Tag Archives: ‘slow food’

Culinary trends: 20 years past, looking into the future!

Ferran Adria Culinary Conclave Ryan KingLooking at the past 20 year’s of our country’s democracy yesterday, I chose an article written about a recent ‘Culinary Conclave’ (or Indaba or Kosberaad, as we would call it) held by one of the world’s greatest chefs, Ferran Adrià of the former El Bulli, for inspiration for today’s blogpost.

Adrià and fellow chef Andoni Luis Aduriz invited 15 ‘gastronomic journalists‘ from around the world (none from our country) for a two day discussion about the past 20 years of gastronomy.  Each attendee was requested to present the gastronomic trends over the past two decades in their country, the impact of gastronomyFerran Adria Culinary Conclave group Ryan King original_ferran-conclave-group on society and culture, how the media has changed and influenced gastronomy, and how the definitions of ‘great cuisine‘ and ‘dining experience‘ have changed.

These were some of the gastronomic trends identified: Continue reading →

Holden Manz’s Franschhoek Kitchen Chef Maryna Frederiksen to focus on sustainability!

New Chef Maryna Frederiksen is focusing on her vegetable and herb garden and fruit orchard at Holden Manz, to offer her Franschhoek Kitchen clients the freshest possible fare, a dream come true for chefs seeking to be sustainable as far as possible.  She has brought the herbs and vegetables grown at Holden Manz into her new menu, and is planning to expand what she has planted and what she can source in Franschhoek.

She is so passionate about using the freshest ingredients in her ‘farm to fork food‘ cooking that she has already met with Daniel Kruger from La Motte, who created and manages their herb and vegetable garden, and sells produce to the leading restaurants in Franschhoek and Stellenbosch. Daniel has advised Holden Manz about which herbs and wild edible flowers such as stinging nettles and wild sorrel to plant, and has provided seedlings.  La Motte supplies vegetables with greater quantity requirements, being root vegetables in the main, but also runner beans, Chinese long beans, golden beets, purple carrots, and more.  Chef Maryna is challenging Daniel to source vegetables which she got to know in America, including burdock root, for which she was able to source seeds from Germany.  While she would love to cook with tropical vegetables, Franschhoek is not suited to them.  Chef Maryna loves to infuse her dishes with herbs such as thyme, mint, lemon verbena, and geranium.

Maryna grew up in Sasolburg, and qualified at Potchefstroom College at the age of 20, thereafter setting off to see the world by becoming an apprentice chef on cruise ships.  She was encouraged to continue in this field, her bosses saying that she showed talent, and she went to Switzerland for French culinary studies. She moved to San Francisco, working at a seafood restaurant, and a six month planned stay became a 23 year love affair with America, including nine years in Seattle, and five years at the Herb Farm restaurant in Woodinville Washington.  She knew she would return to South Africa some time, and did so because she was missing her family in Pretoria, taking on the running of the restaurant Lucit.  She had spent some time in the wine country in California and Washington, and had a dream to work in our wine region, jumping at the opportunity to join Holden Manz, food and wine being her passion: ‘you can’t have the one without the other’, she said.

Chef Maryna has evaluated what was on the Franschhoek Kitchen menu with GM Wayne Buckley, and some Holden Manz favourites have been retained but redesigned by Chef Maryna, for example the ‘Franschhoek Kitchen Trio’ (R150), which consists of the linefish piccata, chilli jam squid, and grape vine smoked pork belly.  Chef Maryna said that she is a ‘Slow Food cooker’, and proudly shared that she cooks her sauces over two days to get the reduction.

The menu is printed on recycled A3 board, with an imprint of the Holden Manz elephant trunk logo.  Starters include a soup of the day (hot pea and mint, and cold Gazpacho) at R45; a beautifully plated Ceviche de Veracruz which Gideon enjoyed, yellowfish having been marinated in a lime, coriander, tomato and jalapeno salsa (R65); Portuguese spiced squid with a most unusual lychee and rocket salad, a sweet chilli jam, and green garlic aioli (R65), a Caprese salad (R60), sardines (R60), a five spice duck salad served with pickled shimeji mushrooms, local berries, and a garden fresh herb salad (R100); a crispy prawn salad enjoyed by Wayne, with sugar snap peas, strawberries, ginger and coriander (R100); and a steamed garden vegetable platter with lemon butter sauce (R45).

The Franschhoek Kitchen Trio is one of the most popular main courses on the menu.  I ordered the Duck Duo, being a duck breast scaloppini and a citrus-stuffed duck braciale confit with a Holden Manz Good Sport sauce, and parsnip purée (R155);  a pan-seared fillet mignon with crispy duck fat fried new potatoes, king oyster mushroom, and Bordelaise or Jack Daniels sauce (R155); linefish of the day costs R120, served with a saffron mussel sauce; Pasta caprese (R80); and Sicilian prawn marsala, with fennel, carrots, capers, tomatoes, and currants topped with marsala sauce (R120).

