Tag Archives: ‘slow food’

Recession brings the future of food back to the past!

I had heard of and spoken to Sonia Cabano almost a year ago, but we had never met, until last week, and we have done so twice in a week!   Sonia has a refreshing view on many things in life, and I was interested to speak to her about her love for food, and the cookbooks that she had written to date.  She is proudly South African in her love for local foods, and sees that the food preparation of generations past will become that of the future.

Sonia (de Waal) became a well-known advertising model for Lancome, Mary Quant and Yves St Laurent after leaving Brandfort, living in Milan, Paris and London for twelve years.  She grew up in a food-loving family, with her mother being an amazing baker and cook, says Sonia, and her family ate in the way Sonia proposes we should all go back to – they had a vegetable garden at home, and meat came from a smallholding her dad owned.  They ate organically then, not giving it a name, but by its principles. Sonia was always in her mom’s kitchen, and helped her mom, and now her children do the same when she prepares food.

It was in London that she was asked to cook for clients, word having spread about her wonderful dinner parties.  She loved the supply of fur and feathered game in the city, and London’s specialist shops, something she would love to see more of in Cape Town.  Her love for shopping at food markets stems from this.   Her dream to study cooking at the Ritz Escoffier School in Paris did not materialise, but her second best option was to go to London’s top restaurants and ask for an apprenticeship, and it was Bistrot 190 and Kensington Place that gave her places in their kitchens.   When many left the country in 1994, it was the year that Sonia returned to South Africa, and to Cape Town specifically.  She started a catering company, but closed it down after five years when she had her children.

She received a call out of the blue to audition for SABC 3’s “Pampoen tot Perlemoen” food programme, was hired, and made four series with them. She added food writing to her activities, for VISI, TASTE, Sarie, Insig, and House & Garden.  To this she added writing cookbooks, and two have been published to date:

*   ‘Kombuis’ – was written in Afrikaans for Afrikaans foodlovers.  She said she found it harder to express herself in Afrikaans, as cooking terms have not evolved in this language.  The book contains traditional ‘boerekos’ recipes interpreted by Sonia, and she included a chapter on how to larder.

*   ‘Easy, Simple and Delicious’, which she says is the easy way to make fresh staples in the lazy and fast way!

Her newest book, to be called ‘Relish’, will be published in September.  It will focus on sauces, seasonings, and condiments to make at home.  It includes making preserves, as well as cheeses, such as ricotta and mascarpone.

Sonia wants to share her passion for local food, and wants to keep her readers out of supermarkets for basics, which she would like them to make, like pasta sauce, instead of buying them out of a tin, and/or containing preservatives and colourants.  She includes chef’s tips in her books too. In addition to writing, she does cooking demonstrations, and is a recipe development consultant.   She wanted to set up a Slow Food shop, but could not find the right venue for it.

She espouses the principles of Slow Food, and it ties in with her food philosophy of “Tradition is Modern”!   She feels it important that small food and wine producers be encouraged and supported, and that a small food collective be organically nurtured to become a valuable resource.   Sounding similar in her food philosophy to Neil Stemmet, Sonia talks about “Kontreikos”, which is eating seasonal food from one’s region and which the farmer has been fairly remunerated for.  Sonia is very anti-supermarket, and proudly told me that she has not stepped into a Woolworths in six months. She sees supermarkets as ‘dehumanising’, pushing their wares down consumers’ throats, and Woolworths in particular does not practice its environmentally-friendly claim it proudly advertises inside its stores.   She supports ethical production of foods, and wants us “to live in harmony with nature”.  She would love us to go back, and she wants to document, to how the ‘old country ladies’ made foods like butter, and beverages in the past.  She would love Capetonians to get out of their homes again, and to connect in the neighbourhood, not just with their neighbours but also with the local shops in these areas.  She thinks that the recession is fantastic in making us all return to basics, to discover what is essential, and to no longer be shopping-driven.

Having rejected it initially, due to the disparagement she had seen on it, Sonia has now taken to Twitter, and finds it a fantastic tool for networking, for sourcing information, for the immediacy of response, and to communicate and share one’s thoughts and feelings about anything and everything!

