Vinatics

Ha ha – I only put that in to make you look! Of course it wasn’t cultured – Vinatics? C’mon now – surely you know us better than that! Somebody did mention Paulo Coelho at some point, and I believe somebody tried to convince us that some of the books are quite good (mentioning no names, but he likes to braai a lot) but we were about to get unfollowed by everybody on Twitter for even mentioning the P-word, so we fined him a glass of Shiraz and carried on. Yes folks – it’s that time of the month again! Vinatics dinner!

KWV wines keep giving us their lovely lifestyle collection and as the seasons change, it’s been a great opportunity to prove their versatility and enjoy them with everything from a braai to a picnic. This month, it was the turn of the latter – if only somebody had told the weatherman.

Assembled at Caro’s house were two of our fave bloggers – the divine Jane-Anne from Scrumptious and her obliging, quote-giving husband Philip, and – finally – Potjie, the lovely Barry, with Mrs Potjie, Alice. Just to intimidate Chef Caro and warm her up for next month’s guests (more later), we invited Kirsten aka Miss K from the fabulous food shop of the same name in Green Point and Irish chef Rachel from the Chefs Warehouse. Add in the three C’s – Cath, Cathy and Caro – and we’re off.

We started the evening with a ‘last minute dot com’ on the quiche. Kirsten had kindly volunteered to make this for us. And promptly forgot about it. So she arrived clutching a pastry case (sweet pastry, as we later discovered, but it tasted just fine to me), some bacon, butternut, feta, cream and eggs and proceeded to whip up a divine looking quiche before I’d even poured out the first glass of wine. And let me tell you, that takes some doing.

In the oven it went and then outside for a good chinwag as to the ins and outs of being foodies in Cape Town – all the gossip, all the ‘Noooo!!!’s, and all the half-arsed opinions – all there and a thoroughly enjoyable conversation it was too.

This Vinatics was a picnic, so we had decided not to be too formal, to serve all the food at the same time and to just enjoy it all with the different wines and see if we found a fave. Right from the start, Barry was batting for the Shiraz and showing reluctance about having the quiche too near him “Real men don’t eat quiche you know!” he bridled in the corner. Luckily, Alice was having none of it and since I noticed that the slice she put on his plate wasn’t there 5 seconds later, I think we can definitely conclude that Potjie is a closet-quiche-lover. Expect to see him in a feather boa and high heels soon.

Having made the quiche, Kirsten was now (at Cath’s star-struck prompting) regaling us with tales of her time as personal chef to Tiger Woods and Cath revealed her sad cravings for fame “I always used to beg Kirsten to bring me something of his and eventually she gave me a plastic cup from the US Masters. I still use it as a toothbrush mug!” Sweet.

I always love having Jane-Anne and Philip at Vinatics dinners because you can rely on the former for good foodie comments and the latter for just good comments. In his opinion “The Pinotage and the quiche is a marriage made in heaven. Both are extremely luscious and remind me of Amanda Holden’s crop circles!”

I am sure that most of you don’t understand this at all, so let me just say www.dailymash.co.uk and leave it there. If you want to know more – on your own head be it. But he was right – the Pinotage was going great guns with the crispy bacon, as – surprisingly – was the Chardonnay.

Most people preferred that with the Honey and Mustard Chicken skewers however, whilst the Smoked Mackerel Pate was best with either the Chenin or the Shiraz. In fact, if we’d listened to Barry, then everything would have gone with the Shiraz, including the green salad and the bread. I think he quite liked it.

Philip produced another good quote about the pairing of the Sauvignon and the Pate “The pate makes the Sauvignon seem shallow and lacking all charm – like Kim Kardashian!” and then topped off his quote night with “The length of that Cabernet is longer than Kim Kardashian’s marriage!” – we’re so up to the minute at Vinatics.

As always, we had now reached that certain, delicate point in Vinatics when I stop recording what people say (mostly because it’s unprintable anyway, but also because pens never seem to work after 9pm….) so some of the later conversation comes from memory.

Which is fine as far as Cath is concerned. She was on rollicking fine form with one excellent quotable line after another dripping from her cherubic-looking lips – she looks like an angel but with the mouth and mind of a fishwife with Tourettes. Barry was reverting to his outward show of masochism and claimed that all green stuff is only garnish, whilst secretly forking up the feta and Caro came to the table with the Chocolate Brownies.

Interestingly enough, the Brownies caused more conversation than the other dish when it came to wine-matching, with most people marvelling at how the chocolate completely changed the Cabernet “The wine doesn’t taste so sweet now” opined Barry whilst Philip declared “I love the mintiness on the Cab now you have it with the chocolate.” But overall, we decided to go with Barry’s choice (he’s considerably bigger than most of us so it seemed sensible) and opt for the Shiraz as food-matcher of the evening.

