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Cape Sugarbird (Promerops cafer)
Vrede and Lust
Lunch
Lynne says we use too many pictures of birds,
but John liked this - taken at Constantia Glen yesterday (they were very active
and made a lot of noise) and we do prefer to use photographs taken within the
week
In
this week’s MENU:
Vrede and Lust
Lunch Laborie Lazy Days ATKV
Oesfees at Solms Delta Cellarbake@Nitida SASSI
Seafood Circle of Chefs Wine
& Dine Dinner at the Mount Nelson Anchovy
and Herb sauce
This week’s Product menu - Winter seems to be making a very early
return and people seem to be thinking of stews and casserole and soups. Dont
forget about our good range of stock cubes, granules and French mustards, all
of which help to flavour food. A dollop of good grainy mustard in a beef
stew will really light it up.
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.
Vrede and Lust
Lunch We attended an interesting tasting of all the white
wines from this lovely farm on the edge of Franschhoek last Thursday and it was
accompanied by a really delicious lunch in Lust, their restaurant. Not only did
chef JP Smith cook great food, but we discovered that he is a master baker and
the bread he produces is quite superb. We were lucky enough to be given a loaf
to bring home and are now sad that they are so far away for when we want more.
Next time you are passing, go and taste the excellent wines and the food and
buy some bread to take home. Click here to see the photographs.
Laborie Lazy
Days Would you like to completely pamper someone you
love? Then take them for a break to Laborie in beautiful Paarl for a night or
two. The room rate for one of
their rooms starts at a very reasonable R585 pp with
a huge breakfast served in the Manor House. See their
website You can be welcomed by a bottle of
their superb Blanc de Blanc bubbly (R110) on the terrace outside your
suite. You can eat lunch at Harvest Restaurant on their terrace or dinner
inside with soft candlelight and
prices are reasonable. You can do a wine and chocolate pairing
in the tasting room at R40
for three different wines paired with chocolate, or a charcuterie and cheese
lunch on the lawn for
R140 under the trees. And you can come home with boxes of wine
at very reasonable prices. How do we know? We were invited there and were
thoroughly spoilt for two days last week, doing all the above. Click here to see all the pictures.
ATKV Oesfees at
Solms Delta This wonderful, very real Harvest Festival is a
joy of music and laughter, great local food, and Solms Delta wine. The workers
of Franschhoek mingle and have fun together with the paying public and It gives
one such a lift to see how SA really does join together to celebrate a harvest,
hard work and the future with exciting local music and food. There is such real
South African Gees. We took our Dutch friends and they absolutely loved the
event, as did we. Click here to see the photographs
Cellarbake@Nitida
At
last, a new and innovative way to showcase wine, this time with cakes, desserts
and other baked goods. You bought an elegant champagne flute and five tokens
for R100 and you could do five pairings of wine with a small tasting portion of
cake, tart, pie etc. We had one each and we shared the 10 tastings, but you
could buy more tokens and taste everything and you could buy full sized
portions of cakes, tarts, puddings, cookies, bread or ice creams to enjoy with
a glass of wine. Well known top artisanal
bakers gathered from around the Cape to showcase their signature dishes, paired
perfectly by culinary connoisseur and Cellarbake Wine Consultant Michael
Olivier, with Nitida and Môreson wines. You could also do a huge high tea for
only R165. Make a note for your diary next year, we do hope this
successful event happens again. Nitida owners and founders of Cellarbake, Peta
and Bernhard Veller were thrilled that Cellarbake@Nitida was received so well
by all who were in search of something satisfyingly new and they look forward
to its growth and development as an annual festival. We know that Tamsin Snyman
worked very hard to get the best bakers to work at the festival.
Have a look at it here
SASSI Seafood
Circle of Chefs Take a remarkable turnout of top chefs from
around the country, a good turnout of restaurateurs, wine people and media and
an evening of absolutely appalling wet and unseasonally cold weather at Harbour
House in the Waterfront and what do you have? A hugely successful evening
despite non-stop rain and wind.. Luckily, there was plenty of shelter on the
terrace while scrolls were awarded to chefs who are making great choices using
sustainable fish from the WWF-SASSI Green list. We drank good wines and Harbour
house produced some great dishes and sushi using the same sustainable fish. Click here to see more of the event.
Wine & Dine
Dinner at the Mount Nelson on Thursday
Just
to remind you that there is going to be another of these great dinners, this
time pairing Môreson’s wines with talented chef Rudi Liebenberg’s food this Friday, the 28th March. There
is still a little space, so get your booking done today. How does Hot Smoked
Monkfish on a squid ink and Prawn risotto paired with Môreson Mercator
Chardonnay appeal to you? Or Nut and Seed crusted Venison with Môreson
Pinotage? Yum
This week’s
recipe Inspired by Sassi’s Green list, Lynne wanted to
give you a recipe using Anchovies and this is the perfect sauce to serve with
any fish or seafood dish. You might be astounded to know that it is also
sensational if spread on a leg of lamb before roasting. Just use a little less
olive oil so the paste is a little drier and easy to spread. It also goes well
with veal cutlets and if you add some walnuts, you can turn this into a pesto.
If you have some over add to fresh butter, roll up and freeze to use rounds on
steak.
Anchovy and Herb sauce
12 anchovy fillets
in oil, drained - 2 T Extra virgin olive oil – 2 large handfuls of flat
parsley, roughly chopped – 2 T fresh thyme leaves - 3 garlic cloves, peeled and
crushed – freshly milled black pepper – 2 T good balsamic vinegar
Blitz in a blender till you
have a good green sauce with a little texture. Store in the fridge and use
within a day or two. You can add a chilli if you want to spice this up a bit.
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
26th March 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! ®
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