POSTSCRIPT 23/5:  The comment by Maria has upset Sonia, and she has been contacted by 12 persons, she says, who all claim that we wrote the comment as “Maria”. Michael Olivier of Crush! made this claim to Hetzner last year, when he tried to get our blog closed down!  Sonia sent an sms today that she felt that she ‘was being set up’ by me in having interviewed her, writing the blogpost, and then writing the ‘Maria’ comment – it is an absolutely ludicrous allegation, as we have the blog in which we can write what we like, and we do not have to resort to writing comments on our own blog, nor on anyone else’s. I would not have spent the money and time in inviting Sonia for lunch, had I not been interested in her as a person, and her writing about food.  It is sad that such nastiness goes around in Social Media, and that people talk about others without having met them.  Sonia has decided to block us on Twitter as a result, from having been in praise of us getting her starting on Twitter only three weeks ago, and being happy with our blogpost about her when it was posted on Thursday.

Sonia Cabano. Tel 071 674 0222. www.soniacabano.co.za Twitter: @SoniaCabano1

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

Social Media vital tourism communication and information source, also for Cape Town

Social Media marketing is one of the most important means of communication with potential tourists, in planning their trips, and these media are also used by them to share their holiday information experiences during and after their holidays.   This is one of the trends that Cape Town Tourism reported on its return from the “Future Day” Convention held in Berlin last week, running in conjunction with ITB (Internationale Tourismusbörse), the world’s largest travel trade fair.

The internet in general is the most important source of travel information, with 95 % of travellers searching for information on-line, and more than half booking on-line, up by 10 percentage points from 45 % in just two years.   In the USA just more than half of travellers use social media to research travel destinations and to make online bookings.  Travel tips from friends, interactive bookings and mobile travel guides are some of the social media travel applications that influence travel by travellers.  

Mobile phones play a vital part in this travel communication, because they are easily portable and accessible, unlike laptops, which are dependent on wifi access.   While on holiday or on a business trip, travellers can use their iPhones, Blackberries and other phones to find and share information about the destination.   With large increases in tourists coming from Asian countries, and China in particular (46 million travellers in 2010, and 155 million mobile Internet subscribers), and another 127 million in India, it is vital that tourism destinations such as Cape Town reach tourists via mobile phones, and smart phones in particular.   The World Travel Monitor has found that 40 % of international travellers travel with a smart  phone with internet, e-mail and other functions, with the balance holding a conventional mobile phone.   Of the smart phone users, 40 % use them to obtain destination information, and 26 % of leisure travellers and 34% of business travellers use them to change bookings while travelling.   Just more than a third of international travellers use their smart phones to access mobile social networks.   This leads to tourists posting content to their Facebook pages or Blogs, or photographs on Twitter or Flickr, whilst they are still at the destination.   In future it is likely to see that photographs and information posted will have GPS information, with screens providing travel information.

The travel and tourism trends which Cape Town Tourism brought back from ITB are the following:

*   Globalisation, demographic change and climate change are the three most important trends affecting tourism.  Climate change has created a moral debate amongst travellers about the effect of a long haul flight to a city like Cape Town on the carbon footprint, a potential threat to tourism to our country, if the local tourism industry cannot find ways to communicate to these travellers how they can offset their long-haul travel whilst in the country.  The Convention predicted that “individual carbon budgets could be in the pipeline”.  

*   The largest tourism growth has come from Asia and South America.   This year international travel is expected to grow by 3 – 4 %.  Cape Town Tourism is confident about the benefit of the massive Asian travel market, and our suitable weather in the low season to accommodate these travellers.  

*   Tourism marketing is no longer about the destination, but about the customer.  The traveller can be segmented as follows:

    *   the “too busy to care” traveller, who can not be bothered to give destination or product feedback

    *   Travellers leading complex lives and whose finances are under pressure, working harder and their leisure time reducing.

    *   Travellers looking for simplicity and a return to basics.   Their mantra is : “Slow living, slow food and slow travel”

    *   Wealthy travellers are harder to please, and set higher demands from the destinations they visit. 

*   Sustainability is now vital, and no longer a ‘nice to have’.  All elements in the tourism cycle need to be environmentally sustainable.

*   Despite an improvement in the economic well-being of the world since the recession struck three years ago, tourists are still being careful with their money.  Tourism spend is expected to increase by 7 % this year.  

*   The tourism businesses that can understand what makes their “customers tick” will be the ones that will “lead the way to prosperity”.

