141218 Main Ingredient's MENU - Christmas message

A tree in the Hemel en Aarde Valley, dressed in lovely natural colours

Thank you for reading MENU, our blogs, tweets, Facebook and LinkedIn and other messages through this year. Thank you too, to those of you who have ordered from us online. We will be taking a break for a few weeks and look forward to writing to you again in 2015.

We wish you a happy Christmas

(and if it is not your special religious holiday,

a happy year-end holiday break)

 and great good fortune in 2015

18th December 2014

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

The Hurst Campus, an accredited school for people who want to become professional chefs, has a variety of courses. See the details here

Chez Gourmet in Claremont has a programme of cooking classes. A calendar of their classes can be seen here.

In addition to the new Sense of Taste Culinary Arts School, Chef Peter Ayub runs a four module course for keen home cooks at his Maitland complex. Details here

Nadège Lepoittevin-Dasse has French cooking classes in Noordhoek 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.

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.

This electronic journal has been sent to you because you have personally subscribed to it or because someone you know has asked us to send it to you or forwarded it to you themselves. Addresses given to us will not be divulged to any person or organisation. We collect them only for our own promotional purposes. We own our mailing software and keep our mailing list strictly confidential. If you wish to be added to our mailing list, please click here to send us a message and if you wish to be removed from our mailing list, please click here to send us a message.

141211 Main Ingredient's MENU - Kauai, Thelema, Pete Goffe-Wood, Quentin at Oakhust, War Horse, AfrAsia Bank Cape Wine Auction, Escalivada

Green summer vines below the mountains in the Slanghoek Valley

In this week’s MENU:

 This week’s products: Exciting products from France

 Opening in the V&A Waterfront of the 150th Kauai shop

 Thelema’s Annual Boland Braai

 War Horse

 Pete Goffe Wood – A Life Digested

 Quentin at Oakhurst Barn Restaurant

 The AfrAsia Bank Cape Wine Auction

 This week’s recipe: Escalivada (Spanish roasted vegetables)

 Learn about wine and cooking

To get the whole of our story, please click on “READ ON.....” at the end of each paragraph, which will lead you to the related blog, with pictures and more words. At the end of each blog, click on RETURN TO MENU to come back to the blog version of MENU.

This week’s Product menu      We have just been told about some more exciting products by our suppliers.. They are not in our online shop yet, but send us your enquiry and we will quote you. There is a new range of duck patés and new stock of chestnuts and chestnut purées has just arrived. They are not in the online shop yet – we’re looking at demand – but you can call us and we’ll give you the details.

The year is winding down, as are many of us, and the functions are slowing down. We look forward to a short break soon and hope you all have a great summer holiday or Christmas and New Year break.

Kauai      It is not often that we get invited to shop openings, so it was with interest that we went to the opening in the V&A Waterfront of the 150th Kauai shop. They have moved from inside the Victoria Wharf complex to the old Union Castle building, outside next to the big wheel. We arrived on time, but the staff were concentrating on laying out the food for rather a long time before they noticed that many of their guests were there. They held a competition, with some celebrities making the best tasting or the most nutritious smoothie. We drank some carrot juice and tried some classic Bircher Muesli, and really enjoyed the fruit and nuts with plain thick Greek yogurt which, they told us, they import. Read on.....

Thelema – “Do what thou wilt” Rabelais       Rabelais is Thelema’s top Cabernet based blend and last week, at their Annual Boland Braai for the trade, Gyles Webb took us through a tasting of four vintages, starting with the 2010 and working back through to 2007. The first three all have an element of Petit Verdot whilst the oldest just has 20% Merlot. All were superb, but the oldest one was the real block buster. If you have any, we suggest you serve it with Christmas dinner. The 2007 does have the classic Thelema ‘mint’ from the eucalyptus trees on the property, which adds another dimension to the wine. The newer vintages’ Cabernet is from a vineyard higher up the mountain, which does not have the eucalyptus influence, so they show purer cassis fruit.

We love going to this very relaxed event held from late afternoon on the farm. This year, his viticulturalist Werner Schultz braaied some excellent boerewors. All the Sutherland and Thelema wines are available for tasting and this year and there were many people we know so it became a real party. Thank you, Webb family. Read on.....

