About Pastry

...I was in my club when Fotheringill told me about a fabulous dish you can get in New Zealand called a poi; I expressed interest and he told me where you could get it. Straightaway I booked my passage to New Zealand. I thought you had to go by canoe for the last couple of thousand miles, but to my surprise we flew all the way. They cleared the sheep off the runway and we landed. I went by a train aptly called the “Limited” and then on a charming vessel called—well, it's awfully difficult to spell—to Christchurch—a sort of Cecil B. de Mille re-creation of an English country town. By but I went to a small airstrip and took off in a delightful little plane which flew—yes, it's true—slap into the Alps. We landed in the snow. Of course my appetite was reaching fever pitch at this point. We trekked over snow and ice to a small hotel called the Hermitage on Mount Cook, a place that plays Swiss music until you go mad. I crawled across the carpet and asked for Bill the maître d’hôtel (I feel his name should be William—but there you are—when in Rome—) and through cracked lips breathed the magic word “poi—have you a poi.” “Certainly, mate” he replied.