The Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin

Parmesan Gnocchi 300gm bread flour 450ml milk 100gm butter 1 tsp salt 6 eggs 1 cup grated parmesan 1 cup fresh herbs, chopped 2 tbsp butter to finish 1 lemon, cut in half Heat the milk and butter over a low heat until just boiling. Add the sifted flour and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon. Reduce the heat and cook for a couple more minutes. Transfer the mix into stand mixer and with a paddle at...

New Zealand had fewer deaths in 2020 than expected Almost one million more people died than expected last year in 29 high-income countries, according to a large study that estimated how the COVID-19 pandemic affected death rates. New Zealand stood out as the only country studied that had fewer actual deaths than expected - about 2,500 in total. Nanogirl Michelle Dickinson joined Francesca Rudkin t...

Horror fans have two options to pick between this week, either at home or in the cinemas.  Zack Snyder returns to his zombie-origins with action-comedy-horror hybrid Army of the Dead available on Netflix. And for those ready to head back to the movies, A Quiet Place Part II is finally out after being one of the first movies delayed last year. Flicks editor Steve Newall joined Francesca Rudkin to d...

There are hopes dogs could help in the fight against cancer. A Kiwi medical charity is raising money for a dog which can sniff out early signs of ovarian cancer. Once a dog is trained it's able to smell people's urine to determine whether they have the disease, they can then be referred for other forms of testing. Canine Medical Detection Director Pauline Blomfield told Francesca Rudkin New Zealan...

A bipartisan group of 44 attorneys general has written to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg urging him to drop company plans for a version of Instagram for children under the age of 13, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey announced Monday. The attorneys general in the letter said they are concerned about social media's effects on the physical and emotional well-being of children, the potential...

Budget 2021 has finally arrived - but what does it mean for the average Kiwi? The headline of Budget 2021 is an up to $55 per week increase in main benefits rates – a move the Government is expecting to lift between 19,000 and 33,000 children out of poverty. Drug-buying agency Pharmac got a $200 million increase as Labour delivered on its election pledge to increase the funding. The Government has...

Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead. This is a truly glorious book, all 590 pages of it, which I didn’t want to end. It’s the story of two (fictional) women living in different times: Marian Graves who – in the style of Jean Batten – lived unconventionally and became an obsessive aviator; and Hadley Baxter, a Hollywood actress who many years later plays the role of Marian in a movie about her life. B...

No one knows the best tips for travelling as a family more than a mum, and this post was written for Mother’s Day as a shout out to all the wise mums out there!  There are some really creative and clever tips in this post that I’m sure you’ll be able to use!  My mum has always instilled in us to “take a cardigan, you’ll be cold!” In fact, even when I was with mum in the Cayman Islands and it was a...

Twenty-nine schools which were offered the Government's funded lunch in schools programme turned down the free food. The lunch in school programme - Ka Ora, Ka Ako - was offered to 763 schools late last year. The Education Ministry said Ka Ora, Ka Ako is offered to schools and kura that fall within the highest 25 per cent of socio-economic disadvantage nationally and where students face the greate...

Patricia Grace is one of Aotearoa’s most celebrated writers.  The author of seven novels, seven short story collections, as well as a number of children’s and non-fiction books.  Patricia has received many national and international awards across her five decades of writing, including the prestigious Neustadt International Prize.  Patricia Grace has now penned her memoir, it’s called From the Cent...

Erin is the co-founder, director, Naturopath and Yoga Teacher at Golden Yogi. She holds a bachelor of science (physiology) and a bachelor or natural medicine.  In New Zealand, it is estimated that the number of people diagnosed with diabetes exceeds 250,000 people (predominantly type 2 diabetes). Within the New Zealand population, the prevalence of diabetes in Māori and Pacific populations is arou...

Winter is here, well it was for one night!   Fires were lit, flannelette sheets went on the beds and the soup recipes came out!!  So this week I bring you my mums Dutch pea and ham soup. It is absolutely one of my most fond memories of living on a farm in winter as a kid. Mum would make this soup every  week and we loved the fact that the soup was so thick we could stand our spoons up in bowl!   M...

