The launch of Sense of Taste Culinary Arts School

Last week saw the opening of the new Sense of Taste Culinary Arts School.  The course will take 2 years, is certified by City and Guilds and the first intake of 6 students begins in two weeks time

Principal Peter Ayub and Lecturer Angie Boyd Celebrating

They invited many suppliers, customers and friends to the opening and laid on quite a spread of food.

The students' work stations

This is the laden sushi table

Cheese board

Wicked cake platter of petite fours all made by Angie

The kitchens

Belly of pork on the Shwarma oven

Charcuterie Platter

Vegetarian Tom Yum soup to warm us on a chilly night

Pete enthusiastically showing us around the new accommodation

Serve yourself butter chicken with rotis

Peter and Angie enjoying  some refreshment after all the preparation

Pete and wife Debbie with journalist Graham Howe

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©John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2014

140613 Main Ingredient's MENU - Old Mutual Trophy tasting, Devonvale Saturday Lunch, Hartenberg Shiraz & Charcuterie, Cabrière 20th Anniversary of Pinot Chardonnay, Haskell Wines tasting, Carmien Rooibos lunch, Butternut soup

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A winter storm approaching Franschhoek

In this week’s MENU:

 Old Mutual Trophy public tasting

 Saturday Lunch at Devonvale

 Shiraz and Charcuterie at Hartenberg

Cabrière celebrates the 20th Anniversary of their Pinot Chardonnay blend

 Haskell Wines tasting and lunch

 Carmien Rooibos tea with lunch in Banks new shop by Nic van Wyk

 Creamy Butternut Soup

This week’s Product menu – Two items in our inventory which have always been popular with our customers are Squid ink and leaf gelatine. This is a great time for risottos and pasta (if you are not following the prescripts of Messrs Banting and Noakes) and squid ink lets you make them black. Leaf gelatine gives a much smoother, softer jelly than the granular variety – wonderful for dishes like panna cotta and Lynne uses it to make the raspberry and chardonnay jelly our guests love ... See them here.

If you can find it in the supermarket, we don't usually stock it, just the products you would struggle to find.... Check our online shop to see more details and prices.

Friday Old Mutual Trophy public tasting at CTICC     At last, a chance to taste the winning wines (and several others) that we have heard about over the last few weeks. The judges are right, South African wine continues to improve and reach higher and higher standards. There were some knockout examples. At a large tasting like this, we aim to taste as many trophy wines as possible and then fit in others. We find that this competition really does seem to drive quality, progress and innovation in the industry.

The fairly controversial wine that won the Trophy for the Best Shiraz and the best red wine overall, Mount Sutherland Syrah from the Sneeuwberg mountains, was very interesting. We didn’t find it to be an in your face fruit bomb; it is much more restrained, elegant and tight with some tannins, but you can see the potential and why it scored 96 points. Saronsberg also scored 96 points and a gold medal for their elegant and structured Provenance Shiraz 2012 and this is ready to be enjoyed now.

The Chardonnays we tasted were exemplary, especially Trophy winner and best white wine on Show, Mulderbosch 2013. Richness and freshness is what winemaker Adam Mason says he wants – he has achieved it. Museum Class trophy winner Chamonix Reserve 2008 really charmed us with its crisp acidity holding onto the lovely layers of golden fruit. And gold medallist Iona 2013 might just have to be put into our cellar soon. The Discovery of the Show, Baleia Bay Chardonnay 2013, is there already.

We could cover pages with recommendations for many, many more of these wines. If you see a wine with one of these awards and you can afford it, buy a bottle to try and then buy some more if you like it. One you won’t be able to find is the KWV 1930 LBV Muscadel, which won a gold medal in the museum class. What an extraordinary wine and how fortunate we were to get some in our glass, so thick and syrupy, so balsamic and yet still a joy to taste. Why do we ignore, neglect and not appreciate our superb sweet wines and port? They are some of the best jewels in our wine varietals. MORE...

Saturday Lunch at Devonvale     Devonvale Golf Club is in the Bottelary Hills. It has a lodge, a restaurant and it also has its own wines. We received an invitation from the owners, the Provoyeurs, to visit and taste the wines and have their very good value three course lunch for R130 (till September). So we set out last Saturday, as we were already going to Hartenberg for the Shiraz and Charcuterie festival MORE...

Shiraz and Charcuterie at Hartenberg     South African Shiraz is going through a fantastic period of growth and massive improvement and it is being recognised here and abroad. So we love being invited to taste a great selection of them. Hartenberg hold this festival once a year and they invite local farms to showcase their impressive Shirazes. The rain we’d had nearly all week the week stopped, the sky cleared and the sun shone all afternoon as we and many other Shiraz fans milled around the terrace tasting Shiraz under the pergola and in front of the wine cellar. There were several stands selling charcuterie, good bread and some cheese as well so there was plenty of choice for lunch or something great to take home. MORE...

