The sunset at
Babylon’s Peak, seen from Creation in the Hemel en Aarde Valley
In
this week’s MENU:
This
week’s products: More Spanish delights The AfrAsia Bank Cape Wine Auction This week’s recipe: Herb oils 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 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
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This week’s Product menu Still in Spain this
week, we have the difficult to find Smoked Spanish Paprika in tins - it comes
as sweet or hot and costs R70 a tin and the best authentic Spanish saffron in 1
gram boxes for R95, great value and marvellous for paella or exotic fish
or seafood dishes. Find them here
What a weekend that was! We know we do push the envelope a bit
sometimes but, as Lynne said on Facebook, we are getting old(er) and we are
determined to pack as much as possible into our lives and enjoy it to the
maximum. And tell you all about the experiences, of course, so you can try some
of them for yourselves.
Riesling and Rarities Rock We started on Saturday at Hartenberg on
the Bottelary Road for this annual gem of a festival. They only sell 500
tickets, so we always feel honoured to be invited, and they sold out again. It
is held in their beautiful gardens and, this year, they added some wines made
from grape rarities (in South Africa) to the Riesling and there were some
really interesting wines to taste. Lots of food was available to buy and we
were provided with two very generous picnic boxes. Read on
Sadly we had to leave at 3 to get to our next appointment in the Hemel
and Aarde by 5!
Creation Pinot Noir Panache The entire Hemel & Aarde valley
celebrates Pinot Noir each year for three days in February. You really have to
be in the know however, as they only sell 150 tickets but for the princely sum
of R1800 you get to spend Friday evening and all day Saturday and Sunday at
farms tasting Pinot Noir, attending comparative, vertical, horizontal and
foreign tastings and eating superb food. We did hear it said that they would
like to widen the audience in the future and we hope they do. We certainly
would like to experience more Pinot Noir but were delighted to be invited to Creation’s
event on Saturday evening, where we tasted four vintages of their 4 different
Pinot Noirs and had an excellent dinner Read On
A night in Hermanus As we
were not prepared to drive back to Cape Town, we managed to find some good self
catering accommodation for the night on Bookings.com in Hermanus and enjoyed a
good night’s rest. We also had a superb breakfast in Spur! They offer bargain
breakfasts for R24.95 and, with the addition of bottomless coffee for R14.95, we
don’t think you can go wrong. Read on
Delheim’s Harvest Festival Then it was time to go back the way we had
come on Saturday, back to Stellenbosch to attend this very real harvest
festival, where they also have fun and games for the children – it is a really
child friendly farm, lots of swings and a climbing frame We were welcomed with
a glass of Pinotage grape must (the newly picked and just beginning to ferment
juice with traditional mosbolletjies, a soft bread made with the yeasty must as
its rising agent. Then there was a lovely buffet lunch, accompanied by their
good Pinotage Rose and Chenin Blanc wines, after which we watched the hilarious
grape stomping competitions. Read on
SA Wine Industry raises its GDP contribution,
generates more jobs On Tuesday this week we
attended a press briefing HOW THE SA
WINE INDUSTRY IS CONTRIBUTING TO GDP AND JOB GROWTH. You might find these facts
and figures very interesting or very dry and complex. We are happy to attach
them to a blog for those of you who want to see how the Wine industry is
affecting our national GDP, it is a very interesting picture but, for those of
you not very interested, we wanted to distil some of the information into facts
that might be of interest.
To quote the report: “The industry, that remains one of South Africa's
leading agri-exporters, accounted for 1,2% of the national GDP in 2013. In that
year it contributed R36,1bn to the economy, (including wine tourism) via
agriculture, manufacturing, trade and hospitality, while generating direct and
indirect employment for close to 300 000 people”. Did you know that you can help to grow employment in the
country by drinking wine? The employment growth is not just directly in the
vineyards or on the estates but in the peripheral parts of the industry in your
own areas, like your local wine shop or bottle store, in distribution, hospitality,
sales and marketing. It is the age old trickledown effect. Yes, the Western
Cape does contribute the most to the wine industry, followed closely by Gauteng,
but it is encouraging to learn that growth in wine and spirit consumption in
all the other provinces does help grow their
employment too. The briefing was held at Cassia restaurant complex on Nitida
wine estate in Durbanville. See the venue and snacks here
Magda Naude, wife of Francois
Naude, winemaker at L’Avenir for many years and now associated with
Rhebokskloof and other entities, died last week after a long illness. She was a
wonderful cook and a lovely person. We will miss her and wish Francois and
their son Francois strength while they come to terms with their loss.
This week’s recipe:
Herb oils It’s a simple one and now
that it is high summer and the soft herbs in the gardens are rampant, this is
the time to make them and freeze them for use in the winter. You can soak herbs
in oil but we find they can go cloudy, start to ferment or go rancid very
quickly. We had lots of basil last year and Lynne froze small pots of this and
used it in pesto, salads and with mozzarella cheese all winter and it keeps
perfectly. You can do mint, marjoram, oregano, parsley, chervil, tarragon or
the herb of your choice which is not around in abundance in the winter like
thyme and rosemary. The herb keeps its fresh flavours and aromas. Drizzle
oregano on pork, or mint on lamb, marjoram on chicken and roast. Yum.
You will need good olive oil and handfuls of fresh herbs (washed under a
running tap but then left to dry off in a tea towel so you don’t mix water with
the oil). In a liquidiser or using a stick blender, blitz them together so you
end up with thick green oil – a ratio of 1 cup of oil to 2 cups of herbs is
about right. Don’t season, just pack into very small containers. Addis make
small inexpensive 120ml containers with lids that are perfect. The oil defrosts
quickly and you can refreeze if you don’t use it all. It does also keep for a
while in your fridge once defrosted. We don’t recommend that you do garlic, it
can be dangerous.
The AfrAsia Bank Cape Wine Auction, which set a philanthropic precedent in the South African wine industry
when it raised an astounding R7.045 million for education in the winelands, at
its inaugural 2014 event, is set to raise the bar this year when 34
‘once-in-a-lifetime’ lots go under the hammer at the historic Boschendal Estate
on Saturday 14th February. With only 350 Auction tickets available at R3 000
per head, the 2015 Auction’s sophisticated online bidding platform, through
Gavel&Grand, will extend the bidding to international wine aficionados and
philanthropists, creating a new high-water mark for a charitable fundraiser. Anyone
in the world will be able to place online bids in the weeks leading up to the
Auction, from 15th January until 13th February: 12h00 South Africa (CAT), 05h00
New York (EST), 10h00 London (GMT) and 18h00 Hong Kong, and then via telephone
on the big day.
All the proceeds from the
Auction, without offset or deduction, go to educational charities in the South
African winelands. Charity beneficiaries to date include the Pebbles Project,
the MAD Charity, the Click Foundation as well as 10 other charities. To join
the excitement of The AfrAsia Bank Cape Wine Auction and to make a difference,
place your online bid at www.gavelandgrand.com/thecapewineauction
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
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.
5th February 2015
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.
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