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Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Truth Coffee launches biofuel powered coffee roasting

We received a mysterious invitation from Coffee entrepreneur David Donde, asking us to arrive at Truth at 3pm on Tuesday for something exciting, and some free coffee. It was headed “Truth Coffee Roasts on left overs”. We arrived to see his newly refurbished behemoth of a coffee roaster, circa 1947, which had been adapted to work on Bio-fuel instead of diesel. We applaud this green initiative. He is currently installing solar on the roof of his building. David says that Truth is the only roaster in Africa and probably the only one in the world roasting completely on waste fuel.

What Bio Green Fuel is and how it is made:

Bio fuel is a biodegradable, renewable, alternative fuel created from nearly any naturally occurring vegetable oils and animal fats, through a chemical reaction process occurring between the natural oils and alcohol, followed by purification. This creates molecules which can easily be burned in a diesel engine. Biodiesel can be made from vegetable oil or fat. The Bio fuel from Bio Green that Truth is using is waste oil collected from restaurants, hotels and other institutions (this is a quote from their press release).

You’ll find Truth at 36 Buitenkant Street, just uphill from the Central Police Station

It is very industrial in design, great space for computing and filled with lots of ancient household relics and quirky antiques

The bar backs on to the coffee roaster

Some comfortable and private banquettes

Some snacks laid on for the media

Did your mum have one of these? This old washing machine came with the building, said David, so he kept it

A section of old typewriters and other artefacts

Such bad memories! Lynne learned to type on a machine like this. Wrist breaking and finger cracking. John didn’t believe that Ellerslie still had these in operation in the 60’s. They did!

David explains how the roaster works and how the raw coffee beans from one sack are fed by a vacuum pipe overhead into the oven

It only takes a few minutes to transfer all the ‘green’ beans ....

... into the hopper above the roaster. Note that it has been adapted to use computer temperature monitoring

It is a vast machine

The furnace beneath, burning the bio fuel, which is made from old oil and fat collected from industry, restaurants and other sources

Roasting temperature control

And a little new technology helps

The sensible green message from Truth

Approximately 18 minutes after the green beans hit the roaster, they are ready and come pouring out of the door with a rush of wonderful aroma. These beans came from Mysore in India. The hopper cools them.

Stirring the beans to stop them continuing to pop and roast. Cooling them down quickly is essential

And then they come pouring out into the hopper where they pass through a filter and a magnet to get rid of any possible contaminants like stones or metal that may have got into them at source

Measured quantities can then be taken to fill packages of coffee

David Donde explaining how the process works and answering questions

Roy de Gouveia of Bio Green who process and supplies the bio fuel explains it to us

A cheerful wave goodbye from Jose Vilandy, Truth Barista

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Thursday, September 04, 2014

140904 Main Ingredient's MENU - John Collins, High Road, Big Bay, Groote Post market, Allee Bleue, Elgin tweet up, Pebbles Project, Joostenberg, Asian calamari

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A bee harvesting on a dandelion flower. Spring is here!

In this week’s MENU:

John Collins trade show

High Road tasting

Buying wine in bulk

Lunch in Big Bay

Groote Post Sunday market

Allée Bleue tasting

Elgin Shiraz tweet up

KLINK AWARDS

The Pebbles Project

Lunch at Joostenberg

Flash fried marinated Asian Calamari

Food and wine (and a few other) events for you to enjoy

Learn about wine and cooking

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 blog, click on RETURN TO MENU to come back to the blog version of MENU.

This week’s Product menu Does the warm weather make you think of Mediterranean food like Paella and fish soups. If so you should know we have just taken a consignment of the best Spanish Saffron. And of course we do have the special Bomba rice for Paella See them here

John Collins trade show This annual treat was held this year at Ottimo Cibo, the beautiful Mediterranean themed villa of Nikki Booth and her advocate husband, William, in Kirstenbosch. John Collins represents a small, but perfectly formed, list of wine farms and, this year, we were delighted to see that he has added a friend, Chris Keet, with his First Verse wine. Nikki always lays on a fantastic spread of canapés and she did not disappoint. READ ON

High Road tasting Despite horrid wet weather, with MENU to put to bed, we dashed off from Kirstenbosch to spend a short time at a tasting of wines from The High Road, which was held at a venue new to us, Mano a Mano in Park Road, just off Kloof Street. It was pumping with people tasting the two wines but, beside three other media members and the winemaker, Mark Carmichael Green, we did not know any of the other guests. They seem to have a good mailing list business. READ ON

Buying wine in bulk Saturday dawned sunny, bright and warm! What a way to start Spring. We wanted to go D’Aria, a Durbanville wine farm, where Get Wine were holding a sale of their wine, because at these tastings you can taste all the wines before you buy, something we much prefer to do. We could not believe the crowds walking out of the cellar all clutching several cases of wine, as we did ourselves. Prices are good, and so is most of the wine. Lynne said “Ka’ching Ka’ching” to congratulate Johan Wegner the owner of Get Wine, as we love to see a successful business doing well. What did we buy? A case (12) of Edgebaston Honeyshale Hill Chardonnay 2013 made by David Finlayson, a case (12) of Horse Mountain Chenin/Viognier 2011, and a 6 bottle case each of Cederberg Merlot Shiraz 2011 and Klein Constantia KC Cab Merlot 2011. The first two are for summer drinking; the second two have gone into the cellar as they both need a little more time.

