Thursday, December 06, 2012

Diemersdal's new restaurant

The Werf at Diemersdal with some of the farm buildings
The menu for the event
One of the farm workers showing us their Argentine miniature horse, 
and Big Boy the Percheron horse
People gathering for the event outside the new farm eatery in the converted stables.  It was a hot day and we needed the shade of the umbrellas
What lovely pets for children these miniature horses make.
We ate at a long table in the narrow building 
but there was plenty of space for serving the food.
They have kept it very true to the original
The chef, Nic van Wyk
A happy gathering of food and wine media
Thys Louw, the current winemaker, tells us how the restaurant came about
The first course of tapas on a wine barrel board, enough for two to share consisted of (from the left): A wild rocket salad with pickled green beans and artichokes, pulled lamb shoulder with white bean and truffle cream, sticky pork belly and prawn skewers with a trinchado sauce, Brandade of salt fish with aioli. Everything was excellent
Amazing bread baked in the kitchen to go with the food
The wines we drank with lunch
Tienie Louw, the current owner of the farm
Discussing the food and wine with Graham Howe. You might spot another of the last Masterchef contestants across the table, Lungile Nhlanhla. She was one of Lynne's favourites and we were told she is now working for Drum magazine
The main course of Basque flavoured hake, asparagus green and white with a potato salad
Chef Nic van Wyk with Anja Smit  the front-of-house-manager
There was a small morsel of the excellent bread in these paper packets that we got to take home Translation is: Stay calm and drink more wine
Words and photographs © John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2012

Franschhoek's Magic of Bubbles


Our first stop was to taste the Genevieve MCC and say hello to Melissa Genevieve Nelsen, who makes it. She was giving away cameo badges - her logo
New we met the boys who are GM and Ahrens, Gerrit Maritz and Albert Ahrens.
They only make 700 bottles each year and they say this crisp and lean bubbly 
which sells at a premium price sells out each vintage.
Their “French” look for the festival
The festival is held next to the Huguenot monument, where they have planted wonderful roses and unusual striped pansies in profusion. Lynne covets them for her garden.
Veuve Clicquot seemed popular and so were the fresh oysters
Their stand, with no bottles but very beautiful assistants
A nice way to chill on a Sunday afternoon, especially as it was nice and cool this year.
Fridges filled with Graham Beck bubbly
Lynne and Alan Mullins getting into the spirit of things. 
Alan's wife Theresa is behind Lynne
Oliver Cattermole chef at Le Franschhoek serves John a pork pie for lunch
Johan Kruger of Sterhuis - one of our favourite people - and his Blanc de Blanc. 
Both were in sparkling form
Sally Gower of Ross Gower wines from Elgin was next to him 
and we had a good chat and a taste
Father and Son Nigel and Craig McNaught of Stony Brook with their bubbly and their fantastic antique champagne bucket, probably the nicest one we saw that day. 
They both went to John’s old school, St Andrews.
Sue and Neil Proudfoot of Wine Concepts with their daughter, all having fun
Pierre Jourdan’s range of bubblies with their new livery.  We like the new labels very much and think they will stand out well in any wine shop  - as the wine does
Lynne with Takuan and Christiane Von Arnim of Pierre Jourdan
They called this marvellous concoction of smoked salmon and fresh raw salmon with fresh beetroot, pickled ginger and a good avocado sauce a ‘salmon kebab’.  It so deserved a better name and was delicious.  Those worms are actually puffed wheat which added nice texture and the black addition is an unusual Nori crisp
Rickety Bridge stand was next and we heard about the new restaurant, 
which we will visit shortly
Karen Loubser presents her husband John’s Silverthorn Bubbly, also one of our favourites
Melanie van der Merwe from Tanzanite and her husband
Melanie has a cuddle with Alan Mullins. 
He is deservedly spoilt at events like this, where he is known and respected by everyone
Nigel Cattermole of Siris Vintners tucking in to his son’s sushi from the Le Franschhoek hotel stand..
...and has fun with his family
On the Woolworth’s stand with wine selector Ivan Oertle, we tried all their bubblies
Comtesse Alexis Brut Rose French Champagne from Woolworths 
with the local Ladybird Brut Rosé MCC from Laibach
Cute romper! The theme of the day was black & white and he was suitably dressed, 
even if he does support the wrong Team!
German winemaker Mareike Jensen, whom we met last week at the Savvy Celebration with Wesley from Oded’s Kitchen and his girlfriend
Some people were extremely happy and lining up the bottles for later
JP Colmant and Janine from Colmant.
Their Franschhoek bubbly is a Ford family favourite
Hennie Coetzee And Maggie Mostert of Batonage, 
whom we meet often at these functions, having fun and a bite to eat
More faces from last week at Savvy Celebration.  Anton Smal of Bramon wines near Plettenberg  Bay was showing us his bubbly made from Sauvignon Blanc
Caelli Pentz the Tasting Gallery Manager of Avondale with their Brut
Good dance music and people having a great deal of fun.
On the way home.  These chic chaps certainly like their French Champagne as well as lots of the local bruts.
Pictures and text © John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus cc 2012