Another Vinatics, another evening of good food/wine/company and conversation done – with thanks to KWV, all our lovely guests and Chef Caro and Miss K for divine food.

We want to give you a case of wine!!

Yes – we do. Really. So buy yourselves a bottle or two of the KWV Lifestyle collection wines (available in most large retailers), pick a couple of your favourite picnic dishes from the list (or one of your own), enjoy, photograph and tell us all about it! Send in your report to editor@food24.com or link to your blog before the end of the month and we’ll send a case of wine to the best entry. What are you waiting for?? Get picnicking!

And our ceaseless quest to sound like episodes of ‘Friends’ continues in a haze of too much wine, too much food and too many lovely Vinatics guests. Yes – it’s that time of the month again when we gather lots of free-loading luvvies and fill them with delicious food and beverages. We were all rather excited about this month, as lovely Laborie had given us some out-of-the-ordinary wines – a sweet fortified Pinotage and some brilliant bubbly – so Caro had gone all creative on us food-wise and I had gone all adventurous, declaring my intention of synchronised sabraging. Did we manage it? Read on, dear reader……..

Lots of media folk gathered at Sam’s house last night to help celebrate her 20^th snoggiversary – any excuse! 24.com-ers past and present included Lili Radloff from Women24, she that was known as Mobile Marian for many years, now working at Touchlab, Ilze Dreyer, ex-editor of Food24, now also Touchlab and Clairwen Praetorius who is with Fin24.  Add in Chris and Liz Hofmeyr – stalwarts of at least three of my wine courses – and several spouses and hangers-on and we were set for a good night.

We did mean to try the fizz with the food. Really we did. But as it turned out, we didn’t. Sabrage fever hit us all and first me, then Caro, then Maz took our life and our knife in our hands and performed to the crowd. I am clearly a much better sabrage teacher than I am a practitioner as both of their efforts was far better than mine – but I don’t care. I just need to practice more.

Check out the video of me in action.

So onto the food. Starting with the divine Smoked Salmon and Cucumber Mousse, bets were being taken about the likelihood of the Sauvignon Blanc matching this dish before it even got to the table. Caro had tried to confuse us by garnishing with fennel, but we were not deterred, apart from Lili and Liz who began convincing themselves that actually the sweet Pinotage went with it best. But the Sauvignon carried the day and the conversation turned to rhubarb with Cath doing her impression of a famous Luvvie Extra (‘Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb) and me trying to claim some cultural heritage “Stellenbosch has the Golden Triangle for Shiraz and Yorkshire has one for rhubarb!” Whatever…..

The Duck salad was the next dish up, so after distracting Lili from her work responsibilities (“Nivea ads are like tampon ads” – never did quite figure out why though) we moved onto this which was “UTTERLY INSANE” to quote Cath. Peter, Clairwen’s husband, agreed “the combination of that Duck and the Limited Release Shiraz is springing my palate to life” whilst Maz came out of the closet and confessed to loving the Chardonnay “You think Chardonnay goes with everything though” claimed Ilze and Maz agreed “I’m a CGWE-girl!” “I actually think that Chardonnay is a very versatile wine to get smashed on” claimed Caro – she’s so classy. But in the end, the Jean Taillefert Shiraz was voted the winner which prompted entire glasses of it to disappear outside during the smoke break.

Conversation was by now free-ranging and erudite. And, of course, for the most part, unprintable. One end of the table was rather chastely devising a South African military alphabet “A for ayibo, B for biltong, C for CitiGolf etc etc” whilst Sam decided now was the moment to toast her husband for choosing her 20 years ago – a tear-jerking moment, inexplicably broken by Chris asking her “Do you mind putting a frock on?” (I say inexplicably, because at that point she was still fully-clothed).  I’m sure you can all guess Sam’s reply.

The Citrus Chicken Curry worked like a dream – thank you Nina Timm – despite being renamed the Cake Mix Curry which was all I could find instead of candied peel. The wine-matching was fairly evenly split between the two Shirazes and the Chardonnay and the evening trundled on apace to the dessert of Chocolate Tart. This was comprehensively matched to the sweet, fortified Pinotage – the Pineau. I did manage to write down the quote of the evening “If you took this pudding, liquidised it and added a shot of vodka, you’d get this wine” but sadly I didn’t catch who actually said it, as I’m sure multi-awarding-winning Laborie winemaker, Johan Fourie, would have appreciated such helpful advice for future vintages. Not.