Lunch in Big Bay Well then, what to do for lunch on such a stunning day? We decided to head for the beach and, because we so rarely visit this side of the Bay, we headed for Big Bay, along with half of the people who live in the area. We took a chance and sat down at the first restaurant we saw serving fish, called Ocean Sizzler. It looks like it has been there since the 1970s, with quite shabby decor, but it seemed to be popular. READ ON

Groote Post Sunday market Sunday dawned and the weather was even better. We were so happy that we had accepted an invitation to go up the West Coast to Groote Post to attend their new monthly market. The spring flowers are all out and we had such a lovely relaxing day. It was amazingly well attended given their location and you could see people were really enjoying themselves. Just before lunch, we spoke to someone who was counting customers and she had got to over 2 000 by then. The next markets will be held on 28th September, 26th October, 30th November and 28th December, should you wish to go. READ ON

KLINK AWARDS It’s time for the third ‘Klink’ Wine Tourism Awards – the Awards where you decide who walks away with the ultimate accolade and where you, simply by voting, for your favourite winery or destination in one or all of our 16 shortlisted categories, will automatically be entered into weekly draws to win unforgettable wine experiences – a meal at a wine farm restaurant, a night at a wine farm guesthouse, a special wine pairing tasting experience, or, of course, the fruits of the vine itself. Go to the Klink website to place your votes. We are on the Klink panel and hope that you will take the time to go and look at the site and vote. Several candidates have sent us emails asking us to vote for them. Sadly, we can’t. We are disqualified because of our involvement with the process.

The Pebbles Project - Does the Wine Industry “Give Anything Back” You bet it does. Last week we told you how the R20 000 awarded to each of the top 10 Chenins goes right back into the local community for upliftment. This week, we want to tell you about the Pebbles Project, as some of that money was going to it. You may have already contributed to Pebbles, consciously or unconsciously. In certain local restaurants a voluntary amount is added to your bill as a donation.

The Pebbles Project’s purpose is to enrich the lives of children with special educational needs from disadvantaged backgrounds, especially those whose lives are affected by alcohol, through providing support and training to local wine farm and township crèches and establishing after-school provision for older children living in the Winelands. If you want to know more check out their web site

The FACET Foundation (UK), established in 2008 by Laurence Graff, and the Pebbles Project Trust have partnered to provide mobile education programmes for children living on farms in the Western Cape. On Wednesday this week, we attended the Pebbles AGM held on Warwick, where two magnificent buses were donated to the projects by Delaire Graff. Delaire Graff has raised an astronomical 8.5 million Rand in private and public donations to Pebbles over the last couple of years. Both are fully fitted out, one as a computer lab and the other as a mobile library. READ ON

Lunch at Joostenberg There we were in Stellenbosch and wanting a simple lunch. We had things we needed to do back in town so it had to be on the way back. We remembered that Christoph Dehosse at Joostenberg has, with his wife Susan, just finished renovating their restaurant so that was where we decided to go for a simple quick lunch on their terrace. And it was worth the detour. READ ON

Allée Bleue Trade Tasting This was held at the Cape Town Club in Queen Victoria Street and we managed to do a very quick tasting before the next appointment. Cathy Raath has taken Allée Bleue on to the list of good wines that she represents. We were welcomed by a glass of their 2012 Brut Rose MCC and shown a table of all the things the farm produces. We were able to taste all the current wines and then some of the older. Sadly we did not have time to taste their new port. READ ON

ELGIN Shiraz Tweet Up The Tweet ups have begun again and this one was held at Chalk and Cork wine bar in Kloof Street. What is a Tweet Up? Wine media meet in a Cape Town location and are guided by an Elgin winemaker. We taste and tweet about each wine. In Elgin, the makers of the wines watch what we are tweeting about the wines and they also tweet. It is fast and furious and, usually, quite honest. We had great fun tasting and tweeting about 11 of Elgin’s Shirazes, ably led by Richard Kershaw MW and Karin Glanfield Pawley READ ON

Flash fried marinated Asian Calamari

250g calamari rings, slices and/or tentacles - 2 cloves crushed garlic – 2 cm piece of fresh ginger, grated – 2 t fish sauce - 1 T lemon or lime zest – 1 T lemon or lime juice – 2 t fresh chopped coriander – 1 small chopped fresh red chilli - peanut oil - salt and pepper

Marinate all the ingredients together for 30 minutes or more. Heat a griddle pan till smoking hot and quickly dry fry for one or two minutes in small batches. Season and serve with lemon or lime wedges

Serve with a salad dressed with a sesame, sweet chilli sauce and rice wine dressing, cauli rice, or jasmine rice

Serve with a salad dressed with a sesame and rice wine dressing, cauli rice, or jasmine rice

Food and wine (and a few other) events for you to enjoy

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 type of event for which we have information. To see what’s happening in our world of food and wine (and a few other cultural events), visit our list of wine and food pairing dinners, list of Special events with wine and/or food connections, list of Wine Shows and Tastings and list of special dinner events. All the events are listed in date order and we have a large number of exciting events to entertain you right through the year. Events outside the Western Cape are listed here.

