Three banded
plover, Paternoster
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Hey ho, It's a long, hot summer and we still have
months to go. We have had a lovely rest over Christmas and New Year with a good
break away and are now revving up for another busy year. We hope you are all
settling back into work and looking forward to a good 2016. We are glad to be
back
Relaxing by the sea at Paternoster We are normally very energetic and like holidays where we do lots of
different things. But this year we were dog tired and knew we had to stop and
do nothing for a while. Lynne found a lovely place in Paternoster, our very
first AirBnB booking, and it was a huge success. We had our annual wine club
Christmas party on Sunday the 13th and left for the West Coast the next day for
our week by the sea. It's a lovely drive up, but the countryside is looking
very sere and dry with the drought. ....>
Oep ve Koep This
restaurant in Paternoster has earned many kudos and we decided, before we went
to Paternoster on our summer holiday, that we would treat ourselves to lunch
there. It was not cheap, but it was an exciting and very different experience,
as the young chef Kobus van der Merwe, the 2014 winner of the Nederburg Rising
Star Award, is a true forager and innovative cook. He combs the local tidal
rocks along the uninhabited coastline and grows unusual local herbs and plants
in his kitchen garden at the restaurant and the menu changes with the seasons
or his mood or what he finds
You do need to book and they require a deposit or your
credit card details when you do as, surprisingly, they have had many group 'no
shows' and this for a small restaurant can be very expensive and a huge time
and food waste. He prepares everything fresh so don't expect it to be a quick
lunch. Dinner is only for groups of 8 or more people, which made us feel rather
excluded and lunch is in the garden when possible. Restaurant open Wednesdays
to Sundays ....>
Lunch at Vondeling with Chef Bertus Basson When
we booked our summer break at Paternoster we had already been invited to this
lunch, so we scheduled the end of our holiday so that we could do the lunch on
the way back to Cape Town. Bertus Basson has done a series of lunches this year
at Vondeling and tells us more are planned for 2016. Get your bookings in now,
they are extremely good and very, very popular
Our friends Loraine and Ronnie who joined us for our
last night in Paternoster also booked and asked for vegetarian food and they
also had a lovely lunch. We know and love Vondeling’s wines and they matched
perfectly with the food ....>
Best Sommelier of SA Finals We are continually impressed by the progress our local sommeliers are
making and it was good to see that ten of them, many of whom we interact with
regularly, had reached the semi finals of the Inaugural Best Sommelier of South
Africa competition this week. We were invited to attend and watch the final
three contestants compete for the title at The Taj hotel on Monday this week. And
what an arduous competition it turned out to be. It was won by Gareth Ferreira,
a South African currently working at a wine-focused private club in London (67
Pall Mall) as Assistant Head Sommelier under the tutelage of Master Sommelier
Ronan Sayburn. Gareth has therefore qualified to compete at the Best Sommelier
of the World competition which will take place in Mendoza, Argentina, in April
this year. Here, he will face more than 55 other candidates in a bid to win the
title ‘Best Sommelier of the World’. Currently held by Paolo Basso from
Switzerland, the Best Sommelier of the World is only awarded every three years.
To quote SASA (South African Sommeliers Association
" Acknowledging and rewarding the
best professional working in the South African hospitality industry, it was
open to all SASA members with relevant work experience and tenure in South
Africa."
We both qualified as potential sommeliers when we
graduated with our Cape Wine Academy Diploma in 1996, but we never intended to
practice, instead we opened our wine and food shop and spent the next 9 years
tending to our customers’ wine needs at home. ....>
Recipe If you have
a slow cooker, this week's recipe is for you. If you don't, you can put this in
a very low oven and cook until you can shred the pork but you will need to
check that the liquid has not evaporated and replace it with water if it does. The
Chipotle chilli is not essential but it adds that final smoky hit to the pork. It
is quick and easy to assemble when you have all the right ingredients to hand
and cooks itself. Great for a late supper on a hot day.
2 kg piece of pork shoulder, cut in two
pieces - 1 large onion, finely chopped - 2 large cloves of garlic, sliced -1
cup barbeque sauce - 1 cup tomato passata - 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar - 1/2
cup chicken stock - 1/4 cup light brown sugar - 1 t English mustard powder - 1
T Worcestershire sauce - 1 t chilli powder - 2 t fresh thyme - 2 bay leaves - 1
t dried oregano - 1 Chipotle chilli in Adobo sauce, chopped.
Pour all the sauce into the slow cooker pot, add the
herbs and spices, onion, garlic and chilli. Stir well. Then put in the pork and
make sure it is well covered with everything in the sauce. Put on the lid and
set to High and leave for 5 to 6 hours or until you can shred the meat easily
using two forks. Do check that it is not drying out at any time.
Remove the roast from the slow cooker, and shred the
meat using two forks. Return the shredded pork to the slow cooker, and stir the
meat into the juices. Serve on rolls or instead of shredding cut into chunks
and serve with salad and baked potatoes.
PS If a word or name is in bold type and underlined,
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Phones: +27 21 439 3169 / 083 229 1172 / 083 656
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Postal address: 60 Arthurs Rd, Sea Point 8005
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