And thus ended the evening. Actually it didn’t, but I think that Laborie ought to preen itself on the fact that we had drunk the entire case of their wines before the dessert was over – that doesn’t happen often, believe me! As the evening drew to a close and the stay-over stalwarts moved onto a hideous case of awfulness earmarked for the office party, I slipped away from the proceedings to rest my weary head at home.

Huge thank you to Laborie – not only for the sabrage practice but for really delicious wines and a lovely night. If you want to win a case for yourself – and trust me, you do – then pick a couple of the recipes, buy a couple of the wines, eat, drink, sabrage and send us pics. Happy drinking and see you next month.

I think it is fair to say that we have had some interesting Vinatics evenings. iPhone karaoke, blue jokes, Klingon conversations – we’ve definitely had more than our share of riotous evenings. So it was actually a wonderful relief to have a civilised evening for a change when we hosted our KWV Wines Vin-atics Tapas evening last night.

I hope Sam doesn’t get a complex about this, but it was rather a spooky coincidence that three of last night’s guests only seem to come to Vinatics when she’s not around……! My husband Kevin was persuaded to join the merry throng, as was top blogger and smokin’ hot lady, Sam Linsell, and leading foodie light of the Cape and Crush! Queen, Carey Boucher-Erasmus, all of whom have been to Vinatics before, none of whom have ever been to one with Sam W. What a treat they have in store for their third time lucky!! It was a feast of bloggers last night with Durban’s finest, Janice Tripepi, joining us in the midst of her whirlwind media tour of the Cape and Carey’s husband Johan and Chef Caro’s husband Paul evening up the numbers.

The theme for the night was tapas – cos we’ve been going tapas-crazy at Food24 this past month. And KWV Classic Collection are really good, relaxed, chilled-out and informal wines which seemed to suit the vibe. Feeling brave/insane, Caro had agreed to cook all six dishes for a change (with a little help from me), so we sat down to huge platters of delicious food which emerged at intervals from the kitchen as we all sat swigging down the wine.

First dishes out of the kitchen were the Garlic Chicken Kebabs, Spicy Lamb Meatballs and Aubergine and Feta Fritters. The meatballs were not quite as advertised since they were actually pork instead of lamb, contained onion instead of spring onion and were served with minted yoghurt instead of sweet chilli sauce as recommended by their creator, Food and the Fabulous. Still, it all seemed to work out okay, although the winner of the first round of food turned out to be an uber-hot cream cheese which Caro whipped up at the last minute to go with the fritters “I’m just stealing some extra now in case somebody else finishes up the lot!” claimed Jan, eyeing Kevin severely over the top of her glasses as he ate it by the spoonful.

The Chicken Kebabs were going down great with even 5 year-old Charlie tucking in as he watched ‘Shark Tale’ behind us on the sofa. Sam was trading compliments with the creator of the fritters, Simply Delicious over Twitter whilst Meagan actually introduced Jan to Twitter (@janicetripepi) and gave her a crash course in using her iPhone. At the other end of the table, the Pick n Pay/Woolworths debate became personal, as it transpired that Carey works for one and Johan works for another. Which one do they shop in? Ah, that would be telling!

Onto round two and Cath went on a guilt-trip into the kitchen to help Caro “What can I do to help?” “Well, you can make the Hollandaise” “Oh, okay, I’ll be right back” as she turned on her heel, returned to the dining room and drummed up some recruits to take her place “I can’t even spell Hollandaise, there’s no way I’m going to make it!” Carey was already in the kitchen, whipping up her Patatas Bravas – and she thought she was having a night off! – so it was up to Sam and Jan to wrestle with the stick blender and make it all happen.

So eventually Steak with Hollandaise, Patatas Bravas and Calamari with pesto and peppers made their way to the table. The Calamari had thrown Caro a bit when she unwrapped it as the original dish was Stuffed Calamari but all the tubes had been cut. Undaunted, she made a kind of stirfry of the rice and peppers, added the pesto, flash-fried the calamari and finished it off with a gentle warm-through in the oven – folks, write this method down because this gives you THE most tender calamari you will ever taste. Guaranteed!

By this time of the evening – as always – conversation was getting a little frayed around the edges with Kevin trying to persuade Meagan to use his camera to take pictures “I can’t – it’s a Nikon and not a Canon” “Yes, you’re right, that’s a huge difference. I mean it’s spelt differently and uses different letters!” as his sarcastic-chip went into overdrive. Paul was earnestly praising his wife’s eating prowess “She’s very deceptive – she looks thin, but she can really pack it away!” and Caro sat back and claimed all the credit for the Hollandaise, despite having handed over whisking responsibilities “It’s all to do with the Chenin reduction, that’s what made that sauce.”

