PR-Net Trade’s Tourism and Hospitality exhibition at the Cape Sun

This was held at the Cape Sun this week and we had a chance to listen to a presentation by Enver Duminy, Head of Cape Town Tourism, with his innovative strategy for tourism in our great city. We also met several new tourism people on their stands and did a lot of networking. We hope to visit some of these areas and places soon and write about them

A very friendly Anika de Goede of Hermanuspietersfontein Winery told us all about the new winemaker and the wines and their cottages in Stanford

An old friend, Martina Barth, who represents the Vineyard Hotel and the Oude Werf Hotel in Stellenbosch, with Chantelle Philander and Crystal Hendricks

Brian Berkman, organiser of the event, gets proceedings going

GM of Cape Sun Jacques Moolman making the announcement that Tsogo Sun have agreed to spend R200 million on a complete refurbishment of the Cape Sun. It so needs it

Tony Romer-Lee, head of PMR Hospitality reminisced about Liz McGrath, the recently deceased, well-respected owner of The Collection hotel group for whom he worked for several years

A large audience

Cape Town Tourism CEO, Enver Duminy telling us about his 10 point strategy for publicising our beautiful city

We try to practice many of these strategies when we write about the Cape and what it has to offer

The Cape Whale Coast - destination marketing for the Overstrand: Hangklip, Kleinmond, Hermanus, Stanford & Gansbaai. Joanne Kunz was charming and amusing, and gave us lots of information about an area we know well and visit often. She told us of a beach walk in the Gansbaai area with a marine expert and, as we plan to be there at the end of April, we certainly will get more information on this. We absolutely love beachcombing

We learnt about De Zeekoe Guest Farm, Reserve and venue in Oudtshoorn from Adri, who had us in stitches - a huge personality and very enjoyable. It is on our list of places to visit one day soon

Nice to meet you!

Lynne with the girls from Around About Car Hire

Newmark Hotels’ stand was ably manned by Waleed Taliep and Angelique Engelbrecht. They have the V&A hotel, The Victoria and the Dock House Private Hotel in the V&A Waterfront as well as Motswari Private Game Reserve in Limpopo

The surfer girl from Stoked School of Surf, Claudia Hopkins – should you wish to learn how to surf. They take you to the beach with the best waves on the day of your lesson. And they have weekend surf camps

Brian and the team saying goodbye. It was a good evening. Some of the posher foreign venues were not very forthcoming with information, or welcoming, but the "locals" certainly were full of advice, information and friendliness. Others tables we visited that we can’t wait to contact are the West Coast National Park and the Cape West Coast Way, who offered to plan a road trip. Also Oudtshoorn Tourism, when we do another trip via Calitzdorp, Oudtshoorn and Knysna

© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2015

SAA Voyager redemption launch at Le Franschhoek

Do you travel a lot? Do you accumulate Air Miles? Are you a South African Airways Voyager member? Do you never redeem your miles earned on travel? Miles for Style is another innovative way to use them. They offer luxury goods, travel, experiences and so much more in exchange for your miles. Investigate and register here: https://milesforstyle.com/ We were at the official launch at Le Franschhoek last week

The weather gave us all four seasons in one day, producing some lovely light

Le Franschhoek was known to us years ago as the Swiss Farm Excelsior and Lynne’s parents used to take her there for Sunday lunch. It has been fully refurbished

A welcome glass of Genevieve MCC

Lynne chatting with old friends, Judy Brower of Wine.co.za, Tamsin Snyman and wine producer Charles Withington of The Darling Wine Shop

A tinkling piano and lots of networking

Doreen and Teddy Hall and Elizabeth Brandt, with Director of Miles for Style, Yegas Naidoo

Eddie Turner of Meerlust, Margie Hoffe and Emil Kanstinger of Anura

Miles for Style Director Sonja Delport

Suretha Cruse of the SAA Voyager programme

Presenting a flower basket

Rose Jordaan of Bartinney Wines with Yegas Naidoo

Friendly staff behind the drinks stand

Nice to chat to Debbie Millner again

Rose chatting to Jonathan Snashall

Jenni Button won the raffle prize

This young lady won the prize we all wanted so desperately, a trip on the Blue Train

