Tag Archives: Rainbow Nation

Cookbook writers ‘Cooking up a storm’ at the Franschhoek Literary Festival!

Yesterday was the first day of the 2013 Franschhoek Literary Festival, and was an action-packed day with good attendance.  ‘Cooking up a storm‘ was the only food-related session of the Festival, and was chaired by Taste Food editor and Eat Out editor Abigail Donnelly (left), with a panel of ‘Scrumptious’ writer Jane-Anne Hobbs-Rayner (second from right), ‘Karoo Kitchen”s Sydda Essop (second on left), and Hilary Biller (right), editor of the Sunday Times Food Weekly insert, and of a book with a collection of its recipes.  The panelists were unanimous in heaping praise on ‘Karoo Kitchen’.

Sydda Essop grew up in the Great Karoo, and used to travel with her father to farmworkers in the region, as his job was to fight for their rights. This allowed her to enter the Continue reading →

South Africa wins and loses an Oscar in one week! Will it affect Tourism?

It is ironic that the Valentine’s Day shooting of model Reeva Steenkamp by her boyfriend and Olympic and Paralympic hero Oscar Pistorius should have happened so close to the Academy Awards’ Oscar presentations, for which M-Net had contracted Pistorius as its Oscar presentation broadcast marketing icon. Thankfully, South Africa received fame at the Oscars, for the Documentary ‘Searching for Sugar Man’, which was largely filmed in Cape Town, and tells the story of Capetonian Sugar Segerman’s search for forgotten American singer Rodriguez, being wonderful free marketing for our city to all who have seen the movie.  The question that the Pistorius case raises is what damage it is doing to tourism to South Africa generally, and to Cape Town specifically, with the Oscar Pistorius story making world headlines, in such leading publications as Bunte and TIME.

Bunte is one of Germany’s largest cirulation magazines, with a readership of 4 million, and featured the Pistorius story on the front cover of the 21 February issue. The front cover caption ‘murder due to jealousy’ links to the article in the magazine, which names TV series ‘Tropika Island of Treasure’ co-star and singer Mario Oglo as the main focus of Pistorius’ jealousy.  It quotes extensively from the City Press reporting, which subsequently was found to be sensationalist and inaccurate, relating the (inaccurate) cricket bat attack on the victim. The magazine sensationally claims that the couple were the ‘Beckhams of South Africa’, and that hardly a society event was not attended by the glamour couple – yet the couple had only been dating for three months, and were first seen at an event in November last year.  Crime statistics are quoted as 17000 break-ins per year, implying that wealthy South Africans have to barricade themselves in security villages like Silver Woods in Pretoria, in which Pistorius lived.  Pistorius’ Olympics performance is highlighted, and one senses that the magazine cannot come to terms with the sporting hero and the tragic occurrence on the fatal Valentine’s Day.  Parallels are drawn to the OJ Simpson case, and the defence team is likened to a ‘marketing campaign‘.  Overall, the German Bunte reader should be unlikely to cancel his or her plans to come on holiday to the Cape, a relief as Germany appears to be the largest source of tourism to the Cape in this summer season. Fortunately not one of our German guests have spontaneously raised the issue with us  in the past two weeks.

TIME has the world’s largest weekly magazine circulation, with 25 million readers, of which 20 million live in the USA, according to Wikipedia.  Its latest issue tells the story of Pistorius’ rise to sporting fame, and his fall since Valentine’s Day, not too dissimilar to any other reporting of the tragic events.  What is damaging however is that four paragraphs of the article are dedicated to Cape Town (and the Western Cape), its tourism appeal sounding positive, but in the context of the tragic event it is severely damaging to our city:

‘And from New Year’s Day to Jan. 7 she posted regularly from a vacation she was taking in and around the city where she was born, Cape Town, with a few friends and the man she called “my boo,” who on Twitter goes by @OscarPistorius. On Jan. 3 she posted a picture of the sunrise taken from the balcony of the $680-a-night presidential suite at a spa hotel in Hermanus, 90 minutes southeast of Cape Town. Later that day she tweeted, “The chauffeurs in Cape Town hey. Nice!” and attached a picture of Pistorius driving an Aston Martin. On Jan. 4, name-checking Pistorius, her best friend, a private banker and a luxury-car importer who was sourcing a McLaren sports car for Pistorius, she tweeted about a lunch the five were sharing at Cape Town’s newest hip hangout. “Shimmy Beach Club!” she wrote. “Tooooo much food!!! Amazing holiday :)”‘

This is followed by Cape Town’s ‘dark side’, and this is when the article becomes really damaging for Cape Town:

‘To understand pistorius (sic) and Steenkamp, to understand South Africa, it helps to know the place where the couple chose to spend their holiday. Cape Town has arguably the most beautiful geographical feature of any city in the world: Table Mountain, a kilometer-high, almost perfectly flat block of 300 million-year-old sandstone and granite that changes from gray to blue to black in the golden light that bathes the bottom of the world. From Table Mountain, the city radiates out in easy scatterings across the olive, woody slopes as they plunge into the sea. Its central neighborhoods are a sybarite’s paradise of open-fronted cafés and pioneering gastronomy, forest walks and vineyards. Commuters strap surfboards to their cars to catch a wave on the way home. The business of the place is media: fashion magazines, art studios, p.r., advertising, movies and TV. Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy just wrapped the new Mad Max movie. Action-movie director Michael Bay is shooting Black Sails, a TV prequel to Treasure Island.

