It's the sweetie man coming

The scene below shows the main character entering the home of an alien who’s been suspected of criminal activity. I have the idea that one has to have grown up in South Africa to appreciate the humour, but I’d be interested to know if folk who have not grown up here find the scene amusing.

Nigger balls. Really? What were we thinking?

As a kid I was oblivious to the fact that the name given to these could be derogatory – I’d never linked the name to the obvious connotation, and I suspect that the same was true for most people (or kids at least) back then. Today they’re simply called Black Balls, which I guess is a less objectionable name.

The word “nigger” has never been a commonly-used term in South Africa. We have our own set of offensive terms that have for many years now been considered unacceptable.

Oxo makes milk very interesting

I’m sure the tag line is quite correct – not tasty, not yummy, but “interesting”.

Sweets and things

This got me thinking about the times that we’ve been to Australia, the US or Europe and how even, though we have an adequate array of sweet goodies, folk in those countries have dozens more options when it comes to satisfying their taste buds. It’s just not fair!

Seeing this photo reminds me of the Mentos and Coke experiments… aren’t they just awesome?

Best waffles in town?

Several months ago we had waffles at a restaurant called Blonde, just behind the Company Gardens in Cape Town. The waffles that we had that night were undeniably the best that I’d ever (ever) tasted. I tried typing a sentence to describe how awesome they were, but I just can’t seem to come up with something to adequately convey how great they really were.

Subsequent to our visit to Blonde, we were told that Den Anker sells great waffles – so, we naturally headed over there to give theirs a whirl. Unfortunately, even though they were pretty good (and a definite second-place contender) the waffles that we had at Blonde significantly outclassed any waffle we’ve ever had – including those at Den Anker.

Do you know who sells “the best” waffles? If so, and as long as you don’t say Milky Lane, please do leave a comment on this post.

Blonde closed down for a little while – but I believe that they’ll be opening again… in which case, you know where to find me.

Fanta Grape

I learned that Coca-Cola in Australia doesn’t produce Fanta Grape, so I did a little research on the subject. I was surprise to hear that worldwide Coca-Cola produces several flavours of Fanta… so I wonder why we only get two.

What flavours do you get in your country?

Creme Soda

I believe Creme Soda tastes fairly different in other countries and is more often a clear, light brown, pink, red, or even blue drink. For us, drinking a glass of differently-coloured Creme Soda would be much like trying to drink a mug of red coffee or blue tea. Perfectly distasteful!

When visiting South Africa, you absolutely have to try Creme Soda.
It’s green, but you’ll love it.

Christmas Trifle

If trifle is indeed from the Devil then it’s quite ironic that its a dessert that my mom saves to make once a year, for Christmas day. If you’re not sure why I’m of the opinion that the dessert is born from pure evil – just click here for a Google image search (beware, not for sensitive viewers).

From what I”ve read the earliest reports of a trifle-like dish stem from England in the 1590s – except that back then the ingredients were possibly simpler: thick flavoured cream, sugar, ginger and rosewater.

Trifles are quire different today – they contain sponge cake that’s been soaked in alcohol (sherry, for example), pieces of fruit (often berries), custard, jelly (which I think our American friends call jello), and a whole lot of thickly-whipped cream. These ingredients are (as you can see from the pics) layered to form the multi-layered decadent pudding that’s perfectly yummy.

Falafel on a menu

Don’t get too excited – I’m sure the chocolate brownies were made from carob. I mean, read the notes below the Date Crunchies – I think the only thing that they left off the list is fun-free. This and the spelling violation aside, doesn’t the menu look awfully healthy?

Torino Chocolates

I’ll share with you a view of the inside tomorrow, but alas, I can’t share with you what I bought…

Not only was the food excellent (it’s only the second place Paul and I have found in the Cape that can actually make a proper poached egg), but the atmosphere was great as well. It seems to be THE spot to be on a Saturday morning in Noordhoek – we had to wait for a few minutes to get a table, and throughout the morning people just kept on streaming in. The decor is very pretty, and of course I was totally enchanted by the wall of books you can see in this photo.