War Horse      It is always exciting to be invited to a new show when it opens in the city and Rand Merchant Bank invited us, quite a lot of the wine industry and many of their clients to see War Horse on Saturday evening. Lynne felt some trepidation, as she was quite traumatised by the reality of the film but the stage production with Hand Spring Puppet Company’s amazingly realistic puppets was something else indeed. What a tour de force of talent and enjoyment. Yes there are some weepy moments, but we hope you have tickets to go and see this superb production, as we hear they are already sold out in Cape Town. RMB spoilt us with French wines and Louis Roederer Champagne, lots of canapés and small tastes from Dish Food and social and a huge collation of sweet things with coffee after the show.

Pete Goffe Wood – A Life Digested      Pete has finally put pen to paper to describe his life so far, but this is also an achievable cook book which will encourage many of you to get involved. To quote Michel Roux in his foreword “It leads you on a culinary voyage of the chef’s repertoire, mingled with little anecdotes of life-changing moments, morsels of time that have made Pete who he is, a chef and a gastronome.” We were invited to the launch this week and drank some specially flown in Pilsner Urquell beer, some great Nederburg Sauvignon Blanc “The Airhawk” and ate lots of things from Pete’s Kitchen Cowboys market stall, erected in the courtyard – small hamburgers, his famous Chalmar beef sandwiches and some pork belly rolls. It was great fun and very social. The books are available from all good booksellers in time for Christmas. Read on.....

Quentin at Oakhurst Barn Restaurant      We were invited by owner Quentin Spickernell to his celebration of his restaurant’s first birthday. Attended by guest of honour Sol Kerzner, for whom Quentin worked as Private Chef for many years, it was a well attended occasion celebrated with quite a few magnums of Moët & Chandon Champagne and some good snacks. We had not been to this smart Hout Bay restaurant before and it is now on our list of places to visit in the new year. Beautifully and wittily decorated, with pieces collected by Quentin, by Interior Decorator Jay Smith, it showcases our South African culture and food. Read on....

The AfrAsia Bank Cape Wine Auction      This very successful Auction which raised over R7 million for education in the Cape Winelands last year, will be held on 14th February this year at Boschendal. The lunchtime function will be prepared by Relais & Châteaux Grand Chef, Peter Tempelhoff and Christiaan Campbell, Executive Chef at Boschendal Estate, and will be accompanied by some of the greatest South African wines. The American Express Cape Wine Auction ‘Barrel Tasting & Preview’ will be hosted at The Dylan Lewis Sculpture Garden the evening before.

Each of the 34 Lots is impressive – generously donated by the Auction Ambassadors - and includes extremely rare local and international wine collections, gourmet dinners with world renowned chefs, exceptional art pieces, international travel to exotic locations, exclusive private weekend parties, luxury cruises. They hope that this auction will be better than the last. If you wish to read about it, attend or even bid on some of the lots you can check out the details here www.thecapewineauction.com/

This week’s recipe is an old favourite, which we have adapted a little over the years. Lynne first saw this recipe on British Television in the 1980’s and has been making it ever since. She made it for our wine club’s annual Christmas lunch last week and everyone wanted a copy of it. It is very easy to make, but the secret is in roasting the vegetables whole to get the maximum amount of flavour out of them. You can add other vegetables like carrots or butternut, but they will need peeling and slicing.

Escalivada (Spanish roasted vegetables)

2 red peppers - 2 small aubergines - 2 large purple onions - 5 medium courgettes – 2 sweet potatoes – 2 bulbs of fennel - 2 heads of garlic - 2 large tomatoes – Extra virgin olive oil – white wine vinegar - Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Peel the onions and cut a cross twice in their tops, cutting only 2/3rd of the way down. Slice the fennel bulbs into quarters. Leave the rest vegetables whole, including the garlic heads, but cut off any stalks. Drizzle them all with oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and put them into a large baking tray. Place in a moderate 180°C oven for 45 minutes. Remove the tray from oven and add the two oiled tomatoes. Return to the oven for another 15 minutes. They should all then be soft. Give them more time if they are not.

Have a large serving dish ready - glazed earthenware with 5 cm sides looks good. Place the onions in the centre of the bowl - they will have opened out like lilies. Slice the aubergine but leave it as a whole, showing both the purple skin and the pale lime interior. Ditto the courgettes and the tomatoes. Peel the peppers, deseed them and chop into fairly large pieces. Add them to the dish with their juices. The object is to make a very pretty arrangement of the vegetables, so that there are patches of contrasting colour and not to mix them up together. Carefully peel the roasted garlic and strew the whole soft cloves over the dish.

Now deglaze the baking tray with 2 T of water, some fresh green olive oil, add a good splash of white wine vinegar, stir with a wooden spoon to get all the lovely roasting juices incorporated in the dressing. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Then pour these wonderful juices over the vegetables and serve. If you serve it cold you will find that the juices often turn to jelly.

