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In
this week’s MENU:
Cape
Wine Master’s Guild Auction Showcase Strandveld
dinner at The Vineyard Meridian
Trade show Elgin
Valley Shiraz tweet up
Beer, Wine and Curry Challenge at the Taj Twankey Bar
Ultra Best Value Wines Awards
Steamed Berry Pudding
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 us on Twitter: @mainingmenu
This week’s Product menu: Truffle products are suddenly selling very well
in this time of austerity so we have just restocked and have small jars of
black truffles, black and white truffle oils in two sizes, truffle butter,
truffle paste (tartufata) and truffle salt. With the weak rand this might be
the time to splurge before the next price rise. Our online shop shows our range
of rare and exciting products which you are unlikely to find elsewhere in South
Africa. 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.
Cape Wine Master’s Guild Auction Showcase In our opinion these are the best wine
tastings of the year and we do always feel very privileged when we are invited
to taste some of the wines to be auctioned each year. The passion of the
winemakers shines through the wines they produce. The seated, guided tasting for
invited guests was held at the CTICC last Thursday afternoon, followed by the
open public Showcase tasting. In the guided tasting, guild members introduce
their wines as they are poured. One has a maximum of three minutes before the
next wine arrives, so one always wishes there was more time to savour and enjoy
the wine – they are always excellent. This year we tasted 43 wines. These tastings
are held a few weeks before the Auction, which will be held on Saturday 5th
October at 9:00 am at the Spier Conference Centre in the Stellenbosch
winelands. We sampled some really amazing wines and think this may be one of
the best auctions they have ever had. And yes, we do say this every year. So,
if you are looking to purchase some excellent wines, the CWG Auction is open to
all purchasers. You will need to register to bid, there is a deposit and this
year they are doing telephone, proxy and on line bidding should you not be able
to get there. Click here for more information about the Auction and the wines. http://www.capewinemakersguild.com/auction/
Were money no object, the wines we would love to buy
at this year’s auction would be: Graham Beck Non Plus Ultra Cap Classique 2008;
Cape Point Auction Reserve White blend 2012; Haskell Vineyards Merlot 2010;
Grangehurst Auction Reserve 2007; Kaapzicht Cape Blend 2010; Groot Constantia
Auction Reserve Shiraz 2010; Luddite “Just Alice” Shiraz Mourvedre 2010; Adi
Badenhorst’s AA Badenhorst Family Wines LDR Shiraz 2011; Boekenhoutskloof Syrah
Auction Reserve 2011; Cederberg Teen Die Hoog Shiraz 2011 and Teddy Hall’s Eva
Chenin Noble Late Harvest 2012. But there are many, many more we could choose
from. We
photographed some of the people, see them here.
Strandveld dinner at The Vineyard Earlier
this year, we wrote about taking part in a tasting of these wines with a
selection of food, to see what went with the wines. The chef made notes and,
last Friday, we went to the dinner at The Square restaurant at The Vineyard. It
was a truly inspiring dinner, mainly because the chef kept things quite simple
and didn’t overcomplicate the food matches. All the Strandveld wines are worth
drinking and buying and this was a lovely evening. We were invited by The
Vineyard to stay overnight afterwards, which we welcomed after a rather
bibulous dinner and it meant that John was able to drink all the wines. We had
a lovely garden room and if
you click here you can see the pictures.
Meridian Trade show This
show was held on Monday, in the very spacious second floor foyer of the
Artscape Opera House, which was dark on that evening. This distribution company
has a very good list of clients and so this is an opportunity to taste some new
wines, new vintages and see familiar friends. This year, they did something
very clever. They had the chefs from Pierneef at La Motte create dishes, each
of which was matched with two completely different wines. There were about 15
dishes, so this became a great diversion at one end of the show. Click
here to see our photographs of some of the people, wines and the food.
Elgin Valley Shiraz tweet up If you follow us on Twitter, you would have seen the fun we were having
at Caroline’s Fine Wines on Wednesday afternoon, taking part in a ‘Tweet-up’
tasting of several Elgin Shirazes. The wines were arranged in flights and we
tweeted as we tasted each one, as long as we had something to say about the
wine or the flight. The winemakers were all (apart from Joris van Almenkerk, who was with us) assembled at Oak Valley’s Pool Room in Elgin, reading and re-tweeting
(if they approved!) our tweets. It gives them an idea of what people think of
their wines while tasting. The group who were tweeting were mostly people like
us in the media who write about wine and there were some bloggers as well. Now
Lynne finally has a smartphone, we can both tweet.
