Vinatics

“So let’s go zef!” says Sam Wilson. “We can do a whole re-braai thing and invite lots of cool zef people and it will be great!” I looked at her doubtfully, tendrils of panic arising in my mind like the whiffs of a rotting ferret, but still, she is the boss, and so it came to pass that we chose recipes, bought wines, invited people, turned up at Sam’s house on the HOTTEST DAY IN THE WORLD EVER and I still had no idea what the hell was going on. Sam’s description of zef as ‘white-trash Afrikaan-ness with irony’ was no real help, twitter recommended wines of such awfulness, it made me want to cry and I had a nagging certainty that no-one was going to speak to me the whole evening. Now read on.

Actually, there was one very good thing about this zef braai – since I was claiming ignorance of the whole idea, it meant I could make Sam and Cath do all the prep work  – inviting guests, writing up articles etc etc which was quite cool. They invited deputy editor of Women24, Lili Radloff and her husband, watkykyk blogger Charles, top Food24 blogger Kobus (aka Sardines on Toast) and partner Roelie and cool wine-folk-about-town Anel and Jan from www.spitorswallow.co.za. And a warm welcome to Chef Caro, back from maternity leave, with husband Paul plus the usual motley crew of Cath, Cathy, Sam and Andreas completing the picture.

The thinking behind the re-braai was to prove to last month’s guest, Jan Braai, that a true Afrikaner would never let the braai go out (if you want to read the shocking truth – click here). It seemed appropriate to begin the evening with pre-mixed Klippies and coke which slightly offset the outfits of Lili, Charles, Kobus and Roelie who’d made a special effort for the occasion. At least, I think they had, but it was a little hard to tell. Tucking into the Drostdy-Hof Sauvignon Blanc boxwine, it came as something of a shock to realise that by the time the food starting coming off the braai, we had actually hoovered all three litres and scuppered any chance of wine/food pairing. But, as Sam said, “that’s just how we roll at Food24.” 

So whilst the beer-can chickens were doing their thing on one braai, we started on the most divine braaibroodjies ever created, courtesy of Chef Caro and her tomato chilli jam. We had intended to save some for later, but since the first platter was swept clean before I’d explained what people were meant to do, we had to make more. Clearly being zef involves having an insatiable appetite.

The Hermanuspietersfontein was grabbed by most people first (see?! – I knew it wasn’t just me who was worried about potentially crap wine) and immediately found a lot of supporters for the way its crisp, clean fruit cut through the goats’ cheese. Hot on its heels came the Delheim Heerenwijn with its touch of sweetness to offset the chilli in the jam, with a few votes trickling in for the Lula Afrika Shiraz as Anel claimed “I knew it went well because I had a whole glass – until I downed it.” She’s so sophisticated.

After a potentially blonde moment where Kobus left the gemsbok in Paternoster, he had recovered with aplomb to make beef and pork curried sosaties instead “They’re definitely more zef anyway” he maintained. Still having no real idea of zefness – or not – I was unable to comment, but they certainly were very delish and split the vote in a very real way with four people (whose names I won’t reveal unless you pay me lots of money) going for Tassies as their first choice food and wine match! We’re so classy at Food24. Hot on the heels of the Tassies was the cool Bob’s Your Uncle Red with three votes as Charles lost all credibility as a zef-icon by declaring “Everything goes with the fancy one” and voting for the Hermanuspietersfontein again in third place.

And onto the beer-can chicken challenge. This was the most commented recipe on Food24 last year by a country mile so we thought it deserved something a bit special. We did three versions – Hunters gold with a sage-y/lemony rub, Black Label with a spicy braai rub and – the pièce de resistance – Castle Milk Stout with Nomu’s coffee rub. Apropos of absolutely nothing, I also thought I’d let you know that Chef Caro’s husband proved remarkably adept at shoving cans up chickens’ bums and pretty good at removing them later as well – make of that what you will.