But while Cape Town’s center accounts for half its footprint, it is home to only a fraction of its population. About 2 million of Cape Town’s 3.5 million people live to the east in tin and wood shacks and social housing built on the collection of estuary dunes and baking sand flats called the Cape Flats. Most of those Capetonians are black. Class in Cape Town is demarcated by altitude: the farther you are from the mountain, the lower, poorer and blacker you are. Cape Town’s beautiful, affluent center is merely the salubrious end of the wide spectrum that describes South Africa’s culture and its defining national trait: aside from the Seychelles, the Comoros Islands and Namibia, South Africa is the most inequitable country on earth.

This stark gradation helps explain South Africa’s raging violent crime (and why, contrary to legend, Cape Town actually has a higher murder rate than Johannesburg)’.

The balance of the five page article is focused on our country’s ‘violent crime‘, and traces this back to the Battle of Blood River, the Boers building a laager to protect themselves against the Zulus. Similarly whites live in security estates, in modern day laagers, the article relates.  Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s Rainbow Nation barely exists, despite our country being the benchmark for ‘racial reconciliation’, and ultimately still ‘South Africans live apart’, the article concludes.  What makes for fascinating reading is the close to 1000 comments to the article, which is attacked by many loyal South Africans for factual inaccuracy, and supported by a handful of what could be ex-South Africans. Very few international readers appear to have commented.

Gratifying to find is the link by HuffPost Lifestyle UK, which evaluates the media frenzy relating to the Oscar Pistorius bail hearing, introducing the article as follows:‘…could be forgiven for thinking that South Africa is the new Wild West, full of gun-toting, trigger-happy outlaws’.  Its writer Amanda Willard defends our country, having visited ten times already, puts crime into context, shares that tourism is growing, and recommends that tourists continue visiting South Africa: ‘So don’t be put off travelling to this incredible destination and don’t be fooled by the media reports. The bark of the newshound is worse than its bite‘.

SA Tourism, Wesgro, and Cape Town Tourism have a challenging task in communicating that what was a crime involving a couple in a private home is not a reflection of crime in South Africa.  It also needs to highlight that tourists visiting South Africa generally, and Cape Town specifically, will be safe.  The problem is that neither Cape Town Tourism nor Wesgro are doing any marketing at all, let alone damage control to address this tragedy which has keen international interest, a saga that will be guaranteed to fill news headlines for months to come!  Mary Tebje, Cape Town Tourism’s communications representative in the UK, has written to Southern African Tourism Update, calling for an objective and honest response to South Africa’s new status as a gun-toting country, which may reinforce what many potential tourists to our country are already thinking, and will deter them even more from coming on holiday.  Our current tourists will be our best spokespersons, in relating that their holidays were safe and most enjoyable!

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage

‘Kaapse Stories from the Mother City’ reflects multi-coloured Cape Town at Richard’s Supper Stage!

Cape Town has an exciting new entertainment venue in the heart of Sea Point, co-owned by new Cape Town citizen, singer, actor, producer, and impresario Richard Loring, and is a fantastic asset for the city and its entertainment industry, and is an entertaining way for tourists to learn about the history and culture of Cape Town. Richard’s Supper Stage opened officially this week, while the Bistro downstairs opened earlier this year.

Richard’s Supper Stage has a separate entrance, on Glengariff Road, with a real theatre entrance (a canopy in red and white stripes, a garden developed by Richard along the pavement, and fairy lights in the trees outside), and one receives a very friendly welcome from some of the cast and the front of house staff as one arrives.  Immediately one is taken into the theme of the show, with District Six street names attached onto every step of the staircase.  At the entrance upstairs is a bright and colourful chandelier, which reflects the multi-coloured character of the show, made from bottle tops and recycled ‘goodies’, the entertainment venue Tweeted.  Another Twitterer speculated that the lamp comes from Magpie Homewares in Barrydale.  The venue is vast, seating about 200 patrons, the tables and chairs seating ten each. To help those patrons sitting further back or near a pillar, flat screen TV screens will project what is happening on the stage.  The stage is relatively small, and one could be disappointed if one does not have front row seats.  However, the cast walks the room, so one has a good opportunity to see the stars up close, and to photograph them.  Colourful life-like images of Bo Kaap adorn the walls.