They are producing some really soft, fruity and spicy
shiraz in the area. Not one was faulty or undrinkable. The price range varies
from R40 to R212.50 with an average of about R115. Our favourites in the four
flights were Oak Valley 2011 R150; Almenkerk 2010 R145; Oneiric 2009 R212.50, Iona Syrah 2007 R180 and Sutherland
Vineyards 2009 R100.
If you would like to follow us our tag is: @mainingmenu
Beer, Wine and Curry Challenge at the
Taj Twankey Bar After the tweet up, we continued our day at
the Twankey Bar at the Taj hotel, where we took part in an interesting concept.
Seven courses, dishes from Bombay Brasserie, each dish paired with an artisanal
beer and a wine. Taste and decide which one you think goes best. We had lots of
food, tiny sips of the wine and beer and a whole lot of fun as all there were
having a marvellous time interacting with Jean Muller who was asking us all our
opinions and whether the matches worked . There were many different
opinions! Click here to see the photographs.
Ultra Best Value Wines Awards We were invited to the presentation of these awards held at Forest 44
(next to La Pineta) in Stellenbosch on Monday and to receive copy of the new
Best Value Wine Guide which is now on sale. To quote: “In the guide, the Value
Awards are presented for wines scoring a 19 or 20 (out of a possible score of
20) on the best value rating system which takes into account the quality of the
wine in relation to the price it sells for. There
are many other wines reviewed and rated in the guide which score as well or
better on quality but cost more.” (our italics)
We tasted through the Value Award winning wines and
had some very good snacks. Our favourite was the Ultra Table Bay MCC which,
sadly, is now very scarce. We also like the very good value Koelenhoffer
Sauvignon Blanc from Koelenhof, a serious bargain at R30. We were not that
impressed with the red wines shown this year, but there are some good names in
the book. Old Brown Sherry finally got a deserved award.
Congratulations to all the many tasters and especially
to Fiona McDonald (who also is a taster and judge) and then writes and edits
this booklet in only three weeks, an amazing feat of endurance and fortitude. Photos here
Want to be adventurous with this week’s
recipe? Lynne recently bought a bottle of
boysenberries in syrup, which look absolutely delicious. How to use them? With this horrible cold weather one does want
solid food so a steamed fruit pudding came to mind. This one is cooked in the
microwave in about 8 minutes, rather than steamed which might take two and a
half hours. You are welcome to do it the traditional way; we need something
quick when we are writing and putting Menu together on Thursdays. If you can’t
find bottled or canned berries, use fresh and cook them gently in a little
sugar, but don’t let the fruit fall apart.
Steamed Berry Pudding
900ml pudding basin, buttered and floured –
150g soft butter – 150g caster sugar – 2 eggs – 200g self raising flour or 200g
plain flour and 2 t baking powder – a pinch of salt – 1 T milk – zest of one
lemon – jar of bottled or tinned berries
like raspberries, blackberries, boysenberries
Cream the butter and sugar together until you have a
light and fluffy mix. This is what makes
a light pudding. Add the eggs one at a time and then incorporate the flour and
salt gently, trying not to over mix. Add the milk and the lemon zest. Put about 3 cm of the fruit mix at the bottom
of the basin then carefully spoon the mixture into the pudding basin. Cover
with an inverted plate and microwave on medium for 7 to 8 minutes in an 800
watt microwave. Look to see if it is well risen and spongy to the touch. Give it another 30 seconds if it is not. Then leave to stand for five minutes with the
plate still on it. Run a knife around
the inside and invert it. Gently heat up
the rest of the fruit and pour it over each portion. You could top this off with cream or ice
cream to be really wicked.
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.
It needs updating and we’ll do that tomorrow. 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.
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. We plan to visit
their French establishment after Vinexpo. A calendar of their classes can be seen here.
Pete Ayub, who makes 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
29th August 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
they do creep in occasionally, for which we apologise. Our Avast! ®
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