By now, the conversation was beginning to fray around the edges with Charles switching allegiance away from the Hermanuspietersfontein and deciding that his “favourite wine is free wine”, Cath getting somewhat confused with her pairings “I’m having the thing with the er, thing” and Lili preening because she had identified the Lula as being a Shiraz “and that was even before I read the label!” The Bob’s Your Uncle wines were going down an absolute storm when swigged directly from the bottle rather than from a glass, and it didn’t help that somebody chose this point in the evening to introduce their homemade witblits and forced us all to take a shot.

A unanimous decision voted the winning chicken to be the Nomu Coffee/milk stout combo, although that was more to do with the crispness of the skin than anything else. By now, the food was tasting great and all agreed that these wines were doing a pretty good job all round with “I’d enjoy all these wines between 5pm and 7pm” coming from one quarter whilst Lili stoutly defending them all as “Swembad wines – and there’s nothing wrong with that!”

Just time to enjoy the braaied bananas with Bar One and brandy cream – I thought they needed a bit more Bar One in them (hey – who doesn’t?) and regretted my earlier generosity in giving the extra chocolate to Sam’s sons. We ate them with Rietvallei’s Red Muscadel before the reappearance of the witblits prompted the quote of the evening “Okay – who put chicken bones in the shot glasses?”

Another successful evening which frankly surprised most of us with the sheer drinkability of the wines and how much we all enjoyed them. Many thanks to the wineries who supported us, the guests who came and made us laugh and you all for following proceedings on twitter.

PS: If you want to join in the fun we’ve got a R500 Cybercellar voucher (that’s enough for 25 bottles of Tassenberg!!) up for grabs. All you have to do is follow in the footsteps of the lovely Pink Polka Dot – choose a few dishes, buy a couple of the wines, cook food, drink wines, take pictures and you too could WIN!! Congrats to Pink who gets a case of Welmoed Wines as an extra housewarming present for this great write-up. All the info you need about the food and wine here.

Zef is the new cool, so go and tan ‘n tjoppie en drink ‘n doppie!

Hey hey – well done to Dianne Tabberer for getting her act in gear and giving some of our braai dishes a go this month! Check out what she says below and the cool pics!

“I’ve been meaning to have a go at some of these menus but never quite got round to it. So when we had friends round just days after your braai on Food24, I thought ‘right! time to finally do it!’ So I did. I bought the Welmoed Chenin and the Shiraz from Ultra Liquors and then decided to make 2 of the dishes.

The Caponata was unbelievable. I normally serve chips and dips as a starter, but it was a lovely change to have something as tasty as this. I’m not quite sure which wine went best – probably the Shiraz – but the food itself was fabulous and I will definitely be making this again.

I then made the curried sosaties but I changed them a bit. I used just chicken breasts as I’m not keen on lamb sosaties and I used peach chutney instead of apricot – I couldn’t see apricot chutney anywhere so I wonder if that was what was meant to be used? Anyway, it worked PERFECTLY!! Except that I think you should warn people that they are going to end up looking like chain-smokers for the last 25 years after threading that meat on the sticks – the tumeric stains! The meat was amazingly tender and was still tasty even when we had it cold the next day. Again, we thought the Shiraz went better than the Chenin but we loved the Chenin as well.

Thank you so much for such great new recipes. I thoroughly enjoyed making them both and they are definitely things I will attempt again in the future. I am also going to have a go at the chicken wraps as well although I might not have enough time before the end of this month. I’ve attached a few photos above and hope you like them.”

Great pics Dianne and very pleased you enjoyed yourselves. You can still enter this if you like folks and see if you can beat Dianne to the case of wine!! Top blogger Tandy Sinclair has also entered this month so click here for the recipes and send us everything by 1st March in order to win – how easy is that!! Happy braaiing!

Dion and Jan doing ‘man-stuff’ at the braai whilst Erika hovers in the background.

Would you believe it? Practically the hottest day of the year so far, perfect braaiing weather – and it chucks it down! Not an impressive start to the evening at all. But were we fazed? Were we daunted? Absolutely not – we just all pretended to be British and huddled under the umbrella and had a barbecue instead!

Our vin-atics partner this month, Welmoed Wines had sportingly allowed us to do a braai this month instead of a formal dinner party – a cracking decision given the weather and the fact that the Welmoed wines are wonderful easy-drinkers of note (as we discovered!). So the wines inspired a fabulous outdoor braai menu, which in turn inspired some fabulous, outdoor, braaiing foodies to join us for the evening.

