Looking down over the vineyards to the Atlantic from Cape Point Vineyards’ lawn
In this week’s MENU:
Chilling at Cape Point Vineyards Anniversary dinner at the Food Barn Chasing challenges and challenging customers Summer Sunday dinner Bouchard Finlayson wines Broccoli and cauliflower in rich cheese cream with almonds Products Our market activities, events and restaurants CHILLING AT CAPE POINT VINEYARDS It has been a busy week for us and it didn’t let up. We love this time of year because it is when friends visit from all over the world and March has brought us friends from Holland, Germany, Australia and England, so there is a lot to fit in and a lot of entertaining to do. However, we spent our 9th wedding anniversary working at the market in Long Beach and then, as we had been invited by Duncan Savage, Cape Point Vineyards’ winemaker, we went to have a romantic sundowner on their lawn. They really do these picnics properly. You get groundsheets, huge cushions to laze on and really friendly staff bring you your wine with good glasses and, if you want supper, your picnic basket. We bought a bottle of Splattered Toad Sauvignon blanc and spent two stolen hours watching the sun go down; definitely the best place to chill after a heavy week’s work. They do have a tented marquee with tables and chairs, should you not be a lawn lizard. We will definitely return for the picnic with some of our friends. Lovely birdlife there and a splendid view – see pictures. FOOD AT THE BARN Then we fell off the hill, down to the Food Barn in Noordhoek village. We have been promising ourselves a return visit because we love Franck’s food. We started the celebration with a glass of Môreson’s Miss Molly MCC (100% Chardonnay) at R40 a glass, and we were each presented with a delicious appetiser of deep fried haloumi in one Chinese spoon and a prawn in an Asian sauce in the other. We opted for the Summer Bistro Menu, priced at R220 for three courses and some of the courses were delicious. We ordered a carafe of Newton Johnson Felicité Pinot Noir (R42), which was the wine matched to the starter we both could not resist: Fresh figs, sweet cured San Daniele Ham and deep fried Taleggio balls, mesclun leaves dressed with a sweet balsamic reduction, fresh, gooey, sweet and salty – the dish of the evening. John had rather firm and very salty gnocchi with home-smoked salmon for his main and Lynne very pink (as it should be) rack of Karoo lamb. John’s dessert was, predictably, the Chocolate marquise. Special mention goes to the wonderful dessert Lynne had. A rich, hot almond sabayon ‘soup’ with hot strawberries and raspberries, breathtakingly good. Floating on top is an almond tuille bearing a fig scented ice cream; definitely one to try to make at home for a special occasion.
Click here to see the menu and some photographs. We would have liked to have tried the Nitida special menu, but it is a little bit more expensive than we can afford right now at R480 pp with wine. We had excellent service from Matthew, who earned a generous tip. ARGUS CYCLE TOUR This race certainly brings business to the Cape, for which we and many other businesses are very grateful. The Biscuit Mill was pumping on Saturday morning and it was so nice to see lots of our out-of-town customers as well as the locals, although one of them did waste an enormous amount of John’s time and put in a big order on Thursday for collection on Saturday (we had asked them to give us a week’s notice) which had John running all over town to fulfil and then they didn’t take it -because they said the price was wrong! Which it wasn’t. They obviously haven’t refreshed our internet price list for a while. Reality check – prices do change, especially in March when, traditionally, all the food trade has to take into account petrol and commodity price rises. And, as we sell a lot of imported goods, we are subject to currency fluctuation. We try to hold prices as long as we can, but sometimes increases are inevitable, especially with petrol going to R10+ per litre.
DINNER ON OUR DECK Sunday night is a lovely time to have an informal dinner with old and good friends and we had rather a merry one, with the table filled with glasses and the air loud with spirited discussion. Lynne put out a lot of mezze and then we had a whole filleted Yellowtail, bought from Julie (Ocean Jewels) at the Neighbourgoods market. Lynne marinated this in our famous Prego sauce and it was sensational, baked in the oven for a few minutes. We had this with a huge mixed salad, new potatoes and a pesto pasta orzo salad. She made the panacotta again, but this time flavoured it with Frangelico and tossed on some roasted hazelnuts and some Frangelico and grape syrup. There were supposed to be raspberries but, somehow, they have completely and mysteriously disappeared. Do cats eat raspberries? Have they slowly dragged the punnet under bushes to consume at their leisure? Hmmm.