Friday, November 30, 2012

29th November 2012 Main Ingredient's MENU - Wall to wall activity, Luscious Vegetarian cookbook launch, The Poolroom at Oak Valley, Bartho Eksteen's Savvy Celebration, Bos Wines at the Hotel School, Good Treatment pays off


MENU
Main Ingredient’s weekly E-Journal
Gourmet Foods, Ingredients & Fine Wines
Eat In Guide’s Outstanding Outlet Award Winner from 2006 to 2010
+27 21 439 3169 / +27 83 229 1172
Dandelions blowing in the wind

In this week’s MENU:
*       This week’s Product menu   
*       Our market activities - new Cape Point Vineyards Market
*       Wall to wall activity
*       Luscious Vegetarian cookbook launch
*       The Poolroom on Oak Valley
*       Bartho Eksteen's Savvy Celebration
*       Bos Wines at the Hotel School
*       Good Treatment pays off
*       Wine and Food Events in 2012 & 2013
*       Wine courses & cooking classes
To take a look at our Main Ingredient blogs, follow the link: http://adamastorbacchus.blogspot.com/ because to tell our whole story here would take too much space and you can also read earlier blogs. We are constantly surprised at how many of the older blogs are still being read. Google Analytics tells us how many people are reading them and where they are. There is something special about seeing that our ramblings are being read in China or South Korea. Readers in Europe, The UK and North America are a good percentage, but the surprise always comes from the countries outside our normal reach. Click on underlined and Bold words in the text of this edition to open links to pictures, blogs, pertinent websites or more information. Follow us on Twitter: @mainingmenu
This week’s Product menu    At last, we have found a supplier of really good, aromatic Spanish saffron. And the good news is that it is significantly less expensive than the last saffron we had.
Marrons glacé are always popular at this time of the year and we are happy to be able to tell you that we have plenty and that the price is half what w had to charge last year. We have ample new stock of the strong French Fallot mustards.
Fresh truffles are still available to special order. We need to know your requirement as soon as possible after you receive this, so that we can quote you and receive your payment in time to send your order to the supplier. Burgundy is the most affordable and orders must be in multiples of 50 grams. The truffles will be airfreighted. We can source white truffles from Alba and black truffles from Perigord but the price is significantly higher. Send us a message if you wish to order.
Christmas cometh whatever we may do....     Lynne has been baking her individual Christmas cakes and Christmas puddings this week. Send her a message if you’d like to place an order.
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. We stock a good range of ingredients and delicious ready-made gourmet foods. You can contact us by email or phone, or through our website. We can send your requirements to you anywhere in South Africa.
Our market activities  Come and visit us at the Old Biscuit Mill’s wonderfully exciting, atmospheric Neighbourgoods Market, as always, this Saturday and every Saturday between 09h00 and 14h00. Tip: Some visitors tell us how they struggle to find parking. It’s quite easy if you know how. Click here for a map which shows where we park.
Cape Point Vineyards Market in Noordhoek is where we are this evening from 4.30 till 8.30 pm and we'll be there again next Thursday evening. Come and buy some Christmas gifts, enjoy some of their stunning wines and have a picnic while you watch the sun go down.
We will be back at Long Beach Mall tomorrow, Friday 30th from 09h00 to 16h00. We look forward to seeing you there. Please note that, in December, we will only be at Long Beach Mall on Friday the 7th, so that will be the only December day for Christmas shopping at the Long Beach market if you live in the “deep South”, but you will find us every Thursday at Cape Point Vineyards, with beautiful views over Noordhoek.
Wall to wall week     Sometimes we take on too much. This week and next are perfect examples of huge foolishness, over-estimation of our own abilities and time. But it has been incredibly enjoyable if completely crazy.
Last Thursday, we did the first and very successful night market at Cape Point Vineyards, packed up by 9.30 – it usually takes us about an hour to do that and load the car - drove the 40 km back to Sea Point, finished off last week’s issue of MENU and got to bed at about 1.30 am. We were up at 5.30, loaded the car with all our goodies plus overnight bags and headed off through the morning traffic to Bartho Eksteen’s Savvy Celebration in the Hemel and Aarde Valley, arriving just in time for the first seminar at 9. That went on all day, including dinner, so we managed to get to our borrowed cottage at De Werf by about 11.30 pm, where we collapsed into bed to be up again at 5.30 am. We then drove all the way back to Cape Town, over a fog bound Sir Lowry's Pass, to do a good day's trading at the Biscuit Mill Market. At 2 pm, we packed up and loaded everything again into our Sharan, and (madness) drove all the way back to Elgin for the opening of The Pool Room Deli and restaurant on Oak Valley Estate. Lots of mates shouted : “Where the hell have you been, why are you so late! You missed almost everything!” and it was hard to explain.. It was closer to Hemel and Aarde than to drive back to Cape Town, so when that fantastic event was winding down at 6.30, we crept away back to the Hemel and Aarde. We should point out that Saturday night was absolutely horrendous in that area. High winds, torrential rain and freezing cold. We lit a huge fire, ate some nibbles and then collapsed into bed. Sunday was very quiet and we drove home at about 3.30. So far this week, we have been to two major functions and this afternoon the markets started all over again, with Cape Point Vineyards as we write and a stint on Friday at Long Beach. Sigh.... You can read below about the individual events.
