After a fermentation process, we're now ready to introduce our newest addition Toru Road Kimchi with Watercress to our store cupboard. I admit, I used to chuck that fermented side dish added to my korean rice omelette (first tasted at a lil mall near Queens Street in Auckland) to the side of my plate and think what's up with that!  Now that I'm on the good gut health journey I pay more attention to my kai and kimchi has become a staple in house.  Our kimchi has the same asian flavours that kimchi advocates will enjoy with the kiwi addition of Watercress.  If you haven't tried kimchi before we have a pepe size, but if you are a full-on fan like us, then the whanau size is for you.

Another exciting addition is our Toru Road Chocoholic Granola.  Whilst the granola we first started with was great, I thought that it needed to be a bit more spesh. Cacao Nibs, and Dutch Cocoa, along with NZ Manuka Honey are special additions to our granola.  Super delicious and nourishing, and of course no additives or preservatives, and did I say chocolate?

We've also got our Toru Road Horopito Dukkah label done, yes. I know good things take time - I may have said that once or twice before.  Finally there is a label on the packet.  It looks so much cooler with a label, like ten times better!

Had an awesome day out with my younger sis on Friday last week at the Food Show.  Oh, in foodie heaven.  Three trips back to the car overloaded with kai.  Got some great show special goodies to test out for inclusion in our products, some really good olive oils, I brought a giant size bag of hemp seeds lol, tasted some gorgeous honey, along with lots of organic kai which is right down my alley. Very cool to see so many local producers there.  Looking forward to the Go Green Expo which is in Wellington this weekend as well.  Augie & Keenau are coming with me this time so perhaps they might hold the reigns a bit, or on the upside at least carry what I get.  Looking forward to exhibiting there next year.

And then on Saturday our boy Keenau was in his first RFN boxing match at the Lower Hutt Event Centre, so proud of him, he was outstanding and came away with the win.  You can follow him on Pasifika_Wolf go take a nosey he's right into looking after himself, and his health, and he tastes absolutely every Toru Road product - providing me with genuine feedback which I appreciate and try my best to take on board, but sometimes Mum knows best, or can't hear him properly :)

Super excited for our first official Toru Road Event next week, so much so that myself and my collaborator on this one MaiTui Events have prepped and packed our event containers already to go, with just a little list of to dos to add on the day.  Can't wait to share pics.

Hei kona ma
Tracey

I love following the Maramataka Maori calendar (www.manawhenua.com). I look ahead and try and ensure that the meetings, events, and important dates are scheduled in on days that work best with the calendar.  I love getting out in the garden and planting veges knowing that they will likely have a better chance of surviving because I am planting them at the right times (and in the right season tends to help too!). 

It's been a mixed bag of days in the calendar this past week, some high energy where I am going 100 miles an hour, Augie can attest - in my stride I thought it a great idea to paint the stairwell (he finished it), amongst other days in the calendar where I purposely took a bit more care, was more thoughtful, and chill.  There's still quite a lot of chaos in the whare - most of the house is all neat, but the kitchen and dining are a total wreck as we are revamping the kitchen. Hoping to have it installed prior to this long weekend.  Keep calm though, this hasn't impacted on the business, we still have our Toru Road Vegan Kale & Kawakawa Pesto!

I have managed to do some work on my brand this past week, so finally we have some proper business cards to hand out that have the right website address (www.toruroad.nz).  I was so embarrassed handing out my first set that were a rush job as part of the Pop-Up Business Aotearoa School.  I've also done the branding for the Toru Road Not Your Ordinary Granola, Honey.  This will be the basis for the other products we have, so this is very exciting.  Still working on my pesto labels and the dukkah, and then our Kimchi with Watercress - which should be mature in a week or two.  Yum.

Had a great night out at Lulu's in Wellington on Friday night with my Spicey Friends (I'm Posh btw) to celebrate our Lochiel Spices birthday (ex Lochiel Marching Team), ​and had a request for Toru Road to make a white bean dip as an alternative to hummus. My white bean dip uses cannellini beans instead of chick peas and is nice and creamy.  I will have to think on that a bit more, every kai introduced has to have a native NZ ingredient that makes it pop so if you have ideas and want to have your influence in a white bean dip to beat all other hummus dips on the market then message me https://m.me/ToruRoad.  Another name other that White Bean Dip would also be great.