And so the evening ended at an incredibly civilised hour and a large bagful of Chuckles. And what of the wines in all this you may ask? Well, we didn’t really take votes on individual dishes as we were too busy scoffing them all down, but general consensus was that the Chenin Blanc was a winner with anything spicy, whilst the Shiraz came into its own with the steak and meatballs. Dish of the evening was the Calamari and huge thanks go, as always, to Caro for cooking and hostess-ing, to our lovely guests – Carey, Johan, Sam, Jan and Kevin – and to KWV Wines for giving us such a lovely, relaxed, enjoyable time.

WIN A CASE OF WINE!!!

Yes – I’m talking to you! How easy is it this month? Get hold of a couple of bottles of KWV’s delicious Classic Collection wines and hold your own tapas evening – you can use our recipes or your own favourites. Take pics, tell us how it went and the best one will win a case of wine. C’mon – it doesn’t get any easier than that!! Drop us an email at editor@food24.com with pics or a link to your blog.

Vinatics has been running for just over a year now. During that time we’ve had great wines and a few not-so-great wines, if truth be told. We’ve had perfect pairings and perfect disasters (God that sabayon was hideous), but throughout all the evenings, we’ve been blessed with fantastic guests who have hurled themselves with enthusiasm and sometimes worrying amounts of abandon into the proceedings, and provided us with some classic quotes, hilarious memories and killer hangovers.

Clearly the key to a good dinner party then, is Vinatics which is why I am HUGELY encouraging you all to have a go this month and WIN A CASE OF WINE!! It really is simple – pick a couple of dishes from our menu, buy a couple of KWV’s new Classic Collection wines, then hold a dinner party. Tell us how it went, make it as amusing and/or scurrilous as possible and you could win 6 bottles of wine. Honestly – it’s as easy as that. So give it a go this month.

Why am I giving the competition element of Vinatics so much prominence this month? Well, because quite frankly, there is very little else I am able to say about the dinner party!! We had great guests – Guy Kedian from Holden Manz, Jackie Rabe from Rickety Bridge, Karen and Travis Glanfield from KGB Wines and Anne Myers and daughter Michelle from Food24 blog “I Love Cooking” – plus our beloved editor Sam, back from her European Sausage Tour, whilst the rest of the table was made up of the usual, permanently hungry Food24 crowd. 

Paul and Meagan had fixed the table and Cathy had brought some warm-up wine, but unfortunately she also totally failed to provide any kind of directions for anyone, so by the time most people found the house, we’d drunk it all. So it was straight to the table and immediately onto the first course – the sweet corn chowder.

I must say that even though this isn’t really an elegant, dinner-party dish, it is an AWESOME bowl of soup (I served it to my Book Club the other day because it is filling, economical and tasty. They all loved it.). After some confusion over what we were meant to be doing which, curiously enough, evolved into a discussion of euphemisms for pubic hair, nearly everyone agreed that the Classic Collection Chenin Blanc was an outright winner “It really brings out the coriander in the soup”. The only dissenter in the ranks was Anne who was strongly advocating tequila in the corner “Or frozen vodka.” You go girl!

Onto the second course – goats’ cheese balls rolled in honeyed cashews and served with Caro’s homemade tomato and chilli jam. “I’m a huge goats’ cheese fan!” gushed Caro. “Goats’ cheese and aubergines” added Meagan with feeling. “But mainly aubergines” agreed Paul glumly (with the air on someone who has been fed mostly moussaka for a month). A split vote here with the Chenin still performing out of its skin (“7 stars from me!” says Anne) and lots of people appreciating the ‘smooth’ Pinotage. Paul confessed that he “just ate the food and forgot to taste the wine” but was persuaded to vote Pinotage by a very forceful Karen, whilst Meagan raved about the Chardonnay “nice and rounded.”

Onto the next course which Caro had arbitrarily substituted for the lamb chops – she claimed an overwhelming impulse at the checkout forced her to buy beef shin. Fine with us Caro, and if you all want the recipe for Greek stifado, then click here. Votes on this pairing were pretty evenly split between the three reds – Merlot, Cabernet and Pinotage – and to be truthful, they all tasted pretty darned good.

Here’s Cath being amazing… AGAIN!!

Onwards to the finale – the chocolate and cherry pancakes with Caro proudly announcing that she’d found the perfect chocolate to make them with – dark Aero. This was now my SEVENTH course of food for the day (I’d been out to the Long Table at Haskell for a three-course lunch) and so I was prepared to take a bite and then leave it, but before I knew it, the entire plate was cleared. Whoops. None of the wines were great matches for this dish, but now – as always – we had ceased to care and just enjoyed drinking them all anyway.

