Elgin Open Gardens

Fairholme

The smell of these beautiful roses filled the garden

These upper gardens were very formal and so well clipped and tidied. Superb roses everywhere

Something to aim for in our grass growing garden. 
Who wouldn’t want a pergola rather than waist high kikuyu?

Irises to covet, we bought one to take home. Plants were really reasonably priced and healthy

Their cliffside garden is full of proteas, other indigenous plants and sunbirds

Auldearn

Spring green vines and fruit trees fill the Elgin skyline

Magnificent views from the hilltop house and garden of Auldearn

Leek flowers about to burst out

The vines make wonderful patterns across the land

A Southern double-collared sunbird hen (Cinnyris chalybeus) on a King Protea (Protea cynaroides)

A field of white daisies and some thrift

“Yes, I made the biscuits, they are buttery shortbread with rosemary” and they went very well with a cup of weak tea, so refreshing on a hot afternoon

Girls having a giggle

Just sit quietly under a tree and admire the view.

An Orange-breasted sunbird hen (Anthobaphes violacea)

The road home

More beautiful patterns with vines

A Cape White-eye (Zosterops pallidus) drinking from a sprinkler

© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2013

2013 Droëwors Maker of the Year at 96 Winery Road

The impressive plaque given to the winner

A delicious glass of Stellenbosch Hills Chenin Blanc in the garden of 96 Winery Road, venue for the function

Tweeting begins. Karen Glanfield Pawley, Johan Crafford and Lynne Jarché Ford

Delicious canapés were served.  Caramelised onion and gorgonzola on the best pastry we have tasted all year. Whoever made it is a serious find, it is ‘melt in the mouth’

Asian style sesame encrusted salmon lollypops

Yum.  Home-made tomato  jam on crisp belly of pork. Such a great idea

Stellenbosch Hills cellarmaster PG Slabbert 

The menu

Prawns and pancetta with enoki mushrooms, fennel puree and a cider glaze was the starter

Third placed Leonard Lotter and his wife were at our table

Tweeting at table. Should this be allowed? We try in vain to keep up with the announcement of the winners and runners up

in the background, journalist Joanne Gibson listening,  and foreground, hand written and electronic communication: Graham Howe and Jonathan Snashall

We finished with a glass of a very sweet and delicious Muscat de Hambourg...

... which went perfectly with dessert of Creme Brulée Peanut ice cream and a slice of chocolate gateau

 The winners, Marianne and Matty Scholtz with manager of Freddy Hirsch and PG Slabbert

 Marianne and Matty Scholtz

Marianne and Matty Scholtz with their trophy

© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2013

Lunch at Iona with Andrew and Rozy Gunn

The Iona Manor House sits high up on an escarpment with beautiful views across the Elgin valley

You need to book for this enthusiastically attended lunch

Humus, and lots of Ottolenghi salads, plus roasted aubergine with lebneh

The dessert table kept being supplemented. Here is a gooey date and almond cake,  a classic apple  tart tatin, meringues, cream and ice cream

Andrew and Rozy Gunn, owners of Iona. She is a very talented cook

Lynne and Rozy share similar  tastes in food and cookbooks, here swapping notes on which are good recipes.     

A Gunn dog, relaxing in the sunshine

The house has lovely views across the vines as well

© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2013

A visit to Mike Kreft at Belfield, Elgin

They have turned an old stable building into the tasting room

Owner winemaker Mike Kreft

Beautiful pencil drawings by Mike’s talented daughter adorn the walls

Belfield’s three red wines

Taking the midday easy with a tasting on the stoep

Finding out what goes into the wine

Healthy vines

Workers are trimming and training vines at this time of year.  The vineyards run East West, so the prevailing winds blow along the vines and cool them

Belfield's price list and contact details

A walk in their stunning gardens which were open on the Elgin Open Gardens weekends

Koffieklip, the local rock on which the vines thrive. Lots of iron in there.

