The Ecoya range was launched in 2011 with a collection of six soy wax candles.
Since then they have diverged into a botanical collection with five additional core fragrances and other limited edition and holiday scents.
These things don't come cheap, about $50 for the larger candles and $25 for the small, but if you believe the packaging they burn for 55 hours - less than a dollar an hour and it makes your house smell like a florist's. To many men this might put them on edge, since florists are subliminally linked with being in trouble, but I have to admit the gentle flickering and warmth is relaxing.
I decided to test this burn time. I lit the candle, started a timer, and prepared for a 55-hour scent experiment. Then I got bored and extinguished the candle after a couple of hours. I must admit, it hadn't gone down much at all.
They all smell good. So to approach the smell test we had the ad reps smell each in turn, and without reading the labels, guess which were which.
The experiment was impeded immediately by Wayne asking what the hell patchouli and jacaranda were.
After clearing up this confusion (patchouli is a herb with pink flowers, jacaranda is also a flowering plant) and amazingly, the best performer was Wayne.
Despite claiming "they all just smell like cream to me" he guessed every scent correctly. The other female reps confused the scents, with the most common mistake being the mix up of Jacaranda and Plum with the Coconut and Elderflower. Lowest performer was the manager, who confused all four before deciding the exercise was pointless.
- Ged Cann
The rump and Scotch fillet steak from Safari Biltong on Fifth Avenue. I've been eating quite a bit of protein lately as part of my new eating regime and nutritionist Sonja Gardiner recommended I check the store out for their biltong and rump steak. I'm not big on biltong, but the rump was delicious. Owner Wykie ages the steak for several weeks so it's meltingly tender. But then there's the Scotch fillet. And that's out-of-this-world tasty!
I bought a kilo of it and only gave the packs a cursory glance when I put them in the fridge, thinking there were four pieces in each pack. Upon return, I discovered there were two giant hunks in each pack, both with a gorgeous marbling of fat through them.
Cooked medium on a smoking hot barbecue, they are probably some of the tastiest Scotch fillet steaks I've ever eaten. If Wykie doesn't have the Scotch in stock, he'll order it in for you.
- Danielle Nicholson
Late-night craving for Maccas but can't be bothered going out? There's a new service in town called Food Courier that will pick up your food order from anywhere within a 15km radius and deliver it to your door. You decide what you want picked up and from where (anywhere from Countdown to McDonalds, KFC to Subway) fill out the order form at www.foodcourier.co.nz, the driver picks it up and pays for it and delivers it to you where you pay by cash or eftpos.
Their services starts from March 23.