So that was Vinatics. And why so few quotes and hilarious anecdotes you may ask? Well they were there, but so was Guy Kedian – and for those who know him, that will be enough said. He has the memory of an autistic 12-year old and the sense of humour of Stephen Fry crossed with Chris Rock on a rude day. He recited verbatim 5 minute chunks of Monty Python, regaled us with scurrilous, alcohol-related, anatomical anecdotes and introduced us to some words and sexual practices which I had no idea were physically possible (descriptions only, I hasten to add). We laughed so hard that we woke the children – of the people living four doors down the road. And once he started, it seemed we couldn’t stop with more shockingly funny stories coming from Jackie, Cath, Cathy, Sam and Paul. Totally unprintable. Absolutely hilarious.

I blame the wine for this level of enjoyment. KWV had given us really surprisingly tasty wines – not expensive, varietally true and very good with food – thanks guys, we appreciated them all. I strongly urge you to give it a go this month and win yourself some wine as well – just hope your dinner party is slightly less badly-behaved than ours!!

It’s big, it’s bad and it just keeps getting better and better every month. Welcome to Vinatics yet again with possibly the most awesome award-winning round-up of wines ever. Thanks to this month’s sponsors – Old Mutual – we were blessed with 6 of the top trophy winners from this year’s Old Mutual Trophy Wine Show. In honour of the international judges (who came from the UK, France and Hong Kong), we chose 2 dishes from each country and decided to cook four. Our guest list was select and exclusive but sadly depleted at the last moment by Tracy Foulkes aka Mrs NoMu who was sick, but husband Paul came to teach us a thing or two. Mostly about Klingon but – I’m getting ahead of myself here!

We had decided that Caro cooking in her own home was far too easy and she needed another challenge. This turned out to be Sam’s oven (the back ring doesn’t work and no-one told Caro), Sam’s potato peeler (which would struggle to cut the eyes off a plastic Mr Potato Head) and Sam’s lack of soy sauce (she loyally has NoMu fonds for Africa, but nary a bottle of Kikkoman’s could we find). Womanfully struggling on, Caro dove straight into the first course as guests Paul, Cathryn Reece (News24.com guru) and fiancé Neil Clarke and Sean Wilson slurped up the Buitenverwachting Husseys Vlei Sauvignon Blanc. Why were they all drinking that one? Because I had told them that despite it being a stunning wine, it probably wasn’t going to go with anything because it was far too young. Arse? Elbow? What the heck do I know anyway?

Well, as it turns out (and not wholly to my surprise), absolutely nothing, with 4 people choosing it as the best match for the veggie phyllo spring rolls. A couple of men opted for the Paul Cluver Chardonnay and there were a few votes for the Jordan Riesling as well as we leapt with alacrity and enthusiasm into the evening’s main topic – Klingon.

Strangely enough, Paul turned out to be some kind of demi-alien and purported to speak this language fluently. Since no-one else ever got beyond ‘Och, if I gie ‘er anymoer, sha’ll blore, Captain’ he could have told us anything (and very possibly did), but he carried if off with a certain flair so we let him get away with it. Indeed, Cathryn emerged as a diehard trekkie (best to know these things now Neil whilst there’s still time to cancel the cake) contending that “You don’t reference Shatner cos you can’t even TOUCH the Shatner. Not on anything at all” So stick that in your swoosh-swosh door and smoke it.

We moved onto the next course of Boeuf Bourguinon which should have been a clear and easy match for the Meerlust Pinot Noir, but in fact divided the panel more than it ought. “I like this one” declared Andreas “but I don’t know what it is.” So that was useful then. The Hillcrest Quarry Merlot gained fractionally more followers than the Meerlust whilst Neil preferred the Thelema Shiraz and Cathryn stayed with her first love – “Trekkies are hot!” Well quite, but the wine dear, the wine??

At this point, I would like to blame the excellence of the wines for the lack of any further coherent notes on my part. I had decided early on in the game that I intended letting the admirable Good fellas take me home safely, and with that decision made, I tucked into the bottles with great gusto and glazed stilton.

And I was not alone – “This cheese has blanked out any rational thought on my behalf” moaned Paul and “There are pictures happening RIGHT NOW in my mouth!” exclaimed Caro in wonderment. “No – it’s more a kind of parting of the seas – that kind of epic explosion” opined Meagan sagely.  “Henry the 8^th was a transvestite!” What? Where did that come from? Sadly, I cannot say.

