Bring on Cup Week

John McCombe

Our brilliant editor, Yvonne Martin.

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Editor’s Corner

Living the dream? Bring on Cup Week The 1st issue in The Press Looking forward What happened in July? June's welcome May's editorial April's news A word on March What happened in February?

The highlight of the social calendar, Cup and Show Week, is almost upon us again.

The Avenues team has been immersed in Cup Week for a month, preparing this special edition to help readers get the most from next month's events.

It hasn't been easy. There has been champagne to test, picnics to attend, handmade chocolates to sample, and the latest fashions to preview, all while trying to solve the riddle of why Cup and Show Week is so special to Cantabrians.

Is it because normal business gets suspended while the frivolities of life - fillies, frocks, finger food and fizz - take priority? Is it that Christchurch takes a shameless pride in throwing a week-long party that cannot be matched by the rest of the country? Or, in throwing off the shackles of winter, do we just like an excuse to dress up, socialise and feel good about our city?

In our cover story, we talk to people for whom Cup Week is an annual not-to-be-missed ritual and they spend weeks and hundreds of dollars preparing for it. "It's a special occasion, like a wedding, where you want to look your best," Jackie McCone, a Cup Week regular from Merivale, says.

For caterers, there's the mind-boggling exercise of ordering enough food and drink for the masses. At Riccarton Park Racecourse, 5940 bottles of Lindauer were downed last year, along with 1100kg of ham on the bone and 400kg of chicken thighs.

The city's chocolatiers have been busy keeping up with demand. One of them, Agnes Almeida, from Xocolatl, even designed a special Avenues chocolate for Cup Week. Having quality-tested them and declared them delicious, we're giving a box away to a lucky reader.

But if there's one thing you do for the occasion, try making Phillip Kraal's old-fashioned Dutch apple pie (page 28) from the gourmet picnic he arranged as guest chef. My partner announced my humble version was the best fruit pie he'd tasted and now that he has requested it as a birthday cake, it's destined to become an annual ritual of our own.

Thanks for the positive feedback from subscribers of The Press, who now receive a complimentary copy of Avenues. We're delighted to have you aboard.

Enjoy.