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Vineyard workers tending the
vines at Beau Constantia
In
this week’s MENU:
CLIPPER 2013-14 Round the World
Yacht Race Vondeling
with the Oenophiles A Beautiful Farm - Beau Constantia Prawn and Avocado Dip, Smoked salmon and
caviar dip
Follow
this link to see our Main Ingredient blogs, because to tell our whole
story here would take too much space. Click on Bold words in the text of this edition to open links to pictures, blogs,
pertinent websites or more information.
Follow
this link to see our Main Ingredient blogs, because to tell our whole
story here would take too much space. Click on Bold words in the text of this edition to open links to pictures, blogs,
pertinent websites or more information.
This week’s Product menu: It is time to start stocking up
for festive meals; Christmas and the New Year are already on the horizon. So
spoil your family with delicious treats like chestnuts for your stuffing and
desserts, duck confit, cassoulet and other dishes and superb French patés.
They’re in our shop. See it here
Our market activities Come and visit us at the Old
Biscuit Mill’s wonderfully exciting, atmospheric Neighbourgoods
Market, as always, this Saturday and every Saturday between 09h00 and 14h00. Tip:
Some visitors tell us how they struggle to find parking. It’s quite easy if you
know how. Click here for a map which shows where we park.
As usual, we have a link at the bottom to our calendar of wine and food related events which should interest all
lovers of great food and wine and events which promote them. We have always had
a few from centres outside the Western Cape, but we now have enough to justify
a separate list, so, if you live in one of the other splendid places in our
lovely country, have a look. If you are promoting an event in any of
these places, please let us know and we’ll add it to the list.
CLIPPER 2013-14 Round the World Yacht
Race Last Friday, Rickety Bridge, one of the sponsors
of Invest Africa, the boat that came third in the race leg from Rio to Cape
Town, invited us to join them at the North Wharf in the Waterfront, where all
the race yachts were berthed, to meet the crew and Sir Robin Knox Johnston -
the Chairman and founder of the Clipper Race - and to go on board
to have a look at the beautiful boat. It was extremely interesting to see how
21 people co-exist in cramped but well organised space on a modern high tech
yacht in a round the world race. It is not for everyone! But for some of the
crew, who paid to be in the race and had never sailed before, it was life
changing, in the most positive way. They do receive rigorous training before
they sail on one or more of the race legs, together with a professional crew.
We drank some great bubbly, Rickety Bridge’s new Blanc de Blanc 2009, nibbled
some canapés and made some new friends.
A unique project which should be applauded is the Sapinda
Rainbow project, which has taken young South Africans
from across the country and trained them to race across the world’s most
challenging oceans on the Clipper Race. The Sapinda Rainbow project has worked
with the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund (NMCF) to select eight young South
Africans aged 18 to 23 each of whom is sailing one of the eight legs of the
Clipper Race to develop their personal and community leadership skills, whilst
also raising awareness and funds for the Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital.
With some never having seen a boat before, let alone stepping on board one, it
has presented the young people with a challenge like no other. They are also given
the same rigorous training before they are selected from a much larger group. Photos of the event here.
John was lucky enough to be introduced to Ralph
Mothes, who owns and runs the Cape Town Sailing Academy, and was
invited on to his yacht, Chantecler, on Monday to see and photograph the start
of race to the next port, Albany in Australia. This leg is known as the
Southern Ocean Sleigh Ride! Lynne watched from the Waterfront and also took
some photographs of the boats leaving port and sailing in the bay. It was very
exciting and very hot, we both got a huge dose of sunburn despite sun block. Click here to see the photographs.
To follow the action, follow the official twitter and Facebook channels.
Vondeling with the Oenophiles We like to do different things with our wine club and
this month we all went to Voor Paardeberg to visit Vondeling wine farm. Buses were
arranged to take the group of 20 people, a very sensible way to save petrol and
not have to worry about drinking and driving afterwards. It is a very beautiful
drive on the N1 from Cape Town, turning off on the R44 and then taking the turn
left to the Voor-Paardeberg just as the road turns right to go to Wellington.
We had a full tasting of all their wines and then enjoyed a lovely simple
charcuterie, cheese and pate platter. Lots of wine was taken home too. Click here to see photographs of the day.
