Charlotte Muru-Lanning

Auckland

Staff Writer at The Spinoff

Waikato, Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Whātua She/her [email protected] 🍉

Featured in: Favicon

thespinoff.co.nz Favicon

stuff.co.nz Favicon

nzherald.co.nz Favicon

substack.com Favicon

rnz.co.nz

scoop.co.nz Favicon

einnews.com Favicon

aut.ac.nz

asiapacificreport.nz Favicon

metromag.co.nz + 4 more

Articles

Metro — Earning Your Spikes

1 week ago | metromag.co.nz | Charlotte Muru-Lanning

Society In the corners of social media frequented by Māori, kai takes on a prismatic form. ‘Kai Māori’ might be defined as dishes you’d expect to find on the table in a marae wharekai, but also literally anything else consumed or caught or cooked by Māori. And within this complex constellation of food, the kina, the endemic echinoderm of Aotearoa, has become the central, barbed star. Kina content could easily be classified as its own social media genre.
Metro — Pot Luck — 21 March 2025

1 month ago | metromag.co.nz | Charlotte Muru-Lanning

Metro Eats Kia ora,Every year, the sun and heat and optimism of summer inevitably recedes into cold and rain and gloom. And, every year, I am inevitably caught off guard by the abrupt changing of the seasons. I reflected upon this regretfully while scuttling down Queen St toward Waitematā Station (Britomart) on Monday afternoon, dodging murky-looking puddles and darting across uncovered patches of footpath, umbrella-less and sporting flimsy suede ballet flats.
Metro — Pot Luck — 28 Februrary 2025

1 month ago | metromag.co.nz | Charlotte Muru-Lanning

Metro Eats Kia ora,About a month ago, I made the spur-of-the-moment but necessary decision to delete a trio of social media apps from my phone: Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, haere rā. I’d long felt besieged by their persuasions to post, to scroll, to watch, to like, to reply to perpetual private message conversations, to loiter around their online spaces in the hope of a fleeting dopamine boost.
Metro — Pot Luck — December 20

Jan 13, 2025 | metromag.co.nz | Charlotte Muru-Lanning

Metro Eats Kia ora,Welcome to the final edition of this newsletter for 2024!As the year winds down, ’tis the season to reflect, wrap things up and look ahead. For me, the overwhelming takeaway is how much of a privilege it is to have a job (I could put a full stop here and that would be enough) in which eating your way around the city is, quite literally, part of the job description.
Metro — Pot Luck — December 13

Jan 13, 2025 | metromag.co.nz | Charlotte Muru-Lanning

Metro Eats Kia ora,Over the course of the last week, I’ve been completely enthralled by two things. First, a box of Thai sweets I bought from the Thai Festival by the Bay last weekend: multicoloured jewel-like jellies with crisp shells, fragrant white and green shortbreads, an egg-yolk tart dusted in edible glitter and a snappy sunflower-shaped specimen – some of the most beautiful edible things I’ve ever encountered.
Here’s everything you need to know about unions

Oct 27, 2024 | thespinoff.co.nz | Charlotte Muru-Lanning

Societyabout 12 hours agoHave you ever heard the word ‘union’ and wondered what that is, who they are and what exactly they do? This is the guide for you. Originally published in 2023If you’re enjoying a lovely, leisurely, lay-around-the-house day off from work this Monday, you have the union movement to thank.
Metro — Pot Luck — Friday 11 October

Oct 10, 2024 | metromag.co.nz | Charlotte Muru-Lanning

Metro Eats Kia ora,Without a doubt, the restaurant I return to most in the world is Mr. Hao on Dominion Rd. It’s not exactly a habit I’m proud of, but it’s not one I’m ashamed of either. It just is. My first experience with Mr. Hao was during Auckland’s final lockdown by way of huge boxes of takeaways that I ate at the dining room table of my flat where I was isolating alone – it’s my fondest memory of that grim period.
Metro — Pot Luck — Friday 4 October

Oct 3, 2024 | metromag.co.nz | Charlotte Muru-Lanning

Metro Eats Kia ora,It’s been a mighty week for wine at the Metro offices, centered around our annual tasting – a two-day grape-scented marathon administered by head judge Oliver Styles and a panel of eight fellow experts. The end result of those two days will be an exhaustive guide to the top 50 wines you can buy in Aotearoa, but it’s the process itself that I find most fascinating.
Metro — Sweet Somethings

Sep 29, 2024 | metromag.co.nz | Charlotte Muru-Lanning

Food My grandma had all the hallmarks of a person who could bake a cake sans recipe or whip up some elaborate, intergenerationally handed-down pudding: petite, English, curly grey hair, and, after a certain point, old. In reality, she was an average, if not sometimes terrible, cook. But as a grandma, she was the best. Perhaps that’s why one afternoon I spent baking with her as a primary-school-aged kid has stuck with me with such vividness.
Metro — The 50 best SWEET THINGS TO EAT in Tāmaki Makaurau

Sep 29, 2024 | metromag.co.nz | Charlotte Muru-Lanning

Food Metro has previously done deep dives into Auckland’s best chocolate desserts and the glories of panipopo; always considers cakes and pastries as part of our assessment of cafes; and usually devotes the final paragraph of restaurant reviews to dessert. But we’ve rarely made sweet dishes the main event — until now. For this issue, we’ve found the best sweet things you can eat in this city, categorised by type: from the best granita to the best fruit sando to the best lamington.