DGB Trade tasting at the Portswood

Lynne with Pieter Ferreira, Graham Beck cellarmaster, and Miranda Rieker of DGB, enjoying the Brut Zero MCC

The Boschendal bubbly girls gave us a very cheerful welcome

Lynne and Maryna Strachan (Wine Extra Editor)

Lizelle Gerber, who makes Boschendal's white wines

Quiet music to set a civilised tone...

A warm and friendly environment

Someone put in a lot of effort: an old-time shop created to give atmosphere

Miranda Rieker, an elegant taster

Theola Conyers, Marketing manager for the entry level ranges - a most important portfolio

Graham Beck's winemaker, Erica Obermeyer and Marketing manager, Etienne Heyns

André van Rensburg pouring his Vergelegen Sauvignon blanc for Maroezka of Wine Concepts, Kloof St

and his DNA red blend for Kim Maxwell

Jacques Verdoes, DGB Financial Manager, using his phone to make a self portrait with Isabel Teubgs (DGB Bellingham - Insignia) and Hanna Robertson of DGB

David Brice (The Wine Cellar) with Stephan Joubert, Bellingham viticulturalist

Wine and food are natural companions and this was an excellent selection

Brad Gold, DGB International Marketing Manager, turned his corporate green tie into an elegant cravat

Some interesting translations at the Portswood

Photographs © John Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2012

8th August 2012 Main Ingredient's MENU - Thanks to well-wishers, Shiraz Showcase, Myoga Winter Special, Oded Schwartz, Products, Our market activities, Events, Restaurant specials, Wine courses, cooking classes

MENU

Main Ingredient’s weekly E-Journal

Gourmet Foods, Ingredients & Fine Wines

Eat In Guide’s Outstanding Outlet Award Winner from 2006 to 2010

www.mainingredient.biz - http://www.adamastorbacchus.com/

+27 21 439 3169 / +27 83 656 4169

Click here to Subscribe to MENU or to contact us

Bees enjoying the bounty of a blooming protea

In this week’s MENU:

     Products

     Our market activities

     Thanks to all our well-wishers

     Shiraz Showcase

     Myoga Winter Special menu

     Oded Schwartz

     Events and Restaurant specials

     Wine courses & cooking classes

To tell the whole story here would take too much space, so click on underlined and Bold words in the text to open links to pictures, blogs, websites or more information

This week’s Product menu     We had a lovely chat with Jenny Morris, the Giggling Gourmet, this week, when she phoned to commiserate about our crash. We discussed her excellent TV series on Morocco. If you are watching it, and we recommend that you do, remember that we have Argan oil, the greatest Moroccan delicacy, and Ras el Hanout, the staple spice mix if you’re making a tagine. Lynne also makes preserved lemons and we have them too.

To see what else we have available for you, you can access our product list and see pictures in our website. If you can’t find what you need, let us know and we will try to find it for you. Until our online shop is ready, drop us an email and we will help you. We are very happy to see that traffic on our website is increasing and more orders are coming from it.

We have a lot of fun putting MENU together each week and, of course, doing the things we write about, but making it possible for you to enjoy rare and wonderful gourmet foods is what drives our business. We stock a good range of ingredients and delicious ready-made gourmet foods. You can contact us by email or phone, or through our website. We can send your requirements to you anywhere in South Africa.

Our market activities   Come and visit us at the Old Biscuit Mill’s wonderfully exciting, atmospheric Neighbourgoods Market, as always, this Saturday and every Saturday between 09h00 and 14h00. Tip: Some visitors tell us how they struggle to find parking. It’s quite easy if you know how. Click here for a map which shows where we park.

We will be back at Long Beach Mall on Friday 17th August from 09h00 to 16h00. We look forward to seeing you there.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!     We are humbled and very grateful for the literally hundreds of emails, calls and contacts we have had from so many of you after our car accident last Friday. We have been trying to respond to them all, but we have also had to sort out the business, especially dealing with the insurance claim. We are doing better than we expected, but still find that there are muscles and aches and bruises appearing we didn’t know about. And we are very sensitive to other people’s sudden movements on the road when we do drive. Lynne gets a huge scare when anyone suddenly appears from a side road on our left.