Sam – your sofa’s on fire.

 Back for his second visit (I am forgiven for putting eggs in the fish pie!) was braai God, Pete Goffe-Wood with Elize, now a hands-on chef herself at the Kitchen Canteen. He was joined by SA’s other braai legend, Jan Scannell aka Jan Braai, our last minute Twitter begger, Erika Borman and pulls-no-punches tweeter and blogger Dion Martin and wife Kim. The normal roles were apportioned amongst the Food24 crowd – Cathy shops and does the basic prep, Aletta comes up with the ideas and translates them in dishes of fabulousness, Cath takes the pictures and Sam swans around pretending to feel guilty that we’re all working, whilst in reality not giving a toss. The wines were chilled, the undercover braai was lit, the rain lashed down and we’re off.

Earlier on, Jan had slightly disconcerted us by announcing that he would be accompanied by a cameraman who would be filming his every move. Unsure as to whether to believe him, Sam answered the door looking like a 12 yr old in rather fetching shorts, no make-up and a ponytail and was greeted by a camera thrust down her throat. Urgently mainlining the eminently quaffable Welmoed Sparkling Brut to calm her shattered nerves, she was then given a tour of her own kitchen and staff with a running commentary in Afrikaans on what we were up to, before Jan moved outside to shake his head in horror at the unsanitary condition of the braai.

A heavenly bowl of deliciousness.

The first course we had chosen to prepare was the Caponata after Aletta promised us she made an amazing version. She does too, so after burning a few pita breads on the braai, the bowls arrived at the table and we tucked in. The original thought had been to match this to the Sauvignon, but it became rapidly clear that that was never going to happen. Pete was holding forth about sugar and acid levels, Erika chose this moment to tell us that she only drinks red wine and cameraman Stefan decided he’d had enough of work and was hitting the Chardonnay in a big way. Several heated debates and argument later and the votes were split – 3 for the Chardonnay, 3 for the Shiraz and 4 for the Rose.

What’s that saying about fiddling whilst Rome burns? This is more like salsa-ing whilst our braai goes out!

A time-out was taken at this point whilst Pete got cross at how blunt Sam’s knives were “You couldn’t cut a hole in a baby’s head with this knife”, Jan showed us pictures of his babies (that is, his favourite braais in the Karoo and elsewhere) and Cathy got anxious about how low the fire was dropping whilst our two braai gurus were chewing the fat indoors. To be fair, I suppose we should never have expected men to multi-task, and watching the fire, preparing their main courses and filming a convincing double act at the same time proved to be too much for them. By the time they emerged from the kitchen bearing plates of marinaded meat, the fire was a goner.

What??!!! I hear you all cry! The two foremost braai-ers in the country (and by definition, therefore, the world) let the fire die out before the meat was cooked?! Impossible! Yet, tis all too true. There was a thoughtful raised eyebrow or two and then the excuses began. “It’s the wood” “It’s the braai” “It’s the rain” Yeah, yeah, yeah – whateverrrrrr!! Back into the kitchen and under the grill for Jan’s curry sosaties and into a skillet for Pete’s Mexican chicken.

Whilst this was happening, the conversation outside was far-ranging and intellectual. “Why do Americans say ‘erbs’ instead of ‘herbs’?” pondered Cathy. “Generations of in-breeding” interjected Pete knowledgeably from the kitchen. “Dion, don’t finish all the wine before the food is cooked” admonished Kim, whilst Jan announced “I swing both ways” (not sure where that snippet of conversation came from or went to) and “I think that Shiraz goes with everything” said Erika and offered to take her clothes off.

 You take one really big well-aged wombat……

Ravenously starving by now, the three remaining planned dishes for the evening all arrived at the table at once and occasioned a feeding and tasting frenzy. We had chosen to cook Pete’s Mexican Spice Chicken wraps with sweetcorn salsa and Jan’s Curried Lamb Sosaties along with Aletta’s Beetroot with anchovy and herb butter. Pete tried to restore credibility by announcing earnestly “The earthiness of the Rose combines well with the muddiness of the beetroot and the saltiness of the anchovy picks up the fruit in the wine” which was far too erudite for this time of night, although quite a few people were liking the rose more and more with all three dishes. Except for Erika of course “I still think that Shiraz goes with everything” and she had a few followers in that point of view as well.

