Bartholomeus Klip
has a breeding herd of disease free Cape buffalo
In
this week’s MENU:
Bartholomeus Klip Pea and Mint Soup 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
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We are sending you a short
(not very) and sweet (very) MENU this week as we know lots of you will be away
for the long weekend. And we are really busy right up until Friday and won’t
have time to do this any other day than today, Tuesday. It has been an exciting
and rather luxurious week for us, full of contrasts and a lot of fun
Saronsberg go
Full Circle Once a year, Saronsberg raid
their vinoteque and produce a vertical tasting of one of their wines for the
wine media. Last year it was their Shiraz, this year it was their Rhône Blend,
Full Circle, which is their top red flagship wine. It was a most excellent and
very interesting tasting. It is so educational to see how the blend matures
with time and to pick out the really good years and learn why they were so good
from the winemaker, Dewald Heyns. He has been with Saronsberg for all these
years and the 2004 was the first wine he produced for them.
It was held at the Cape Grace
Hotel. We tasted impressive vintages, starting with the current one and working
back: 2013,12,11,10,09,08,07/06,05 & 2004. This was then followed by lunch
in the restaurant accompanied by some of these wines. Do you ever go to eat at
this hotel? You should. Read on
Dinner on Queen
Mary 2 Last year, we were absolutely delighted
to be invited on board by Cunard for lunch. This year, we were invited to have
dinner in the celebrity Chef Todd English’s restaurant. We joined a small group
of people and had a drink in one of the pubs on the ship and were then taken on
a tour of the ship which is huge and very luxurious. Then it was time for
drinks on the deck, to watch the sunset and, finally, to enjoy a really good
silver service dinner. Read On
Pinotage and
Biltong Festival at L’Avenir This was
the first time this festival had been held and, because it was such a huge
success, selling out the 600 tickets allocated and in fact more than 200 more,
they will definitely be repeating it. The good news for those of you up country
is that they will to take it to Johannesburg soon. All the Biltong was provided
by Joubert and Monte and on payment of your entry fee of R150 you received a
good wine glass (to keep), a book of 12 vouchers for small tasting portions of
the different flavours of biltong and a small bamboo container in which to put
the biltong. There was a good selection of excellent pinotages to taste,
although we missed some of our favourites. You could buy a cheese and paté box
from L’Avenir or Joubert & Monty had braais going and you could have a
boerewors roll for R30, a chicken prego roll for R40 or the full tutti: a Rump
steak platter for R70. We had a ball. Read on
Bartholomeus
Klip for a quiet overnight stay We met
Lesley Gillett of Bartholomeus Klip at the recent Groenberg Festival and they
went on to our mailing list. We were delighted when they invited us to come and
stay and write about Bartholomeus Klip. We spent Sunday early evening, the
night and Monday morning there and it is a lovely place to completely relax and
chill out. Everything you need is provided in this small country house on a
farm in the Swartland. It also has its own private nature reserve and game
drives come as part of the cost, as do all meals. The only extra is wine. It
reminded Lynne very much of English country house weekends and certainly is
attracting lots of British and other nationalities, who return more than once
to be spoiled. Read On
This week’s
recipe We had a lovely light pea soup
at Bartholmeus Klip and thought you might like their recipe from Chef Louise
Gillett, which they very kindly sent to us today. I am pretty sure that when
peas are out of season, you can use small frozen peas or petit pois.
BARTHOLOMEUS
KLIP PEA AND MINT SOUP
Knob of butter - 1
tablespoon olive oil - 2 fat shallots, chopped - 1 stem celery, finely chopped -
600ml vegetable or chicken stock - 400g fresh peas (1 kg in pods) - Salt and freshly
ground pepper - ½ 20g pack mint, leaves only roughly chopped - 4 tablespoons
crème fraîche, thick double cream or low-fat yoghurt, to serve
Melt the butter with the oil
in a large saucepan over a medium heat. Add the shallots and celery, season,
cover and sweat very gently, without colouring for 15 minutes or until
completely soft.
Add the stock and bring to a
gentle simmer, then add peas, remove from the heat & add the chopped mint
and purée. Push through a sieve if you want a very smooth finish. Taste and
adjust the seasoning.
Serve in small bowls, hot or
chilled. Garnish with a swirl of cream or yoghurt, a sprig of mint and lots of
black pepper, accompanied by a few curls of Melba toast.
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
22nd April 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.
We apologise if MENU caused
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takes a long time and many of them receive it in the middle of the night. Might
we suggest that your phone should not be activated to receive messages from us
or from other sources in the witching hours? If your boss needs to contact you
at that time, (s)he’s intruding on your valuable personal time.
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
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