Thursday, July 05, 2018

This Week’s MENU. The Food Barn; Taste of Tyger Valley; Iberian Exploit 15. Return to Porto and Cape Town; Sweet Corn Pudding; Benguela Cove Sauvignon blanc

The Ponte Luis I, designed by Gustave Eiffel, connects Porto on the North Bank of the Douro River to Vila
Nova de Gaia on the South Bank. Trains run on the upper span; pedestrians, buses and cars use the lower
Trust the politicians….to take advantage of a situation and mess it up. We’ve had some wonderfully rainy days in the last two weeks, not nearly enough to start talking about everything being fine; the dams are, on average, at about 41.6% of capacity and we need at least another two months of the sort of rain we have just seen to allow us to stop being ultra-careful. But now we hear them starting to talk about easing restrictions, wanting us to feel good about them, as if they had anything to do with a natural phenomenon! Still, it has been good to see the pond filling up. Winter is here in no small measure. The mountains and uplands are covered in snow and Instagram is full of photographs of people playing in it, making snowmen and doing all the silly things we do when a rare occurrence happens. It was strange to see a picture in this morning’s paper of a bemused lion standing in a snow spattered landscape. We hope that the snow will add a good level to the water in the dams when it melts… We think you’ll enjoy this week’s articles

Pensioners' lunch at The Food Barn    
The Food Barn in Noordhoek is running some winter special so we went with friends to sample the Pensioners Lunch last Friday; very good value at R175 for two courses with a carafe of wine. They do have other specials (not only for pensioners) so check out their website to see what is on offer. We had a great time despite it being one of the wettest days last week. See our whole story here…

The Taste of Tyger Valley Wine Show    
Saturday saw us at Tyger Valley Shopping Centre at their wine festival. Lots of different farms, some we have never heard of before, others whom you don't often see at festivals and some favourites. Montpellier in Tulbagh ….

MENU's Iberian Exploit 15. Return to Porto and home to Cape Town     
It was time to leave Madrid and head back to Portugal. We left early in the morning of May 6th, as we had several hours drive ahead of us. At lunchtime, we stopped in the small town of Ciudad Rodrigo near the border which is the last stop at which we could buy petrol in Spain, where it is much cheaper than in Portugal and we were after some lunch. Well, we got the petrol....

Lynne cooked Belly of Pork last weekend and decided that we needed to try it with a new starch. She had some sweet corn cobs and thought that turning them into a savoury pudding might just be a great idea. Click here for the recipe she used
MENU’s Wine of the Week. Benguela Cove Sauvignon blanc 2017   
This newly released 2017 Sauvignon Blanc knocked Lynne's socks off. It has a little Semillon added, which just marries perfectly and adds depth, smoothness and richness. So attractively perfumed on the nose with elderflowers, white pepper and fig leaves. On the palate it is smooth as silk with zingy citrus and lime acids, and long flavours. To quaff or pair with good food

5th July 2018


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© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2018
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Phones: +27 21 439 3169 / 083 229 1172 / 083 656 4169

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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. This electronic journal has been sent to you because you have personally subscribed to it or because someone you know has asked us to send it to you or forwarded it to you themselves. Addresses given to us will not be divulged to any person or organisation. We collect them only for our own promotional purposes. If you wish to be added to our mailing list, please click here to send us a message and if you wish to be removed from our mailing list


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