Food so good, it was well worth the wait.

The conversation had moved on from far-ranging to animated (ie loud) now, but I managed to rein everybody in long enough to give me their votes. The Sosaties proved that Erika had been right on one dish at least with 8 votes for the Shiraz and only a couple left for the Chenin. The Beetroot split the votes again with most going for the Rose closely followed by the Shiraz (mmm – maybe Erika actually had a point?) and the Chicken Wrap picked up plenty of votes for (in my view) one of the nicest, but most underrated wines of the evening, the Chardonnay. As Cath said “I always raise my hand for a Chardonnay” and in this case, she was right.

So thank you Welmoed and all our guests and chefs for a thoroughly enjoyable evening – when Welmoed say their wines are easy-drinking, you’d better believe it because we got through 14 bottles of them with nary a pause. En route we decided to set up a new company (“Braai24.com – tell them to do it or we’re all going to sell our Naspers shares!”), set Sam’s sofa on fire and toasted Jan on it, strenuously attempted to prevent Erika from performing a strip tease and finished up the evening eating Pete’s chocolate, crispy crack – his words, not ours – courtesy of Bevan Newton-Johnson and Tesco’s. Another brilliant Vin-atics evening and a full set of hangovers thoroughly well-deserved. Big thanks to Goodfellas (www.gfellas.co.za) for getting me home safely after a great night out.

PS

This has got to be the EASIEST Vin-atics to have a go at yourself – and you can win a case of Welmoed’s delicious wines as well! Click here to take you to all the recipes and notes on the wines and all you have to do is

1.       Pick a couple of the dishes

2.       Buy a couple of the wines – nearly all of them are in Ultra

3.       Invite a few friends over for a braai

4.       Cook, eat, drink, photograph everything and then send us a mail telling us how it went.

The best braai report sent in before the end of the month wins a case of Welmoed wines! Come on guys – you know you want to!!

There was a distinct nip in the air as we headed off to Hout Bay on Tuesday evening. The night was warm but the wind was chilly, very chilly in fact. Luckily we had BUCKETS of wine to enjoy this month, courtesy of the lovely people at Solms-Delta who really know how to throw a party and who had given us extra bottles to make sure the evening went with a real bang.

We were meeting in Hout Bay because uber-foodie, Jane-Anne Hobbs who had been a guest at the last vin-atics dinner, had expressed her willingness to cook and host for the next one. Hey – ‘why keep a dog and bark yourself’ as the saying goes, so Food Ed Aletta and I relinquished our cooking responsibilities with breathtaking speed and prepared to enjoy a relaxing evening.

We had invited an absolutely stellar cast this month. Apart from Jane-Anne and hubby Philip, we were joined by legendary crayfish-scoffer Brian Berkman and his partner JP, blogger and actress Kate Liquorish, journos and winelovers Sam Woulidge and Diana Procter and the smokin’ hot Sam Linsell from the Smoking Shed. Determined to exploit my parents’ babysitting skills to the full, I had prevailed on Kevin, my husband to join us and, along with stalwarts Aletta and restaurant ed Cath Shone, the scene was set for an awesome night of food and wine.

Arriving at Jane-Anne’s seemed to last a long time which mattered little to the first-comers, happily sat on the stoep necking a bottle of wine. As normal, Cath Shone arrived with a catalogue of accidents and disasters behind her, Aletta arrived with a huge box of mussels dripping as she walked and a spare cake in case her pudding didn’t work, Kate arrived without the chocolate truffles which she assured us she had spent ages making before leaving them behind in the fridge (FAIL!) and Sam L arrived with some of her delicious smoked tuna which she laid over avo puree and toast as an appetiser. It was awesome – check her out at www.smokingshed.com.

At the last minute, we decided that it was too cold on the stoep so we picked up the table and moved inside. The first course of Chilli Snoek Pate arrived on the table, the wine was poured and the evening began.

