Kokerboom (aloe dichotoma) on the rocks
at Clifton
In this week’s
MENU:
Products
Our market activities
Klink Awards
Lunch at La Bohème
Plaisirs de France launch in
Franschhoek
George Jardine at Jordan
Kathy Raath trade tasting
Veritas tasting
Expressions of... Swartland
and Darling
Pasta al Limone
Events and Restaurant specials
Wine courses & cooking
classes
Follow us on
Twitter: @mainingmenu
This week’s Product menu Jenny Morris’
series on Morocco continues to raise interest in North African Food. We heard
her talking about Orange Blossom Water this afternoon on Cape Talk. We now have two versions: one
locally bottled at the right strength for use and a concentrate made by Nielsen
Massey who make all the wonderful extracts you’ll find in our Product list. We have also added their concentrated
Rose Water to our range, in addition to the standard version. Other products we
sell which are used in North African cooking are Ras el Hanout spice mix,
preserved lemons and the lovely, aromatic Argan oil.
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
26th October from 09h00 to 16h00. We
look forward to seeing you there.
Countdown to the first ever Klink Wine
Tourism Awards continues Get your votes in now for
these awards as nominations close SOON.
Vote for your favourite
restaurant on a wine farm, your favourite wine festival, your favourite wine
farm Deli and many other categories. The Klink award winners are the first to
be based solely on your, the consumer’s, experience and feedback is received
via email, SMS, Facebook or Twitter. Any nominee could win. Check out Wine
Tourism SA sites, see who is nominated and VOTE. Check out the
awards on the Wine Tourism South Africa website http://winetourismsouthafrica.co.za/ or on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/WineTourismSouthAfrica and you could win a prize. Remember, the
voting closes at midnight on October 24th, so make the most of this last week.
Sinful Lunch at
La Bohéme Although we were trying hard
to put Menu ‘to bed’ last Thursday, we were sidelined by a good friend who
invited us to join him for lunch at La Bohéme in Sea Point, our
neighbourhood restaurant. We can never resist him or a meal there. It turned
into a long, long lunch and we had a wonderful time, even if we had to stay up
really late finishing off the newsletter. Check out what we ate and drank here.
It is so reasonable and the food is absolutely delicious. The menu at this
bistro changes every day, so you check out their chalk board when you arrive.
You must book as it is also one of the most popular places to eat in Cape Town.
LAUNCH OF
PLAISIRS DE FRANCE IN FRANSCHHOEK Franschhoek
Wine Valley invited Chef Florent Boivin from the Institut Paul Bocuse in Lyon
to come and help them celebrate this new festival, which started in Franschhoek
this week and features events in towns and cities across the country. The reciprocal
South African Season in France will take place from May to December next year
(2013). This Franschhoek part of the SA-French Seasons programme will run from
15th October to 15th November with establishments in and around Franschhoek offering
an assortment of French inspired foodie delights. Click here to see the details.
We were invited to the launch
on Monday, held at Leopards Leap, and we watched Chef Boivin and some of the
best Franschhoek chefs in action as they prepared a wonderful selection of
canapés while we drank local MCC bubblies and then got to tuck into the superb
food. His sweet potato infused with black truffle, coated with black bread
crumbs was a favourite in the room and the chefs loved his dessert canapé, a
chocolate mousse wonton with strawberry coypus, topped with a fresh
strawberry slice. Click here if you want to make your mouth water and see
what we were offered.
Jenny Prinsloo, CEO of
Franschhoek Wine Valley, told us about the festival and French Consul Antoine
Michon was there to formally open the event. Hein Koegelenberg of Leopards Leap
welcomed us to this very large and impressive tasting room, demonstration
kitchen and venue and we were able to wander among the chefs while they
prepared the food, to see what they were making.
The lineup of local
chefs included Margot Janse of Le Quartier Français, Chris Erasmus of La Motte,
Simoné Rossouw of Babylonstoren (all finalists in the 2012 Eat Out Awards), as
well as Neil Jewell from Bread and Wine, Matthew Gordon from French Connection,
Darren
Badenhorst of Grande Provence, Ryan Shell of Haute Cabriere, Oliver Cattermole
from Dish at Le Franschhoek, Mauritz Jacobs from Reuben’s and Makhi Maki from
Mange Tout.
Our talented local chefs
produced really inspired canapés, comparable to those produced by Chef Boivin. Superb
is such an over-used word, but here it is very appropriate. It was a delightful
function and bodes well for the festival. We discovered that many of the chefs
would have liked to have had more interaction with Chef Boivin while he was
here and hope that a future occasion can be arranged where they can exchange
ideas and show him more of our restaurants, excellent local ingredients and
cooking ethos. The students from The Culinary Academy (TCA) also helped to make
the function seamless.
Touring is such
a pleasure John took two American
tourists on a wine tour last Sunday. They are friends of clients who have used
our services twice previously and who instructed him to take their friends to
Cape Point Vineyards and to George Jardine’s restaurant at Jordan. Such
hardship to go to some of our favourite places and be paid to do so! Despite
the dodgy weather, they had a great time. Click here to see what they saw and ate.
John is always available to do wine tours for your visitors. He is a certified
wine tour guide; just contact him to check availability and his fees.
Our VW Sharan is very comfortable indeed and can take up to 6 passengers.