*   Neuromarketing is the new ‘science’ of communication, and is a recognition that up to 95 % of all decisions are made subconsciously.   Marketing communication is moving toward imagery and language that can influence the subconscious decision-making of travellers.   Four types of customers are identified:

   *   The Economical Customer relates to data, facts and efficiency

   *   The Relationship Customer relates to harmony, partnership, trust and a personal approach

   *   The Trendsetter Customer relates to opportunities, gut feeling and creativity

   *   The Exclusive Customer relates to aesthetics, quality and vision.

*   Finally, the ability to communicate in an instant is the “most interesting innovation in tourism marketing”, writes Cape Town Tourism CEO Mariette du Toit-Helmbold.   Social Media is the communication tool which allows information to be personalised to travellers, and shared with them instantly.

To market a city brand such a Cape Town effectively, it must be authentic, it must appeal to locals first, it must have emotional pull, and must have real stories to tell, said Mrs Helmbold.   She also said that travellers spend the most time of their holiday experience in the “planning and memory phase of their holidays and sharing their experiences now takes place on Facebook and Twitter”, the holiday album becoming something of the past.

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

Restaurant Review: Gaaitjie in Paternoster one of West Coast’s best

A mid-winter break in Paternoster had to include a repeat visit to Gaaitjie – Salt Water Restaurant, a restaurant with the most stunning setting on the rocks overlooking the bay, and one of the best restaurants on the West Coast. 

Suzi Holtzhausen is the owner of Gaaitjie, and moved to Paternoster from Johannesburg, where she had a cookery school, six years ago.  She started off setting up the Salt Coast Inn, offering self-catering accommodation, followed by the Eatery, which offered breakfasts, “lite meals and sweet treats”, the business card says.   Here I once had a bizarre cheese omelet (ordered as such) drowned in a boerewors and onion sauce for breakfast.  Suzi ran cookery courses.   Suzi’s mother ran the Eatery when Suzi opened Gaaitjie six months ago, but it has been closed down now.

Gaaitjie probably is better suited to a summer visit – in the early summer evening it is still light enough to sit on the terrace outside (I learnt that it is important to book the exact room you want to sit in), and to enjoy the beautiful view onto the sea, and to hear the waves crashing.  Blankets are provided should it become chilly once the sun sets.  For lunches outside it is perfect.  In winter customers have to sit inside, and this makes space restricted, and last-minute bookings hard to make.  The best tables in the main restaurant room, with a fireplace, are the first to go.  I thought I had done well with a booking five days ahead, but other bookings had been received a month ago, I was told, making my power to change my table allocation close to zero.   I was seated furthest from the action, in a room that only had a very smelly gas heater, so I asked to be moved to the main restaurant room.  This is when I learnt of my low rank from Camilla.  The best she could do was to seat me in the entrance room, which has one table, but also a fireplace.   For a single diner it is a very lonely place, but Susan, the manager for the evening and a good friend of Suzi, kept me company as she was buzzing along, checking on everyone.  She is an absolute natural at customer care and friendliness, unlike Camilla, who looked unfriendly.  A new waitress struggled with a simple order for cold water.  She received training behind the counter, which I could hear. Given the stature of Suzi’s cooking, the new waitress was not yet an asset to the restaurant.  She was allocated to my table – again I felt to have hit rock bottom.

Gaaitjie is the name of the building which Suzi rents from the local Sea Fisheries’ department, and they renovated it to her requirements. It looks like a Greek cottage, as do most of those in Paternoster.  One can only see the signage from the road, as the restaurant is so low down, at close to sea-level.   The kitchen is in the middle of the building, and one has to walk through it to get to the main restaurant room and terrace.   The generator for the fridge ticks away, and evokes a farmhouse memory.   The ceiling is covered in reeds, giving it a further Greek feel.   The doorways are low, especially for tall gentlemen passing through them.   The walls have framed yellowing newspaper clippings with general articles about Paternoster.  The cutlery is nothing special, but the serviettes are made from material, with a shell forming a serviette ring.  Here and there a fishy decor touch can be seen – an ashtray filled with shells, a fish-shaped water bottle, and a ceramic fish on the bar counter.