I have to say that in all the time we have run with Vin-atics, I don’t think we have ever had such a food-friendly set of wines as these from Solms-Delta. The votes were split on every occasion with several people wanting to hedge their bets and vote twice – BUT we don’t let them!! The pate was divine – full of lemony notes with a little heat. Despite Philip strenuously backing up his choice by actual reason (the rest of us were being more vague) ‘I like the citrussy flavours in this wine’, the voting ended thus:

Cape Jazz shiraz – 5 votes, Vastrap – 2 votes, Lekkerwijn – 4 votes and Amalie – 1 vote.

First vote over, everyone realised what they were meant to do and the first of many ‘recreational glasses’ of wine began to be drunk by our chef, who had definitely earned them. To give her a break, Aletta took over the mussels. I had provided an opened bottle of 2003 Leventhorpe Seyval Blanc from Yorkshire, UK for her to cook with – we’d tried it the week previously and decided that cooking with it was the best option. I was slightly dismayed to find that someone had apparently been drinking the stuff (BIG mistake!) and we only had half the bottle left, but Aletta said it was fine as long as it didn’t ruin her Mussels with olives and Gremolata.

Well NOTHING could have ruined those mussels!!! Cape Town people reading this – the best mussels in this city are to be bought from Greg Cooke at Codfather and their retail arm, Seawater Fresh Fish in Camps Bay. Unbelievably good – “Best ever!” declared Sam L “And I’m a mussel slut!” Once again the voting was split with the Cape Jazz surprising us even more.

Cape Jazz – 4 votes, Amalie – 3 votes, Lekkerwijn – 3 votes and Vastrap – 2 votes.

It was time for a break. One end of the table was deep in discussions about dating agencies and speed dating “That would be the ultimate rejection for me” said Sam W sadly “I always make such a lousy first impression, that no-one would ever pick me again!” The other end of the table was pontificating on Oriental supermarkets with Sam L raving over the one in N1 city “But their wasabi peas always make me sneeze!” And in the middle of all this, the Nigella Lawson Fan Club was waxing lyrical about their idol “I like the way she licks her fingers” opined Philip – so there you go.

As the pies were cooking, other members of the family started to drift through the dining room starting with oldest son who emerged from the Bat Cave followed by talented artist daughter, Eleanor and finishing with a furry-tailed flourish by Velvet and Akamaru, the bassets, who rapidly goosed everyone before retiring to the sofa and lying in state.

Personally, I’m not surprised they came out – the smell of that Moroccan Chicken Pie was enough to bring a man back from the dead. In fact, Brian refused to vote on a wine match because “the pie is too fabulous to be distracted by drink!” For the rest of us, the Cape Jazz continued to surprise and delight although there was now dissension in the ranks with Philip coming out of the closet and declaring his hatred of it “It makes me want to rush into the sea with rocks in my pockets” He went for the Hiervandaan as the perfect match “the cumin spice is perfectly matched by the wine.”

Votes for the pie – Hiervandaan – 4 votes, Langarm – 4 votes, Cape Jazz – 1 vote, Amalie – 1 vote, Lekkerwijn – 1 vote.

And now, as always, the evening began to get a little disjointed as the good wine and good food took effect. Down one end of the table, Kate was using her acting skills to tell an hilarious anecdote about honeymoons (which has subsequently been tweeted very annoyingly by those who heard it to the frustration of those of us who didn’t – hrrumph) and recreational glasses of all the wines were now getting consumed at will by everyone. Much to Aletta’s surprise, the Chocolate and Cherry puddings worked a treat – but we still ate the Apple and Polenta Cake anyway! The voting got a bit hazy at this stage although a general consensus was that the expected match of the Cape Jazz Shiraz didn’t actually work – although the wine had gone with everything else (“See?! I told you that pudding would show up the Cape Jazz for the bastard it really is!!” – Philip as he unearthed a bottle of Klein Constantia Sauvignon NLH 2005 from his own store).

But the final comment on the wine comes from Aletta and probably best reflects the feelings of most of the party “If the reds were girls, the Cape Jazz would have to be the slutty one because it went with everything!” Take it as a compliment Solms-Delta – it totally surprised us all, as did just how food friendly all your wines were. A big thank you to Solms for the great selection and a huge thank you to Jane-Anne for all her hard work, to Philip for providing most of the good quotes, to Sam L for her tuna and to Aletta for the mussels. Roll on the next episode of Vin-atics!