Bouchard tasting on Monday at the Twelve Apostles We are so spoilt in the Cape for wonderful function venues and the banqueting hall at the 12 Apostles must come somewhere near the top of the list, with its fabulous terrace and sea and mountain views. We didn’t get to see much of the view on Monday because we were seriously tasting Bouchard Finlayson wines from 4 till 8pm. We have such a hard life! Peter Finlayson had brought out some classic wines from his cellar, a tremendous privilege. We started with all the current releases from the farm and particularly liked the 2011 Blanc de Mer, his current blend of Riesling, Viognier, Sauvignon Blanc and Chenin, which has all the richness of these cultivars with a lovely salty tang of the sea (a brilliant match with seafood and our choice with fish at Milkwood in Onrus), so it was particularly special then to be able to taste vintages from 1991 and 2003 – which contained other German cultivars like Kerner, but was mainly Riesling. The ’91 was still very much alive, with some honeyed turpenes, and was very like a good aged Riesling. The 2010 Reserve Sauvignon blanc is very crisp and minerally and a superb food wine, the 2005 still has a good classic nose, is full of smoke and minerals and English gooseberries and the 08 was like a Grapefruit spritzer, still crisp and lively and also would be great with rich food. On to the Chardonnays: the current Missionvale 2010 is elegant and crisp citrus with vanilla and nuts, while the 04 is full of melons and pine nuts and the 07, with its beautiful golden colour, is still fresh and crisp. Kaaimansgat 2010 Chardonnay was delicious, full of lime notes, while the 2010 Limited Edition (50/50 wood/tank) is even more so, well balanced and integrated. And, finally, the 07 Sans Barrique has honey on the nose, long complex flavours with a bitter grapefruit end. There were, thankfully, lovely snacks during this marathon tasting and we particularly liked the huge breaded prawns you dipped into a cocktail sauce and the baby hamburgers. Then it was time for the reds.
Galpin Peak 2010 Pinot noir has a shy nose but is full of dark chocolate, liquorice, red and black berries. The 04 was quite balsamy on the nose but with good fruit. The 05 has pretty fruit on the nose, hot fruit and a cola end. The 06 was also balsamy with good pinot characteristics. Both seem to have lots of alcohol to support the fruit. Then a treat: the Tête de Cuvée Galpin Peak. The Current vintage 09, elegant, expensive wood with good soft sweet fruit showed promise, while the 06 is pretty, perfumed, very modern with full sweet raspberries and strawberries, a long, long end of well toasted wood, probably our favourite wine of the evening. The 2000 is showing better than the 2002 at the moment, but this might change.
And before we could leave this very social evening with many of the wine trade attending, we had to taste the Hannibal, Peter’s special and serious blend of French and Italian cultivars, which works so well in our climate. All grown in the Hemel and Aarde valley on heavy clay soils, the current vintage 2009 contains Sangiovese, Pinot noir, Nebbiolo, Shiraz, Mourvedre and Barbera. Full of wild gamey notes but sweet flavours. This wine delivers. Hot, at 14% alcohol, it is a great food wine. 2009 has lovely sweet and sour flavours, still has good chalky tannins, so it needs more time. The 06 is full of cherries and blackcurrants and deep dark flavours and would also be superb with meat dishes. The 04 is less sweet, with deeper, more concentrated flavours, so it might last further. And the 01 is vanilla, incense, violets and layers of fruit. We wish we had lots of all of these in our cellar. If you have some, we think that you are very fortunate indeed to have made such a great investment. As they say in the film business – fade to black.