Gaaitjie’s menu is restricted to seven starters and mains each, and four desserts.  Each one of Suzi’s dishes are unique, and her stature as a chef comes from her marriage of ingredients, often demanding a brave palate from her patrons in trying unusual ingredients or combinations.   The paper menu starts with the sentence: “Taking time to prepare the best of what’s around the West Coast area, served by the people of Paternoster”.  The menu can change daily, depending on the produce that Suzi can get hold of.  Gaaitjie is not inexpensive, and hence it is mainly Capetonians and other out-of-town visitors who eat there.  I recognised a fellow Slow Food Cape Town member arriving with a party of six others.

I chose the mielie chowder with scallop and green pea wontons, at R 50, an ideal dish for the first chilly night of the winter.   The wontons were deliciously crispy, and the chowder very filling, topped with green beans, and I regretted having it before the main course, both being very filling dishes.   My pork belly choice was stated on the menu as requiring 45 minutes’ preparation time, so the chowder was a good way to pass the time, giving little action on Twitter that evening.   The chowder was served with the most unusual muffin-shaped bread with an onion marmalade centre and crowned with black sesame seeds and fresh herbs.   It was served with an anchovy, garlic and olive tapenade.   Anchovies are one of few things I do not eat, so I was presented with a slice of butter, beautifully served with a twig of chive balancing on top of the slice standing on the plate, so simple but so attractive.   Other starter options were angelfish bobotie spring roll on coconut and bean sambal; chicken liver peri peri vetkoek with creme fraiche and roasted chilics; spinach and curd samoosas on hot tomato and basil salad; grilled pear and deep-friend labna cheese salad; and a house salad of greens, feta style cheese, cucumber, tomato and seeds, all costing between R45 – R55. On a summer visit I had eaten the chilled pea and fresh crayfish soup, at R75, which was outstanding, but there was no crayfish on the menu as the season closed a month ago. 

The main courses range in price from R110 for the snoek lasagne to R125 for a braised lamb shank and butter bean pie with mint and pumpkin broth.  Other mains were yellowtail fillets simmered in curry leaf masala and lentil rice; a stew of black mussels, baby calamari, sweet pepper and spicy sausage; the crisp pork belly (and crisp it was, with the most delicious crackling, which I left for last) served with an unusual leek mash; roasted quail on a hot beetroot salad; and chicken breast with pesto pasta.

Dessert choices were preserved naartjie and ginger praline cheesecake; malva pudding topped with molten local blue cheese and melon preserve;  baked custard with Witblitz-soaked Cape gooseberries; and rich chocolate mousse with salt dust (I wanted to order the mousse, but could not get a good description of its ingredients, as it was new on the menu that evening – the fact that part of the mousse was white chocolate which contained passion fruit made me decide against it, and none of the other dessert options attracted me).

The winelist is on a separate sheet of paper, and is introduced as follows: “We keep waste to a minimum and km’s travelled low so choices are local and small”.  For this reason most wines are from the West Coast.  Each wine is briefly described, and the wine estate it comes from mentioned.  Corkage is charged at R 40.  One sparkling wine (Kasteelberg) is offered at R 135, five white wines range from R 95 for a Kloovenburg Chardonnay and an unknown La Capra Chenin Blanc from Fairview, to R 145 for Fryer’s Cove Bamboes Bay Sauvignon Blanc, and The Ollo from Altydgedacht.   Four red wines include two Shirazes (Spice Route at R 165 and Nieuwedrift at R 95), an unsual sounding Cappupino Ccinotage (R105) and Cloof Inkspot R 105.  The wine-by-the-glass choice is limited to Cloof (white and rose’ at R 25), and MAN Vintners Cabernet Sauvignon 2008 at R 30.  

I left with mixed feelings, having enjoyed my two previous dinners at Gaaitjie more.   The food is outstanding, but one must make a lot of allowances in the other things one expects from a restaurant in terms of decor, service and wine selection.   Suzi strikes me as one of a rare breed of restaurateurs who believes that a focus on food is of paramount importance in a restaurant, and that little else matters. 

