsula. Watching windsurfers and weekend sailors slide across Evans Bay while a procession of fries goes down your gullet? Great stuff. This does require some receptacle planning: if you don’t want to think about KFC every time you open your snazzy panier/practical windproof backpack for the rest of your life, bring a plastic bag to hold the food while you pedal to a panoramic place to stop.
– Shanti Mathias

Fred Ambler Lookout, Parnell

Fred Ambler Lookout
Fred Ambler Lookout has a solid view of the ports

I’ve eaten many a car-burger from many a vantage point, but I always go back to Fred Ambler Lookout in Parnell, Auckland. The carpark overlooks the Auckland ports, which are bustling with activity 24/7. When you’re smashing your nuggies at 2am and the rest of the city is asleep, there’s something comforting about seeing the big container machines moving about with their blinking lights, just bloody getting on with it. The lookout is a one-minute drive from the 24-hour McD’s drive-thru on Quay St, which sits next to KFC, for chicken connoisseurs. In the same block you’ll also find a Domino’s, Pizza Hut and several noodle joints. A smorgasbord of options for your sad little car feast (I may be projecting).
– Jane Yee

Scenic Lookout Airport Runway, Auckland

Scenic Lookout
At Auckland’s Scenic Lookout, it’s heaven for plane spotters

When I watch my twin boys stare in awe at planes and helicopters as they wonder how these giant steel contraptions fly through the air, I’m reminded of how great this spot was for the munchies. There’s a range of drive-through options on George Bolt Memorial Drive as you approach the airport. Grab something and park up at the end of the runway, then lie on the windscreen of your car Wayne’s World style and remind yourself how little you understand about how flight, jet engines and globalisation work as you smash a Zinger burger.
– Simon Day

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