Noordhoek Farm Village is quite a long drive from where we live (59km, as mentioned in our previous post), but I think it may just be worth getting up early once in a while and driving through for a Saturday morning breakfast. Perhaps we’ll see you there.

Cocoa

Cocoa contains a substance called epicatechin, which appears to have huge health benefits for humans. Unfortunately cocoa (and chocolate) contain other substances called xanthines that are deadly to dogs and cats. Isn’t it strange that a food that’s perfectly good for humans is deadly to their most loved pets?

Simba Chips

Many years ago, when in primary school, our teacher took us on an outing to the Simba factory. It was fascinating to watch how potatos got skinned, chopped up, and dumped into huge baths of oil. I however remember at the time being mildly disenchanted by the thought that the chips that I loved weren’t lovely made by friendly ladies in nice kitchens, but by machines in dirty-looking factories.

Take-away food

Don’t expect eating a Gatsby to be easy – it’s large, very messy, yet surprisingly and delightfully tasty.

Ice Cream

About a week ago I suddenly had a craving for one of *those* ice creams, and eventually in a moment of desperation I drove to the local Spar convenience shop and bought one of those divine Magnum ice creams (the one dipped in white chocolate and with crushed almonds). In short, it was delicious. Occasional indulgences really are awesome.

Ice Tea

“We are having an exhibition of the Bedjump series with the opening on Saturday, 10 April. The exhibition will be at Exposure Gallery at the Biscuit Mill. We will have a bed there on Saturday for everyone to jump on and have their photographs taken.”

Jumping on a bed while having your photo taken may sound like a strange concept… but if you’re keen to either buy one of the photos, or have your photo taken (presumably for free), stop by the Biscuit Mill (map) on Saturday morning.

A sushi platter

We visited Wasabi in Constantia for a sushi feast with a few friends, and at this occasion I learned one important lesson about eating sushi out:

Pay full price for your sushi and never order the sushi platter that’s on special.

This particular platter cost about R100 and seemed to contain all the small offcuts of salmon and tuna, as well as many vegetarian pieces that, judging by how dry the carrots appeared, weren’t very fresh at all.

I ended up eating just over half of the platter before realising that I really wasn’t enjoying it enough to continue. From the way the other folk at the table devoured their meals, I assume that the other sushi must have been good; but this was presumably because they didn’t order the platter that was on special. :-/

Pepper Club On the Beach restaurant

We hadn’t been for dinner in Camps Bay for ages, so, after a long, long week at work, Friday night was our night to relax with an ocean view and good food.

The Pepper Club restaurant, Pepper Club On The Beach (map), is situated at the spot formerly occupied by Summerville, and is the official beach-side restaurant of the soon-to-be-opened Pepper Club hotel in Cape Town city centre. Apparently hotel guests will have the option of being driven from the city to Pepper Club On The Beach (in a Rolls Royce), where they’ll be able to change into their swimming gear in the restaurant’s super-modern bathrooms.

The restaurant’s setting is spectacular of course, but the thing that impressed us most was the service – it was absolutely impeccable, the kind of service you’d expect at a top 5-star hotel. The shellfish platter we shared was *wow*, but the two highlights of the evening were the Sapphire Silk cocktail and the Avocado Ritz starter. Both were absolutely delicious, and at the risk of being boring, I’m pretty sure that our next visit will once again include both of these items. The cost of a main course averages between R140 and R240 per person; there is a lunch menu as well, which features quite a few cheaper options. You can download the menu from the restaurant’s website.

Click here to see a few of the other photos that I took at the restaurant.

Seaweed on the beach

We recently joined a newly-created impromptu sushi club – actually just a few friends from Twitter who need an excuse to fit in an extra sitting at a sushi restaurant each month. The objective of the club is to find, evaluate, and and then frequent the best sushi spots in Cape Town.

I’ll keep our findings closely under wrap for now, but expect a post in due course (heh) that fills you in on which were voted the best spots by our group.

I’ve mentioned it previously, but to clarify the reason for the photo, let me state it again. The part of sushi that I like absolutely least is the seaweed (nori). It tastes absolutely awful to me, so I avoid maki rolls like crazy. I mean, I just can’t understand how someone ever looked at a piece of seaweed like this and thought, “Awesome, I should try that on my sandwich!”, or “subarashii , watashi wa doryoku shi nakere ba nara nai watashi no sandoitchi!”.