And it makes the flowers grow so well

A malachite sunbird in the garden

© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2013

131107 Main Ingredient's MENU - CLIPPER 2013-14 Round the World Yacht Race, Vondeling with the Oenophiles, A Beautiful Farm - Beau Constantia, Prawn and Avocado Dip, Smoked salmon and caviar dip

MENU

Main Ingredient’s weekly E-Journal

Gourmet Foods & Ingredients

Eat In Guide’s Five time Outstanding Outlet Award Winner

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

Follow our blogs at http://www.adamastorphotos.com/

+27 21 439 3169 / +27 83 229 1172

Click here to Subscribe to MENU or to contact us

Follow us on Twitter: @mainingmenu

Vineyard workers tending the vines at Beau Constantia

In this week’s MENU:

 CLIPPER 2013-14 Round the World Yacht Race

 Vondeling with the Oenophiles

 A Beautiful Farm - Beau Constantia

 Prawn and Avocado Dip, Smoked salmon and caviar dip

Follow this link to see our Main Ingredient blogs, because to tell our whole story here would take too much space. Click on Bold words in the text of this edition to open links to pictures, blogs, pertinent websites or more information.

Follow this link to see our Main Ingredient blogs, because to tell our whole story here would take too much space. Click on Bold words in the text of this edition to open links to pictures, blogs, pertinent websites or more information.

This week’s Product menu: It is time to start stocking up for festive meals; Christmas and the New Year are already on the horizon. So spoil your family with delicious treats like chestnuts for your stuffing and desserts, duck confit, cassoulet and other dishes and superb French patés. They’re in our shop. See it here

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.

As usual, we have a link at the bottom to our calendar of wine and food related events which should interest all lovers of great food and wine and events which promote them. We have always had a few from centres outside the Western Cape, but we now have enough to justify a separate list, so, if you live in one of the other splendid places in our lovely country, have a look. If you are promoting an event in any of these places, please let us know and we’ll add it to the list.

CLIPPER 2013-14 Round the World Yacht Race      Last Friday, Rickety Bridge, one of the sponsors of Invest Africa, the boat that came third in the race leg from Rio to Cape Town, invited us to join them at the North Wharf in the Waterfront, where all the race yachts were berthed, to meet the crew and Sir Robin Knox Johnston - the Chairman and founder of the Clipper Race - and to go on board to have a look at the beautiful boat. It was extremely interesting to see how 21 people co-exist in cramped but well organised space on a modern high tech yacht in a round the world race. It is not for everyone! But for some of the crew, who paid to be in the race and had never sailed before, it was life changing, in the most positive way. They do receive rigorous training before they sail on one or more of the race legs, together with a professional crew. We drank some great bubbly, Rickety Bridge’s new Blanc de Blanc 2009, nibbled some canapés and made some new friends.

A unique project which should be applauded is the Sapinda Rainbow project, which has taken young South Africans from across the country and trained them to race across the world’s most challenging oceans on the Clipper Race. The Sapinda Rainbow project has worked with the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund (NMCF) to select eight young South Africans aged 18 to 23 each of whom is sailing one of the eight legs of the Clipper Race to develop their personal and community leadership skills, whilst also raising awareness and funds for the Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital. With some never having seen a boat before, let alone stepping on board one, it has presented the young people with a challenge like no other. They are also given the same rigorous training before they are selected from a much larger group. Photos of the event here.

John was lucky enough to be introduced to Ralph Mothes, who owns and runs the Cape Town Sailing Academy, and was invited on to his yacht, Chantecler, on Monday to see and photograph the start of race to the next port, Albany in Australia. This leg is known as the Southern Ocean Sleigh Ride! Lynne watched from the Waterfront and also took some photographs of the boats leaving port and sailing in the bay. It was very exciting and very hot, we both got a huge dose of sunburn despite sun block. Click here to see the photographs. To follow the action, follow the official twitter and Facebook channels.

Vondeling with the Oenophiles     We like to do different things with our wine club and this month we all went to Voor Paardeberg to visit Vondeling wine farm. Buses were arranged to take the group of 20 people, a very sensible way to save petrol and not have to worry about drinking and driving afterwards. It is a very beautiful drive on the N1 from Cape Town, turning off on the R44 and then taking the turn left to the Voor-Paardeberg just as the road turns right to go to Wellington. We had a full tasting of all their wines and then enjoyed a lovely simple charcuterie, cheese and pate platter. Lots of wine was taken home too. Click here to see photographs of the day. The area is mostly unknown to Capetonians and is well worth a visit. It takes just under the hour to get there and is so beautiful and green at the moment as all the vines put on new leaves and flower.