If you want to have a go at winning wine, picnics and concert tickets this month, all you have to do is pick a couple of recipes, buy a bottle or two of wine (I’d recommend the Cape Jazz and the Lekkerwijn), eat, drink, take pictures and send them to us. We’re waiting to hear from you…..

Huge congratulations to Marian Adamson who is October’s winner of our Vin-atics competition! We were in awe of her for going the extra mile and making her own pasta! It’s more than we would have done, especially with lots of kids under your feet – so big respect to you girl! Here’s her report:

“Right, so for a start, we decided to have the dinner for lunch, the wine after the food, and guided by my 4 ½ year old son, decided to make our own angel hair pasta – machine and all!!!! I do remember vaguely thinking to myself that it would probably be wiser to have a back up plan – just in case. Thankfully none was needed.

The whole day started out quite unusually – eating on our laps, only starting to cook when our friends arrived, a real team effort – and thank goodness really good friends can look past the chaotic dining room storing the toy library toys.

Our choice for food – the yummy Angel Hair Pasta with bacon and sage [home grown organic sage ;o)] – easy peasy to do – and gave the kids something to focus on while we started on the wine.

The colours and promised flavours of the Strawberry and Baby Spinach salad with goats cheese crostini – with home grown organic mint – was added to the mix – just for fun and because we can!

To end of a wonderfully chaotic and perfectly imperfect afternoon,  the kids provided us with a piano jamming session, our  U2 Slaine Castle concert DVD did its best as supporting act.

Good food, fantastic company, happy [and tired] kids – enough said!!!”

Sounds like a winning combination and Food24 hopes you enjoy your R500 Cybercellar vouchers Marian!!

Alert, alert – there are ringers in the house! There should have been a siren shouting this from the rooftops of Sam’s house last night at our Vin-atics dinner. Normally, we can count on our guests bringing along partners with ‘normal’ jobs – you know, lawyers, perhaps a teacher or some kind of IT person. So who did we get last night?

Well, Neil Moorhouse, winemaker from Zorgvliet brought his equally wine-savvy wife, Mel who works in a wine shop and distribution centre, Mariska  du Preez from Women of Wine came with Pierre Theron who runs De Volkskombuis and other restaurants in Stellenbosch and Jane-Anne Hobbs, uber-blogger and foodie, brought her husband Philip who has clearly drunk for his country for many years, but in an adventurous and remembering kind of way. We were definitely feeling outclassed and the conversation started out at a dangerously high intellectual level.

But of course it didn’t remain there for any great length of time. Thank God – wouldn’t be Vin-atics without a barrage of bad jokes, some scurrilous stories and the odd swear-word. Styling in the kitchen for her first ever Vin-atics was Aletta, our lovely new Food24 food editor, and helping her was educational publisher Kim Smith who thought she was just staying over at Sam’s for the night without realising the implications.

The wines were an eclectic bunch of unusual grape varieties, all of them inexpensive and all of them delicious. For details on the food and wines click here. We started with strawberry and spinach salad with goats’ cheese bruschettas and began, in time-honoured fashion, by burning the bruschettas – of course. This was a gorgeous dish, with the minty/honey dressing providing lovely contrast. Philip immediately began waxing lyrical about the Merwida Barbera – “Earthy and exotic!” and both he and Pierre (who were taking this with the utmost seriousness) thought it was great with the goats’ cheese.

This course actually caused the most division of the night. Voting was as follows: La Capra Viognier – Cathy, Kim, Neil and originally Sam and Jane-Anne as well until Pierre persuaded them otherwise. Neethlingshof Gewurztraminer – Pierre, Sam, Jane-Anne and Aletta, Merwida Barbera – Philip, Kleine Zalze Gamay Noir – Mel and Tierhoek Grenache – Mariska (with Cathy and Pierre hedging a very small side bet).