Yellowtail fish

I came across this spear-fisherman and his brother at Scarborough busy trying to sell the last of the ten yellowtail that they’d speared close to Cape Point. Their price? R100 per fish! Isn’t that just a crazy price? I’m not 100% sure what yellowtail costs in supermarkets, but I’m sure that it’s in excess of R50 per kilogram, making this buy an absolute bargain.

The only reason I didn’t buy one was that I’d have had to transport it 65 kilometres home in the back of my car, without a proper fish bag to contain the fishy aroma.

I wrote an article a while back about recreational fishing around the Cape Peninsula, so check that out for details on where to purchase permits – they’re really cheap. I had a quick look for limits with respect to quotas for line fish like yellowtail and it appears as though it’s currently limited to ten per person. So, if you’re lucky enough to bag a whole lot of yellowtail, make sure that you only take ten – the fines are pretty hefty.

Village Bakery Bistro

We met up with a friend of ours for lunch in Kommetjie, at Village Bakery Bistro. While it’s a pretty building and very easy to find, don’t go expecting to have a beautiful ocean view (you can see a bit of the sea in the distance, but only from the outside section). I think, however, that the fresh bread that they bake on-site (and provide with meals) has to go at least some way to make up for the lack of view.

The smells from the bakery were so good that I think that if we go out to the South Peninsula for a picnic (or even perhaps another braai at Jo’s place in Scarborough) I’ll have to put off packing in rolls from home and rather pick up a few from Village Bakery Bistro.

The view from The Roundhouse Restaurant

On Sunday we trooped through to Camps Bay for breakfast and, because of its reputation, ended up at The Roundhouse Restaurant (up above Camps Bay). We were unfortunately too late for breakfast, so we just had some Rooibos tea, admired the view for a little while and then left to hunt down some place still serving breakfast. (In case you’re wondering, we were extremely late for breakfast. )

The restaurant’s view and atmosphere certainly lived up to the reputation, and the staff were extremely friendly and helpful. The lunch menu mostly comprises picnic foods (like cold meats, cheeses, pickles, etc.). You place your order by ticking items on a sheet of paper, and a while later a picnic basket arrives with your selection carefully packed. While it would have worked for the two of us, I’d advise rather to visit in a party of 4 to 6 people so that your basket can contain a good variety of food without crashing your credit card.

Click here to read a little about the building’s history when it was used as a guard house in the late 1700s.

Christmas Pavlova

Look, I’m not going to lie. I’m exceedingly proud of this dessert. I should confess right away that I didn’t make the meringue shells from scratch (I did have to put in a heck of a lot of effort to actually track them down, though, so I think I deserve at least some of the credit), but I did make the Chantilly cream, cook up the blueberry coulis, and assemble the whole decadent, sugary creation. I also managed to cut it and dish it up, which, as you’ll know if you’ve ever tried to cut a meringue, was no mean feat either.

I’m also exceedingly proud of the fact that Paul and I managed to do every single bit of our Christmas shopping, food and all (we hosted Christmas lunch at our house this year), between 7.30pm on the 23rd and 6pm on the 24th. Without any screaming matches or nasty incidents of trolley rage! For two people who are severely organisationally-challenged, this is quite an achievement. (Want to know the best part? The entire house was clean again by 9pm. Every dish washed, every piece of wrapping paper thrown away.)

This year, I was feeling particularly nostalgic, so I made sure that the menu included reminders of family members who are no longer alive and the Christmases we shared when I was little. For instance, there were smoked oysters and TUC biscuits for my father’s parents (TUC biscuits were a staple snack food in their house), sage and onion stuffing for my mother’s mother (I’d always thought she made it from scratch until one day I saw my mother buying a box of ready-made Paxo mix at the supermarket ), and pickled eisbein for my brother (the last two Christmases I spent with him both involved eisbein, and he was an absolute expert at cooking it).