Cabrière celebrates the 20^th Anniversary of their Pinot Chardonnay blend     This is one of the best selling wines bought by the public and it is on very many restaurant wine lists. It is amazing to think that it has been around for 20 years. On Sunday we were invited to come and celebrate with a lunch in the Cabrière restaurant with the Von Arnim family and all the people invited were generously allowed to bring their families so we had many children, all very well behaved. Chef Ryan Shell produced a lovely informal lunch which lasted until 5 when we all scattered home as the next winter storm and cold front was about to arrive MORE...

Haskell Wines tasting and lunch     Where nicer than a wine farm to taste wine? How about the owner’s well appointed house, high up the hill in Fresnaye. It has the most beautiful views of Table Bay and Robben Island and we were able to taste the wines in the magnificent wine cellar and then have a great ‘serve yourself’ informal lunch upstairs. These wines are really superb. First 3 chardonnays from 3 vintages. All clean crisp and elegant, but each with a completely different personality. Anvil 10 has reached maturity and was a small vintage. It’s got melons and citrus with a light wood richness and good minerality on the end made it Lynne’s favourite of the 3. Anvil 2011 has wood smoke with citrus below on the nose. Clean fruit and nice crisp acidity with long flavours of lemon make it quite French in character. Anvil 2012 also has wood smoke and shy fruit on the nose but on the palate is an elegant food wine full of clean clear flavours of lemons and limes.

Then three Shirazes from completely different vineyards and soils. All have complex layered fruit and lots of spice. Aeon 2011 shows elegance and long lingering chalk spice and fruit. Pillars 2011, the vineyard at the gate of the farm, is being grown half biodynamically and half organically, as it is so apart from the other vines. It will be very interesting to see if any differences show. It’s all smoke and spice with a rich mouthfeel, with good acids to give grip and spicy sour cherries and rhubarb delight. Then the Hades 2014 – a barrel sample taken the day before, just to show how it is developing, and we predict a wine well worth drinking. It was remarkable for such a young wine.

Then the Haskell II 2010 Shiraz Cab Blend. Cassis, black cherries and violets bring elegance with vanilla ice cream and warm spice. Silky smooth, nice chalky tannins make it extremely drinkable. The Haskell IV 2009 is their flagship Bordeaux blend and is full of Rumtopf berry flavour, rich and spicy on the nose. The fruit is still maturing and the tannins still speaking, so it is one to put away for a while. MORE...

Carmien Rooibos tea with lunch in Banks new shop by Nic van Wyk     Now many of you will know that we are not great fans of Rooibos “tea”. So what were we doing accepting an invitation to lunch matched with Rooibos? The draw card was, we must admit, food cooked by Chef Nic van Wyk and we like challenging ourselves every now and then and trying things we think we don’t like. It was a very interesting experiment and we admit that the “teas” were more pleasant to drink than we had imagined. And they certainly went very well with the food. It was held in the new Banks shop in the Checkers Centre in Sea Point on the day it opened. Creation were also there with their excellent wines and many people were enjoying them. MORE...

Congratulations to Philip Costandius on his new appointment as General Manager of Oldenburg wines in Stellenbosch. It’s a beautiful farm and he joins a great team.

This week’s recipe is a creamy Butternut Soup     We have had some really good versions of this recently and Lynne wanted to see if she could come up with a good recipe, following the Banting diet. We cook our butternut in the microwave because, with no water involved, it produces the very best flavours this vegetable has to offer with no dilution. And you don’t have to peel the butternut. You can boil it but make sure you strain it very well or the soup will be watery.

1 butternut approx 1.5 kilos – 500ml of good chicken stock – 30 ml butter - 250 ml of cream – sea salt and freshly ground black pepper – a good grating of nutmeg

Take a sharp knife and make several punctures deep into the butternut. Put it into a deep glass ovenproof bowl. Microwave on high power for 8 minutes. Turn it over. Keep doing this until it is completely soft. Let it cool and you will find it easy to remove all the skin. Cut in half and scoop out the pips. Put the butternut into a large pot and add the stock and the butter. Cook together for about 10 minutes to blend the flavours then take a stick blender and blend till smooth. Stir in the cream and blend again. If it is too thick add a little more stock. Taste and adjust the seasoning, adding the nutmeg or another spice of your choice. You want a really smooth velouté texture for the soup so blend until you have this. This is much thicker if you leave this in the fridge overnight and then reheat and serve. You could add another swirl of cream when serving. We sprinkled with a little hot chilli pepper or cayenne but you could sprinkle with some soft fresh herb leaves like thyme or sage. Serves 4.

