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Tuesday, March 14, 2017

This Week’s MENU. Heritage Square, Chefs Warehouse, Durbanville, Robertson Hands on Harvest,Granadilla and Raspberry Charlotte Russe, Bemind Cinsault

A Southern Double-collared Sunbird on a pink hibiscus flower, Van Loveren winery, Robertson

A look at Heritage Square, Cape Town
Anniversary lunch at the Chefs Warehouse
A day in Durbanville
Robertson Wine Valley's Hands on Harvest - Saturday
Robertson Wine Valley's Hands on Harvest - Sunday
Robertson ramblings
MENU's Recipe of the Week: Granadilla and Raspberry Charlotte Russe
MENU's Wine of the Week: Ilse Schutte's Bemind Cinsault 2016

This has been a busy week. We have friends with us who come here from Holland every year and so we have been adventurous. They also love good wine and food, so we have taken them to several places that we have all enjoyed, some in the course of work, some not. In the past week we have visited Durbanville and then Robertson at the weekend, the latter meaning that we missed all the drama of the wind-blown, cancelled Cape Town Cycle Tour and the disastrous fire that destroyed over 3000 homes in Imizamo Yethu in Hout Bay. Returning from the peace of the Robertson Wine Valley to watching the fire fighting helicopters off the Sea Point beachfront was a big reality check

A look at Heritage Square, Cape Town On our wedding anniversary last Wednesday, I had an hour to kill between doing my bit at a casting in Loop St and meeting Lynne at The Chef's Warehouse for a celebratory lunch. It had been a while since we had visited any of the fine collection of food and wine venues in this historic square complex, so I stuck my lens into a few corners. It is a collection of eighteenth century buildings which came frighteningly close to being demolished to make way for a freeway in the 1990s. The quadrangle in the middle of the square is the home of what is believed to be the oldest grape vine in the country, possibly planted in the 1770s

Anniversary lunch at the Chefs Warehouse Last Wednesday was our Wedding Anniversary. We are rather surprised to find we have been married for 14 years, it has gone so quickly and been so much fun. We like to celebrate with a good meal out, somewhere we have heard about before but not yet been to. Liam Tomlin opened this store/restaurant in 2014 when they moved from their old site in Bree Street and we have been trying to go for a very long time. Quite difficult as we are invited out to restaurants and wine farms, often several times in a week. It is on the corner of Heritage Square with the entrance in Bree Street, Number 92

A day in Durbanville We wanted to take our Dutch friends on a local wine tour and Durbanville is very close to town. The weather was perfect and we began at Bloemendal, had lunch at Diemersdal (Lynne had heard very good things about the restaurant and we knew the wine was superb) and finished the day with at last sigh at the view from De Grendel. We began at Bloemendal, which we haven't visited for a while....

Robertson Wine Valley's Hands on Harvest - Saturday Robertson beckoned and we responded. We saw details of the festival on the internet and, as we haven't been to their Harvest Festival for many years, we decided to take our Dutch friends. Lynne managed to find reasonable accommodation on Bookings.com. Each farm does its own thing during this festival and some need booking so we made some, helped by Mira Weiner of Hot Oven Marketing and had a great weekend with our friends

Robertson Wine Valley's Hands on Harvest - Sunday What a contrast! After Saturday's blistering heat, we woke to wonderful soaking rain in our valley on Sunday. We had bacon and eggs and hot cross buns to soak up the intended wine, tidied up, packed and set off to return the keys in Robertson, all by 10 o'clock. We then headed for the Festival market at Viljoensdrift

Robertson ramblings John woke to the welcome sound of rain on the roof and took a solo walk in the soft rain while the others slept; he was joined by an enthusiastic companion.....