The car has been written off and we are extremely lucky and thankful to have been lent two cars this week – a Jeep, which got us around and, now, an Opel Corsa bakkie (a light pickup to those who don’t know our vernacular) which will get our goods to market on Saturday. The insurance has not come to the party with a hire vehicle, even though we pay high premiums. We are looking for another VW Sharan, which is the perfect car for us – it does high class wine tours in comfort for John + 6 passengers and turns into a utility van when we need to transport our 19 boxes and other bits of equipment to market each week. If you know of a good one for sale, please do let us know. We have found one in Durban, but would have to go and fetch it and drive it back.

Shiraz Showcase 2012     One event we did manage to get to this week was the Shiraz Showcase at the Vineyard Hotel on Tuesday. It was daunting trying to taste about 88 wines from 70 cellars, but we tried our best and probably tasted two thirds over the 3 hours. Both of us were spitting rather than imbibing and found some lovely wines, a few strange, and sadly one or two that were green and stalky or old style, heavily wooded, without fruit and not great. Lynne’s favourites have not changed. David Trafford showed his 2000 Shiraz and his 2010 Syrah and both were incredible. Hardenberg’s The Stork 2007 is as excellent as it was when we last tasted it – we must save up and buy some in better times. Kleine Zalze Family Reserve and Boschkloof with its beautiful violet aromas were delightful. Bovlei, Ashton Cellars and Perdeberg had budget priced wines which delivered quality far in advance of their price. There were many other wines which we liked; we don’t have space to name them all and too many we didn’t taste, but Jordan’s The Prospector, Stellenzicht Golden Triangle 2002, Painted Wolf 2009, Waterford Kevin Arnold, Zandvliet Kalkveld and La Bri all made us wish we could sit down quietly and enjoy a glass with something delicious instead of rushing from one table to the next after a swirl and a spit. We took a few photographs to try and catch the wonderful atmosphere. See them here.

Myoga     Life is short and good, so Lynne decided to treat John to dinner at Myoga afterwards. They have a winter special of 7 courses for R225 and there are wine pairing packages you can add on. We did not want any more wine, John had a Windhoek lager and Lynne water and we just got our order for the special into the kitchen before they stopped taking them at 9.15. There are five choices for each of the seven courses, so they like you to make your selection up front, so that the kitchen can work on them while you eat and there are not huge delays. We were informed that Mike Basset, the executive chef whom we know, is currently away on leave.

 It was a strange meal, starting well but finishing with rather a sour note. One of Lynne’s courses was a mushroom soup, which she did not enjoy because it had been made with sour cream. This was not a fault in the kitchen, just not to her taste as she really does not like sour cream, so when they asked if everything was alright, she gently explained this. We hate it when people trash a restaurant’s food because they order something they do not like. Our waiter, Hannes, was very good to us indeed. But then sour cream and yoghurt kept appearing on dishes. Our tarte tatin was completely covered in it and then we were sent a complimentary final course by the chef. It was a glass of butterscotch lassi (yogurt) and it was also sour. But it is on the menu as part of our dessert. Some preference for sourness in the kitchen? What conclusion should we draw from this? Such a pity. Click here for pictures and descriptions of the food.

Oded Schwartz     Oded was a good friend, a colleague, a supplier and a mentor to Lynne.  He was an authority on preserving and on Middle Eastern (especially Sephardic) food. Sadly, he lost his battle with cancer last week and the loss of his cheerful presence from our world is a very sad affair. We are much better for having known him. Please do continue to support his shop, Oded’s Kitchen, at the Biscuit Mill; buying his wonderful preserves and food will keep his memory alive.

This week’s recipe      We apologise, but this has not been a week for exploring new ideas in our kitchen. We’ll have something for you next week!

Food and wine (and a few other) events for you to enjoy

There is a huge and rapidly growing variety of interesting things to occupy your leisure time here in the Western Cape. There are so many interesting things to do in our world of food and wine that we have made separate list for each month for which we have information. To help you choose an event to visit, click on our Events Calendar. All the events are listed in date order and we already have a large number of exciting events to entertain you right through the year. Click here to access the Calendar. You will need to be connected to the internet.

Learn about wine and cooking We have had a lot of enquiries from people who want to learn more about wine. Cathy Marston and The Cape Wine Academy both run wine education courses, some very serious and others more geared to fun. You can see details here.

Chez Gourmet in Claremont has a programme of cooking classes. A calendar of their classes can be seen here. Pete Ayub, who makes our very popular Prego sauce, runs evening cooking classes at Sense of Taste, his catering company in Maitland. We can recommend them very highly, having enjoyed his seafood course. Check his programme here.