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 and drives the wheels that enable us to produce MENU possible. 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. If you wish to come to our home, please phone ahead to ensure that we have what you want in stock and to make sure that we are at home. We are often out!

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. Karen Glanfield has taken over the UnWined wine appreciation courses from Cathy. See the details here

Chez Gourmet in Claremont has a programme of cooking classes. A calendar of their classes can be seen 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 Thursday evenings and she has decided to introduce LCHF (Banting classes). The Kitchen Confidence classes, which focus on essential cooking skills and methods, have been expanded and are now taught over 2 evenings. She continues to host private dining and culinary team building events at her home. She trained with Raymond Blanc, and has been a professional chef for 25 years. More info here

13th June 2014

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 and standard 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.

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Lunch with Carmien Rooibos and chef Nic van Wyk at Banks new Sea Point shop

Now, many of you will know that we are not great fans of Rooibos tea. So what were we doing accepting an invitation to lunch matched with Rooibos tea? The draw card was, we must admit, food cooked by Chef Nic van Wyk and we like challenging ourselves every now and then and trying things we think we don’t like.  It was a very interesting experiment and we admit that the “teas” were not more pleasant to drink than we had imagined.  And they certainly went very well with the food.  It was held in the new Banks shop in the Checkers Centre in Sea Point on the day they opened.  Creation were also there with their excellent wines and many people were enjoying them. 

Banks’ shop also has a working kitchen for hire for chefs lunches, cooking demonstrations etc.

A welcome glass of Creation’s Sauvignon blanc, poured by Sales and Marketing Manager Dieter Odendaal

Chef Nic van Wyk cooking his Moroccan lamb meatballs.  It filled the shop with wonderful aromas

Adding some more flavour while a Banks employee in the background sets the media tables

There is lots of space for the function and there was time to look at all the stock in the shop and covet a few items

The range of Carmien teas. Rooibos Blends are Rooibos with Lemongrass & Ginger, Rooibos & Buchu, Rooibos, Honeybush & Hoodia, Rooibos & Chai Spices, Rooibos & Chamomile, Green Honeybush, Rooibos & Mint. Loose Tea Blends are Vintage Romance and Amber Royalty. All products can be found in leading retailers throughout South Africa.

The range of Creation wines we were to taste with lunch

The table setting

Journalist Bianca Coleman from the Cape Argus chatting to Dieter Odendaal of Creation wines in the Hemel and Aarde valley

Chef Nic explains our lunch and the tea pairings

Phialene van der Merwe, the Marketing Manger of Carmien, tells us about the products and how they are grown in the Cederberg - the only place in the world in which they can be grown, due to the very specific soil and terroir in a narrow 60 000 hectare belt along the West Coast of South Africa

Lize Mouton of Carmien pours our first tasting. We drank out of small professional tea tasting glasses

Dieter Odendaal with a bottle of Creation Sauvignon blanc

The founder of  Carmien Rooibos Teas and now managing director, Mientjie Mouton, tells us of the history of Rooibos and the company, which is now the second largest producer and supplier both locally and abroad.

To quote her:  “Tea is no longer just a stand-alone beverage that you sip between meals, it is versatile and lends itself to a food partner rounding off flavours and adding depth to any dish. Tea acts as a palate cleanser and flavour bridge between courses as it refreshes and readies the palate. “With tea being a big trend for 2014 and even mentioned as being a top five foodie factor to watch out for, we’re excited to share our blends and grow this trend in South Africa”.

Listening and tweeting as she explains why Rooibos Lemongrass and Ginger tea was paired with Watercress soup

The soup was lovely and peppery, thickened with cream and a little potato and did indeed go well with both the Lemongrass and Ginger tea and the Creation Chardonnay

The menu for An Eastern Journey with food and tea

PRO and great organiser of these events, Roxy Laker of Errieda du Toit Public Relations

There was a lucky dip of business cards to win this tea set

Steamed Cob with a fennel compote and aniseed cream topped with a piece of cold smoked hake and a piece of salted hake.  The fish was perfectly cooked and we loved the two different pieces of hake on the top.  The chai spices in the tea were visible and did justice to the dish. As did the Creation Sauvignon Blanc.

Tomato sauce for the next course of meatballs. Lynne found this rather sharp

The TV monitor overhead allows one to see how the chef prepares the food when doing demos

Merguez Meatballs, pumpkin mash and tomato sauce with Rooibos and Buchu flavour, probably for us the most acceptable flavour of these teas. We liked the herbal notes of the Buchu. And we loved the sexy Shiraz from Creation

The lunch ended with a lovely dessert, a small rich and delicious Bergamot Pot de crème with a citrus biscuit served with the Rooibos Earl Grey

Mientjie and Lize Mouton drawing for the prize

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© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2014