Sonia Cabano and Jade de Waal's Luscious Vegetarian cookbook launch     This lovely relaxed event was held in the early Wednesday evening last week, at a health food restaurant called Spades and Spoons in Constantia Road, Wynberg. We met Jade and chatted to Sonia, who is an old friend, about the book which is full of delicious recipes and great pictures. It is amazing how many of the Masterchef top 20 entrants we have met in the last month, it seems they are getting right into the local food world. Jade is related to Sonia and they say it was a natural progression to get together and do the book, which is published by Struik Lifestyle. Click here to see photos of the launch.
Celebrating The Poolroom on Oak Valley Estate in Elgin     This deli restaurant is an incredibly chic and modern pool pavilion and rather David Hockney, set as it is behind an enormous Mediterranean blue swimming pool. Besides wine and flowers, the Rawbone-Viljoens have been farming Wagyu (aka Kobe) beef for a while. They also have acorn fed “Serrano” pigs and they have now built a lovely place where one can buy and eat these delights, as well as many other things made by the chef, like charcuterie and other things from the Elgin valley plus, of course, taste the very good wines in the tasting room area. Just what Elgin needs, a smart restaurant and deli to serve people staying in or visiting the valley. The beef and ham have been appearing in local top restaurants for a while, now you, the customer, have a chance to buy it yourself.
Nicole Precoudis, a property entrepreneur and restaurateur, has made the Elgin Valley her home, and is a 50% partner in the business. She is a chef by trade and, having run two well-respected restaurants in Johannesburg called Icon and Cilantro as part-owner and head chef, will be at the helm of The Pool Room. At Chef Nicole’s side, one can expect a staff complement of sixteen, including Restaurant Manager, William de Reuck, previously at Grootbos Private Luxury Nature Reserve in Gansbaai, and also at Fancourt golf resort.  
Even though we arrived very late because we had been working, the kitchen rustled up some mini hamburgers and we partook of some of the amazing cheeses and desserts being served. We drank some of our favourite Oak Valley Chardonnay, Sauvignon/Semillon blend and their incredibly delicious Pinot Noir. And they have some new wines just released, a rose and a shiraz, all are available to taste.
We were entertained by an extremely talented band (can you call two people a band?) called The Professors, who played everything from blues, reggae, rock, jazz and modern for hours. The party ended by the pool with everyone dancing and singing along. Anthony’s brother Peter gave us a rocking rendition of an old jazz classic. Definitely the group to hire if you want a good time at a wedding or an event. We will be returning soon . This really was one of the best events we have been to this year. Click here for more information and to see the photos.
Bartho Eksteen's Savvy Celebration     Held once a year by Bartho Eksteen, this is almost the Sauvignon Conference. The day began at 9 with a talk on Californian Sauvignons Blanc by California winemaker Jillian Johnson and we tasted three of them plus a  noble late harvest Sauvignon. We think our styles are very, very different and we probably prefer our South African Sauvignons. However, her talk was very informative and interesting. It is always good to listen to someone who knows the subject so well that they can talk without notes or prompting for a couple of hours and maintain one's interest. After a break for tea, we had a very technical discussion about growing Sauvignon. There were many wine people – growers, viticulturalists, wine makers attending and they discussed growing, fining, additives, pests and allergens in great depth.
We then were served a light salad lunch, after which we had a blind tasting of 20 Sauvignons from all over the world. Wow, if you hadn’t know that some of these were definitely Sauvignons, you might not have identified them as such. We had wines from Australia, Austria, France, Greece, New Zealand, Slovenia, South America, USA, and of course several local ones. It was encouraging to find that one of ours was voted top – the Antonij Rupert and it was also no surprise to find that the second most popular wine was the Henri Bourgeois from Sancerre. We were served a three course dinner matched with Bartho’s Wine Academy wines and carriages were at 11.30. Everyone seemed to be staying over for the night, which meant everyone has someone driving responsibly. See some photographs here