Kathy Raath’s
Trade wine tasting was held at Big Route Pizzeria in Green Point on Monday afternoon and,
as usual, we tasted some great wines. Special
indeed was the Semillon from Dornier. They have made a very
limited quantity of only 1000 bottles, but it is an absolutely classic
expression of the grape and we hope that more will become available in future. We
also loved the Chenins from Teddy Hall and the Chenin Viognier
from Johan Kruger at Sterhuis and both their MCC
bubblies. Sadly, Johan says he has difficulty selling his excellent Chenin
blanc and he had none for us to taste. None of their wines ever disappoint. The
Sterhuis Shiraz is a cracker as is the Bouchard Finlayson Missionvale
Chardonnay. Eikendal
Chardonnay has always been excellent and their Classique red blend and Shiraz
have improved immensely. Brewers And Union
were also showing some really good unfiltered and unpasteurised beers, a good
palate freshener after tasting all the wine. Because most commercial beers are
pasteurised, many people take it for granted that that is the way they should
be, yet they would never pasteurise their wine. If beer is unfiltered and not
killed by pasteurisation, it will last a very long time on its lees. John
opened a bottle of his own beer on his daughter’s 21st birthday, which he had
bottled the day she was born. The only problem was that it was too small!
This year’s
Veritas Awards tasting This open
tasting was held at the CTICC on Tuesday and Thursday this week. We attended on
Tuesday evening and attempted to taste all the double gold wines, plus a few
more. One of the highlights of such an evening is the opportunity to taste
museum class wines and this year KWV
opened one bottle each of three old bottles of Hanepoot Jerepigo. The 1973 was
awarded Gold, the 1969 a Double Gold and the Limited Edition 1933 Double Gold.
We managed to taste minute portions all of them and they just got better and
better. The 1933 was like sticky toffee mixed with very aged balsamic vinegar. Lynne
confesses that she got as much out of the glass as possible by licking her
fingers; it was so delicious and different. The aromas so stuck to the glass
that, despite washing out the glass several times, it became necessary to
change glasses the bouquet was ever-present when tasting other wines. Bloemendal’s
2012 Sauvignon Blanc, made for them by Rianie Strydom is very deserving of its
Double Gold, as is Buitenverwachting’s Hussey’s Vlei
2012 and the Jordan
Nine Yards Chardonnay 2011 shone, as it always does. David Finlayson’s Edgebaston
Cabernet Sauvignon 2010 was Lynne’s favourite red from a bouquet of stunners.
There were so many great wines we cannot name them all and wish we had had the
time and capacity to taste many more than we did. Click here to see a few photos.
There will be tastings in Johannesburg on 24th October, in Durban on 7th November,
in Port Elizabeth on 13th November and in Knysna on the 14th and 15th November.
See our Events Calendar for more details.
HOWEVER… CTICC Catering is
still atrocious. Why does this very profitable organisation (see their latest
annual report results in the newspapers this week) allow it to be shown up by
bad food? At Veritas, their staff walked around with plates of very scary
greasy things. One example of several bad items: they took perfectly good
Chinese dumplings, obviously “bought in” frozen, like most of the things on the
plate. They then deep fried them in oil which was not up to temperature, so it
soaked up the grease (they should have steamed them) and then they overcooked
and burnt them! You could have thrown them against a wall and they would have
left a hole. We do so hope that the Veritas organisers will refuse to pay for
these horror offerings.
Expressions
of... Swartland and Darling Don’t
forget to book now for the November Expressions of... Swartland and Darling
tasting and dinner at the Taj Hotel on November 1st.
We had a fun tasting there on
the 4th of October, when Constantia wines were showcased. There is no charge
for the pre-dinner tastings and it is a lovely experience, meeting the wine
makers and tasting the wines of the area. Sadly, we were not able to stay for
the dinner afterwards, paired with Constantia wines, and cooked by Brad Ball of Bistro 1682 at Steenberg, which we
hear was a great success. Click here to see some photographs of the tasting.
Lynne is still having fun experimenting
with recipes from the Ottolenghi Jerusalem cook book, but
this week’s Recipe is
Pasta
al Limone
We were heavily criticised by
a reader for having the temerity to suggest that artichoke should have been
added for texture to the pasta with lemon at Ragu, because, he said, it would
ruin a classic. Ragu’s was no classic. We thought that, this week, we would
give you to try one of the classic versions of this recipe, which we often
make. It turns out that all over Italy they have different variations. In
Amalfi, they add cream; in Rome, chilli; in the north, herbs and in Sicily,
sometimes, breadcrumbs – for texture. So, as long as you don’t serve something
bland, it seems that you are allowed regional variations.
500g thin Spaghetti
or linguine, fresh if possible – 75 ml good green extra virgin olive oil – Zest
of 1 and Juice of 2 lemons – 1/2 cup of grated parmesan cheese– sea salt and
freshly ground black pepper – 1 T chopped flat leaved parsley
If you have time, let the zest
marinade in the olive oil in a covered bowl. Boil the pasta in lots of salted
water till just al dente. Mix the oil, lemon juice and cheese in a serving
bowl. Drain the pasta and put into a serving bowl and mix, taste and add salt
and pepper to taste; then stir in the parsley and serve immediately. Variation:
You can fry a little garlic gently first in some of the oil. Serves 4.
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.
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.
18th October 2012
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
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Green asparagus wrapped in pancetta with a quail egg
and Béarnaise sauce