Toru Road Events have an event coming up next month that we are super excited about. Once its been held we will have photos to post (keep it a surprise for the mo).  Had a busy afternoon and evening creating six "different but same" mockup centrepieces with my collaborator on this event, MaiTui Events, ready for a presentation hui that I had last Thursday.  My whare was just a tad chaotic in the process, and that's not just because of this creativity, nor the moko visiting Nanny and Papa's on a regular, but it was the week that I decided that we (note the inclusion of Augie) would clean up a storage space to set aside for Toru Road. Everything that was in that space was tipped out, and put into other spaces around the house and the storage space is completely empty ready for Toru Road gear. In the process I found some hidden gems that I had forgotten about which have quickly been put to Toru Road Event use, and forced a reorganisation of another space - so that's two rooms total cleanout!  

Don't you just love it when you find stuff that you haven't discovered for a while. Amongst all event/theming, props hire items I found, I also found numerous memorabilia.  A programme and pen from the North Island Squash Champs, and the Wellington Squash Champs from the amazing year that was 1980 (how can that be 40 years ago, wow), a book of waiata that I had carefully written (and drawn pictures to match) from Te Rangatahi our kapa haka roopu from Kapiti College - how cute lol, and just a couple (well quite a lot, I was proud) of newspapers from Augies NZ Dragonboating days.  Glory Days!!!  So cool to look back at that stuff from a different time and have a laugh. 

I just love the creative juices that come alive when collaborating with MaiTui Events, it is soooo much fun, and I love that when working together we can mess around with each others creative capacities (don't worry there is no shortness of critiquing going on, which is great because you want to have the best). My resulting hui with the organisers was a success and they loved the concepts, so we are good to go.  Yes this will be my first official Toru Road Event having now secured my company name last week.  A big occasion for the business and that makes me happy.

Along with my MaiTui Events collaborator I had a fun night on Friday night with some amazing wahine toa that we met at a HineBoss workshop that we did last year.  This group of like-minded wahine are super spesh and are all following their dreams to get into a business venture of their own, or are already successful in their own businesses.  Being around them is so inspiring and I just love this photo taken which depicts some of their energy! These two look amaze and whilst we did do a few karate kicks on our way back to the car afterwards, it was not quite as fast as lighting - and it was, dare I say it, just a little bit frightening!  Love these girls. 

Can't stop singing... Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting...

What a whirlwind week! Headed to Castlepoint in the Wairarapa for the first time and had an awesome stay at a friends home right on the beach, with views to die for of the lighthouse. The sunrise was worth stammering out of bed for, but the proposed walk down to the beach had to wait until my eyes and mood were brighter later on in the day!  Being brought up by the beach on Toru Road in Paraparaumu, being back on a beach is really calming and I tend to feel centred and this visit did just the trick.

I asked my host if I could pick from their 'garden' around the house and came back with a kete full of kawakawa and dandelion which was just the best. There is nothing like getting amongst it. The best thing was coming home and making myself a kawakawa and ginger tea.  I'm sure I drank a whole teapot just because.  I did share some with our niece Tallulah-Belle who popped in to pick up some Toru Road goods. She probably thinks I've turned into a hippie, specially when I got her to taste the dandelion pesto I made from the tall dandelion growing around the whare and pushed it to her to take home.  It's just amazing what nature has available for us.  I dried most of the kawakawa so that it will keep for later. The smell of the leaves drying made my house smell like a herbal spa.  Keenau came around and said it smells not serene, nor gorgeous, his words were "medicinal".  I'll take that as a positive.

Finally my Toru Road pesto jars arrived and its great to have them.  My Toru Road granola bags arrived, and they are a lot bigger than anticipated so am pondering whether to just make them 1kg instead of 500grams, what do you reckon?  They are the enviro-friendly sealing bags that you tear the top off, just like the dukkah bags, but unexpectedly much bigger.  I'm just glad I now have some packaging.  This get on and do it stuff even though you haven't got yourself together keeps you on your toes. I could still be dreaming about it if I didn't start.

Finally the Toru Road logo is done, and that means I can work on some labels for my packaging and jars.  Can't wait to make them all pretties.

Best news is that my SHOP function now works online, so from a customer viewpoint its much more friendlier to purchase. I haven't worked out delivery yet but just email or message me and I can always work something out if you are in the region.  I am working on chill-boxes so that I can deliver further afield - I have had a few whanau up the line asking me when they can try my products, good things take time aye Uncle Howie lol.

I'm off to bake a cake, for another September birthday tomorrow - in our busiest birthday month for the whanau.  It's a dark chocolate sumptuous cake which Nigella says is by the way vegan - somehow when things are gluten free, or dairy free, they just don't turn out like a regular cake, I'm hoping this one is different.  Wish me luck...