On to the final course, the apple tarte tatin. Caro had been worrying about this for the past week because – with her Silwood training – a tarte tatin is a serious thing involving much pre-caramelising and other fancy stuff. Not with this recipe – we melted the butter and sugar, sautéed the apples in the pan, then tucked the pastry on top and slapped the whole pan in the oven (memo – make sure you have a stovetop-to-oven pan. Melted plastic handles smell awful).

I would like to declare this recipe the most successful Vinatics dessert we have ever done – never before have I seen guests go back for seconds so quickly. Did it go with the wine?

Well, not really – we had vaguely thought it might manage the Paul Cluver Chardonnay and Cathryn was convinced that it did “I’m a Chardonnay Whore!” (more things for you to know before the big day Neil) but at the end of the day Meagan was batting strenuously on the side of the Thelema Shiraz and Neil was just enjoying himself thoroughly “There ain’t a bottle big enuf sistaaa!!”

So there you go. Another Vinatics dinner of randomness, silliness, Klingon, amazing wines and awesome food. If you want to have a go yourself – obviously suitably dressed in your trekkie outfits – then we’ve got a R500 Cybercellar voucher to give away for the best report. We were very lucky to have fabulous wines this month, but if your budget doesn’t stretch quite as far as those particular wines – then find some better matches to these dishes and tell us all about them! Cook the food, find the perfect wine, take a lot of pics and have fun.

 Or ‘Q’OhPlaahh!’ as Paul would say. Whatever that means.

Congratulations to Laura Ford who took advantage of some horrible wintery weather to cook up a storm for her husband with Roodeberg wines. He must have liked it because he’s now whisked her off to the sunnier climes of Bali but when she gets back, there’ll be a case of Roodeberg waiting for her. Here’s what she had to say:

“The cold weather this weekend was the perfect opportunity for some good red wine and some slow, unrushed, cooking.

My husband and I had a wonderful meal of Mushrooms in Cream (as per the picture above), followed by the Lamb Knuckles (YUMMY!!!) served with creamy mash potatoes, and finished with Dark Chocolate Truffles.

To make the Truffles was a little time consuming – but wow – so worth it.

Definitely back on diet today after all those calories!!!

Thanks for the great recipes.”

Well done Laura and hubby – hope you enjoy the wine.

Runner-up this month was Neill Adamson who sent us some pictures of some of his Sunday lunch. Thanks for cooking Neill, better luck next time!

“A cold, miserable, rainy day in Cape Town was the perfect occasion to hunker down with good friends, a roaring fire, some good red wine and a 7-hr slow-roasted lamb dish.

A great meal idea from Food24 and Vin-atics, prepped by some talented cooks. Yum.

Can’t wait for more awful days like it.”

Want to win R500-worth of Cybercellar vouchers this month? Then pick a couple of recipes, buy some wine and have a go!! All the details you need are here.

Well, Roodeberg says it is all about ‘making memories’ so I think it was rather appropriate of two of our guests to get engaged on the day we invite them to our Vin-atics dinner! Much excitement abounded on Twitter as magazine editor Raphaella Frame and architect Ernst Tolmie announced they were getting hitched – it definitely helped us all get into the swing of things (actually, two bottles of fizz helped us do that) from the word go.

Newly-engageds Raphaella and Ernst in moody contemplative mode.

Gathered at Caro’s house for a calm, peaceful Vin-atics without the water dramas of last month, were Caro and husband Paul, Meagan, our intern-extraordinaire, Raphaella and Ernst, the lady who is known as Mobile Marian (for reasons I have never liked to investigate too closely) from 24.com and hospitality consultant Peter Stewart with partner and guesthouse manager Craig Rorbye. Our beloved editor was being Sick Girl at home once more, but we soldiered on Sam-less with this month’s challenge – how many dishes could we match one wine to?

I had been fairly nervous about this month’s Vin-atics for some time, not really having any ideas how we were going to manage it with just the Roodeberg red to drink. In the event, the wine was spectacularly food friendly and more – we downed a bottle before we even hit the dinner table! Caro had come up with 6 dishes which she thought might make the match and we decided to cook four of them, starting with the Caramalised Onion tart with Blue Cheese and Bacon.

After a slight diversion whilst Caro’s son Louis made some jam tarts, the real things hit the oven and then the plates. Luckily Meagan had photographed them in the kitchen because this was THE most delicious dish and was immediately hoovered up by one and all. It also proved to be a brilliant match for the wine, although Caro was convinced it was the Verlaque Balsamic Honey Drizzle which made all the difference “It picks up a certain sweetness in the wine from the ripe fruit.” The salty, meaty bacon and the salty, creamy blue cheese were an incredible match for the sweet fruit and the soft tannins of the Roodeberg – top pairing of the evening in my opinion!

