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Ka¯piti cheesiness

Editor’s note: With this dispatch, we thank Virginia Fallon for her intrepid journalism and draw the Great 2021 Sconathon to a close.

The problem with raising children is they’re all grown up and scone before you know it. These days I have to bully and bribe my adult kids to spend any time with me so the fourth leg of the Great Wellington Sconathon – in which we search for the region’s best cheese scone – is the perfect opportunity to do both.

My daughter was the first to cave to the pressure, and this is the most interested she’s ever been in what I do for work. I once texted to say I’d be late home because I was hunkered down in a house within the police cordon around an active shooter. ‘‘Please don’t worry,’’ I implored, ‘‘I’m well hidden.’’

‘‘K,’’ Hannah texted back, ‘‘Can we get takeaways?’’

Today she’s fascinated. She’s also forgotten her mask so has to don the spare nobody wears because it’s too big for a human head. She looks like she’s wearing a pair of undies on her face, just like she did when she was little and dressing up as a train robber.

Our first stop is Olde Beach Bakery at Waikanae Beach. The scones here come in big triangle slabs, and you’ve got to be quick to get them. The bakery is working on a one-in one-out policy, so I hold up the line while yelling at the masked baker for information.

I can’t hear him and he can’t hear me, but I think he says something about grated butter. Back in the car Hannah says the scone needs butter: not in it, to spread on it. Even without, it’s delicious – cheesy, solid, happy – and we eat it all.

Ben’s Bakery at Paraparaumu Beach is a popular stop for locals, and beloved by the community groups it donates leftover products to. Janine Higgan is manning the shop today and, like everyone else whose scones I’ve sampled on this epic quest, refuses to tell me the secret to making a good one.

‘‘I can tell you we don’t cheat. We cream the butter and sugar; just like your mum used to.’’

‘‘You don’t know my mum,’’ mutters Hannah.

The scone is honest, light and ultra-cheesy, and we eat it in the car while watching the waves. I can’t remember the last time Hannah and I were together without partners, friends or children. It’s nice being here with my girl, the fiercest of my brood.

It was here at Paraparaumu Beach this whole scone thing really began for me. In 2017 a Ka¯ piti cafe´ made headlines for the price of its scones – $5.50 – and shockwaves rippled through the community as people both criticised and defended the price. The cafe´ is long-scone but the lesson from the issue remains: People care about scones.

At the Raumati Social Club, manager Steph Lewis says their scones always sell out by 10am. We’re just in time to score a cheesy, bacony delight and eat it at a window table. It’s good; as is the experience of a busy cafe´ in level 2. Hannah asks if this is the sort of story I envisaged when training as a journalist a million years ago. I look out the window for a long time.

At Siggy’s Pies in Waikanae, Jordan McArthur has saved us a scone. One

thing I have learned from all the places I’ve visited during the sconathon is if a cafe´ still has scones available after midday they’re best avoided. Knowing now is the time to impress Hannah with my interviewing skills, I ask McArthur to tell me about the cheese scone, and he looks me dead in the eyes: ‘‘It’s a cheese scone.’’

Trying a different tack I ask what makes a good cheese scone. ‘‘The cheese,’’ he says, and now I know we’re on to something so ask him if the recently reported exorbitant cheese prices have affected his business. ‘‘Nope,’’ he deadpans. Hannah snorts. McArthur’s scone is superb and Hannah declares it the best of the day. I suspect that decision has more to do with the fact its maker owned me in front of her.

Ka¯ piti’s scones have been noticeably cheesier than those from the other areas we’ve tried. This is the place that gave Fonterra’s Ka¯ piti Cheese brand its name and island iconography, though the diary giant shut down its Paraparaumu factory and moved operations to Taranaki in 2019. It took 65 local jobs with it but kept the name and image, which has left a nasty aftertaste for some.

On the way home we tally up how many scones I’ve sampled during the past month or so: about 17.

It’s been great, but the thrill has scone, and it’s scona be a long, long time before I can face another one.

News

en-nz

2021-09-25T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-09-25T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://fairfaxmedia.pressreader.com/article/281741272567383

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