Green summer vines below the
mountains in the Slanghoek Valley
In
this week’s MENU:
This
week’s products: Exciting
products from France War Horse 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
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