Last night Chef Jenny Morris launched her latest cookbook ‘Yumcious by Jenny Morris’, at her newest Yumcious Café, in Durbanville. Her cookbook cover is as colorful as she is!
The launch dinner was well-attended, with more than 80 ladies present, Chef Jenny’s husband 
David and the waiters being the only males present. I was lucky to share the table with Hawks detective Louise Smith, a dance ‘sister’ and full of jokes herself, Jazz event organiser Lovetta Bolters, and Colleen from Indulge Aesthetics & Beauty.
Chef Jenny is an infectious funny story teller, a joke a minute, most of it related to food. Her ‘Penny’ chili revenge story is one I will not forget, demonstrating the power of the spice. Most of the stories told by Jenny are 
not suitable to family readership of this Blog, so I will focus on the meal, and the cookbook itself.
Two welcome drink options were available to us: Liefmans On the Rocks Fruitesse fruit beer, too sweet for my taste but an interesting beverage; and Cape 
Town Gin’s The Pink Gin, infused with rosewater, rose petals, and hibiscus, and which I tasted on the rocks. It is one of three variants, with Classic Dry, and Rooibos Red.
Chef Jenny welcomed us, defining the choice of her Yumcious restaurant name as serving yummy and delicious foods, offering texture, quality, and affordability. She is not an ego chef, as so many of her male colleagues are, so it was a surprise that she even shared that she had just returned from Johannesburg, to attend an award function for the Coke Food Fest, as the Western Cape winner. At 
the Festival it was announced that Yumcious won the national prize, with R150000 in prize money. Yumcious was nominated for the award without Chef Jenny knowing about it.
Our meal started with a fragrant butternut soup served with olive tapanade bread. In between each course Chef Jenny regaled us with her stories and jokes, and gave away prizes in the lucky draws. The main course was 
a pork or chicken choice, all four of us at our table choosing the pork fillet rolled in bacon and stuffed with bacon, served with potato, beans, and broccoli.
The dessert was kept a surprise until it was served, and our table was served a cheesecake with a salted caramel sauce, delicious. It was unbelievable that Lovetta’s sauce was in the shape of a heart, and I asked her if I could 
photograph her dish instead of my own. She kindly agreed, and even more generously swopped mine for hers, she and I having connected strongly when we first got to meet one another, appearing fascinated with my story of transformation. From Instagram I saw that some of the other tables were served chocolate mud pie. We were all delighted with our dessert, and enjoyed it with a cappuccino ordered at the bar.
Colleen of Indulge Aesthetics & Beauty shared details of her clinic, offering non-surgical facelifting, using a Dr Brandt micro surgical machine, with which she does eye and brow lifts. She claims to make her clients look ten years younger, so I look forward to putting her service to the test. She explained that her technique addresses the muscles in the face, and not just the skin, lifting and toning them. 
Louise and I danced, having to adjust to the DJ, who did not seem to know the pop songs I dance to, so we requested Rock ‘n Roll music, a further entertaining angle to the evening.
’Yumcious by Jenny Morris’ introduces Chef Jenny as writer of six cookbooks to date; owner of The Cook’s Playground cooking school, which offers team building functions, themed cooking courses, and product launch services; recipe developer; international culinary tour guide; and owner of two Yumcious restaurants, the first having opened in the Cape Quarter.
The 224-page cookbook with beautiful photographs includes sections about the birth of 
Yumcious, Chef Jenny’s Pantry Essentials, Breakfasts and Brunches; Snacks; Lunches; Dinners and entertaining; and last but not least, Cakes, sweet tarts, and desserts. The introduction was written by Marcus Brewster, once a fellow PR colleague in my time in that industry but now residing in Malta. Chef Jenny describes the journey in opening Yumcious in the Cape Quarter, the landlord approaching Chef Jenny and David. Even though the space was larger than they had dreamed of, in seating 150 patrons, Chef Jenny agreed, on condition she had a deli fridge on which to display her special colorful salads presented on gorgeous serving platters. Despite no advertising, the patrons came, and at midday on weekdays it is usually hard to find a table, her healthy salads and meat offering being so popular, even being taken home.
Breakfast recipes include beignets, buttermilk pancakes, scones, muffins, French Toast, smoothies, grilled grapefruit, grilled cling peaches, omelettes, smoked trout and prawns, and frittatas. In-between Snacks include picnic bread, spinach chips, rocky road, rusks, cheese mound, Brie ring, smoothies, and homemade brews. Lunch dishes are those served at the Yumcious Kilo Table, including courgette and tomato tart, mushroom tart, butternut, feta and biltong tart, onion tart, stuffed onions, new potatoes, butternut and corn cakes, sweet potato cakes, a host of yummy salads, roast chicken, salami and beef rolls, Snoek, salmon roll, fish cakes, Chef Jenny’s signature pork belly, and sauces. Catering offerings in the book are pita crisps, chicken liver pâté, 
smoked salmon pâté, mussels, Tuna Tataki, prawn dishes, a number of soups, gnocchi dishes, pasta dishes, vegetable dishes, potato dishes, curries, squid, Smoorsnoek, fish dishes, chicken dishes, ribs, venison dishes, lamb, pork dishes, and gammon. The best is kept for last, with a variety of cakes and sweet loaves, tarts, berry meringue, truffle, puddings, and ice creams.
Truly a Yumcious cookbook that even has me excited about cooking again.
Disclosure: We were very generously gifted two Goody Bags, with Almond Breeze almond milk; Liefmans On the Rocks Fruitesse fruit beer; Carmién Rooibos Tea in Green, and in Mint and Watermelon-Strawberry, as well as a tea tin; Montagu Cranberries, Apple fruit flakes, and Pumpkin Seeds; Bendicks Mint Collection chocolates; Loacker Noir Orange chocolate wafers; Fairlady nail polish; Chill-e Bombay Chili; Lindt Hello Chocolate; A Taste of Thai Rice Noodles; Deli BBQ Spice; Vondi’s Jenny Morris Mint and Rooibos pet health biscuits; a pack of Esse skin care products; two Tupperware cups; Organic certified organic oil; Sunstar Gum Soft-Picks; a voucher for a MUD Studio Make-up Workshop; earthsap biodegradable dishwashing liquid; Creative Culinary Pantry Wholegrain Mustard & Honey Dressing; and an Eye and Brow Lift at Indulge Aesthetics & Beauty.
Yumcious Durbanville, DeVille Centre, corner Wellington and Durban Roads, Durbanville. Tel 065 827 7777 www.yumcious.co.za Twitter:@YumciousCafe @JennyMorrisChef Instagram: @yumciouscafe @jennymorrischef
Chris von Ulmenstein, WhaleTales Blog: www.chrisvonulmenstein.com/blog Tel +27 082 55 11 323 Twitter:@Ulmenstein Facebook: Chris von Ulmenstein Instagram: @Chris_Ulmenstein
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