To kick off the evening, Richard Loring sang a welcome song, and then thanked the VIPs attending, including Conrad Sidego, the Mayor of Stellenbosch, the Consul General of India, and the DA Councillor for Sea Point, Bev Schafer. He shared that the opening had been preceded by 12 months of preparation, both in terms of renovating the building, and in writing and casting for the show.  He first came to Cape Town in 1969, and reminisced about how ‘fabulous‘ Sea Point was in the ‘Seventies and the ‘Eighties. The objectives which the co-owners Richard and Roland Seidel have set themselves are to offer tourists entertainment with a local touch, to create a sustainable business which employs staff in operating the restaurants and in performing in the shows, and to create a platform for developing local talent. Roland and Richard met eight years ago, and the seed was planted then already to do something together. Earlier this year Richard and Jeanette Loring moved down to the Cape. Roland thanked the City of Cape Town for its assistance in getting the building renovations done, the previous owners having ‘actively violated’ building regulations.  Debbie Damant of Wesgro was also thanked for offering space on their stand at Indaba in May. Su Birch, GM of Wines of South Africa (WOSA), was saluted for her contribution to wine marketing.

‘Kaapse Stories from the Mother City’ tells the story of the ‘Rainbow Nation’ via the Jantjies family, being Grandpa Joe (Royston Stoffels), brother Bernie on the piano, Uncle Charlie on percussion and guitar, and singer granddaughter Genevieve, and how it was affected by the politics of the previous apartheid government, being moved out of District Six to another part of Cape Town.  The script was written by well-known Basil Appollis, giving it a colourful Cape character, and the show is produced by Richard. The District Six’s Constitution, Caledon and Chapel Streets are recalled.  Mpumi Sizani adds a beautiful touch with her orange Xhosa traditional outfit, and superb singing. The ‘white elephant Green Point (sic) Stadium’ is referred to a few times.  Robben Island and Table Mountain appear in the storyline.  A Ghoema song is sung.  ‘Waka Waka‘ and ‘Shosholoza‘ take one back to the World Cup.  Miriam Makeba’s famous ‘Pata Pata’ and ‘Mama Themba‘ songs get the audience going.  The biggest surprise of the evening was when the character that was dressed as a car guard (Ebenezer Sawuhi), and the front of house host Germandt Geldenhuys both sang the most amazing opera music, including ‘Nessun Dorma‘, receiving a standing ovation.

Before, midway, and after the show the Cape-style dinner is served.  The starter of samoosa, sweet peppers, smoked snoek paté, and a Greek salad was brought to the tables.  The main course was an extremely generous buffet, and a very orderly system was used to request table by table to come up to be served the vegetable breyani, potato bake, tomato and onion relish, Basmati rice, Korma chicken and prawn curry, vegetables (carrots, butternut, green beans, cauliflower, broccoli, beetroot), Cape yellowtail, and beef fillet.  A plate of desserts was brought to each guest, and included a koeksister, a fruit kebab, and a slice of melktert and malva pudding.

After the ‘Kaapse Stories from the Mother City‘ show finishes, the venue turns into a jazz club, and jazz and cabaret artists will be invited to perform from 22h30 onwards, on nights on which ‘Kaapse Stories’ is performed.

Richard’s Bar has a collection of memorabilia to celebrate Richard’s 50 years in show business, the walls have wallpaper of images from his shows, and over the bar are clips from films and TV shows in which Richard has starred.  Richard Loring is best known for his production of ‘African Footprint’, which toured world stages. In Johannesburg he ran a similar Sound Stage Supper Theatre in Midrand, and he was the Entertainment Consultant to Golf Reef City before moving to Cape Town.

Richard’s Supper Stage, Glengariff Road, Sea Point.  Tel (021) 434-4497.  www.richardscapetown.co.za. Twitter: @KaapseStories. R400 per person includes the show, a welcome drink, and 3 course dinner. Thursday – Saturday (July and August, when group bookings are received), Monday – Sunday from September.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portoflio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage

Cape Town Show is a magical feast of song, dance and food!

A unique magical musical and dinner show has opened at The Rainbow Room in Mandela Rhodes Place, in time for the festive season, as well as for tourists arriving in Cape Town.    It is a unique way in which the his(story) of the establishment of Cape Town until the present day is told via music, dance and food.