MENU's Recipe of the Week:

Granadilla and Raspberry Charlotte Russe This classic dessert was invented by Antoinin Carème, a master of French Cuisine who cooked for kings during his stay in St Petersburg, cooking for the Tsar in the early 19th century. A lovely summer dessert, this is fiddly but not at all difficult to make. You will have seen it on Great British Baker if you have been watching; they did make it look very complicated. You do need to make it in the morning to allow time to set, or the day before. You can use seedless pulp, but a few seeds tell what the fruit is. If it is not sharp enough, add a little lemon juice to taste. You can also use all sorts of different fruit. Bananas (use 5, mashed) make a lovely Charlotte, so do puréed berries

1 packet of lime or lemon jelly - 450 ml double or whipping cream - 50 ml granadilla pulp or freshly squeezed juice - 125 g fresh raspberries (or other berries) - a packet of finger (boudoir) biscuits - optional, juice of half a lemon

You need a deep dish with straight sides so that the finger biscuits can stand up. Lynne uses a 17 cm soufflé dish

Boil a kettle. Melt the jelly in 150 ml of boiling water; stir till the jelly is clear. Then add 300 ml cold water. Put a little jelly into the base of your dish, about 1 cm deep. Put the dish into the fridge until set. Keep the rest of the jelly mixture out of the fridge. While it is setting, trim the edges of the sponge fingers so that they will fit closely together. Shake off and discard the crumbs. Arrange some of the raspberries around the edges on the set jelly, use about 10 or 12 evenly spaced, and one in the middle. Add a little more jelly and return the dish to the fridge to set. Whip the cream until stiff, stir in the granadilla pulp and the raspberries. When the base jelly is nearly set, start dipping the finger biscuits briefly into the remaining jelly and line the sides of the dish with the fingers, sugary side outward. Make sure that they fit closely together; you don’t want leaks. Then add the remaining nearly set jelly to the cream mixture and spoon it into the dish. Chill till firm. Just before serving, trim off the tops of the biscuits so that they are level with the filling. Dip the base of the dish into hot water for a moment and put a round serving dish over the dish, invert it and lift it away. The charlotte should stand up on its own and show its beautiful jelly 'face'.

See the photograph.

TIP: If it looks like collapsing, tie a ribbon around it before serving

MENU's Wine of the Week: Ilse Schutte's Bemind Cinsault 2016

The wine we really liked and ordered for supper at Ilse Schutte's Bemind garagiste cellar in McGregor was the Cinsault. It is jewel bright almandine garnet. At first, dusty musty on the nose, then boysenberries arrive, fruity sweetness on the nose and ripe berries on the palate. It’s gentle and wild at the same time with some prune plum flavours on the end. So nice to see such a good expression of a much neglected grape. One to watch. Platter awarded it 3 stars in the 2017 edition. It sells for R120 from the cellar

14th March 2017

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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 our best policy. While every effort is made to avoid mistakes, we are human and they do creep in occasionally, for which we apologise. 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. 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.

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MENU's Recipe of the Week: Granadilla and Raspberry Charlotte Russe

This classic dessert was invented by Antoinin Carème, a master of French Cuisine who cooked for kings during his stay in St Petersburg, cooking for the Tsar in the early 19th century. A lovely summer dessert, this is fiddly but not at all difficult to make. You will have seen it on Great British Baker if you have been watching; they did make it look very complicated. You do need to make it in the morning to allow time to set, or the day before. You can use seedless pulp, but a few seeds tell what the fruit is. If it is not sharp enough, add a little lemon juice to taste. You can also use all sorts of different fruit. Bananas (use 5, mashed) make a lovely Charlotte, so do puréed berries

(Photo: Yvonne Kampmeinert)

You need a deep dish with straight sides so that the finger biscuits can stand up. Lynne uses a 17 cm soufflé dish

The Charlotte should stand up on its own and show its beautiful jelly 'face'. See the photograph

TIP: If it looks like collapsing, tie a ribbon around it before serving

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MENU's Wine of the Week: Ilse Schutte's Bemind Cinsault 2016

So nice to see such a good expression of a much neglected grape. One to watch

Platter awarded it 3 stars in the 2017 edition. It sells for R120 from the cellar
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Robertson Wine Valley's Hands on Harvest - Sunday