DIET? Yes, Lynne is still following the Low/No carbohydrate diet, when she can. She had one pita bread on Sunday and swelled up like a balloon, so obviously the yeast and the bread are not a good idea. Note to self: DON’T DO. Broccoli and cauliflower are two of the permitted vegetables, so if you are struggling for ideas, try this simple supper dish – the quantities are up to you.
Florets of half a white crisp cauliflower – 250g stems of sprouting broccoli – 200 ml cream – 100g grated Parmesan or grana padano – 25g flaked almonds- salt and freshly ground black pepper – optional: a grating of nutmeg.
BROCCOLI AND CAULIFLOWER IN RICH CHEESE CREAM WITH ALMONDS
Lightly toast the almonds in a dry pan and set aside. Heat the cream and stir in the cheese until it melts. Briefly boil the two vegetables in salted water or rinse them and cook in the microwave, covered, for 3 minutes. Put into a serving dish, cover with the cheese cream sauce and sprinkle over the toasted almonds and the nutmeg, if using. You can serve immediately or, if you like the vegetables cooked a little longer, bake in a medium oven at 180˚C for 20 minutes.
Happy St Patrick’s Day to all our Irish readers and to all who want to join them in the celebration. We will be celebrating the small amount of Irish blood in John (he had an Irish great-grandmother) at the Twankey Bar at The Taj, on the corner of Adderley and Wale Streets. The celebration starts at 12h00 and continues until a late hour. They offer special prices on Irish drinks, fresh oysters at R12 each, Irish Bangers-on-the Bar-B for R25. The atmosphere will be helped by traditional Irish Folk Music plus U2, Morrissey & The Corrs (no, not live!) There will be lots of promo giveaways and drink specials and no cover charge. Come and enjoy the craic, with a free welcome drink for those wearing something green. Sláinte! (Good Health) Check the entry and poster in our events list for more. Products In addition to the white truffle balsamic reduction, and last week’s additions, we have bought in a delicious fig balsamic reduction, all of them from Italy. Spanish sherry vinegar is flying and we are getting more. Rose water and Orange blossom water are in copious quantities thanks to the above-mentioned customer who ordered a large quantity and then reneged. We have had lovely compliments on the quality of the Italian stock cubes, especially the chicken stock, and have increased our stock holding. They are all in our product list. Check it here. If you are looking for anything, have a look at our product list and tell us what you want. You will be able to access it through our website. If you can’t find what you need, let us know and we will try to find it for you. Until our online shop is ready, drop us an email and we will help you. We are very happy to see that traffic on our website is increasing and more orders are coming from it. The financial year end has put a hold on work on on-line developments, but we have nearly finished with all the final adjustments to our accounts and should, soon, be able to give it more time. 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 and introducing you to new products are the things that drive our business and make it exciting. We stock a good range of ingredients and delicious ready-made gourmet foods. You can contact us by email or phone, or through our website. We can send your requirements to you anywhere in South Africa. Our market activities We will be at the Old Biscuit Mill’s brilliant, exciting and atmospheric Neighbourgoods Market, as always, this Saturday between 09h00 and 14h00 and every Saturday. We will be back at Long Beach Mall on Friday, 23rd March for our South Peninsula friends. 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 help you choose an event to visit, click on our list for March, April and beyond. All the events are listed in date order and we already have exciting events to entertain you through into the new year. Click here to access the list. You will need to be connected to the internet. Some restaurants have responded to our request for an update of their special offers and we have, therefore, updated our list of restaurant special offers. Click here to access it. These Specials have been sent to us by the restaurants or their PR agencies. We have not personally tried all of them and their listing here should not always be taken as a recommendation from ourselves. If they don’t update us, we can’t be responsible for any inaccuracies in the list. When we have tried it, we’ve put in our observations. We have cut out the flowery adjectives etc. that so many have sent, to give you the essentials. Click on the name to access the relevant website. All communication should be with the individual restaurants. Summer time is picnic time and several wine farms offer picnic facilities. We have put together a list of wine farms who can provide you with a picnic, We haven’t put in much detail, just where it is, phone number, email address and a link to the website. The latter is where you will find all the important information. Go and check it out.
15th March 2012
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 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 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.
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 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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