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

The Hurst Campus, an accredited school for people who want to become professional chefs, has a variety of courses. See the details here

Chez Gourmet in Claremont has a programme of cooking classes. A calendar of their classes can be seen here.

In addition to the new Sense of Taste Culinary Arts School, Chef Peter Ayub runs a four module course for keen home cooks at his Maitland complex. Details here

Nadège Lepoittevin-Dasse has French cooking classes in Noordhoek 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.

11th December 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.

This electronic journal has been sent to you because you have personally subscribed to it or because someone you know has asked us to send it to you or forwarded it to you themselves. Addresses given to us will not be divulged to any person or organisation. We collect them only for our own promotional purposes. We own our mailing software and keep our mailing list strictly confidential. If you wish to be added to our mailing list, please click here to send us a message and if you wish to be removed from our mailing list, please click here to send us a message.

Quentin at Oakhurst, Hout Bay, celebrates a successful year

We were invited by owner Quentin Spickernell to his celebration of his restaurant’s first birthday. Attended by guest of honour Sol Kerzner, for whom Quentin worked as Private Chef for many years, it was a well attended occasion celebrated with quite a few magnums of Moët & Chandon Champagne and some good snacks. We had not been to this smart Hout Bay restaurant before and it is now on our list of places to visit in the new year. Beautifully and wittily decorated, with pieces collected by Quentin, by Interior Decorator Jay Smith, it showcases our South African culture and food.

Nice signage

The red carpet is out!

The quirky inside of the restaurant

A warm welcome smile from behind the bar

Supervising the pouring of the Moët!

The crowd gathers on the terrace

The crowd gathers on the terrace

Magnums of Moët

The restaurant has a pizza oven

The wine cellar

Nicki Booth with Lew Rood

Owner Quentin Spickernell

Quentin and his partner, Melane Davidow with Sol Kerzner

Sol Kerzner cuts the ribbon

Nikki and William Booth

Phelela Mabuselo brings fresh brown loaves from the oven. There were some really lovely open smoked salmon sandwiches served on this fresh bread

Fresh herbs from the garden for the chef

© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2014

http://www.adamastorphotos.com/our-rates.php

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Pete Goffe-Wood launches his new book, "A Life Digested"

Pete has finally put pen to paper to describe his life so far, but this is also an achievable cook book which will encourage many of you to get involved. To quote Michel Roux in his foreword “It leads you on a culinary voyage of the chef’s repertoire, mingled with little anecdotes of life-changing moments, morsels of time that have made Pete who he is, a chef and a gastronome.” We were invited to the launch this week and drank some specially flown in Pilsner Urquell beer, some great Nederburg Sauvignon Blanc The Airhawk and ate lots of things from Pete’s Kitchen Cowboys market stall, erected in the courtyard – small hamburgers, his famous beef sandwiches and some pork belly sandwiches. It was great fun and very social. The books are available from all good booksellers in time for Christmas.

Copies could be bought for R350

and Pete signed them

Dr Johan Nel and Razvan Macici of Nederburg with their copies

A lot of wine to drink. Nederburg's "The Brew Master" red blend

The kitchen, where all the food for the book was prepared and styled for photography

Good retailers of the book

Chef David Winton gets the food ready with the Kitchen Cowboys team

Prepping

Chef Dave putting the belly of pork into the rolls

The line up of Kitchen Cowboy rolls

The menu

Good Hope FM anchor Guy McDonald sampling a steak roll

The party was held in Pete’s premises in Woodstock

Johan Fourie, GM of Doolhof wine estate with Reinette Geldenhuis

Pete introduced by Craig Fraser, who took the book's photographs

Talking about producing the book

and telling us about the recipes

as usual, to some amusement

Craig Ray and his wife Kim Maxwell; both journalists, but in very different fields - Sport and Food & Wine

Journalist Jeanri-Tine van Zyl with Nederburg Cellarmaster Razvan

Pete’s wife, the lovely Elize

Nice to see Tamsin Snyman

Pete still telling us anecdotes

Tamsin with Lidia Nobrega of Chapman’s Peak Hotel and wine shop

Pete with Elize

The bar staff

Edmore, Razvan and Ramzy, all of Nederburg

Marlene van der Westhuizen and Lynne in conversation

Nikki Werner and Brandon de Kock, authors of the newly published "Cook Better" with Elize Goffe Wood

© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2014

http://www.adamastorphotos.com/our-rates.php

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