An elegant
Three-master on a rainy Naxos night
In
this week’s MENU:
Hidden White Gems at an Elgin Tweet Up Caribbean
Soup 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.
Our Aegean Odyssey continues
with Naxos and Athens This week, we tell you about the rest of
our stay in Naxos and our first day in Athens, most of which we spent in the
Acropolis, immersing ourselves in nearly 3000 years of history. Read On:
Tasting and lunch at Neil Joubert Wine Estate Charles
Withington has had a respectable career in wine. He owns the Darling Wine Shop
and has become a friend. During his tenure as General Manager at nearby
Backsberg, he got to know the Jouberts very well and has looked after their
export marketing since the mid 90s. Recently, he suggested that we should all
go and have a tasting and lunch with them. We met him there last Wednesday and
a wonderful day was had by all. Read On
Boplaas tasting with lunch at Dear Me
Restaurant in Longmarket Street We were invited to taste four Boplaas
wines made with Port varieties and four of their ports last Thursday. The
tasting was held in Tjing Tjing on the ground floor and then we went upstairs
to the Dear Me restaurant to lunch, paired with more of the wines and Port. Read On
Shiraz SA showcase at the CTICC Since
its inception in 2009, the Shiraz Showcase has grown and, this year, it took
place at the CTICC for the first time, previous venues having become too small
to accommodate it. Shiraz has become a signature varietal for South Africa and
shiraz plantings now account for about 11% of the national vineyard. CTICC is a
good venue for this huge showcase of shiraz and it was a very good tasting
indeed this year. It was difficult to manage to taste more than half of what is
on show but we tried. It is always a very social evening as well and we met
lots of you enjoying yourselves. Read On
Sommeliers Selection Awards at Open Door
Restaurant at Constantia Uitsig A total of 101 wines was selected from 400
entries for the first Sommeliers Selection Wine List, which was judged only by
members of the South African Sommeliers Association (SASA). The judging panel
was chaired by internationally acclaimed sommeliers David Clarke and Higgo
Jacobs. The awards ceremony was attended by many members of the wine and food
industry last Friday and, following the awards, the wines were available for
tasting. Read On
Winter Menu specials at Den Anker
We always enjoy it when we are invited by restaurants to come and taste
their food; better still when we know the food they produce is good. Last
Friday was a beautiful crisp and sunny winter’s day and, following the
Sommeliers Selection Awards, we made our way to this waterside restaurant in
the Waterfront. We were able to sit outside on the dock and eat our way through
tasting portions of their winter specials, accompanied by a selection of
samples of Belgian beers. The selection is very good and those of you with
children will love Sundays, when they eat free (but no beer for them!). Read On
Hidden White Gems at an Elgin Tweet Up Last
night we headed off to Rococoa in the Palms Centre in Woodstock, where this
Tweet Up was to take place. It is a very good venue indeed, in the cellar which
used to house Cuvées Classiques. It is large, spacious and the Wi-Fi connection
is excellent. We tasted through 11 Elgin white wines and thoroughly enjoyed the
two hour tasting, as there were some excellent wines. We discovered that the
Tweet Up was the #1 trending site in SA at 7 pm! If you want to follow us on
twitter our handle is @mainingmenu
This week's
recipe comes from the days
when we sold Sue Long's wonderful fruit vinegars. They have all but disappeared
now, sadly, but in this one, you can just use lime juice or even Roses Lime
Juice instead of the vinegar in the delicious winter warming soup.
Caribbean Soup
2 chopped onions - 30g butter - 70g rice,
uncooked - 45ml grated coconut - 400g spinach leaves, washed and cut up - 1.5
litres good beef stock or 1 beef stock cube - 80ml coconut cream - salt-
freshly ground black pepper - 30ml lime juice
Soften the onion in the melted butter, add 1.5 litres
boiling water or beef stock, bring to the boil and add the rice and grated
coconut. Allow to cook for 20 minutes, add the well drained spinach and, if
using, the beef stock cube. Bring to the boil, add the coconut cream, a good
grinding of black pepper, salt to taste and the lime juice to taste. Serve hot.
If you have any jerk spice, you can try a dash of that too.
COMING EVENTS:
Saturday, 27th June at 18h30 for 19h00 Le Franschhoek Hotel & Spa invites you to enjoy a gourmet meal paired with a
wide range of carefully selected wines from Quando Vineyards & Winery. R295
per person for Dinner only or R1995 per couple includes the dinner, room and
breakfast. ENQUIRE TO BOOK
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
24th June 2015
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.
If you like the photographs you see in our publications,
please look at our Adamastor
Photo website for our
rate card and samples from our portfolio
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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,
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