The area is mostly unknown to Capetonians and is well worth a visit. It takes
just under the hour to get there and is so beautiful
and green at the moment as all the vines put on new leaves and flower.
A Beautiful Farm Beau Constantia is probably one of
the highest wine farms in the Cape Peninsula. Vertiginously holding onto the mountain rocks at
the top of Constantia Nek Pass, it was once a protea farm which was wiped out
by a horrendous mountain fire in 2000. Established in 2002, it is owned by the
Du Preez family. It has wonderful views down the Constantia valley over the two
neighbouring farms, Constantia Glen and Eagle’s Nest, and then down across the
Cape Flats and False Bay to the far mountains behind Gordon’s Bay and beyond.
We were invited to come and taste the wines and sample their small canapé
platter, which is themed. At the moment, you are given five Mexican inspired
bites, and it will change again as Chef Ryan gets inspired. The Sales Manager,
Chantel Ball, took us through the wines and we also spent a long time chatting
to the young chef Ryan about his career and food interest. He is a local but
worked at the Waldorf Astoria in New York for several years before returning to
work first at Ellerman House and now Beau Constantia. We particularly enjoyed
the award winning Cecily 2013 Viognier (named after Pierre du Preez’ wife, who
is a Getty) - full of sweet peaches and cream and so ready for spicy food - the
flagship Lucca (named after their daughter) 2011 Merlot Cab Franc red blend,
which is smooth on the palate with good fruit and amami notes with a good minerality
on the end, and the 2011 Aiden (named after their son) a blend of Malbec,
Merlot, Petite Verdot and Cabernet Sauvignon, with its elegant classic palate
with good red fruits, chalky tannins and marmite notes from the Malbec. This
needs time. The newly released Sauvignon Blanc also shows great potential. Click here to see photos of the tasting and the
magnificent views.
This Week’s Recipe Summer is here in fits and starts, but outside eating
is on the cards. And of course Christmas is on the horizon. So Lynne thought
she would investigate some new dips for mezze style eating. And, over the next
few weeks, give you some suggestions for your Christmas and New Year meals.
She loves to be able to throw together quick dips from
our store cupboard, fruit bowl and freezer. We usually have some nachos stashed
away, we buy an assorted box of some good savoury biscuits at this time of the
year and pita bread is usually in the freezer. You can knock up a quick humus,
bean dip, or guacamole very easily but she wanted to step out of the usual and
perhaps get a little luxurious, so has come up with these two dips for you to
try.
Prawn and Avocado Dip
250g cooked & peeled pink prawns – half
a ripe avocado pear – half a cup of thick Greek yoghurt – 1 t lime juice – 1 t
Worcester sauce – 1 t sweet chilli sauce
Set aside 150g of the prawns then blitz the remaining
100g of the prawns with all the other ingredients. Taste, adjust the seasoning
with salt and pepper, then stir in the whole prawns and 1 t of chopped flat
leaf parsley. If your prawns are very large, do chop them into bite sized
pieces. Serve with warm pita bread and a crisp Sauvignon Blanc.
Smoked salmon and caviar dip
200g good cream cheese like Philadelphia –
200 ml cream - juice of half a lemon– cayenne pepper – salt – 100g good smoked
salmon or trout cut into small pieces – 2 hard boiled eggs, roughly chopped -
tiny jar of black or red caviar or lump fish roe to decorate – fresh watercress
Mix the cream cheese with the cream until you have a
dipping consistency. Flavour with lemon juice, salt and a little cayenne. Stir
in the salmon and egg but do not over mix. Put into a pretty glass bowl on a
plate and decorate the top with small blobs of caviar. Surround the bowl with
fresh watercress. Serve with melba toast or crostini and a chilled bottle of
your favourite dry white or rosé.
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.
Chez Gourmet in Claremont has a programme of cooking classes. A calendar of their classes can be seen here. Pete Ayub, who made our very popular Prego
sauce, runs evening cooking classes at Sense of
Taste, his catering company in Maitland. We can recommend them very
highly, having enjoyed his seafood course. Check
his programme 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
7th November 2013
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 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
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