Conceptualised by dynamic event co-ordinator Alison McCutcheon of event company Rainbow Experience Marketing, written by Deney Willie, directed by Godfrey Johnson (known for his Brel productions) and choreographed by ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ Didi Moses, the Cape Town Show is a ‘Marvellous celebration of the people of the Cape, their history, freedom and magnanimous spirit of Ubuntu”.  Talented young 19 and 20 years olds have been selected into The Rainbow Academy,  and trained for the show.  The Rainbow Academy allows its students “to earn while they learn”   The show is hosted in a large space, perhaps too large initially until the audience size builds up, and is complemented with audio-visual images screened alongside the stage – the vibrancy of the performers attracts one’s attention to the stage, so that one does not pick up much of the additional information on the screens. Images of Nelson Mandela flank the screens. The show with a three course dinner costs R295, and without dinner it costs R 120.

Prior to the first act one is served the starter, which is the most more-ish French-inspired Lavache crisp bread coated with black and white sesame seeds, served with hummus and a real Cape delicacy Cape snoek fish paté.   The first act focused on the arrival of the first visitors to the Cape, going as far back as 1488, with first arrival Bartholomew Diaz making a stop on his way from Portugal to the East.  The cultures of the Dutch, German, French, Malaysian, Northern African peoples and other settlers is described, and the historical events of occupations and settlements, as well as the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910 and of the Republic of South Africa in 1961 is narrated and sung. The songs chosen to tell the story were not all known, and included a David Kramer/Taliep Pietersen song from their musical ‘Goem’, a very vibey 1930’s ‘Get Happy’, and the emotive ‘Meadowlands’.  A Klopse scene includes standards such as ‘Suikerbossie’, ‘Vat jou goed en trek Ferreira’ and more.  District Six also makes an appearance in the show.

In the break, the main course is served, the orders for which are taken prior to the start of the show.  Whilst not typically Cape, we ordered the dukkah-crusted beef fillet served on mash and spinach, with a very strongly spiced chakalaka sauce.  The fillet was served perfectly as ordered, medium and medium rare for my colleague and for me, respectively.  One has two other choices for the main courses, which are more Cape-like: vegetarian curried lentil cottage pie, and Cape butter chicken curry served with a homemade roll and sambas.  

The second half of the show focused on the impact of the apartheid laws, the defiance of the population affected by them, and the freedom achieved for the nation, with soundbites of then-President FW de Klerk announcing the scrapping of all laws of segregation, and Nelson Mandela’s speech after his release from Victor Verster prison, saying that all South Africans have the “right to human dignity in our rainbow nation”.  The show ended with the celebration of freedom and the spirit of Ubuntu.  The music chosen for the second act included the well-known ‘Pata Pata’, made famous by Miriam Makeba; Jeremy Taylor’s ‘ Ag Pleez Deddy’ brought back nostalgic memories of a by-gone era of drive-in movies, popcorn and bubblegum!;  ‘Gimme Hope Jo’anna’; ‘Paradise Road’ by Eddie Grant; and the national anthem ‘Nkosi Sikelelel iAfrika’, presented in a vibey way.  

Dessert is a sweet treat trio of a mini-koeksister, melktert and chocolate brownie.   I had it with an excellent LavAzza cappuccino, a surprise, in that I was wondering where I would have to go to find one close by after the show.    The catering is done in-house, with a contracted chef doing a great job in a tiny kitchen, we were told.  The Beverage list is short and sweet, especially on the wine side, and very inexpensive.   Wines-by-the-glass offered are M’Hudi Rea Dry at R20/R90, M’Hudi Kwea Red at R20/R90, and Excelsior Pure Bred Red R25/R100.   No Shiraz is offered, with only one or two Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Pinotage options.   Pongracz Brut costs R150, and 2 Oceans Rosé R 20/R90.  Amstel, Castle, Windhoek Lager and Windhoek Lite all cost R16;  Heineken, Peroni and Millers, Hunter’s Dry and Savannah cost R17; and Jack Black costs R20.

A surprise was when the cast came back on the stage for an un-announced encore, singing real Cape classics such as ‘Daar kom the Alabama’, ‘Dina Dina Oh’, as well as Ipi Tombi. 

The Cape Town Show is a great way for locals to be reminded of the colourful and often painful history of the Cape, and the rich heritage it has.   It is also a quick way for tourists to learn about the history of our country, and have a memorable evening, enjoying Cape culture and food.  The audience enjoyed the enthusiasm of the performers, and were captivated by the music. There are a few teething problem, like waiter training and understandability of all the words in the spoken story, but as it is early days for the show, they are sure to be addressed.

Disclosure:  As a member of the Food & Wine Bloggers” Club, having attended the October meeting which was hosted by the Rainbow Experience, we received complimentary tickets to the Cape Town Show.

Cape Town Show, The Rainbow Room, Mandela Rhodes Place, Wale Street, Cape Town.  Tel 072 875 9723.  Book at www.webtickets.co.za.  Wednesday and Friday evenings.  Doors open at 19h00, show starts at 20h00.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio:  www.whalecottage.com   Twitter: @WhaleCottage