A flight of
Quelea at Elandsberg Reserve
In
this week’s MENU:
What are you doing this (long) weekend? Beef Chasseur 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 story with photographs,
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
blog, click on RETURN
TO MENU to come back to the blog version of MENU.
It was a
celebration week! A time of rejoicing and
partying with some of our friends in the wine industry, who have milestone
events to celebrate. We had a ball and were completely overindulged. Then came
the long weekend, in which we planned to go to De Kelders for four days to stay
with friends and enjoy a lunch at Marianne’s. But the gastric flu that is going
around struck Lynne, so we had to cancel. It’s over, John did not get it and we’ve
had time to enjoy this week as well.
Glen Carlou
Celebrates The Curator’s Collection Launch & Arco Laarman’s 20th year as a
winemaker Arco’s winemaking career
started as a worker with Danie Steytler in the cellar at Kaapzicht. After a few
years there, winemaker David Finlayson appointed him assistant winemaker at
Glen Carlou and, when David left, Arco took over as Cellarmaster. Over the
years, he has experimented with different barrels of the wines they make and
has also made wines from grapes sourced elsewhere, often rare varieties. These
are now being released as The Curator’s Collection and are available only on
the farm. We were invited to lunch to celebrate his winemaking career and to
taste these very interesting wines. Read On.....
TVM Trade
Tasting never disappoints Tracy van
Maaren represents a small range of wine farms and, once a year, we are treated
to a very good tasting of their wines. This year, again, it was held at
Auslese, the function venue in Gardens owned by Chef Harald Bresselschmidt of
Aubergine restaurant. He creates a food pairing for each of the wines on show. Read On.....
Graham Beck
Celebrates 25 years Graham Beck sells more than a
million bottles of their MCC Bubbly every year and that figure is now rapidly
on the rise. All the Graham Beck wines are part of our rich wine tapestry and
most people know them well. None of us realised that winemaking on the farm was
started by Graham Beck only 25 years ago. His purchase of the land followed the
Laingsburg floods of 1981, when the existing farm was almost wiped off the face
of the earth. The farm was perfect for horses, his great love, and they also
began to plant grapes. In 1991 they had their maiden vintage and “the journey
of discovery in pursuit of the perfect bubble” commenced, driven by winemaker Pieter
(Bubbles) Ferreira, who is still the magician wielding his magic wand there. We
celebrated with so much MCC from so many different years and in so many
different guises. This was followed by an excellent lunch prepared by Chef Margot
Janse of The Tasting room at Le Quartier Française in Franschhoek – what a
treat and what an ebullient and joyous celebration! They totally spoiled us. Read On.....
The Gold
Restaurant Experience Where do
you go to show visitors the African experience? There are now several places
and they are all different. We were invited to experience Gold Restaurant’s newly
launched Autumn-Winter set menu and enjoy all the other amusements. We took
part in the drumming, which started at 6pm, along with a huge group of
tourists, and then proceeded to dinner which comes with enthusiastic live,
boisterous and loud entertainment throughout. Read On.....
Wine Cellar
celebrates the opening of their new tasting room and above ground retail space. Wine Cellar is one of the premier outlets in the Cape at which one can buy
fine local and international wines and also store your own wine collection
perfectly, should you not have a cellar. We were invited to this newly finished
function room (which is available for hire) for a tasting of David Trafford’s
Sijnn wines, paired in a blind tasting, with some foreign wines. It was an
excellent tasting of some very, very interesting wines and this was followed by
an excellent Pork Chasseur dish accompanied great chewy artisanal bread,
unsalted butter and good cheese. www.winecellar.co.za/
Read On.....
Game drive at
Bartholomeus Klip We totally ran out of time
last week, getting MENU out on time, so this part of our visit
comes to you this week. The Elandsberg Private Nature Reserve has some
interesting animals, great birds and plants and has three very special animal
projects. They breed virus free Buffalo in an enclosure, they are part of the Quagga
restoration programme and they have a Tortoise rescue and breeding programme,
with fenced reserves for these wonderful animals that are so badly affected by
our fires. Read On..... to see the pictures of
what we saw on our 1½ hour game drive. Oh and it was lambing time on the farm.
What are you
doing this (long) weekend? The choice
of festivals continues and this weekend has the Elgin Cool Country wines and the Olive Festival in the Riebeek area.
We can’t go to both, so we are heading for Elgin on Saturday. Enjoy whichever
you choose, and may the weather not dampen your enthusiasm. We so need the
rain.
Coming soon:
12th & 13th May Juliet Cullinan Standard Bank Wine Festival
This week’s
recipe
might well be suitable for this wet weekend. It’s a one pot dish and it is one
of our all time favourites. You can fry the mushrooms separately and just add
them at the end, to the dishes of those who like mushrooms. It’s a hunter’s
dish and you can use pork, game or even poultry should you wish to, but you
will need to vary your cooking times accordingly. Poultry will take less time,
game may take longer.
Beef
Chasseur
1 kg beef or veal
stewing steak – 125g medium mushrooms – 2 T canola oil – 30g butter - 2 small
onions or 4 shallots, chopped – 1T plain flour - 2 wine glasses Verjuice or
white wine - 425 ml good beef stock - 1 T tomato purée – a few baby carrots –
salt and black pepper - a bouquet garni of celery, rosemary, thyme and a bay
leaf
Cube the meat into 3 to 4cm
pieces. Wipe and slice the mushrooms. In a heavy oven-proof casserole, heat the
oil with the butter and quickly brown the meat, a few pieces at a time, till
golden brown, then remove it and set aside to keep warm. Reduce the heat, add
the mushrooms and sauté them till they begin to brown. Remove them too. Add the
onions and the flour and mix well, then fry until they are a good russet brown
colour. Add the wine or verjuice and the stock a little at a time and deglaze
the bottom of the pan. Add the tomato purée, the bouquet garni and the carrots.
Put back the beef and the mushrooms. Cover with a well fitting lid and put into
the oven at 180ºC for at least 1 and a half hours. Before serving, remove the
bouquet garni, dish up the meat into your serving dish and reduce the sauce;
adjust the seasoning and then spoon it over the meat. Serve with small new baby
potatoes or with mash and a good green vegetable like French beans, or
broccoli. Superb with a rich Cabernet or classical Bordeaux blend.
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
In addition to his
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
Nicolette van
Niekerk runs baking courses at La Petite Patisserie in Montague
Gardens
George Jardine
will be running a series of winter cooking courses and other activities at
Jordan. Details here
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.
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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
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