Yesssss my domain name for my website has now been changed to .nz   Super excited.  Makes it easier to remember www.toruroad.nz than what I had before.  Took a lil bit of time to get sorted given I am not high on the IT providers list of to do's, but not to worry all good things take time and this was one of them.  Finally I have a website with a proper name lol.

And bonus new email addy to boot, [email protected] - starting to get pretty flash here.  Who would have thought.

Another great thing happened this week and that has been the arrival of my packaging for my dukkah.  I know, its not everyone's cup of tea but its big moves for Toru Road.  Yes Horopito Dukkah is now in a nice enviro-friendly lil brown paper bag, with a little window so you can see the deliciousness inside and they are sealable with heat, loves.  My pesto jars are on their way as well and should be here any day now and I've ordered my granola packaging as well - I so can't wait for them to arrive.

Next on the to do list is my branding.  Still messing around with the logo.  I could be there for a while but I need something soon so that I can get my labels done - my next big push.  Nothing like keeping myself on my toes.

Made a gorgeous Horopito Dukkah yesterday and loves.  Been really nice to read some facebook comments on others enjoying.  Love my mahi and love knowing that others are enjoying my kai.

My new mantra 'Imperfect Actions' has got me moving forward with Toru Road. I've always wanted to get a business going, be it event management, making pestos or hummus or anything related to food, opening a deli, a deli/cafe, or going big with a deli/cafe in a warehouse (dreams right?!), whatever it was going to be I wanted it to be something that brings my whanau together - and ideally bringing my tamariki back here to their roots in NZ! 

Everything has to start somewhere and my imperfect actions have forced me to get going.  Sold some pesto at a pop-up market, got orders from my website, heck I actually have a website.  What an amazing start!  Super super grateful for everyone that is/has/will be soon lol supporting me on this Toru Road journey.

And boy have I made some progress this week.  I now own the domain name for toruroad.nz which I feel is more recognisable and more friendly to remember than the weebly.com address, and this comes with a toruroad email address which I cant wait to use.  Once those are set up properly I hope to transfer over this website - fingers crossed for that to occur, and then I can get my online purchasing going so you don't have to fluff around finding my email addy etc. to order.

Big news is that my pesto jars, along with my granola and dukkah packaging is on its way.  I soooo cant wait for them to arrive, cos I love for things to look pretties.  And I'm researching packaging (ice packs) and delivery avenues so that I can courier around NZ (sorry not overseas yet whanau). I can't wait for that to happen.  

I'm also encouraging our girl Ashlee to help me take the twinnies logo to the next level of design - Ash is super creative and clever and I wish she was here in NZ to help me with this stuff.  Once I get the logo done then I can work on the rest of my branding and it will then mean I can get some proper business cards, and the all important labels for our kai products.  I loathe my current business cards which I did whilst listening online to a business school lecture, frantically ordering just 50 of them so that I had something in place for the pop-up market which was the following week.  Now every time I hand out a card I apologise for the size 6 font, the colour, and placement of the pesto jar on the blinken card. I give fair warning when handing them out that a magnifying glass is required. Imperfect Action means at least I have a business card to hand out right, better than nothing?  Doesn't stop me from not handing it out though lol.  I plan to give them a good send off into my compost once I get my new cards. 

As I go to get a photo of my business cards I realise I don't have any in my phone cover.  Need I say more, the limited edition of this business card follows ...

Toru Road Kale & Kawakawa Pesto was a hit today at the PopUp Business Aotearoa trade show at Hutt City Events Centre. Cool to get my very first sales, woohoo. Converted lotsa people into buying kale pesto lol. Who would've thought it was gonna be so popular, or was that my sales skills?!!
​
New website is up now as well. Its an imperfect action, something I've learnt these past few days that  means that there's still work to do, but it's better to have something up instead of nothing!  Believe me there would be nothing if I hadn't had the push from the PopUp Business School.  Still lots to do but a magnificent start.  And this is my first blog.  Outta my comfort zone for sure.  Loves.

Thanks to Augie who was my sous chef, promoter, driver, and biggest supporter on the day, and the one to spot (hmmm and taste) all the other goodies at the trade show.  The winner of the day was my confidence and knowing that I have a product out there that people are moving towards.  The other winner was of course our moko who is about to receive a lil hoodie with Ataahua written on it, that Augie purchased at the trade show - cant forget the bubbas.