If you celebrate Christmas, I hope you had a really special day. For those of you fortunate enough to have your whole family with you, treasure these days and moments – one day the memories you’re building will become more important than you could imagine.

Making sushi

Raw fish, no problem. Soy sauce, yum. Sticky rice, nice. Seaweed – erm, no, I think I’ll pass.

Kerry-Anne loves sushi and I’ll eat it if the craving gets the better of her and she really has to go to a sushi bar. I don’t know about you, but the sushi I like most is the type with the least seaweed, and since I do enjoy the fish and rice I guess that Nigiri would be my favourite. But I just can’t get my taste-buds around Maki (those are the ones wrapped in black seaweed), and I’m just not sure that seaweed was ever meant to be eaten by humans.

I’m interested to know… (1) if you love Sushi, do you know why this is, and (2) if you don’t like it, what in particular don’t you enjoy?

Oktoberfest

Oktoberfest, a 16-day (sometimes 17-day) festival held in a (super) large field in Germany is celebrated in many countries, including South Africa, with plenty of beer, all kinds of traditional German food, a traditional-style band and plenty of dancing.

Stellenberg High School (which Kerry-Anne attended for 5 long years) held their first Oktoberfest celebration this year as a fund-raising event. Given that it was the first time they’ve attempted this, we’ll forgive them for the tiny selection of Bavarian food, solitary brew of beer, and lack of beautiful woman dressed in traditional German beer-lady attire (and yes ladies, the lack of handsome young lads in traditional weird long-shorts and braces too).

But seriously, the event seemed to have huge support from the community and everyone there seemed to be having an awesome time. I have a feeling that next year’s Oktoberfest is going to be a rocking event. Best make sure that you get there!

A big white door

Often when I see an old object like this door I wonder what history it has seen. Isn’t it interesting to consider all the people that may have turned and pulled on the door knob? Don’t you curiously consider what led it to be removed from its doorway and left lying on this grassy patch?

On a completely different subject… notice the Nasturtium flowers to the left? It was the weirdest thing ever when I discovered one day that Kerry-Anne likes putting these into salad! I guess they do act as a beautiful garnish… but for her it’s not only about the decorative appeal – she enjoys the taste too! I wouldn’t be surprised if next I find her picking daisies for a quick stir-fry!

Lettuce Field

This is the second last photo from our series about Joostenbergvlakte, and a photo that I’d considered using for yesterday’s theme day, titled “Contrast”.

If you’re used to living in a large city then this kind of scene probably seems quite unusual. What’s cool about Cape Town is that farms and smallholdings like this one aren’t too far from the city centre, which means that within half an hour you can move from the inner city, through leafy suburbia, to wide-open farms.

What I found interesting about this little field is that the farmer has planted green lettuce in between his two rows of red lettuce. It doesn’t seem particularly practical – I mean, surely all the red lettuce will be harvested together? All I can think is that he has a bit of an artistic eye, and likes to keep his fields pretty.

Yellow cupcakes

“Think Big” is a part of the mindset that the CIO of the company I work for tried to instil in our IT department at a recent IT visioning meeting. The rocket on top of this yummy cupcake, he explained, symbolises the concept of thinking beyond what you know today to be possible.

Just this month a satellite developed by the staff and students at Stellenbosch University (one of the large universities in the area) was launched from Kazakhstan, aboard a rocket. The satellite named SumbandilaSat (a Venda word meaning “lead the way”) is the second one to be launched by South Africa and will be used by the government mostly to monitor crops, dam levels and population migration.

Still far from the capability of satellites portrayed in the movie Enemy of the State, this one represents another leap forward for South Africa’s ambitions to have their own little bit of space. Well done, guys!

Fields of Wheat

According to Grain SA, South Africa consumes about 3 million tons of wheat each year – 2 million grown locally and the other million imported. Isn’t it weird to think that this huge field doesn’t even scratch the surface of all the wheat that we consume?

An interesting fact I picked up is that since the beginning of the year the price of wheat has fallen from around 2,600 ZAR per ton to about 2,150 ZAR per ton, which I guess (though I’m no economist) indicates slightly less demand than supply.

Perhaps South Africa is trying to lose weight. “Eat less starch, eat less starch!”