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In
this week’s MENU:
Old Mutual Trophy
Feedback Keet & van
Biljon Wines at Aubergine Chocolat with
Mediterranean, Knead & Nitida Spiced
Meat Loaf
This week’s Product menu – If the cold weather is driving
you indoors and you getting excited about cooking exotic winter dishes,
remember we have all the difficult to find spices like whole nutmeg, grains of
Paradise, juniper berries for game, za'atar and sumac, Ras al Hanout for
tagines, and rose water and orange blossom water as well..
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.
Old
Mutual Trophy Feedback’s Exciting results for the SA wine industry in 2014
There
are quite a few wine competitions throughout the year and they all have
different formats. Some are judged by wine experts, others by the wine trade,
some by pure amateurs, and others by winemakers, journalists or the entrants
peers and some are a combination of all the above. Old Mutual Trophy employs a
mix of different specialists involved in the wine industry and invites several
of the judges each year from different countries to get a good outsiders view
of how the local industry is doing. The wines are subjected to rigorous
tasting. This year 212 producers entered wines, and 1040 wines were tasted in
three and a half days. And there are some very exciting results reported at the
Feedback session last Thursday .
We heard that the depth of
talent in most classes was extraordinary and how hard it was to keep wines out
of the medal classes. High silvers this year would have been gold a few years
ago. There are 23 Trophies this year, including the Museum class, 14 gold, 121
silver and 496 bronze awards. LOTS MORE here about the Feedback, with pictures
Old Mutual takes the top wines on a national
road show to introduce them to discerning wine lovers in eight cities in
Southern Africa. Check out the website www.trophywineshow.co.za for more details
Keet & van
Biljon Wines at Aubergine To say we are big fans of Christopher Keet and
his wines is an understatement. We first met Chris in the mid 90s, when we both
were beginning to get involved in the wine industry – he lectured in our Wine
Academy Diploma course - and we have loved his wines ever since. His
intelligent and precise winemaking produces classic wines. They are brought out
from our cellar on high days and holidays to be enjoyed and the 1997 Crescendo
is still drinking beautifully. We were distressed when Cordoba closed and he
had to go out on his own, so we were excited to buy some of his First Verse
2009 when he released it. Last Friday we
attended the launch of his 2010 First Verse, an extremely elegant red blend of
Cab Franc, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Petit Verdot and a soupçon of Malbec,
together with the launch of another wine he has made for Anton and Julia van
Biljon, a powerful classic Bordeaux blend called Van Biljon Cinq 2011. They are
very different, but both excellent. Both
need time. Then we had the pleasure of a
lovely Aubergine lunch cooked by chef owner Harald Bresselschmidt. MORE here
Chocolat with
Mediterranean, Knead & Nitida under the stars The May weather may not seem sensible for
an evening watching a film on a rooftop in Central Cape Town but we had such
fun on Tuesday night at the Grand Daddy Hotel. Mediterranean Foods laid on a
huge spread of dips, cheeses, olives, crudités and other delicacies, there was
great bread from Knead and really special wine from Nitida in Durbanville .
Then we took our seats in the small outdoor cinema and armed with blankets, a
superb glass of red wine (Nitida Calligraphy) and popcorn to watch this lovely
movie with nostalgia. Was it chilly? Yes it was but we were all well wrapped
up, and they came up trumps when they provided a cup of hot cocoa
mid-performance. And they sent us home with a lovely goodie bag full of some
new products to try like an Asparagus dip, Halva and roasted artichokes. MORE
This week’s
recipe We thought it was time for a
simple meat loaf. Prosaic, yes, delicious yes, you can’t cook special meals all
the time and this is quick to assemble and easy to make. This is suitable if
you are cutting out carbohydrates. Flavour to your own taste using dried spice
and herb mixes like Nomu, Cajun, Garam masala etc. And cook a spoonful to check
the taste before baking the loaf. Should serve 4 (or 2 for two meals). You
could also bury a couple of peeled, just hard-boiled eggs in the centre of the
loaf.
Spiced Meat Loaf
350g beef mince – 1
small onion, finely chopped – 1 jumbo egg – 2 T almond flour – 1 small grated
carrot – 1 clove of garlic, finely chopped – 80g haloumi or other hard cheese,
cut into 1 cm squares - 1 t marmite – 1 t mixed dried herbs – 1 T fresh chopped
parsley – 1 t Cajun spice or garam masala or ras al hanout – ½ chilli powder or
cayenne - 1T mixed seeds (sunflower, flax, sesame, pumpkin) – salt and freshly
ground black pepper
Put everything into a large
bowl and mix together really well. Take a small spoonful and fry it or put into
the microwave for half a minute and taste and adjust seasoning. Line a small
loaf tin (19 x 10 cm) with foil and fill with the mince mixture. Cover the top
with the foil. Put into a tall sided baking dish and add boiling water to that
dish until it comes half way up the sides of the loaf tin. Put into a slow 160°C
oven and bake for about three quarters of an hour or until the loaf is cooked
through but still moist. Serve slices with a good home made tomato or mushroom
sauce and lots of vegetables. You can double this up to make a large meatloaf.
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 and drives
the wheels that enable us to produce MENU possible. 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 Thursday evenings and she has decided to
introduce LCHF (Banting classes). The Kitchen Confidence classes, which focus
on essential cooking skills and methods, have been expanded and are now taught
over 2 evenings. She continues to host private dining and culinary team
building events at her home. She trained with Raymond Blanc, and has been a
professional chef for 25 years. More info
here
16th May 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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