A Beautiful Farm     Beau Constantia is probably one of the highest wine farms in the Cape Peninsula. Vertiginously holding onto the mountain rocks at the top of Constantia Nek Pass, it was once a protea farm which was wiped out by a horrendous mountain fire in 2000. Established in 2002, it is owned by the Du Preez family. It has wonderful views down the Constantia valley over the two neighbouring farms, Constantia Glen and Eagle’s Nest, and then down across the Cape Flats and False Bay to the far mountains behind Gordon’s Bay and beyond. We were invited to come and taste the wines and sample their small canapé platter, which is themed. At the moment, you are given five Mexican inspired bites, and it will change again as Chef Ryan gets inspired. The Sales Manager, Chantel Ball, took us through the wines and we also spent a long time chatting to the young chef Ryan about his career and food interest. He is a local but worked at the Waldorf Astoria in New York for several years before returning to work first at Ellerman House and now Beau Constantia. We particularly enjoyed the award winning Cecily 2013 Viognier (named after Pierre du Preez’ wife, who is a Getty) - full of sweet peaches and cream and so ready for spicy food - the flagship Lucca (named after their daughter) 2011 Merlot Cab Franc red blend, which is smooth on the palate with good fruit and amami notes with a good minerality on the end, and the 2011 Aiden (named after their son) a blend of Malbec, Merlot, Petite Verdot and Cabernet Sauvignon, with its elegant classic palate with good red fruits, chalky tannins and marmite notes from the Malbec. This needs time. The newly released Sauvignon Blanc also shows great potential.  Click here to see photos of the tasting and the magnificent views.

This Week’s Recipe     Summer is here in fits and starts, but outside eating is on the cards. And of course Christmas is on the horizon. So Lynne thought she would investigate some new dips for mezze style eating. And, over the next few weeks, give you some suggestions for your Christmas and New Year meals.

She loves to be able to throw together quick dips from our store cupboard, fruit bowl and freezer. We usually have some nachos stashed away, we buy an assorted box of some good savoury biscuits at this time of the year and pita bread is usually in the freezer. You can knock up a quick humus, bean dip, or guacamole very easily but she wanted to step out of the usual and perhaps get a little luxurious, so has come up with these two dips for you to try.

Prawn and Avocado Dip

250g cooked & peeled pink prawns – half a ripe avocado pear – half a cup of thick Greek yoghurt – 1 t lime juice – 1 t Worcester sauce – 1 t sweet chilli sauce

Set aside 150g of the prawns then blitz the remaining 100g of the prawns with all the other ingredients. Taste, adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper, then stir in the whole prawns and 1 t of chopped flat leaf parsley. If your prawns are very large, do chop them into bite sized pieces. Serve with warm pita bread and a crisp Sauvignon Blanc.

Smoked salmon and caviar dip

200g good cream cheese like Philadelphia – 200 ml cream - juice of half a lemon– cayenne pepper – salt – 100g good smoked salmon or trout cut into small pieces – 2 hard boiled eggs, roughly chopped - tiny jar of black or red caviar or lump fish roe to decorate – fresh watercress

Mix the cream cheese with the cream until you have a dipping consistency. Flavour with lemon juice, salt and a little cayenne. Stir in the salmon and egg but do not over mix. Put into a pretty glass bowl on a plate and decorate the top with small blobs of caviar. Surround the bowl with fresh watercress. Serve with melba toast or crostini and a chilled bottle of your favourite dry white or rosé.

Buying from us On Line 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 on line shop. We can send your requirements to you anywhere in South Africa. Please do not pay until we have confirmed availability and invoiced you, then you pay and then we deliver or post. When you make an eft payment, make sure that it says who you are. Use the form on the website to email us your order. Click here to see our OnLine Shop.

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 see what’s happening in our world of food and wine (and a few other cultural events), visit 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. Events outside the Western Cape are listed here.

Learn about wine and cooking We receive 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 of Cathy’s WSET and other courses here and here and the CWA courses here.

Chez Gourmet in Claremont has a programme of cooking classes. A calendar of their classes can be seen here. Pete Ayub, who made 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. Nadège Lepoittevin-Dasse has cooking classes in Fish Hoek and conducts cooking tours to Normandy. You can see more details here. Emma Freddi runs the Enrica Rocca cooking courses at her home in Constantia. Brett Nussey’s Stir Crazy courses are now being run from Dish Food and Social’s premises in Main Road Observatory (opposite Groote Schuur hospital). Lynn Angel runs the Kitchen Angel cooking school and does private dinners at her home. She holds hands-on cooking classes for small groups on Monday and Wednesday evenings. She trained with Raymond Blanc, and has been a professional chef for 25 years. More info here

7th November 2013

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 online shop 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 and our blogs 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. We own our mailing software 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.