What a contrast! After Saturday's blistering heat, we woke to wonderful soaking rain in our valley on Sunday. We had bacon and eggs and hot cross buns to soak up the intended wine, tied up, packed and set off to return the keys in Robertson, all by 10 o'clock

We then headed for the Festival market at Viljoensdrift and, by the time we got there, the rain had stopped, so we could wander around and not get wet

We met viticulturist Martin Bruwer on the Quando table, with his wife Estelle and winemaker brother Fanus and, of course, had to taste the wine, of which we are rather fond

Next to them were Lourens and Lizelle van der Westhuizen on the Arendsig table. Beside making their own wine, Lourens makes for and consults to several local wine farms: Esona, Jan Harmsgat, Mimosa, Star Hill. They had a very good day on Saturday, with several events during the day, including a picnic and tasting on the side of the river on their farm

Jan Harmsgat had their wine and some cartons of their Pomegranate juice from their large orchards. We tasted it and it is very good, fresh and not too sweet. It does not taste earthy and dark, as if it has beetroot juice added to it, as some of the other brands do. Lynne could not resist buying a box. It lasts up to 2 weeks in the fridge, apparently. If unopened, for a year

Tasting some olives, oil and new wines

Lots to taste. You could buy a glass for R20

You know it's a real market when you can buy freshly picked country vegetables; things to eat there or take home

Things for children and a neck wine holder made of leather

Jumping castles for bouncing and ponies to ride

Scarves for sale, 3 for R100

Warm popcorn and chilly kids at the play corner

Real leather bags for sale

And two Rottweilers, who brought their human from Cape Town. Well, someone has to like them, they look a little scary; these were very well-behaved and friendly

Good looking cakes

Ashton cellars and Lynne, their representative, whom we'd met on Saturday at the cellar

Now we are talking. We so enjoyed tasting the wines from DeWetshof. 3 excellent chardonnays and a Cabernet Sauvignon were on offer

Wishing it would warm up on the Rietvallei table

and tasting and chatting on the Bon Courage table

A tiny warm wriggly Muppet!

Fanus Bruwer of Quando wines

Estelle Bruwer

Suddenly it was time for lunch and the sun came out. So off we went to Van Loveren, where the entrance to the tasting room frames the palm avenue and the view toward the Langeberg mountains,

to see their beautiful gardens

and see what they could offer for lunch

Tables outside the restaurant, which had rather loud live music

So we found a table a little way away, under the trees

We ordered a bottle of the Christina 2016 Chardonnay and were so impressed we had another with lunch. It was a lazy lunch and took us a good 3½ hours. It is crisp and elegant, lightly wooded and full of buttery citrus flavours. The poor driver had a few sips and watched

The Mexican burger, topped with guacamole and served with a killer chilli sauce; nice and spicy. We were served crisp chips instead of the potato wedges on the menu, but didn't mind at all

The mushroom burger comes topped with cheese, mushrooms and served with a creamy mushroom sauce. Heaven (but not for John!)

The pizzas are huge with very thin bases. This was the Margarita, topped with capers and anchovies, pesto and olives

The Springbok Carpaccio and rocket topped pizza. Both were enjoyed and some went home in a box for later

Huge colourful koi at our last stop, the Graham Beck winery

The reflecting pool with a little wind on it. At the end, one of the many sculptures bought by Graham Beck; a rider. Another looking like a lily pad is in the centre of the pool.

A display of huge champagne bottles showing the riddling technique

The tasting counter. Bubbles at the ready

The line up of Riedel tasting glasses. All these MCC bubblies are worth tasting and buying. Winemaker Pieter (Bubbles) Ferreira really does know how to make the best, in the traditional French champagne style. The nearest glass contains the top MCC: Cuvée Clive, now tasted in the new style champagne glass, which you can buy in the shop

Time to go home and find out that the Cape Town Cycle Tour had been cancelled due to extreme winds and a terrible fire in Hout Bay. Glad that we had such a relaxing time with no wind

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