A deep and meaningful discussion between Rose Jordaan, Jonathan Snashall and Georgie Prout of Glen Carlou

© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2015

150324 Main Ingredient's MENU - Casa Labia and Kalk Bay, Solms Delta Oesfees, Nitida Cellarbake

A black backed gull in the evening light

In this week’s MENU:

 Kalk Bay fish and an elegant Casa Labia tea

 Oesfees at Solms Delta

 Nitida Cellarbake

 Melktert

 Learn about wine and cooking

We write about our experiences in MENU, not only to entertain you, but to encourage you to visit the places and events that we do. We know you will enjoy them and we try to make each write up as graphic as we can, so you get a good picture of what is on offer at each place, restaurant, wine farm, festival we visit.

To get the whole story with photographs, 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.

It’s a quick, early MENU this week. John has a two day photographic job at a winery and sending out later in the week will be a challenge too far. So you will get this early.. on Tuesday instead.

Off in search of fish and an elegant tea     We couldn’t resist taking our Dutch visitors for a day by the sea at Kalk Bay, so that they could experience some of the magic. After a great lunch, the ladies shopped in the high street for a while and the lads went off to see Casa Labia in Muizenberg, where the girls joined them later for a good tea and scones or coffee and “death by chocolate” cake. Read On

Oesfees – The Real Deal     We love this festival, which Solms Delta hold at the end of Harvest every year for their staff, the staff of surrounding wine farms, and the public. The music is very local and lekker and the atmosphere laid back and so friendly. Read on

Cellarbake at Nitida     Now in its second year, Cellarbake pairs local bakers and their wares with Nitida Wines. You buy some tokens and exchange them for mini tastes of each baker’s art with a taste of one specifically matched wine. It was extremely popular this year, they sold over 700 tickets and the place was pumping. Read On

Because of our time constraint, there is no recipe this week

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

In addition to his 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

Nicolette van Niekerk runs baking courses at La Petite Patisserie in Montague Gardens

George Jardine will be running a series of winter cooking courses and other activities at Jordan. Details here

24th March 2015

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.

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Cellarbake at Nitida

Now in its second year, Cellarbake pairs local bakers and their wares with Nitida Wines.  You buy some tokens and exchange them for mini tastes of each baker’s art and a taste of one specific wine. It was extremely popular this year, they sold over 700 tickets and the place was pumping.

Nitida winemaker Danie Keulder and his wife were enjoying the occasion. They had brought their twins

Waiting for customers

One stand had pulled pork sandwiches and they were the most popular stand, as everyone wanted one for lunch.  It caused a bit of a traffic jam in the hall though

Cooking the pork on a barbeque

Wordsworth books also had a stand and Lynne was being tempted by the Ottolenghi books

Some samples for tasting

The band played throughout

You have to have tea with cake

Cup cakes and tarts and biscuits to buy

The Dolce stand had good chocolate cake and all the stands were supported by students from Silwood School of Cookery

and baking courses were on offer from Nicolette van Niekerk of Le Petite Patisserie

Some sample wedding and celebration cakes on display

Kerry Prendergast of Nitida and Social Media Strategist Linda Harding of The Squashed Tomato had a busy day on their tasting stand

Denise from Denise’s Delight’s, our local Sea Point baker

Wicked gooey meringues

Queen of Tarts wares. We bought four of the tarts for dessert at a dinner we were going to that night

Handing over the precious box

Manager Jacus Marais of Nitida telling us about the wine

Everyone gets an arm band at the door

Time for some lunch on the terrace

There was seating in the middle of the hall, but it was very busy

Slaving over a hot stove to get out the hot sausage rolls and other treats

The Food Barn Deli had savoury tarts with olives and anchovies and a brochette with chicken liver pate topped with cherries. One small juicy cherry rolled artfully down Lynne’s pale green trousers. But their food tasted superb.

You could sit out by the dam

Or enjoy a glass of something under your umbrella - Lerato Moagi & Vusi Mabilisa

John’s lunch was a freshly baked chicken sausage roll with chilli jam

Owner of Nitida, Bernhard Veller, with his beautiful daughter Lara

RETURN TO MENU

© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2015