Wild iris, Dietes grandiflora, one of the indigenous treasures in South Africa's rich floral kingdom
Squeezing a quart into a pint pot. This is what we are doing with our time while we try to live with Stage Four load-shedding which costs us 7½ hours of each working day. So we are late again putting MENU out this week. As we write this, we have 25 minutes until the lights go out and we will be forced to finish tomorrow morning. The cost to us is minimal in comparison to the cost borne by the many factories, retail businesses and other enterprises who are struggling survive with this and the additional weight of the Covid19 virus and the inevitable panic which comes from it. Life goes on. As we say in a story further down, Illegitimi non carborundum
A huge thank you, once again, to the subscribers who have contributed so generously to our costs. You have been a great help to our work, publishing this journal. Our new mailing list was activated last week and MENU was sent by email to the people who specifically requested the weekly mail update. The larger list, which includes the new list, will receive it at the end of the month as a monthly digest of our activities
Our Wine club tasting this month was held at The Homestead on Constantia Main Road. It featured wines made by Andre Rousseau. Andre trained at Elsenberg and worked first at Twee Jonge Gezellen in Tulbagh with Nicky Krone, then at Constantia Uitsig as the Viticulturist. Read On…
Another tempting invitation to a Harvest Celebration, this time from Meerendal in Durbanville with an opportunity to pick grapes, a chance to taste some of their older Shiraz starting with one from 1987 . We arrived just before 10 and were welcomed with some canapés and coffee or tea. Read On…
We had bought free range chicken pieces and fresh spinach, so Lynne came up with this recipe for supper last night, a melange of three she found on the internet which inspired her. It doesn’t look too glamorous, but the flavour is superb and it doesn’t take very long to prepare. Enjoy! We confess that we did take a slice of bread at the end to sop up the wonderful juices. Prepared in one load shedding period in the morning and cooked immediately after the one which ended at 6.15 pm. Illegitimi non carborundum. For the full recipe, Read On…
Winemag.co.za awarded it 94 points in 2019. It is a wooded Sauvignon Blanc using Elgin grapes. Andre does a whole bunch press and then the juice goes into French 2nd, 3rd and 4th fill barrels to ferment. It has a powder puff nose, then green leaves appear with a whiff of smoke. Grapes, crisp limes, lemon, wood hints on the end; a smooth texture and long flavours. Read On…
Coming events
The Pick n Pay Wine & Food Festival Cape Town
The inaugural Pick n Pay Wine & Food Festival Cape Town will take place at the harbour’s edge of the V&A Waterfront’s glorious North Wharf from 3 to 5 April. Details here
CONSTANTIA UNWRAPPED
For the past 335 years, Constantia has stood proud as the oldest uninterrupted wine-growing region in the Southern hemisphere, characterised by some of the finest wines in the world, iconic architecture, and a commitment to excellence.
Join us in the month of May as we peel back the patina of bygone years and unwrap Constantia as you’ve never experienced it before, through a limited edition CONSTANTIA UNWRAPPED ticket, or through one of the TEN unique events on offer. See details here
The inaugural Pick n Pay Wine & Food Festival Cape Town will take place at the harbour’s edge of the V&A Waterfront’s glorious North Wharf from 3 to 5 April. Details here
CONSTANTIA UNWRAPPED
For the past 335 years, Constantia has stood proud as the oldest uninterrupted wine-growing region in the Southern hemisphere, characterised by some of the finest wines in the world, iconic architecture, and a commitment to excellence.
Join us in the month of May as we peel back the patina of bygone years and unwrap Constantia as you’ve never experienced it before, through a limited edition CONSTANTIA UNWRAPPED ticket, or through one of the TEN unique events on offer. See details here
Phones: +27 21 439 3169 / 083 229 1172 / 083 656 4169
Postal address: 60 Arthurs Rd, Sea Point 8005
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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
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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 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
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