Tag Archives: Herman Lensing

Has the Good Food & Wine Show become the (Italian) Cook Show?

Good Food & Wine ShowCarlo Cracca. Antonio Carluccio. Gennaro Contaldo. Katy Ashworth. Emma Dean. Vichit Mukura. These are the ‘top international chefs’ Cape Town food lovers are being exposed to at the Good Food & Wine Show at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, augmented with a handful of light-weight (with the exception of Chef David Higgs) mainly TV cooking program local cooks!   As Cape Town is the centre of gourmet gastronomy, surely exhibition organisers Fiera Milano could have done better?

Christine Cashmore has organised the Good Food & Wine Show for years, and sold her company to Fiera Milano last year.  She is certainly still involved, as I saw her at the show yesterday.  She is tough to deal with, changing PR companies every year!  Every year the criticism about the Show has grown, the big food producers no longer bothering to participate, and sample their products.   The emphasis this year was clearly TV cooking shows, and the invited chefs (mainly) had a link to a TV program, in cooking at the Celebrity Chefs Theatre (how did Kamini Pather slip in here, as controversial winner of MasterChef Season 2?), the kykNET Kook Teater, the Spar Food Theatre, and the Selati Sweet Treats Theatre. Continue reading →

Celebrity Chefs bring the world of food to Cape Town this week!

Food Hospitality World logo Whale Cottage PortfolioIt was by chance that I saw a programme for the ‘Food Hospitality World Conference’ when I registered for the Good Food & Wine Show.  With the e-mail from Wired PR came the Conference programme, with a fascinating list of talks by local and international food and wine speakers, bringing the world to Cape Town, and giving our industry a taste of what lies ahead for the Good Food & Wine Show running at the Cape Town International Convention Centre from 29 May – 1 June. What was unbelievable was the poor attendance in the exhibition hall in general and in the ‘Conference’ venue too, tiny in taking about 50 attendees, many of them hospitality students.

Yesterday’s list of talks was food and wine focused, and due to guest house commitments I arrived right at the end of Miguel Chan’s talk on Chenin Blanc, which ‘has gained a surge in popularity recently’, the programme notesFood Hospitality World Miguel Chan Whale Cottage Portfolio revealed. Chan is a wine buyer and sommelier at the Tsogo Sun group of hotels. He has promised notes about his talk, which I will add to this blogpost when received.

Very surprising was the talk by Michelin 2 star Chef Carlo Cracco from Italy, where he owns Ristorante Cracco in Milan.  He is unable to speak a word of English, so fired away in Italian, without it being explained to us that his colleague (we think) would translate batches of sentences for us.  On the TV screens photographs of his book, his Continue reading →

Palms Market celebrates second anniversary with top chef Cook-Off!

Palms Market Bella Niehaus Whale Cottage PortfolioOne of my favourite Saturday markets in Cape Town is the Palms Market, which has a special collection of more than 40 stall holders offering quality products, under the guidance of Isabella Niehaus, who conceptualised the market to attract more feet into the decor outlets in the Palms Lifestyle and Decor Centre.  Yesterday the market celebrated its second anniversary with a ‘Reis met Rys‘ Cook-Off between five well-known chefs, creating dishes with Spekko rice.

In a two hour preparation period, Sarie food editor Herman Lensing, Kokkedoor finalist Marinda Engelbrecht, Slippery Spoon pop-up restaurateur Johnny Hamman, blogger and Radio Sonder Grense Kuberkok Nina Timm, Expresso Show cook and presenter Zola Nene, and My Basaar restaurant owner and Dagbreek TV show presenter Bernice van der Merwe created a diverse variety of rice dishes.   They had been given the rice and a bottle of Hermanuspietersfontein wine, and groceries to the value of R75 to prepare their dishes.  For us as judges there were few rules, other than to find the winner, which we did by scoring each dish out of ten.  My fellow judges were Pieter Arno du Toit from Cederberg Wines, Ingrid Jones from Mango’s Juice magazine, presenter Eloise Pretorius from Smile FM, and Landbouweekblad Food editor Arina du Plessis.

The live cooking attracted a lot of interest and attention from the Palms Market shoppers, peering Continue reading →

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 4 February

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   Chef Heston Blumenthal has temporarily closed his Michelin 2 star Dinner restaurant in London due to an outbreak of the norovirus, which affected 24 patrons and 21 staff.  It follows the closure of his The Fat Duck restaurant five years ago for the same reason!

*   Despite making a close to R1 billion loss in the latest financial year, SAA has bid to take a share in Senegal Airlines, which is facing bankruptcy!

*   Facebook is celebrating its 10th anniversary today, and is a lucrative communication platform for tourism.  The official Australia page has attracted 5,5 million ‘Likers’, while Love Great Britain has 2 million ‘Likers’.

*   Wines of South Africa (WOSA) is celebrating the 2oth anniversary of our country’s democracy by means of a series of videos showcasing how the political transformation has touched people in the wine industry. A new video will be released on the WOSA website weekly, for a six week period.  ‘From fifth-generation labourer to co-owner of a major farming venture, from refugee to nurseryman, from scholarship student to renowned winemaker and role model, from drug-addled  gangster to farrier, each of the intimate stories in WOSA’s The Democracy Series movingly charts a journey of progress‘, states the media release.  Each video ends with a quotation by the late Nelson Mandela. (received via media release from De Kock Communications)

*   Bubbly Isabella Niehaus is celebrating the two year anniversary of the Palms Market at the PalmsDecor & Lifestyle Centre with a ‘Spectacular Cook-Out with Spekko Rice‘ on Saturday 15 February.   Six top foodies will have their cooking challenge (the dishes have to include Hermanuspietersfontein wine and 1 Continue reading →