This week, I think we have moved to the future, after scientists were able to insert brain implants into a paralysed patient and read his mind well enough to understand him writing out letters in his thought. They then translated this into real text on a screen allowing him to physically write out sentences in his own handwriting all without ever picking up a pen or keyboard. Watch the video in th...

One day during lunch with her mother, award winning ABC journalist, Sarah Dingle’s life was turned upside down.  Sarah learned that her Dad, the man that had raised her, wasn’t her biological father. Sarah’s existence was down to an anonymous sperm donor donation back in the 1980s.  The discovery set off a decade long investigation for Sarah, not only to look into her own existence and find her bi...

Elana Connor planned to sail around the globe. Instead, she found herself stranded in New Zealand as Covid-19 swept the world, beating her to the task. The forced layover has not curbed her sense of adventure - or the former foster child's sense of charity. She is about to being the final leg of her ‘figure eight’ sailing around New Zealand to help youth in fostercare. Elana told Francesca Rudkin...

This year's Budget will be on Thursday, May 20 as announced by Grant Robertson last month. Little is known about what will be in the Budget, with more announcements expected as we lead up to Thursday. What is known is that the Government has set aside a significant amount of money for its housing supply announcement. But Newstalk ZB political reporter, Aaron Dahmen, told Francesca Rudkin he doesn'...

The Christchurch Call to Action will hone its focus on people's "online journeys" and how certain platforms can steer users towards radicalisation. The commitment was announced today after a virtual summit - chaired by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and French President Emmanuel Macron - to mark the Call's two-year anniversary. Fourteen state leaders and 120 Call members participated in the summit....

This week there has been a lot of attention on New Zealand cricketers playing in the India’s suspended IPL and their plight to get home or to England for the up-coming two test tour. The whole IPL operation had wrapped itself in a big bubble in the hope of continuing even as India is devastated by a horrific second wave of Covid 19. Since reality struck and the tournament’s suspension, the media h...

Health officials are investigating the deaths of two New Zealanders in their 80s who have died since having the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 jab under "an abundance of caution". Officials have stated there is currently no direct link to the vaccinations. The Ministry of Health says it has been made aware of the deaths and "through an abundance of caution" they were investigating fully. Medical staff b...

The debut novel from Taranaki author Jacqueline Bublitz has set the international publishing world alight. Before You Knew My Name is a crime novel exploring trauma, connection and the cultural obsession with Dead Girls. It’s been pitched as The Lovely Bones for the MeToo era and earned high praise from mega-star author Marian Keys, who described it as “unusual, beautiful, feminist, gripping, dese...

Before You Knew My Name by Jacqueline Bublitz Listen to Bublitz talk about her story here Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe An extraordinary piece of investigative journalism about the Sackler family who are well known philanthropists, having donated billions of dollars over many years to the arts, science, medicine, and education. They were, until recently, also the owners of Purdue Pharma w...

Normally travel blogger Megan Singleton would join Francesca Rudkin to discuss the latest in travel news. However, this week she shared her experiences helping her India-based colleague to fundraise for portable oxygen generators. You can read more about her fundraising efforts here LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One problem that has been put in the spotlight in recent years is excess food packaging adding to global issues with too much waste. Now scientists have developed a way to save on packaging for one popular food - pasta! The scientists were inspired by flat-packed furniture and how it saves space, made storage easier, and reduced the carbon footprint associated with transportation, and so went to w...

Today is Mother's Day, and it's a day for celebrating mothers from all walks of live. However, the invisible stress of motherhood is a real struggle, and it is making mums overwhelmed and exhausted. Wellbeing expert and naturopath Erin O'Hara joined Francesca Rudkin to discuss practical tips to help stressed mums relax and boost energy levels. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy i...

1 size 14 chicken 2 lemons 8 cloves of garlic, crushed seasalt 1 tsp cooking oil 1 oven bag Hot kumara salad 15 small Kumara 2 tbsp cooking oil 1 cup sultanas 4 spring onions, sliced 1 cup mint, picked Smokey Dressing 1 tsp smoked paprika 2 lemons, juiced 1 tsp dijion mustard 1 tbsp runny honey 6 tbsp grapeseed oil seasalt and pepper   Preheat oven to 180*c Remove the chicken from the bag and wash...