Restaurant Special offers. Some more restaurants have responded to our request for an update of their special offers and we have, therefore, updated our list of restaurant special offers. Click here to access it. These Specials have been sent to us by the restaurants or their PR agencies. We have not personally tried all of them and their listing here should not always be taken as a recommendation from ourselves. If they don’t update us, we can’t be responsible for any inaccuracies in the list. When we have tried it, we’ve put in our observations. We have cut out the flowery adjectives etc. that so many have sent, to give you the essentials. Click on the name to access the relevant website. All communication should be with the individual restaurants.

9th August 2012

Remember - if you can’t find something, we’ll do our best to get it for you, and, if you’re in Cape Town or elsewhere in the country, we can send it to you! Check our product list for details and prices.

PS If a word or name is in bold type and underlined, click on it for more information

Phones: +27 21 439 3169 / 083 229 1172 / 083 656 4169

Postal address: 60 Arthurs Rd, Sea Point 8005

Our Adamastor & Bacchus© tailor-made Wine, Food and Photo tours take small groups (up to 6) to specialist wine producers who make the best of South Africa’s wines. Have fun while you learn more about wine and how it is made! Tours can be conducted in English, German, Norwegian or Dutch flavoured Afrikaans.

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 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. Our Avast! ^® Anti-Virus software is updated at least daily and our system is scanned continually for viruses.

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 and keep our mailing list strictly confidential. 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, please click here to send us a message.

The Vineyard Hotel & Spa's annual pruning event, in the Vineyard Hotel’s vineyards on the banks of the Liesbeek

As "esteemed friends" of the Vineyard Hotel & Spa, we were invited to the Vineyard's annual pruning event, taking place in the Vineyard Hotel’s own vineyards on the banks of the Liesbeek River on Saturday, 11th of August.

Saturdays are very important working days for us, and Lynne was kind enough to let John join the pruning party while she manned our stand at the Neighbourgoods Market. We were welcomed with glasses of Simonsig Kaapse Vonkel and delicious canapés.

The steeply terraced vineyard of 40 Semillon and 60 Sauvignon Blanc vines on the banks of the Liesbeek River is sponsored by Klein Constantia, Meerlust, Simonsig, Warwick and Waterford wine estates. After all the rain, the river was flowing strongly.

The vineyard was planted four years ago. Youth and too much shade from the surrounding trees have not helped the vineyard to produce the desired quality, but the participating winemakers can be expected to contribute their skills for the first vintage next year. One of the biggest trees fell into the river in last week’s storm, which will help.

We were all given blue plastic ponchos to shield us from the rain, and we took advantage of a lull in the downpour to take the secateurs and start cutting.

Roy Davies, the Vineyard's GM welcomed us 

and Simonsig Estate’s viticulturist Francois Malan gave a short demo and explained the art of pruning.

Ginette de Fleuriot, Vina Ballerina

The Square's F&B Duty Manager David Wibberley with some strange looking bubbly

Tweeters: artist Luan Nel

and Matt Dietchmann, The Vineyard Hotel's Food & Beverage Manager

Wine writer Neil Pendock, with secateurs at the ready

Visitors Johan & Wendy Dreyer from Port Elizabeth, who bought a Bid or Buy charity package to be there.

Norma Ratcliffe, the esteemed mistress of Warwick Estate

Wendy Masters, Mrs Petousis and Sheila Banner

Wine and food writer and judge, Greg Landman

GM Roy Davies, getting on with the task

Pruning in full swing, while it lasted

Before all the vines could be pruned, the heavy rain started again and Francois said we should stop. Pruning in the rain can lead to a syndrome winemakers call tandpyn (toothache). He told us that it destroyed the Wellington apricot orchards in the sixties.

So we all rushed back through the gardens, at the foot of Table Mountain, for a celebratory lunch in The Square, hosted by Roy Davies. 
How many other cities are this beautiful?

 Samm and his colleagues brought us more delicious canapés before lunch

Lunch was served with wines from the participating farms

in the upper section of The Square

and introduced by our host, Roy Davies

Starter: Grilled Norwegian salmon with potato vinaigrette, radish and mange tout salad, dill aioli

Main Course: Roasted fillet of chalmar beef with caramelised onion potato cake, balsamic field mushrooms, butternut, veal jus and homemade béarnaise sauce

Cheese Board: A selection of local cheese with savoury biscuits and homemade chutney

 Photographs © John Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2012