The wine was kicking in at this stage and everyone decamped outside for a sneaky ciggie. It was only later that I realised that Sam, Kim and Aletta had taken the Flat Roof Manor Pinot Grigio with them which meant that the bottle was severely depleted on its return. “You shouldn’t drink that wine without adult supervision” cautioned Aletta “cos it’s a real ‘let’s get drunk at lunchtime’ wine!” Sam agreed “We should always keep a couple in the desk drawer.” And Kim “I just think the Pinot Grigio goes with everything!”

So how did it go with the angel hair pasta with bacon and sage which was Chef Caro’s suggested match? Not as well as the reds was the answer. The Barbera (“That’s my winner – the one that can’t spell!” – Kim) was loved by Kim, Pierre, Mariska, Neil, Mel and Jane-Anne whilst the Grenache was the favourite of Aletta, Sam and Philip. I was a lone voice crying out for the Pinot Grigio but perhaps that’s because I was one of the few who actually still had some in her glass. Philip was earnestly trying to justify the Grenache “Pasta is a precursor, like foreplay and that makes it go well with the Grenache cos it’s very fruity but not a good f**k!” Nice.

Moving on to the main course of Italian lamb stew with olives and anchovies which had been in the oven on and off for about 6 hours throughout the day. “I’m English so the one thing I am good at is cooking things to death!” I proudly announced, which prompted Kim to reassure me that overcooking isn’t just a Pommie vice but her South African mother-in-law shared it as well. The first time she cooked broccoli for her husband, his comment was “Oh, I never realised it was meant to be green!”

Votes for the main course were as follows: Grenache – Neil, Philip, Jane-Anne and Sam with the Barbera for Mel, Mariska, Aletta, Pierre, Kim and Cathy. There was some debate over this which culminated in Neil saying amiably “I don’t agree with you and I think you’re all talking sh*t!” So that’s that then.

The final course was meant to be the cardamom panna cotta but it had resolutely refused to set despite twice the amount of gelatine. Demonstrating her potential for ‘Ready, Steady Cook!’, Aletta was undeterred and unflappable, simply whipping up a batch of gorgeous whipped cream and yoghurt before topping it with spiced apricots and some toasted almonds. Jane-Anne opined “It wouldn’t be the same without the nuts” as both Kim and Pierre chimed back in unison “Story of my life!” In the event, nothing went terribly well with the dessert, although Neil tried very hard to convince us that the Gamay was a match (“It’s the almonds!” Yeah, right Neil) so instead we just drank, chatted and smoked until the small hours.

So what did we learn? Well, that Italian grape varieties are really cool and we hope to try more of them at the earliest opportunity, that red wines in the fridge are fine if they are Gamays or Grenaches, that Aletta is a great person to have on your side in a tight corner and that food, wine and good company rule!

And now for your turn! All you have to do is pick a couple of the dishes (would love to see if someone can get that panna cotta to work!), buy a couple of the wines, cook, eat, drink, take pictures and send it all to us at editor@food24.com. The best report and pics will win R500 of Cybercellar vouchers – how cool and easy is that? Hurry up – we need everything in by the end of the month. Check out how Janet won in September and do the same!

Wow – didn’t you all enjoy this month’s recipes then? Thanks for all your entries this month – our runner-up was the fabulous dominique of The Flour Child blog – check out her lovely summer lunch here. But the winner was Janet Meyer and friends who are clearly the most challenged set of cooks we’ve come across in a long time! Read about her hilarious dinner party here. Hope you enjoy the wine Janet!

The dinner started out as a tasting of wine for my friend’s wedding. She was given two bottles of the estate’s wines to taste so we thought we would have a dinner along with the wine. Then I saw the September Vin-atics menu and we thought we would combine the two.

It’s necessary to point out at the beginning that neither my friend nor I are the most experienced cooks. I was allocated the Beef Satays with Peanut Sauce. This was made without too much fuss, so in hindsight we should have allocated that to my friend whose cooking skills are bordering on useless.

Despite it being easy, I need to mention that if the recipe says “one onion, sauté until soft” – the question was raised – must I put a whole onion in a pan and let it roll around until it is cooked? I did manage to figure out that I needed to chop it finely first! Yes – we are the perfect fool proof testers. This was proved later when my friend could not figure out how to peel the garlic for the chicken dish. She used the full 5 minutes allocated to prep time just to peel the 6 cloves. The brilliance in the kitchen continued when she didn’t know why the chicken was not browning until she realised she had not put on the stove plate.