I loved the unusual ‘Coffee and Doughnuts‘ dessert, being an espresso semifredo served with mini cinnamon doughnuts.  One can also order a Pavlova, served with meringue, rose geranium cream, fresh berries, and Holden Manz Port gastrique; coconut panna cotta with passion fruit gelée; chocolate mousse cake with brandy and a berry couli, all desserts costing R45.  The cappuccino was made with Terbodore coffee, a special Holden Manz blend roasted in Franschhoek.

After only a month at Holden Manz, Chef Maryna is already showing her passion for fresh and seasonal produce, and this can only develop as her own vegetable and herb garden grows at Holden Manz, and she sources more unusual vegetables from Daniel Kruger at La Motte.

Disclosure: Holden Manz GM Wayne Buckley refused to accept my payment for the dinner.

Franschhoek Kitchen, Holden Manz, Tel (021) 876-2729. www.holdenmanz.com Twitter: @Holden Manz  @MarynaChef   Tuesday – Sunday lunch, Tuesday – Saturday dinner.

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

Eat @ Altydgedacht good country food at historic wine estate on Durbanville Wine Route!

Living on the Atlantic Seaboard, I do not get out to Durbanville very often.  Errieda du Toit, PR consultant for the Durbanville Wine Route, is determined to change that, and invited me to visit Altydgedacht, the second oldest wine estate (after De Grendel) on the Durbanville Wine Route (then called Tygerberg, having been handed over to the first owner Elsje van Suurwaarde in 1698 by the Dutch East India Company) last Thursday. The wine estate has been owned by the Parker family for the last 160 years, and its rustic Eat @ Altydgedacht restaurant was named one of the Top 10 Winelands restaurants by Wine Tourism SA last month, published in Oprah magazine.

Bubbly restaurant owner Sharon Kriel showed us the original cellar at Altydgedacht, which is used for seating for her restaurant when it is cold outside, decorated with fairy lights and the original wine vats, which are over 100 years old. She showed us the plans which have just had drawn up, to show how the cellar grew from the original 1702 building to its current shape, last added onto in 1941.  Using a Bedouin canopy, Sharon has increased the size of her popular restaurant, which she started at Altydgedacht in 2009, and on good weather days one can sit outside at wooden tables and those made from wine barrels, or even on a blanket on the lawn, in picnic style.  The restaurant can seat 95 guests.

The Parker family is the fifth generation to own the farm, and its matriarch Jean Parker is a character at 87 years, I was told. Her sons John and Ollo run the farm, John being the Viticulturist, and Ollo the Cellarmaster, working with their winemaker Etienne Louw. It was a stop in Cape Town of the ship carrying the Parker forbears to Australia that made 13 year old Ralph Parker stay behind, find a job as an apprentice with Mr Chiappini, after whom a city centre street is named, marry his daughter, and buy Altydgedacht a few years later.  The history of the farm and of the Parker family is captured in the very rustic tasting room, which has a very old workbench, in which historical farm tools are still to be found in its drawers, and on which the Altydgedacht wines are displayed.  The Tasting Room has a wall with some of the original ‘koffieklip‘ from which the walls were built still showing.  The farm is 415 hectares in size, of which 180 ha is under vineyards and 30 ha is dedicated to a Fynbos and Renosterveld reserve. The farm was managed by Jean Parker when her husband died at the age of 29 after a shooting accident, with the help of their long-standing farm manager Hennie Heydenrych. John and Ollo both went to the University of Stellenbosch to study wine management and winemaking, respectively, and both worked on wine estates in California. Ollo also spent time in New Zealand and in Australia. Their initial grape production of 500 tons, from which the wine made was sold to the Castle Wine & Brandy Company and to Monis, for the production of fortified wines. When Distell set up Nederburg, incorporating Monis, in the ‘Sixties, they bought grapes from Altydgedacht, and the farm stopped making wines. In 1980 Altydgedacht was registered as a wine estate, and they started making their first red wine a year later, called Tintoretto, a blend of Pinotage, Shiraz, Barbera, and Cabernet Sauvignon. In 1985 they bottled the first wines, including the Tintoretto, a Cabernet Sauvignon, Chenin Blanc, and Bukettraube.  Their grape planting increased to 1700 tons (now reduced down to 1400 tons) of which they bottle 10% and sell the remainder of the grapes to Nederburg.  The farm produces 14 grape varieties for winemaking and two table grape varieties.  The current Altydgedacht wine range includes:

*   Sauvignon Blanc (R60)

*   Gewürztraminer (made in the French Alsace style, R60)

*   The Ollo (blend of Chenin Blanc, Semillon, Chardonnay, Viognier, R75)

*   Rosé (made from Cabernet Franc, R35)

*   MCC (made in 2008 for the first time, and now in 2012, R100)

*   Semillon Noble Late Harvest (R65 for 375 ml)

*   Merlot (R75)

*   Shiraz (R75)

*   Cabernet Sauvignon (R75)

*   Pinotage (their flagship, having made ABSA Top 10 in 2008 and 2009, R85)

*   Tintoretto (R125)

*   Barbera (R95)

*   Ralph Parker Cabernet Sauvignon (wine with a more pronounceable name for export).

