A traditional lugger in full sail in the distance between Mallaig and Skye in Scotland
Here we go again. Paying in wasted hours for the years of corruption, mismanagement, inefficiency and total lack of maintenance of our electricity generation system by the people who have pretended to run our country while lining their own pockets with the money which should have been used to make life work for our beautiful people. They call the power outages “load shedding” and they have cost us more than 6 working hours in the last two days
On a more enjoyable note, there are three lovely wine experiences coming up this month. Wine Concepts’ “Finer Things in Life” Bubbles and Boas themed Champagne Festival at the Vineyard Hotel, Wade Bales’ Cap Classique & Gin Affair (#BubblyGinAffair) with more than 50 MCCs and 70 craft gins at Grand Africa Café & Beach in the V&A Waterfront and Caroline’s White Wine Review at the Table Bay Hotel, which will give you the opportunity of tasting Caroline Rillema’s choice of the best white wines made in South Africa. Click on the event names above to see booking details
We were invited to attend the Sommeliers Selection wine awards last week at 11 am and we drove through to Franschhoek, making sure that we would be on time. As we arrived, we discovered that the award ceremony had already taken place and many of the winners were leaving. So our story is very short. We asked why we had not been invited to the ceremony and were told that they have been told by other media that it is boring! ...
This year's Veritas Wine Awards dinner was held in the Ballroom at the Cape Town International Convention Centre last Friday night and was a huge success. The format worked so well, the awards went quickly and smoothly, the food was really excellent this year and the entertainment was rather special. It is a black tie event and people really had dressed beautifully…
It is well known in wine circles that Chardonnay grows better in South Africa's cool climate areas; the flavours are more complex and interesting, the wines more long lasting and commercially they command better prices. There are two such areas, Elgin and the Hemel and Aarde Valley who have both done in depth seminars to examine, explore and compare their wines. This time it was the turn of Elgin and we were very pleased to be invited to take part in the Chardonnay Colloquium last weekend, which was also being celebrated as the Blossom weekend…
While we were in Elgin for the Chardonnay Colloquium and the Elgin Blossom Weekend, Cath Boome, the Executive Head of Elgin Grabouw Tourism had kindly organised for us to stay over at Galileo Farm in one of their cottages. The orchards on the farm were in full blossom, both pear and apple. We were given use of Lemon Cottage…
No one deserves to get ill while on holiday, sadly we find that we invariably pick up something on the plane and the flu that John caught early on then made us both rather ill. So ill that we both spent a Sunday in bed at the Inn at Rothes, such a waste. Dinner downstairs that night, when we emerged, was a simple pea and barley soup, all Lynne could manage…
The next stage of our expedition was to Rhu (also known as Helensburgh on the Clyde), one of Scotland's top 10 seaside resorts. We were to travel via Oban at the express instruction and advice from several people both in SA and in the UK who said "we must NOT miss it". So we didn't. Oban is a small seaside resort with a perfect horseshoe bay, which grew up around the distillery and made famous by Sir Walter Scott in his poem The Lord of the Isles…
We have tasted so many really good wines this week and as MENU is going out so late because of all the power cuts, we can only recommend you to any of the 2017 Elgin Chardonnays we tasted, they are all worthy of praise and purchase
An old favourite, perfect for our current on and off Spring weather as you can serve this hot or cold. We can no longer get watercress in this country as it has become a notifiable alien. Lynne suggests you might try using wild rocket instead, it would give that nice peppery hit…
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 our website and ancillary works are © John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus. Our restaurant reviews are often 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
On a more enjoyable note, there are three lovely wine experiences coming up this month. Wine Concepts’ “Finer Things in Life” Bubbles and Boas themed Champagne Festival at the Vineyard Hotel, Wade Bales’ Cap Classique & Gin Affair (#BubblyGinAffair) with more than 50 MCCs and 70 craft gins at Grand Africa Café & Beach in the V&A Waterfront and Caroline’s White Wine Review at the Table Bay Hotel, which will give you the opportunity of tasting Caroline Rillema’s choice of the best white wines made in South Africa. Click on the event names above to see booking details
We were invited to attend the Sommeliers Selection wine awards last week at 11 am and we drove through to Franschhoek, making sure that we would be on time. As we arrived, we discovered that the award ceremony had already taken place and many of the winners were leaving. So our story is very short. We asked why we had not been invited to the ceremony and were told that they have been told by other media that it is boring! ...
While we were in Elgin for the Chardonnay Colloquium and the Elgin Blossom Weekend, Cath Boome, the Executive Head of Elgin Grabouw Tourism had kindly organised for us to stay over at Galileo Farm in one of their cottages. The orchards on the farm were in full blossom, both pear and apple. We were given use of Lemon Cottage…
All content © John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus
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MENU has appeared nearly every week since March 2003, initially as a free newsletter from our shop, Main Ingredient, and is sent to our subscribers by email. Many of our subscribing readers have followed us from our earliest days and we appreciate your support
It is also published on our website, as a blog, on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram and gives our personal view of events relating to food, wine, accommodation and travel in photo stories, as well as weekly recipes and wine reviews
We have never charged a subscription fee, and MENU has never made us any money. But our expenses are putting pressure on our pensions, so we are taking a bold step and asking our readers for a voluntary subscription to help us to cover our expenses. MENU is produced, on average, 45 weeks per year. We leave it to you to decide the amount of your subscription. We suggest a voluntary annual subscription of R100 (roughly the price of a mid range bottle of wine), which is less than R2.50 per week. In International currencies R100 is approximately £5.80/€6.30/$7.10. Links to our PayFast and PayPal accounts are on our website
We'd love it if you'd follow us on Twitter, Facebook and check out our photographs on Instagram and Pinterest
MENU has appeared nearly every week since March 2003, initially as a free newsletter from our shop, Main Ingredient, and is sent to our subscribers by email. Many of our subscribing readers have followed us from our earliest days and we appreciate your support
It is also published on our website, as a blog, on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram and gives our personal view of events relating to food, wine, accommodation and travel in photo stories, as well as weekly recipes and wine reviews
We have never charged a subscription fee, and MENU has never made us any money. But our expenses are putting pressure on our pensions, so we are taking a bold step and asking our readers for a voluntary subscription to help us to cover our expenses. MENU is produced, on average, 45 weeks per year. We leave it to you to decide the amount of your subscription. We suggest a voluntary annual subscription of R100 (roughly the price of a mid range bottle of wine), which is less than R2.50 per week. In International currencies R100 is approximately £5.80/€6.30/$7.10. Links to our PayFast and PayPal accounts are on our website
We'd love it if you'd follow us on Twitter, Facebook and check out our photographs on Instagram and Pinterest
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