Friday, April 11, 2014

140410 Main Ingredient's MENU - Taste of Cape Town, Twist Some More, Dunstone, Nabygelegen, Van Ryn, Allesverloren Launch, TvM Trade Tasting, Vineyard’s Pinot showcase

MENU
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Gourmet Foods & Ingredients
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Evening light on Bains’ Kloof behind Nabygelegen
In this week’s MENU:
* Taste of Cape Town
* Twist Some More
* Dunstone
* Nabygelegen
* Van Ryn
* Allesverloren Launch
* TvM Trade Tasting
* Vineyard’s Pinot showcase
This week’s Product menu – Christmas seems as though it was just the other day, and here come Easter and Pesach.  We are all sure to be looking forward to special celebratory family meals.  Duck and Goose Fat are wonderful if you want the best roast potatoes, and they are so healthy that they make the spuds marginally more acceptable if you are on a Banting diet. Confit duck is delicious if you want a quick way to enjoy the best French duck and it is also great for duck dishes, duck salad and of course it comes with a generous amount of duck fat in the tin.

If you can find it in the supermarket, we don't usually stock it, just the products you would struggle to find.... Check our online shop to see more details and prices.
We have certainly moved about the countryside this week
Taste of Cape Town     Last Thursday saw us at the opening of this fun food festival that is now in its 7th year. It did look much larger than in previous years and we had a great time, but it was, perhaps, not as concentrated on fine dining as before. We know that chefs find it hard to cater at prices that have changed little in that time while costs have soared, and perhaps that is why there were fewer of the chefs we have seen previously. The festival was well attended and seemed very busy with people enjoying themselves. Click here to see the pictures
Wellington again and Twist Some More restaurant     Last Friday, we went off on a jaunt to Wellington. We made a short stop at Windmeul wine cellar and had a quick taste of their wines and then suddenly it was lunchtime, so we visited Twist Some More which is one of the best places to eat when in Wellington. We had a fine lunch. Click here to see the pictures
Dunstone     Then it was off to Dunstone Guest House where we had been invited to spend a night and write about it . They have a summer special on where you can do dinner bed and breakfast for R995 and we were put up in their Guava cottage where we spent a relaxing afternoon evening and breakfasted the next morning. See the pictures here
Nabygelegen     James McKenzie is always worth a visit when we are in this area and we dropped in to Nabygelegen for a chat before leaving lovely Wellington. He surprised us by giving us a special tasting from barrels and tanks in his cellar and we talked about doing something with him in the winter. Pictures here
Van Ryn     On Tuesday morning we found our way to Van Ryn in Stellenbosch where we had been invited to do a brandy and chocolate pairing, a tour of the distillery and then lunch in their elegant dining area. Have a look here at what we did.
Allesverloren Launch of three new wines     On Wednesday we had a lovely trip through the sunny and warm Boland to Allesverloren in Riebeek West where we had a magnificent view of the valley from their stoep and enjoyed a lovely lunch with owners Danie Malan and his wife, eating superb food prepared by Nic van Wyk of Kokkedoor fame and drinking three of their excellent wines, all of them new releases. Click here to learn more and see the day
TvM Trade Tasting     Then it was a smoky trip back to Cape Town to Harald Bresselschmidt’s function venue, Auslese, to attend what we regard as one of the best trade wine tastings of the year. Tracy van Maaren represents a very exciting list of wine farms and they all present some of their wines cleverly matched with dishes prepared in Harald Bresselschmidt’s kitchen. With many chefs, sommeliers and other trade friends attending, it is also a great social event. Click here to see what we tasted and ate
Vineyard Sunday     Don’t forget to get your tickets to the Vineyard’s Pinot Noir showcase this Sunday. This is one tasting not to miss if you love good Pinot Noir. The vineyard always lays on great snacks with these tastings. R180 a ticket. We and several of our friends and customers will definitely be there

Question     Why are the farms in the Boland allowed to burn their wheat stubble? The air pollution in the Cape at the moment is horrible and we can attest to the fact that it is being caused by this stubble burning. There is thick smog from Franschhoek right across to Riebeek and beyond and all the way back to town. Lynne’s asthma is really bad today and the flu she picked up last week is also making it very, very difficult to breathe. Surely this is not allowed? Certainly in Europe it has been banned for years. Why don’t they just plough in the stubble as compost to help aerate the soil?
Buying from us On Line We have a lot of fun putting MENU together each week and, of course, doing the things we write about, but making it possible for you to enjoy rare and wonderful gourmet foods is what drives our business. We stock a good range of ingredients and delicious ready-made gourmet foods. You can contact us by email or phone, or through our on line shop. We can send your requirements to you anywhere in South Africa. Please do not pay until we have confirmed availability and invoiced you, then you pay and then we deliver or post. When you make an eft payment, make sure that it says who you are. Use the form on the website to email us your order. Click here to see our OnLine Shop.
There is a huge and rapidly growing variety of interesting things to occupy your leisure time here in the Western Cape. There are so many interesting things to do in our world of food and wine that we have made separate list for each month for which we have information. To see what’s happening in our world of food and wine (and a few other cultural events), visit our Events Calendar. All the events are listed in date order and we already have a large number of exciting events to entertain you right through the year. Events outside the Western Cape are listed here.
Learn about wine and cooking We receive a lot of enquiries from people who want to learn more about wine. Cathy Marston and The Cape Wine Academy both run wine education courses, some very serious and others more geared to fun. You can see details of Cathy’s WSET and other courses here and here and the CWA courses here. Karen Glanfield has taken over the UnWined wine appreciation courses from Cathy. See the details here
Chez Gourmet in Claremont has a programme of cooking classes. A calendar of their classes can be seen here. Nadège Lepoittevin-Dasse has cooking classes in Fish Hoek and conducts cooking tours to Normandy. You can see more details here. Emma Freddi runs the Enrica Rocca cooking courses at her home in Constantia. Brett Nussey’s Stir Crazy courses are now being run from Dish Food and Social’s premises in Main Road Observatory (opposite Groote Schuur hospital). Lynn Angel runs the Kitchen Angel cooking school and does private dinners at her home. She holds hands-on cooking classes for small groups on Monday and Wednesday evenings. She trained with Raymond Blanc, and has been a professional chef for 25 years. More info here







10th April 2014
Remember - if you can’t find something, we’ll do our best to get it for you, and, if you’re in Cape Town or elsewhere in the country, we can send it to you! Check our online shop for details and prices.
PS If a word or name is in bold type and underlined, click on it for more information
Phones: +27 21 439 3169 / 083 229 1172 / 083 656 4169
Postal address: 60 Arthurs Rd, Sea Point 8005
Our Adamastor & Bacchus© tailor-made Wine, Food and Photo tours take small groups (up to 6) to specialist wine producers who make the best of South Africa’s wines. Have fun while you learn more about wine and how it is made! Tours can be conducted in English, German, Norwegian and standard or Dutch flavoured Afrikaans.
Recommendations of products and outside events are not solicited or charged for, and are made at the authors’ pleasure. All photographs, recipes and text used in these newsletters and our blogs are © John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus. Our restaurant reviews are usually unsolicited. We prefer to pay for our meals and not be paid in any way by anyone. Whether we are invited or go independently, we don’t feel bad if we say we didn’t like it. Honesty is indeed our best policy. While every effort is made to avoid mistakes, we are human and they do creep in occasionally, for which we apologise. Our Avast! ® Anti-Virus software is updated at least daily and our system is scanned continually for viruses.

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