Gaaitjie – Salt Water Restaurant, off St. Augustine’s Road, Paternoster. Tel 022 752 2242.  www.saltcoast.co.za/gaaitjie (page does not open).  Open for lunch and dinner on all days except Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

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

The Hall Collection Sweet and ID Solutions Sour Service Awards

The Sweet Service Award goes to Debbie Hall, owner of The Hall Collection, suppliers of bespoke beds and bedding, imported from the UK.   The customer had met Mrs Hall previously at a Slow Food lunch and reconnected with her recently at the launch of Cru Cafe’.   Mrs Hall has built up a reputation for her wonderful cakes and cooking.   Having established the Hall Collection two years ago, run from a house in Tamboerskloof, she hosts a lunch for customers wishing to pop in on Wednesdays, and offers coffee and cake on weekdays.   A request to buy some chicken pieces from the lunch buffet led Mrs Hall to generously give the customer what was left over, refusing payment for it.  In addition, she added two cupcakes to the “take-home” package.   Such generosity is seldom experienced!  

The Sour Service Award goes to ID Solutions, a supplier of contract furniture for the retail, corporate, leisure and hospitality industries, “South Africa’s leading lifestyle furniture specialist”, its website says.  An advertised sale in the Cape Times attracted attention, the customer wanting a new office chair.   Armed with the ad, she arrived at Black River Park in pouring rain, drew a parking ticket, and then looked for the building, denoted as “C1” in the ad.   Driving to the building in the complex where the company had been located previously, no such number was visible on the building.   She called the company, who explained that they were no longer in that building.   The switchboard assistant Naomi was unable to clearly direct the customer out of the Black River Park complex, did not tell her about the exit being different to the entrance, and was generally unhelpful in guiding the customer to their new location, ultimately saying that she did not need the customer to buy a chair from ID Solutions, and finally putting down the phone!   She had refused to pass the call on to one of her colleagues, for better driving guidance and directions, when requested.   On arrival at the offices, the customer was ignored.   The same staff member Naomi walked past, and did not greet or react to the customer.  The customer walked along the whole length of the shop and back, and not one person acknowledged her presence nor offered to help her.   When the customer asked for help, the receptionist Naomi said that she refused to help the customer.   On request, a sweet lady called Carmen got up to help.   The customer was told that all office chairs had been sold, even though the sale had only been advertised the day before, and there were no customers in the store.  The customer found the ideal chair standing at a computer console, and was allowed to buy the chair.   She took out her credit card, only to be told that the company does not accept credit cards!   She was offered the chair, and was asked to make an internet transfer on return to her business.   In the process of hand-writing the invoice (one wonders why the sale chairs go through a manual hand-written system, and not the company’s usual computerised invoicing system), Carmen was told that the chair could not be taken along by the customer until the payment had been done, contrary to her earlier communication.  Carmen promised delivery the following day, on receipt of the proof of payment.  A matter of concern was the price of the chair, as it did not have a price tag.   The owner of the company, Sean Weldon, was contacted once the very unhappy customer left ID Solutions, thinking that the company did not deserve her business.   She told Mr Weldon about her bad service experience at ID Solutions.  He said that he was on his way to the office, and would get back to her.  The customer called again after two hours, not having heard from Mr Weldon, and he said he was still on his way back and would contact the customer the following day.    Mr Weldon’s tone was very unfriendly and unapologetic the following day, even though the payment had been made, and he protected the rude behaviour of Naomi, his staff member of 10 years, he said   He was inflexible about the time of delivery, despite the customer’s request for it to be delivered before 11h00, as she was going out.    It became very clear that everything is done in the ID Solutions way, and that the customer is unimportant.   The customer told Mr Weldon that she would collect the chair herself.   About an hour before collection , a worker from the warehouse called, asking in broken English what the delivery address was for the chair.  He could not understand that the customer had arranged to fetch the chair.    When the customer fetched the chair, no attempt had been made to wrap it in bubble wrap or with any other protective packaging for the trip in the car.  The customer called Mr Weldon four times, to report the unwrapped chair and the warehouse call, but he did not bother to return the calls on that day, depite his cellphone message promising that he would so promptly.  The customer felt shocked that such poor service was possible, but remembered that Mr Weldon’s previous company Innovation had gone into liquidation, and perhaps poor service delivery could have been the cause of the closure of that company!   The customer will never fall for an ID Solutions sale ad ever again, or buy from the company again!

The WhaleTales Sweet & Sour Service Awards are presented every Friday on the WhaleTales blog.  Nominations for the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be sent to Chris von Ulmenstein at info@whalecottage.com.   Past winners of the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be read on the Friday posts of this blog, and in the WhaleTales newsletters on the www.whalecottage.com website.