I am sorry to say that the next dish did not photograph well. Well, it didn’t on my phone anyway prompting me to announce “It looks like a dog’s dinner!” However, one bite of my Mushrooms in Cream on garlic bruschetta and I immediately added “and I shall fight any dog who tries to take even one bite away from me!” God it was good. Caro had oven-baked them with a hint of soy and balsamic and they were rich, meaty, creamy and sublime. However, the cream and balsamic didn’t work with the wine this time, with Peter claiming “I am a total alcoholic, but I will forfeit my wine for this dish cos it really doesn’t go.” A statement he later modified to the rather revoltingly detailed “It’s nice if you drink the wine after you’ve swallowed the food, because then your saliva’s worked on the cream and it all tastes rather better.” Mmm, nice Peter, thanks.

No it’s not Minnie the Moocher, it’s Maz the Masher!

A break ensued at this point whilst cigarettes were smoked, potatoes were mashed and Peter related the tale of his forthcoming UK holiday to yet another victim. Topics of conversation included phone upgrades, potjies and Princess Diana jokes with top quotes coming from Meagan “The little ends on your shoelaces are called Aglets” and Craig “What should I put between my buns?” – I think he was talking about hot dogs, but this line came straight after discussion about a charity strip night at a Waterkant club so I can’t be too sure.

More plates were borne to the table with Caro’s Lamb Knuckles in tomatoes and red wine “I’ve been reducing that sauce for 3 hours today!” she announced proudly. Nestled on a bed of creamy, smooth mashed potato (“The only way I’d ever get my mash like that is if I bought Smash” moaned Craig) this was yet another winning combination. “The Onion tart was a 4, but this is definitely a 6!” declared Peter. “Out of 10?” asked a rather disappointed Caro. “Naw, I’m talking about cricket!” So that’s alright then.

Whaddya think – truffles, rocks or giraffe poo?

By this stage, we’d lost count of how many bottles of Roodeberg had been consumed – we had meant to be restrained and sensible but, as Caro said “Roodeberg is a very chuck-downable wine!” Raphaella concurred “It’s going down like a desperate stripper on Charlie Sheen” as the conversation teetered on the brink of losing itself, luckily rescued by the arrival at the table of Chocolate Truffles looking worryingly reminiscent of giraffe poo – “They’re rustic not hand-rolled.” The truffles may have worked with the wine. Or they may not – frankly, we were all having too much of a good time to stop stuffing our faces and think seriously. As Raphaella said “I’ve got fat eyes!” and so did we all as we polished off the plateful and moved on to Pretty Woman movie songs, Canasta and pub quizzes.

Meagan gets arty.

So another top Vin-atics night had by all. Many thanks Caro for cheffing so beautifully and to all our guests for joining in with gusto. Huge congrats again to Raphaella and Ernst and thanks for sharing your engagement with a bunch of total strangers. And, of course, thanks to Roodeberg for providing so lavishly of their really rather wonderful red “Here’s my intellectual comment on the wine – glug, glug, glug!” from Paul. “It’s definitely the wine that memories are made of – and memories lost as well! Pass the bottle!” So we did – cheers!!

If you want to have a go yourself this month and win 6 fantastic bottles of wine, then pick a couple of dishes, buy a few bottles of Roodeberg and have a dinner party. Take pics and tell us how it went and you could win!! Easy-peasy – go on, give it a go! All details here.

“Vegetarian?” said the team dubiously. In fact, I was possibly the most dubious of us all, but the theme was out there and once we had decided on it, it looked a pretty good challenge. People seem to think that matching vegetarian food to wine was more difficult – funny that, cos all the veggies I know seem to have no problems guzzling down vast amounts of wine with their meals. Anyway, we chose some wines which we thought might be veggie friendly and headed off to Chef Caro’s house in Kenilworth.

Our menu is linked here if you want to have a go yourself and win R500 – more on that later. And if you want to see which delish wines we chose to go with the food, then click here. We were joined by top wine and food bloggers Hennie and Maggie from www.batonage.com and Ishay and husband Jelle from www.foodandthefabulous.com along with a blast from Caro’s past, her friend Roger who trained at Silwood alongside her many moons ago. His friend Vince from the UK, top Food24 intern Meagan and Caro’s husband Paul completed numbers (we gave Sam the night off on account of her dying by inches – missed you hon!).

