Sunbird
agapanthus breakfast
In
this week’s MENU:
This
week’s products: Sherry vinegars A busy weekend of wine festivals Green electricity Landau du Val This week’s recipe: Gazpacho Learn about wine and
cooking
We write about
our experiences in MENU, not only to entertain you, but to encourage you to
visit the places and events that we do. We know you will enjoy them and we try
to make each write up as graphic as we can, so you get a good picture of what
is on offer at each place, restaurant, wine farm, festival we visit.
To get the whole of our story, please click on
“READ
ON.....” at the end of each paragraph, which will
lead you to the related blog, with pictures and more words. At the end of each
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This week’s Product menu Many Spanish dishes, including the gazpacho we
include this week need Spanish Sherry vinegar. We have aged Sherry vinegars, all excellent. Like
balsamic vinegars, they increase in concentration as they age. Find them here
High summer and
Harvest Harvest has begun in our winelands and we
have guests from overseas. We love taking them on wine tours and sightseeing
trips and we do always do the normal round of what to see in the Cape. But did
you know that there are several smaller wine areas which don’t get so many
visitors and who will make you incredibly welcome. Our guests have been here
for a while, so planning a trip to an area they have not visited before was special.
Which led us to Darling.
The day began warm and clear
and we only took just under the hour to get to Darling on the Malmesbury road.
Our first stop was to Ormonde where Zia du Toit welcomed us with open arms and
a tasting with Riedel glasses was set up in the cool tasting room. Zia is about
to move to Lammershoek as marketing manager and we wish her great success. Read on
It’s a busy
weekend There is so much on in the Cape in Harvest
time. None of you should be sitting at home with nothing to do. This weekend, we
will be at Riesling & Rarities Rocks at Hartenberg on Saturday and then
dash to the Hemel-en-Aarde Valley, which will be holding the second annual
Hemel-en-Aarde Pinot Noir Celebration and we have been invited to Creation for
a vertical tasting in the evening. We will be back in Stellenbosch at Delheim
on Sunday for their Start of Harvest Celebration. We might see you at all or
some of the above. We can’t get to Constantia Fresh, but wish we could. It is
at Buitenverwachting and many other farms have events on – have a look at our Events
Calendar. There is also the Stellenbosch Wine Festival to visit this weekend.
Energy is the
all-consuming topic right now, with “load-shedding” (Eskom speak for blackouts)
inconveniencing everyone. Our power went off from 6.30pm to 2am a few days ago.
This situation, the result of government neglect and ineptitude, will probably
continue for several years. We are already using gas for cooking and solar
energy for our hot water, and have now decided to invest in a photovoltaic
system with battery backup, which should reduce our dependence on Eskom to
almost nothing. We have several potential suppliers and are waiting for final
quotes, but it looks as though the monthly repayment for a suitable
installation, financed through our mortgage facility, will cost about the same
as our average monthly electricity bill. Many other households have decided to
take similar action and the suppliers have all been swamped. One told me he is
receiving 400 email enquiries per day. Several wine farms have already taken
this step with great success. We’ll keep you posted.
This Week’s
Recipe If you are like us, you are living on
salads and quickly prepared food. It is just too hot to be in the kitchen
cooking over a hot stove. The fruit is marvellous, we have fresh fruit salad
for breakfast every morning and at the moment is has mango, litchi, fragrant
raspberries, nectarines, kiwis and melon. Dips with crudités, olives, cheese,
grilled fish and meat and cold soups are the order of the (rest of the) day.
Tomatoes are so beautiful at
this time of year that one of our favourites is a simple tomato salad using
heritage tomatoes of all shapes and sizes, dressed with torn basil, a little
balsamic and good green olive oil. The best use of good ripe tomatoes is of
course the classic Spanish Gazpacho – I do my prep in a cool place like our
deck or in front of TV.
Gazpacho
1.5 kilos ripe tomatoes
– 2 slices of stale white bread – 2/3rds of a cup of good extra virgin olive
oil - 1 peeled cucumber – 1 small red onion – 2 or 3 peeled cloves of garlic -
1 red peppers & 1 green pepper (deseeded) - 2 or 3 T sherry vinegar – salt
and freshly ground black pepper – a little sugar
Make a tiny slash on every
tomato and put in a large bowl. Pour boiling water over them to cover and leave
for five minutes. Drain and peel the tomatoes (this is not essential but makes
a much better texture). Soak the bread in a little water to soften, then
squeeze out the water. Roughly chop up the tomatoes, cucumber, peppers and
onion and put into a liquidiser with the oil, bread and the garlic and blitz. You
may have to do this in a couple of batches and mix well in a bowl. Add a couple
of tablespoons of the sherry vinegar and then taste. It depends on how acidic
the tomatoes are. You may need more if they are very sweet, you may need a
little sugar if they are sharp. Season to taste and put into the fridge in a
non-metallic bowl to chill. It will be thick.
To serve
Have approximately 500 ml of
ice water ready and add it to the soup just before serving. (You need to add
about a third of the quantity of your soup. )
You can garnish (or serve for
guests to help themselves) with chopped cucumber and peppers, Spanish ham,
crisp bacon, croutons or chopped hard-boiled egg
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
The Hurst Campus, an accredited school for people who want to become
professional chefs, has a variety of courses. See the details here
Chez Gourmet in Claremont has a programme of cooking classes. A calendar of their classes can be seen here.
In addition to the
new Sense
of Taste Culinary Arts School, Chef Peter Ayub runs a
four module course for keen home cooks at his Maitland complex. Details
here
Nadège Lepoittevin-Dasse has French cooking classes in Noordhoek
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.
29th January 2015
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.
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click on it for more information
Phones: +27 21 439 3169 / 083 229 1172 / 083 656
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Postal address: 60 Arthurs Rd, Sea Point 8005
Our Adamastor
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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
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