Bos Wines at the Hotel School     Monday was a beautiful hot windless summer’s day and we started this function under an umbrella in front of a flat blue ocean tasting Bosman Family Wines Bos Rosé. It is made from all of the 57 varieties of grapes grown in South Africa, which makes distinguishing any of them a puzzlement. We then moved to the shelter of more umbrellas on the terrace of the Hotel School where they had set up a very long table for the media and we were given a three course lunch devised and cooked by the second year students to match three of the De Bos wines, a brand of Bosman Family Wines.  Click here to see the photographs
Good Treatment pays off     We are hearing some distressing stories from other market vendors working in markets we don’t do. It seems that a very threatening letter was sent to many of them saying they would be thrown out of a market they attend if they dared to appear at the Cape Point Vineyards market. This comes under Restraint of Trade and just will not wash. We do need to point out again, that most market traders are quite independent retailers who work at many different markets throughout the week and that most of us do this, not as a hobby, but for our living.
We do not work for the people running markets, we are not their employees. We hire a table or space from them and sell our goods, we are the ones who attract the customers and who make for a good, well supplied and vibrant market. If you threaten and treat people badly you will have an unhappy market and good vendors will leave.
Another awful story regarding the same market: One of the traders, due to a death in the family could not get a replacement person to trade at the last minute. Things happen, we too have personal lives. We saw messages from a girl in her 20s communicating with this mature woman treating her as if she were a child and worse still, demanding a fine of R500! That one has an obvious conclusion. Hey ho, some people get very far beyond their stations.
Franschhoek’s Magic of Bubbles Champagne and Cap Classique Festival will take place  this weekend! Book now. And yes, we will be there on Sunday. Hope to see lots of you. We'll be there on Sunday.
The Boxed Wine Awards takes place Today! We wanted to be there, but the need to make a living takes precedence and we are at the Cape Point Vineyards market.
Don’t forget to book for the last Expressions of.. tasting at the Taj this year on the 6th December, featuring wines and a chef from Durbanville. The tasting is free, and you can book for the super wine pairing dinner afterwards Click here for the link. Expressions of...Durbanville at the Taj      This excellent tasting of the area will now be held on Thursday the 6th of December at the Taj Hotel. The tasting in the foyer of the hotel starts at 6 pm and is free. The dinner paired with the wines of the area held afterwards can be booked through the hotel.
Jean Retief's Sweetcorn Fritters     This week’s recipe is truly a classic. If you ever visited Van Loveren in the 1980s, you will have had these. When visitors were first welcomed to Van Loveren, Jean Retief, true to her hospitabIe nature, started serving  Sweetcorn Fritters. Today, they still continue this proud tradition and her fritters have become the signature snack at Christina's restaurant on the farm. You can order them in Christina’s restaurant or make them at home. They are very happy to share the recipe:
1 x 500 gm Self-raising Flour - 1 t Baking Powder - 1 t Salt - 2 beaten eggs
2 x 340 gm tins of Sweetcorn - 3 cups Milk
Mix together, fry in deep oil. And, as they say in their literature, enjoy with a glass of Van Loveren wine
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 help you choose an event to visit, click on 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. Click here to access the Calendar. You will need to be connected to the internet. We have a new calendar for 2013. Check it here.
Learn about wine and cooking We have had 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 here.
Chez Gourmet in Claremont has a programme of cooking classes. A calendar of their classes can be seen here. Pete Ayub, who makes our very popular Prego sauce, runs evening cooking classes at Sense of Taste, his catering company in Maitland. We can recommend them very highly, having enjoyed his seafood course. Check his programme here. Nadège Lepoittevin-Dasse has cooking classes in Fish Hoek and conducts cooking tours to Normandy. You can see more details here.
Sadly, refreshing our restaurant specials list takes more time than we have, especially at this time of the year, so we have set it aside for now. There are numerous special dinners listed in the above-mentioned events calendar.








29th November 2012

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 product list 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 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 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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Main Ingredient's 2012 wine, food and entertainment calendar