At first everything seemed all serene at Caro’s house with kids watching Nemo and Meagan floating around languidly setting the table. Then all hell broke loose with a burst water pipe in the garden, a frantic search for the stopcock and a tearful child exhorting his Mom to join him on the trampoline. Paul disappeared down a drain and frightened the life out of all the arriving guests by greeting them lugubriously and invisibly from the depths, Caro disappeared clutching naked babes on their way to a bath whilst I pretended it was my house and serenely served wine on the stoep. Finally, everything calmed down, the first course arrived and the evening began.

Caro had decided to serve the Roasted Red Pepper soup with a divinely crunchy, garlicky crouton on top, but it was the smoked paprika which caused the greatest upsets and divides amongst us all. The smokiness had a fat argument with the Simonsig SMV in particular, causing the oak on the wine to appear harsh. As Maggie says “Smoked paprika is like cumin when it goes OTT – it ends up tasting like a camel’s armpit.” In the end most people settled for the Old Man’s Blend Red from Groote Post with a couple of votes going for the Ridgeback Natural Sweet Viognier and three people loving the Nitida Semillon.

As we waited for the hostess with the most-ess to whip the next culinary masterpiece out of the oven, the talk turned to vegetarian food and how little most of us eat. “My only known veggie dish to date is toast topped with butter, Anchovette, apricot jam and cheese” divulged Maggie – not quite sure how anchovette fits into the veggie category, but since this is the girl who spent most of Tuesday convincing me that bacon counts as a meat-free choice, I thought it best to let that one lie.

Our next course of Roasted Aubergines wrapped around goats cheese on a tomato sauce was jaw-droppingly droolicious. It moved Vince to start declaring that “the smooth chalkiness of the goats cheese builds on the coarse brickiness of the Journey’s End Merlot” – with what result, we never discovered. This dish had most people reaching for the Simonsig SMV with Hennie, Maggie and Meagan all agreeing that it had a good acidity to cut through the richness of the cheese and offset the sweet tomatoes. I felt that the De Wetshof Chardonnay nudged it into second place and Ishay and Jelle agreed, whilst dividing their loyalties between that and the Nitida. Roger followed Vince’s lead saying that he wasn’t “mad about the Merlot, but as a food complement, it really works well here.” A split decision.

As always the conversation was starting to take over the table with Roger divulging scurrilous details of wine icons and their house-buying habits at one end and me waxing far too lyrical down the other end about Billecart-Salmon champagne.

Luckily the next course arrived to distract us both – Gnocchi with Blue Cheese Sauce, Pecans and Walnuts. This was quite simply the best blue cheese sauce I have ever had. Maggie agreed, although the fact that this was the first blue cheese sauce she’d ever had, did rather take the gloss off the compliment. In fact, she chose this moment (whilst busily hoovering up the gnocchi) to tell us that she only ever eats cheddar, so we’d actually done rather well to get her to like the last course too.

This was definitely “the divinest ever blue cheese dish – ever” opined Vince, who then went onto extol the virtues of the Old Man’s Red as a match “You can really smell the smoking jacket of the Old Man in this wine. With a hint of slippers into the bargain!” Elsewhere round the table votes were flooding in for the classic match with blue cheese – the sweetie with 4 votes for the Ridgeback Natural Sweet Viognier. Ishay, Jelle and I were still backing the unwooded Chardonnay from De Wetshof whilst Meagan decided that none of them worked for her – fair enough.

Galloping onto the last course amidst interesting conversational snippets (Roger – “You’ve got to roast a lot of birds……” “There’s no place in the kitchen for a stingy cook” Maggie “I’ve seen the blue cheese light!”), brought a spiced apple crumble with almond topping and crème fraiche to the table. Unsurprisingly the Ridgeback cleaned up in this category, although Caro and Roger had a hankering for the Nitida as well.

So is it a problem matching veggie food and wine? Absolutely not, although we all felt there were more flavour dimensions in veggie food which offer much wider choices for the wines. Did we miss meat? Well, again, no – I had half-wondered about bringing along a packet of bacon just for fun, but we were all of us entirely satisfied with the food, the texture, the balance and found the dishes to be completely delish with no need of added extras. As Hennie said “I would NEVER have thought you could do such amazing dishes without meat.  My idea of vegetarian food previously was either something dominated by potato, mushroom or olive.  So tonight really has been an eye opener.” It certainly was!

And now it’s your turn!

Have we filled you with enthusiasm to try some of these dishes? Why don’t you buy a bottle or two of the wines, take some pics of what you’ve done and we shall give the best Vin-atics report R500-worth of Cybercellar vouchers! Look what Sue did last month – and you don’t even need to dress up in skanky clothes either! Send your links or reports to editor@food24.com before the end of the month to win.