It is almost impossible to summarize the goosebump specialness of being in the company of two creative geniuses on Saturday afternoon, at Salon58 No 11, with the theme of ‘Trace’ – style and fashion icon Jackie Burger and Michelin-star chef Jan-Hendrik van der Westhuizen. Continue reading →
Tag Archives: milk
Salads, seaweed, seasonings, and smoking some of 2014 Food Trends!
The top ten food trends in supermarkets and restaurants for 2014 have been identified by the Sterling-Rice Group in the USA, reports eTurboNews. Not a surprise is that health dominates the trends, but with a touch of indulgence.
The top food trends were generated by Sterling-Rice’s Culinary Council, consisting of 100 top chefs, restaurateurs, and foodies. The research generating the top 100 trends highlights shifts in society, helping food industry suppliers to better create, position, market, and sell their products. Its food trends are used by small fledgling companies as well as food corporates:
1. Lemon is the main ingredient in dressings and sauces, used fresh or preserved.
2. Black, green, and other leaf teas add a twist to dinner, desserts, and more, even used to smoke fish and meat.
3. Middle Eastern seasonings such as sumac, za’atar, and marash Continue reading →
Fugard Theatre transforms into Bioscope with Classic Film Festival!
I was impressed with the screening of the film of the Fugard play “The Road to Mecca” at the Fugard Theatre two weeks ago, given not only the content of the 1970’s movie, but also how well The Fugard Theatre had been transformed into the Fugard Theatre Bioscope.
The Fugard Theatre opened about a year ago, and its service teething problems have been largely sorted, other than the slowness of the ticket buying procedure if one has not pre-booked. A few months ago the management fall-out was widely documented. But all seems to have settled down now, and the management cleverly has transformed the theatre into what it calls a Bioscope, and even sells popcorn now, to fit the theme! In addition, one will be able to buy soup and Thelema wines. The Theatre now has proper individual and most comfortable seats, having originally had benches, which did not allow one to book a specific seat, and seating then was on a first come first grabbed basis. The movies are projected onto a giant screen on the stage. One may take one’s popcorn and drinks into the theatre, showing a huge relaxation of the management in its attitude to its clients relative to when it opened.
Earlier this month the Fugard Bioscope kicked off with a week of films made about Fugard plays, a different film every night. I enjoyed ‘The Road to Mecca’, starring Yvonne Bryceland, Athol Fugard and the very youthful Kathy Bates and Soli Philander. It told the story of Helen, the owner of the now National Monument Owl House in Nieu Bethesda, with superb acting by Bryceland in particular. Fugard received the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre in New York last week, ironic that his recognition should come from outside the country.
From today, running for four weeks, the Fugard Theatre Bioscope is running a themed Winter Classic Film Festival, costing R40 per ticket, and screenings start at 8 pm on Mondays – Saturdays, as follows:
20 – 25 June : Award-winning German and French Thrillers: Z, The Baader Meinhof Complex, The Lives of Others, Carlos, A Prophet, Mesrine
27 June – 2 July: Classic Political Thrillers: Seven Days in May, The Day of the Jackal, The Conversation, Three Days of the Condor, All the President’s Men, Network
4 – 9 July: Gay Movies: Brokeback Mountain, Dog Day Afternoon, Philadelphia, Bad Education, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Milk
12 – 16 July: Rock Concerts: Woodstock, Pink Floyd live in Berlin, Simon & Garfunkel – Concert in Central Park, The Last Waltz – The Band, Bob Dylan and Neil Young, Gimme Shelter – The Rolling Stones
Winter Classic Film Festival, The Fugard Theatre Bioscope, Caledon Street, Cape Town. Tel (021) 461-4554. Book at Theatre or at www.computicket.com
Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter:@WhaleCottage
Food News: It’s ‘OK’ to eat meat, says ecologist!
A new book, called “Meat: A Benign Extravagance”, by ecologist Simon Fairlie, has turned around current thinking about the effect of meat production on the carbon footprint, and argues for the benefits of meat production, reports the Cape Argus.
Fairlie says that farming with and eating meat “is OK”, and in fact benefits the planet. He explains that for 30 years the generally accepted view has been that meat-eating is bad for the planet in terms of climate change, and bad for the human race, having led key climate change authorities to propose vegetarianism as a means of solving the planet’s climate problems.
If one follows a vegetarian lifestyle, one has to obtain proteins and fats, in the form of soya, peanut butter, nuts and pulses, impacting on the carbon footprint, whilst fats and proteins could come from farms closer by, with a lesser impact on the environment, he says. He further argues that the original 1:10 conversion ratio of 10 kg of grain is required to produce 1 kg of beef is an outdated statistic from more than 200 years ago, being closer to 1:7. For every 1,4 kg of vegetables that one could eat, 1 kg of beef can be produced on a small farm. Fairlie also argues that humans cannot eat grass, and that cows are an efficient means of ‘transforming’ grass into products that they can eat: milk, butter and cheese. In addition, they produce natural nutrients in the form of manure, which goes back into nature.
Fairlie is critical of battery chicken farming and of large-scale cattle production, calling it a “moral and environmental disaster”. He says that we eat too much meat, because it is so cheap. He calls for all farming to be organic, and for the government to prevent supermarkets from taking an ever greater cut of the food production cost.
His personal lifestyle includes eating meat twice a week only. He advocates eating offal, and eating smaller portions of meat. “Eat local, eat less, is my recipe” he says. “Support your small farmer. You’ll enjoy the meat more too”.
Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage