Ancient oaks and Groot Constantia manor house
Eight working hours in the week. That is what we have lost to “load shedding”, and that is just this household. Multiply that by all the businesses and homes in South Africa and one cannot begin to calculate the cost of the mismanagement and corruption in our government over the past twenty years or more. And that is only related to electricity supply. But the good news is that we have had some good meals, in restaurants and at home and one superb event on one of our favourite wine estates. We tell you about some of them here.
The good news is that many Cape wine farms are reporting that 2022 has had a great harvest (it has been a long slow cool year with a little heat excitement at the end) and that it will be a good vintage. We love harvest time and being invited to harvest celebrations, so accepted when we were invited by Rijk Melck to attend Muratie’s second Summer Wine Down on Saturday 9th April to celebrate another fruitful harvest. The last two years have seen a very long period of trials and isolations, so it was so good to see peoples' unmasked faces and have a good laugh at life and its twists and turns. We have survived. So far
Read On….
Pizzas and pasta lunch at Massimo's
When we heard that Massimo's in Hout Bay had been voted the best Pizza place in Africa we decided it was time we went. Neither of us is a huge fan of Pizza but we do enjoy it when it is really good. And we had never been to this renowned restaurant. We made a date with friends who live in the area for lunch this week. And they don’t just do Pizza, but Spuntini (Italian tapas style dishes) Salads and Pasta. They do daily specials and there is a Kids menu and a Vegan menu, and we discovered there is a wicked dessert selection.
Read On….
Lynne's Goddaughter Nicolette was visiting us from Holland and brought her Portuguese friend Catia who has never been to South Africa but her parents had worked in Mozambique and Angola. Catia is a Professor of Economic History at Leiden University in Holland, with her speciality being the VOC, so she has an interest in our varied history and culture. We mentioned Diaz Tavern (known locally as The Portuguese Embassy) and they were really keen to go. So lunch it was.
Tasting O'Connell Irish Whiskeys with Hector McBeth and Daithi O'Connell
Hector McBeth of WhiskyShop invited us to a tasting of premium Irish Whiskeys. collated by Irish whiskey negociant Daithi O'Connell. The tasting was held at The Gin Emporium in the V&A Waterfront, which also houses WhiskyShop, where Hector McBeth sells a very large selection of excellent Scotch whiskies, Irish whiskeys and others from all over the world. The building has the most amazing views and Lynne would have loved to have moved in! She has an affinity with water. Apparently, it was the show house for the developments in the Waterfront and has now been converted into business premises housing the Whiskey Shop and Gin Emporium. What a location, on the edge of the yacht basin.
Read on…
Recently, we were brought a sample pack of juices by a colleague in the food industry. There is an assortment of juices, some pure fruit or vegetable, others blends of fruits and/or vegetables, all cold-pressed. They claim significant health benefits; we were more concerned with flavour. We have been trying them with lunch and have enjoyed most of them. Our qualification is that we did not enjoy all the flavours, but that is down to individual tastes, such as our mutual dislike of cucumber. Most of them were very good, with very concentrated flavours; they could also be enjoyed diluted 50% with water. You can see the whole story at https://therawberrypress.co.za/.
All our stories can be seen in the Blog Archive near the top of the column on the right
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