*   Dry Red (R35)

It was explained that the Durbanville area is very suitable for grape production for winemaking, as the air cools down at night, coming off the Atlantic Ocean 15 km away after the hot summer days, which prolongs the ripening process. Durbanville is the reigning Terroir Award holder for fine red wines.  The eleven farms on the Durbanville wine route work well together, and ‘speak as one voice’, but are in healthy competition with each other.  Etienne said that winemaking should be ‘analog from the vineyards’, in that the more one leaves the wines alone, the better the wine that is made.

Sharon has no idea when Wine Tourism SA came to evaluate the lunch, to award it the listing in the Top 10 Winelands Restaurant list (alongside Babylonstoren, Jonkershuis, Jordan Restaurant, South Hill, Creation, The Kitchen at Maison, Black Oyster Catcher, Mulderbosch, and The Stone Kitchen).

Sharon brought us the soup of the day, which was a roast red pepper cream soup with basil pesto. Sharon explained that her menu is small, focusing on quality rather than quantity.  Platters are available, which one can make up by marking the elements one wishes to eat on the menu, including bread slices, cheeses, dips, olives, preserves, cold meats, and salads, or one can order prepared platters of cheese (R110), ‘Eat at the Farm Platter‘ for two persons (R175), and a Meze Platter (R60).

For the main course I ordered the Chicken Pot Pie (R85), the restaurant’s signature dish, which contains chicken, mushrooms, and carrots in a creamy sauce, topped with puff pastry, and served with delicious potatoes wedges ‘like my mom used to make‘  Sharon said, and a vegetable mix. Sharon is very good at including the Altydgedacht wines into her dishes, so her Pot Pie of the Day last Thursday was a Pinotage Steak one.  Her Barbera Burger has the Italian-style wine included in the beef patty (R75).  Her Bacon Quiche (R62) is the favourite of Ollo and Etienne.  Salmon on Rye with dried capers and dill cream cheese (R80), and two pasta dishes (R62 and R80) are also available. For dessert three of us shared the baked cheesecake, chocolate brownie, and apple pie, all generously served with ice cream, each costing only R30. Sharon emphasised that they subscribe to the Slow Food movement, preparing all food fresh, on order, so it takes a little longer to receive one’s order.

Eat @ Altydgedacht offers extremely friendly service and good value home-cooked meals on a wine estate that marries longstanding traditions and modern methods to create wines of quality and character.

Disclosure: I received a gift pack of Altydgedacht wines.

Eat @ Altydgedacht, Altydgedacht wine estate, Durbanville.  Tel (021) 975-7815. www.altydgedacht.co.za Twitter: @EatAltydgedacht  Monday – Saturday Breakfast and Lunch.

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

Col’Cacchio Celebrity Chef Series salutes local chefs and celebrates children!

The fourth annual Col’Cacchio Celebrity Chef Series 2012 was celebrated on Tuesday at the first pizza outlet branch opened by Kinga Baranowska and Michael Terespolsky on Hans Strijdom Avenue in the Cape Town city centre 20 years ago, with special chefs in attendance, and special pizzas tasted. All attending the event were left with the feel-good evidence that the Col’Cacchio’s Celebrity Chef Series is making a difference in its contribution to funding new developments at and upgrades of the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital in Cape Town.

The media event was an opportunity to introduce Pierneef à La Motte Chef Chris Erasmus and his July Col’Cacchio Celebrity Chef Series pizza, being the ‘Liplekker Ribbetjie’, which he demonstrated the making of at the event. Asking him about the first Afrikaans-named Col’Cacchio pizza, Chef Chris said that it was the dish that he had prepared when Pierneef à La Motte opened almost two years ago, and comes from the ‘Cape Winelands Cuisine’ cookbook, of which he was a collaborator, now served on a pizza.  The pizza consists of a bechamel base infused with roasted garlic and rosemary, topped with mozzarella, smoked and braised lamb soutribbetjie, caramelised onion, pears poached in port, fresh rocket, and a sprinkling of rosemary salt. Chef Chris radiated passion when he shared that he had decided to get involved due to its good work in benefiting the Red Cross Children’s Hospital, having a young 3 year old son himself.  He warmed to little 7 year old Mia, who attended the function with her parents, having undergone a liver transplant at the hospital three years ago. The young star stole the show, especially when Chef Chris picked her up and the cameras flashed.

