The ten Finalists for the 2015 ABSA Top 5 Olive Oils have been announced, and the Top 5 extra virgin Olive Oils for this year will be announced in Franschhoek next week.
The Finalists are Andante EVOO (Medium), Andante Intense EVOO, De Boerin EVOO
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Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines
* Mosaic Team South Africa participating in the World Blind Challenge on 18 October in Champagne against 22 other teams will consist of the winners of the South African Wine Tasting Championship 2014: wine writer Samarie Smith, Chris Groenewald, Lizé Oosthuizen, Ralph Reynolds, and Gavin Whittaker. (received via e-mail from Jean Vincent Ridon)
* Nominations for the 34th Diners Club Winemaker of the Year (dry white blends) and 14th Young Winemaker of the Year (30 years or younger, producers of red blend) are now open, the winners receiving a flight to the USA for two as well as prize monies of R50000 and R25000, respectively. The winners will be announced in November. (received via media release from African Sky Media)
* Guinness is targeting its (black) beer at Africa, via a multimedia campaign using artists and performers from Africa, which positions the brand as #madeofblack.
* The 17 gold medal winners of the SA Olive Awards have been announced in three categories: in the Delicate Continue reading →
An unique ‘The Guide to Extra Virgin Olive Oil in South Africa‘ has been published, the first of its kind, providing an overview of olive oil production in our country, and providing details of the top quality olive oil producers.
Olives were first brought to South Africa from California by Piet Cillie in 1893. A mere 14 years later Jan Minnaar from De Hoop farm in Paarl won the prize for the best olive oil produced in the British Empire at the 1907 London Show! Reni Hildenbrand now owns the farm in Wellington on which Piet Cillie farmed, and she has written a book ‘Olives and Olive Oils in South Africa‘. Ferdinando Costa arrived from Genoa in Italy a few years later, and brought in Italian plants, grafting them on the local Olienhout rootstock. He planted large numbers of olive trees in Paarl in 1925, and pressed his first olive oil in 1935. The Costa name is synonymous with olives and olive oil, and his relative Linda runs SA Olive, a quality standards body for the industry. Italian Baron Andreis began planting olive trees in the ‘Fifties, using Carlo Castiglione to make olive oil from 1972, under the Vesuvio brand. Its Extra Virgin Olive Oil won four awards in Italy for the first time, and regularly wins international awards. Italian Guilio Bertrand bought Morgenster next door to Vergelegen just over twenty years ago, and saw the potential to produce quality wines and olive oils. He now runs an olive oil nursery, and won the SA Olive Lifetime Achievement Award last year.
The quality of olive oil quality is influenced by the terroir, cultivar, climate, and the oil maker, similar to wines. The biggest threat to good quality local Extra Virgin Olive Oils is inferior olive oils which are imported, and bought by consumers in the belief that the imported products should be of a better quality. Extra Virgin Olive Oil is extracted from the olives at a temperature below 30° C, Continue reading →
I love House and Leisure magazine, and it is one of only two magazines that I subscribe to. But as a decor magazine that is top-notch, its attempt to diversify into Food by publishing an annual The Food Issue damages its reputation, it obviously serving as an opportunistic advertising and promotional publication! The cover design is very striking, however, one of the few positives to praise.
Containing 67 recipes, and divided into four sections (Easy Living, Summer, Winter warmth, and Luxury) which are not a logical classification, the second annual issue of this publication contains a less than half page Editor’s Letter by controversial House and Leisure editor Naomi Larkin. This is where the editorial writing begins and ends. She writes: “We’ve drawn on old favourites as well as created new recipes specifically for this collection”. This is one of the problems, in that any avid reader and therefore collector of the House and Leisure magazines will already have the bulk of the recipes, so there is little new in the dedicated The Food Issue. We were critical of the 2011 issue too, which paired wines with the recipes, but this has been dropped in the latest issue.
Larkin boasts contributors to the publications as being top South African chefs such as Peter Tempelhoff (The Greenhouse, Eat Out 2012 Top Restaurant), Delaire Graff chef Christiaan Campbell, Eric Bulpitt (The Roundhouse), Malika van Reenen (Signal restaurant at the Cape Grace hotel), Werner Snoek (Toadbury Hall in Johannesburg), and Kevin Gouws ( ex-Shamwari Townhouse). However, most of these chefs only have one recipe featured. None of the restaurant affiliations 
are mentioned in the editorial. If recipes of top chefs (not all chefs meet this description) were included, one wonders why there were not more Eat Out Top 10 restaurants included, such as Luke Dale-Roberts’ The Test Kitchen. I called one of the chefs, whose recipe is included, and he did not even know about the inclusion nor the publication, and remembers that his recipe was in a House and Leisure magazine some months ago!
Even worse is for other chefs, whose recipes were included, but who did not receive an honourable mention in the Editor’s Letter: Arnold Hoon (owner of Ah! guest house in Paternoster), Tina Bester (of Queen of Tarts), Susan Greig (offers cooking classes in Johannesburg), Craig Cormack and Bertus Basson (from Sofia’s and Overture, respectively), Laurent Deslandes (Bizerca Bistro), Heidi van Loggerenberg (only reference to her via Google is to Raw Pot Luck in Johannesburg), Darren Stewart (Saffron Restaurant at Abalone Guest House in Paternoster), Kirsten Zschokke (much better known as Miss K in Green Point!), Chantal Coady (Rococo Chocolate), Chris Erasmus (Pierneef à La Motte), Jonathan Cane and Kathryn White (Mess Kitchen), and Neil Jewell (Bread & Wine). The overwhelming majority of the recipes are written by House and Leisure Food Editor Raphaella Frame, and many are by Phillippa Cheifitz, their former Food editor. Photography is generally of a good standard, but interesting is that photographs in past House and Leisure issues have been used (e.g. the safari-look shoot at Kirstenbosch for the ‘Medley of Small Birds: roast quail, pigeon and poussin’ recipe was in the December 2011 issue.
Advertisers include VW Tiguan, Siemens, Luxaflex, Easylife Kitchens, Chateau d’Ax, Clicks, Fleur du Cap, Le Creuset, Rio Largo, Eclipse, Miele, Wiltshire, Kelvinator, Spier, Luigi Bormioli, Mount Grace, Lindt, Golden Cloud, Nedbank, The Beach House/theHomechannel, Frederique Constant, and Investec. Not all the advertisements are relevant to the food content of the publication.
House and Leisure The Food Issue, 2012, R39,95.
Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio : www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage