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her time out memories mealswith by Vicki Treadell Vicki Treadell is the current British High Commissioner to New Zealand and Samoa, and the current Governor of Pitcairn. She was born in Malaysia, has a Singaporean/Chinese mother and is the first Asian female British High Commissioner ever. She is a career diplomat with experience in Pakistan and Malaysia and has worked for UK Trade & Investment. She was awarded a Member of the Royal Victorian Order in 1989 and was made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George in 2010. Best Feast It is hard to choose. I have eaten some amazing food in a variety of countries. I love spicy food from Sri Lankan curries (their chilli crab is to die for!) to most things from South East Asia whether Thai or Malaysian Nonya. I sometimes crave hawker food favourites from Malaysia and Singapore, noodle dishes like Char Kway Teoh (flat rice noodles flash fried on a high heat in a wok with prawns, eggs, Chinese sausage, beansprouts, chives, chilli paste and soya sauce) or Curry Laksa (yellow egg noodles in a creamy spicy coconut broth with prawns, cockles, beancurd and topped with fresh coriander, mint, scallions and a sprinkle of crispy fried onions). Having said that, a great British roast dinner can't be beaten nor can a classic steamed pudding with thick custard for desert. I have quite eclectic tastes and much depends on my mood. There are days when baked beans on toast is all I want. But if I have to pin down "my best meal", I'll choose one where it was not so much the food but the occasion and the company. My best feast was the night I realised the man in front of me was the one I wanted to be with, my soul mate and future husband, Alan. It was my 24th birthday and he took me out for dinner to a little Italian Restaurant in Pimlico near Victoria Station in London. We had a table in a quiet corner, the glow of candlelight casting dancing shadows. It was intimate and I felt very special. We indulged in four fantastic courses starting with a wonderful simple salad of fresh mozzarella, basil and tomato drizzled with virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar, then a second course of seafood pasta (lightly tossed in a garlic butter with freshly chopped parsley), a main of veal escalope (panfried, thin and tender, it melted in the mouth), and to round it off cream filled profiteroles smothered in a rich chocolate sauce, all washed down with a good chianti. We talked 92 | February/March 2012 | HER MAGAZINE and laughed and enjoyed the food and wine. The meal seemed to go on forever and yet time seemed to stand still. We were the last to leave the restaurant. Worst Course I found a formal Chinese banquet in Guangdong, with delicacies like sea cucumber (basically a sea slug, dark but translucent and gelatinous), "thousand year old" eggs (where the albumen has turned to what looks like jellified coca cola and the yolks are a vivid blood orange) and turtle soup quite difficult to get through. But in my line of work, when you know people are going to a lot of trouble to provide you with the best hospitality possible, you smile and get on with it, embracing the occasion. But, the most unusual meal, or to put it more precisely "nourishment", I've had was on a trip up the Karakoram Highway in Pakistan. It was a rocky, un-metalled, precipitous road at the time that meandered through the Western Himalayas up to the Chinese border. Its raw, rugged and spectacular scenery, never mind the thin air, took your breath away. There are remote villages, but often you drove for miles and saw no one. A four wheel drive was essential. So it was a most stunning backdrop for any meal. One night we pulled over to set up camp and a goat herder appeared with his flock and asked if we'd like to have some fresh goat milk for our evening meal. We accepted and watched him milk one of his ewes. The milk squirted into the billy can, steaming in the cold mountain air. He then pressed the billy up to the goat's neck and, with his knife, made a small nick on its neck. We watched in slight shock as the deep red of the blood dribbled into the white of the milk. It was over in seconds. He rubbed the goat's neck and it seemed unfazed, chewing the cud and settling back with the herd. The goat herder stirred this mixture with his knife, took a swig, passed the can over and I, and my three travelling companions, drank in turn as we squatted around the campfire with the sun dipping on the far horizon. The milk smelled goaty (but maybe it was the odour of the nearby goats!), it was warm and tasted salty from the blood. It looked like a strawberry milkshake. We drank it because we knew this man did not have much and had shared what he did have with us. It is not something I would ever seek to drink again. Needless to say we did not have much appetite afterwards, but we dug out some chocolate biscuits for desert and the goat herder seemed happy with the trade. For me, a chocolate biscuit has never ever tasted so good!