R5 of every Celebrity Chef Series Signature Pizza Collection pizza costing R85 goes to the Red Cross Children’s Hospital Trust, which raises monies for upgrades of existing facilities at one of the best paediatric hospitals in Africa, and the purchase of new equipment.  We were told that more than R500000 has been donated to the Trust in the past three years, and that close to R86000 has already been raised from the Celebrity Chef Series pizza sales in May and June this year, higher than in previous years of the promotion.  In May Chef Jackie Cameron’s ‘Cape Funghi Pizza Delight‘ was the Celebrity Chef Series pizza, and in June it was Chef’s Coco Reinarhz’s ‘Bujumbura’ pizza, made with mozzarella, oven roasted brinjals, North African chicken tangine, green olives, preserved lemons, fresh coriander, drizzled with a coriander-infused yoghurt.

In the past the Col’Cacchio Celebrity Pizza Series has been run over the four winter months, a well-known chef lending his or her name to a pizza design each month.  This year the pizza design for August was thrown open to a consumer Pizza Challenge competition, the designer of the best pizza winning the honour of having her pizza on the Celebrity Chef Series menu for all of August, and a year’s supply of free pizza. Chef Chris and MasterChef SA Judge and Chef Benny Masekwameng were the judges in choosing the winner out of the top three pizza finalists. As we have got to know Chef Benny from MasterChef SA, ever the gentleman, he said that all three the finalist pizzas were good enough to be served in restaurants like Col’Cacchio:

*  Jessica Comninos’ ‘Liu Loren‘ pizza was designed as a ‘sexy‘ mix of Italian and Asian ingredients (tomato base, mozzarella, Asian marinated chicken, oven-caramelised apricots, fresh thyme, spring onion, fresh coriander, and drizzled with honey soy and orange reduction). The name of her pizza comes from two actress icons from these two regions: Sophia Loren and Lily Liu of Charlie’s Angels, Jessica explained.  The judges said that it was ‘addictive’, and one of the best ever eaten, perfect to be eaten while watching a movie.

*   ‘Salmon Dragon‘ was the entry by Keren Swanson, her pizza covered with mozzarella, braised rocket, smoked salmon, pickled ginger, spring onion, wasabi infused sour cream, and finished off with red salmon roe and balsamic glaze. Chef Chris described it as ‘sushi in a pizza‘, and ideal for summer next to a pool.

*   Stephanie Burtenshaw designed the ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ pizza, which consists of a tomato base, mozzarella, feta, lamb stew, fresh garlic slivers, rosemary, finished off with honey pumpkin seed praline, and fresh basil leaves.  The pizza is ideal for winter, the judges said.

Chef Chris said that at least 40 chefs had submitted their nominations in the Pizza Challenge, and therefore praised the three finalists for making it so far. The creative pizza names could be a lesson for pizza restaurants, in creating intrigue and interest. It was Jessica’s ‘Liu Loren’ pizza that was chosen as the winner.  She said of her creation: “I grew up under the culinary expertise of my dad, who loves to experiment with different Thai flavours. His signature dish is a Thai-inspired Peking duck 5 course meal which includes the fragrant flavours of garlic, ginger, chilli, lemongrass and coriander. These Thai staples made every meal my favourite and I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate my favourite flavours than on a pizza!”

Sandi Sher of the Red Cross Children’s Hospital Trust said the funds raised this year will go to funding an upgrade of the B2 General Medical ward of the hospital, dealing with infectious diseases and general medical cases. The hospital was built 56 years ago,  and treats children with chronic illnesses from South Africa and other countries in Africa. The Trust was launched eighteen years ago, as a fund raising body, and none of the monies are used to fund administrative costs, emphasised Sandi.

Co-owner Michael Terespolsky emphasised that they are a ‘slow food’ pizza franchise, with 20 outlets currently, the ribbetjie for Chef Chris’ pizza taking seven hours of slow cooking, for example. ‘That is why chefs like working with Col’Cacchio’ on the Celebrity Chef Series promotion, he said.

Seeing the enjoyment of little Mia in cutting shapes out of the pizza dough it seemed that it would be good idea if Col’Cacchio could make pizzas for the Red Cross Children’s Hospital, pizzas being loved by children, and they could become the ‘chicken soup’ for sick little people!

Disclosure: All guests attending received a slab of Lindt chocolate and a pizza slicer.

Col’Cocchia Celebrity Chef Series 2012. www.colcacchio.co.za.  Twitter: @ColCacchio

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