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, will soon start a new series of short courses in baking. Check the ad in our blog page or 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.

Brett Nussey’s Stir Crazy courses are now being run from Dish Food and Social’s premises in Main Road Observatory (opposite Groote Schuur hospital).

Lynn Angel runs the Kitchen Angel cooking school and does private dinners at her home. She holds hands-on cooking classes for small groups on Monday and Thursday evenings and she has decided to introduce LCHF (Banting classes). The Kitchen Confidence classes, which focus on essential cooking skills and methods, have been expanded and are now taught over 2 evenings. She continues to host private dining and culinary team building events at her home. She trained with Raymond Blanc, and has been a professional chef for 25 years. More info here

4th September 2014

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.

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. Our Avast!^® Anti-Virus software is updated at least daily and our system is scanned continually for viruses.

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Springtime lunch at Joostenberg

There we were in Stellenbosch and wanting a simple lunch after the Pebbles presentation. We had things we needed to do back in town, so it had to be on the way back. We remembered that Christophe Dehosse at Joostenberg has, with his wife Susan, just finished renovating their restaurant so that was where we decided to go for a simple quick lunch on their terrace. And it was worth the slight detour

The restaurant verandah. Vines are being trained to provide shade on the roof in summer

The tempting menu

Our food and wine arrived after a short interval. We shared a pear, blue cheese and pecan nut salad and a charcuterie platter. It must be one of the best charcuterie platters in the Cape. Christophe has made all the components and they are excellent. There are two patés, very good, real, ham (not bits stuck together like a sausage), a brawn which tastes like Jambon persillé, a soft chicken liver paté, a slice of pork pie and a pork rillette. There are cornichon pickles, pickled onions and some salad on the plate. Good farm bread, baked on the premises, and butter are provided

We went for the Carafe of the Joostenberg Family white blend and it is delicious. Fruit from the Viognier, complexity from the Rousanne and crispness from the Chenin

The bill with service came to R180, so R90 each, which we think is very good value, especially when you factor in the ambience. A delightful place to enjoy a relaxed spring or summer lunch

Chatting to Susan Dehosse in the Deli after our lunch

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Pebbles Project AGM & launch of the FACET Foundation at Warwick wine estate

Does the Wine Industry “Give Anything Back”? You bet it does. Last week we told you how the R20 000 awarded to each of the top 10 Chenins goes right back into the local community for upliftment. This week, we want to tell you about the Pebbles Project, as some of that money was going to it. You may have already contributed to Pebbles, consciously or unconsciously. In certain local restaurants a voluntary amount is added to your bill as a donation.

The FACET Foundation (UK), established in 2008 by Laurence Graff, and the Pebbles Project Trust have partnered to provide mobile education programmes for children living on farms in the Western Cape. On Wednesday this week, we attended the Pebbles AGM held on Warwick, where two magnificent buses were donated to the projects by Delaire Graff. Delaire Graff has raised an astronomical 8.5 million Rand in private and public donations to Pebbles over the last couple of years. Both buses are fully fitted out, one as a computer lab and the other as a mobile library.

The two Learning Centre vans await the ribbon cutting ceremony. On the left is PR and Marketing Manager for Delaire Graff, Tanja Mackay Davidson

The inside of the mobile library. It is full of wonderful books and DVDs and other media for the children to borrow

Some of the children from the farms concerned, with Johann Laubser, General Manager at Delaire Graff, and colleagues

This young man was full of life and personality. He will definitely benefit from both vans

I am strong! Someone in the background looks a little dubious

This is the Computer centre. Everything they could need has been provided

In the car park at Warwick wine estate, overlooked by the huge Madiba statue, made entirely of beads and wire. He would approve

Two other Pebbles vans, one for transport, the other is a much needed toy library

Sophie Warner, head of the Pebbles Project in South Africa, tells us about the donation by FACET and what it would mean to the children

Johann Laubser tells us how the money was raised by the Graff family, the FACET Trust and Delaire Graff Hotel and wine estate

The ceremonial scissors

The ribbon is cut, to everyone’s delight

A magical unrehearsed moment was when some of the waiting children started to pick up the pebbles beneath their feet

Please Miss, can I go and have a look?

A place of learning and fantasy

The schedule of where the van will be next, bar codes and colour coding will all help

Space for the librarian

Thank you SO much for the donation

Now we can get a look in

Norma Ratcliffe of Warwick with a friend

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