Tuesday, March 24, 2015

150324 Main Ingredient's MENU - Casa Labia and Kalk Bay, Solms Delta Oesfees, Nitida Cellarbake

A black backed gull in the evening light
In this week’s MENU:
* Melktert
* 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 onREAD 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.
It’s a quick, early MENU this week. John has a two day photographic job at a winery and sending out later in the week will be a challenge too far. So you will get this early.. on Tuesday instead.
Off in search of fish and an elegant tea     We couldn’t resist taking our Dutch visitors for a day by the sea at Kalk Bay, so that they could experience some of the magic. After a great lunch, the ladies shopped in the high street for a while and the lads went off to see Casa Labia in Muizenberg, where the girls joined them later for a good tea and scones or coffee and “death by chocolate” cake. Read On
Oesfees – The Real Deal     We love this festival, which Solms Delta hold at the end of Harvest every year for their staff, the staff of surrounding wine farms, and the public. The music is very local and lekker and the atmosphere laid back and so friendly. Read on
Cellarbake at Nitida     Now in its second year, Cellarbake pairs local bakers and their wares with Nitida Wines. You buy some tokens and exchange them for mini tastes of each baker’s art with a taste of one specifically matched wine. It was extremely popular this year, they sold over 700 tickets and the place was pumping. Read On
Because of our time constraint, there is no recipe this week
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 March 2015
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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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Monday, March 23, 2015

Cellarbake at Nitida

Now in its second year, Cellarbake pairs local bakers and their wares with Nitida Wines.  You buy some tokens and exchange them for mini tastes of each baker’s art and a taste of one specific wine. It was extremely popular this year, they sold over 700 tickets and the place was pumping.
Nitida winemaker Danie Keulder and his wife were enjoying the occasion. They had brought their twins
Waiting for customers
One stand had pulled pork sandwiches and they were the most popular stand, as everyone wanted one for lunch.  It caused a bit of a traffic jam in the hall though
Cooking the pork on a barbeque
Wordsworth books also had a stand and Lynne was being tempted by the Ottolenghi books
Some samples for tasting
The band played throughout
You have to have tea with cake
Cup cakes and tarts and biscuits to buy
The Dolce stand had good chocolate cake and all the stands were supported by students from Silwood School of Cookery
and baking courses were on offer from Nicolette van Niekerk of Le Petite Patisserie
Some sample wedding and celebration cakes on display
Kerry Prendergast of Nitidand Social Media Strategist Linda Harding of The Squashed Tomato had a busy day on their tasting stand
Denise from Denise’s Delight’s, our local Sea Point baker
Wicked gooey meringues
Queen of Tarts wares. We bought four of the tarts for dessert at a dinner we were going to that night
Handing over the precious box
Manager Jacus Marais of Nitida telling us about the wine
Everyone gets an arm band at the door
Time for some lunch on the terrace
There was seating in the middle of the hall, but it was very busy
Slaving over a hot stove to get out the hot sausage rolls and other treats
The Food Barn Deli had savoury tarts with olives and anchovies and a brochette with chicken liver pate topped with cherries. One small juicy cherry rolled artfully down Lynne’s pale green trousers. But their food tasted superb.
You could sit out by the dam
Or enjoy a glass of something under your umbrella - Lerato Moagi & Vusi Mabilisa
John’s lunch was a freshly baked chicken sausage roll with chilli jam
Owner of Nitida, Bernhard Veller, with his beautiful daughter Lara
RETURN TO MENU
© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2015

Solms Delta ATKV Oesfees 2015

We love this festival, which Solms Delta hold at the end of Harvest every year for their staff, and for the staff of surrounding wine farms, and the public. The music is very local and lekker and the atmosphere laid back and so friendly.
Happy faces cooking our lunch. The Braai lads cooking meat for all. It was very well spiced and cooked and very popular
Chicken legs cooked to perfection
Buying lunch vouchers
Salads at the ready
In the beer tent: Wine, beer and cold drinks were only sold by the (plastic) glass and no glass was allowed on the festival grounds
Some of the wares
The programme of artists for the festival, a walking display
and the programme

The Jaloersbokkies on stage at 10.55 am
At 11.35 Pieter van der Westhuizen accompanied by the enthusiastic Solms-Delta choir: Die Delta Soetestemme sang some local songs, some slightly risqué
The crowd taking up their ringside seats for the all day performance
Traditional dancers in the “Pit” while the Choir sings
joined by locals
And they put on a super display of country dancing
Spinning and twisting to the music
I love to dance!
A refreshing ale
Next came the Cape Jazz Band - Mountain Records’ premier recording artists
You could order all the Solms Delta wines on the day at special festival prices and they would then be delivered to your home (in Cape Town) free of charge
The wines on sale with some new and very exciting labels
Hot jazz from a mean saxophonist
This young fellow is only 11 and already at University. He put up a stunning performance on the drums accompanied by his dad on keyboard. They wrote the piece they played
Age doesn’t matter as long as you are enjoying yourself
Owner Mark Solms – “Die Baas van die Plaas”, as he introduced himself, giving the welcome address
And the proceedings were officially opened by Japie Gouws of sponsors ATKV
Elvis Blue, doing an endless sound check. They started late as well. Not too impressive a start
I am having a PARTY!
Lots of families enjoying the festival
Fans waiting at the front for their favourite performers
Celebrate!
A supporter of our local Rugby team. Go Stormers!
Elvis Blue starts his performance
And the crowd start dancing
Everybody, dance to the music
or chill on the lawn
He sang his own songs for about half an hour
Recording a memory
The Biltong stand is always one of the most popular
as is the ice cream stand
Fried goodies? Not for us
Queuing for cones
A photo with their hero
After Elvis Blue’s performance, Koos Kombuis quietly took up his seat, picked up his guitar and royally entertained the crowd with his amusing songs
He had the crowd in the palm of his hand, and directed proceedings
and then Hot Water took the stage
Huge crowds enjoying the music which went on till 8 pm and finished with Emo Adams. Sadly we had to leave earlier
RETURN TO MENU
© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2015