Tag Archives: Mad Hatters Tea Party

The Highcliffe Food and Arts Festival celebrates craft food and beverages from the New Forest: 1 June 2019!

This past weekend the Highcliffe Food and Arts Festival was held, the emphasis being on the Food, with Beverages, and gins in particular, of the New Forest area. Highcliffe is a small town down the road from Chewton Glen, the hotel at which my son works in the New Forest in southern England, an area well-known for its heathland, forest trails, and native ponies. And it surprised me at the variety of craft beverages and craft foods that were on offer to buy, in full size or as a tasting portion.  Continue reading →

In search of the Holy Food Grail in KwaZulu-Natal!

imageI spent eight days in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) last week, in search of the perfect food experience, in a province I had last visited about ten years ago to attend Indaba, and the well-known Midlands area, which I had last visited more than 25 years ago.

The encouragement  to visit the province was made more than a year ago by Chef Jackie Cameron, who is the most passionate proudly-KZNer I encountered on my journey, making it her business to support KZN produce, from the Midlands in particular, in using and in marketing it at every opportunity. Jackie has put KZN on the food and restaurant map over the past twelve years that she worked at Hartford House, making the Eat Out Top 10 Continue reading →

Restaurant Review : Magical Mad Hatters High Tea at Beverly Hills Hotel in Umhlanga!

imageThe Beverly Hills Hotel Pastry Chef Jodi Gillespie is a very talented creative lady, and has put the pink hotel in Umhlanga on the map as serving the most creative High Tea in KwaZulu-Natal, and even in our country! I was lucky to check into the hotel yesterday afternoon, in time to see the High Tea, and enjoy a taste of it, the most creative High Tea display I have ever seen.

Chef Jodi is from the Durban area, and studied at the Christina Martin Culinary School. From there she moved to Dubai, working at Continue reading →

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 18 – 21/4

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   CNN has included Cape Town as one of the Best Easter egg hunts around the world, in the company of London, New York, Miami, Vienna, Washington, France, Toronto, and Sydney.  The hunt for the treasure chest of Easter eggs on Table Mountain was guided by clue cards handed out by Mad Hatters Tea Party characters.

*   Fourteen travel bloggers, two from South Africa, will form part of a #MeetSouthAfrica blog campaign by SA Tourism, the bloggers travelling throughout our country and blogging about their journey, culminating in INDABA, the travel expo in Durban in early May.

*   The Banking Ombudsman has reported that 23% of the almost 5000 complaints received in the past year related to ATMs, the number of such complaints close to doubling from the year before, reports The New Age.  About 40% of the Continue reading →