Dinner logically started with the satays, which I must say were divine. Only recommendation is to add chilli to the recipe. I had added some chilli to the marinade but I think some more chilli in the peanut sauce would have gone down nicely. We started out with the white wine from the wedding wine estate – the Le Joubert Viognier. I thought this was a lovely wine, although I might be a bit biased as I’m partial to Viogniers at the moment. It was full bodied and quite fruity and went well with the satays.

Main course was served. We did find that the recipe quantities that were specified for 6 people seemed a bit extreme – we ended up only adding 2/3rds of 1.5L of white wine indicated and about half of the cream. Another point to note, which we only picked up late in our food processing, no starch or vegetable dishes were mentioned as accompaniments to the chicken dish. I know that seems obvious but apparently not to us! Anyway, we made basmati rice with mange tout, sugar snaps and baby marrows and we think it went well with the chicken dish. We tried out the second bottle of wedding wine – Le Joubert Brilliante. The table really enjoyed this wine. Not sure how much this is attributable to the amount of wine consumed prior to tasting this one, but definitely noted as a winner, which was a great relief to the bride and groom-to-be.

To make sure we were staying true to the Vin-atics dinner, we then had a bottle of the 2006 Zorgvliet Silver Myn Merlot/Cabernet Franc. It was a pleasant drinking wine, but unfortunately it did not compare favourably to the Le Joubert Brilliante that we had all just enjoyed.

The dessert was an easy choice – the crepés! Fortunately the 3^rd female member of the party kindly took over the dessert making from our host – by this stage, due to quite a bit of wine consumption, we didn’t have much confidence in her abilities to pull off the recipe.  Her replacement did a fantastic job though and the crepés were a hit!.We did, however, modify the recipe somewhat – we left out the orange (not a fan of orange with my chocolate) and put Nutella inside instead.  We did dribble the chocolate sauce over the top and then topped the whole lot off with the crushed crunchies.  

Great report Janet and I hope your friends have a fabulous wedding. And perhaps you could consider buying them a cookbook as a wedding gift. If you want to win a R500 voucher then check out the wines and recipes from this month’s Vin-atics club – report will be up on Monday. 

Things were looking dark and gloomy for Vin-atics on Monday morning. Our beloved editor, Sam Wilson, was gripped with post-spider-bite immune deficiencies and was unable to host our dinner. Into the breach stepped restaurant ed. Cath Shone (chocky33), who has a great house, enough tables and chairs and plenty of cutlery, but lacked some basic essentials such as sufficient plates. And an oven. Luckily Chef Caro was able to fill in the gaps and I struggled through to Fresnaye with my car laden with food for a 4-course dinner for 10 people, 12 bottles of wine, 18 plates and a portable catering oven. And a piece of Gruyère cheese in my handbag for good measure. The evening was on!

Cathy goes through the wines with Johan and Carey

We had invited fabulous guests – recipe-developer and top blogger Carey Boucher-Erasmus (Food24’s beloved Bits of Carey) and her husband Johan , wine farm review site www.spitorswallow.co.za ‘s Anel Grobler and Jan Laubscher and Paul Galatis from larney, online kitchenware suppliers, www.yuppiechef.co.za . Paul added in a couple of friends from Durban – Laura  Rice who is a PhD student and part-time chef and Cameron Dunstan-Smith, a lawyer – and Cath’s housemate, Nicole Bester from www.theimaginarium.co.za  was press-ganged into service as Cathy struggled with the oven and Cath struggled with the candles.

We had decided to treat ourselves to our own choice of wines this month which gave us lots of scope for something interesting. All the wines we chose were from Ultra Liquors and all were around the R50 mark or less, proving you get amazing quality at this price level.

Full details of the wines are linked here.

We were cooking four dishes from Chef Caro’s yummy menu – first course up was the Beef Satays with Peanut Sauce.

These caused some confusion – not least with Carey who was convinced they were chicken (it was dark I suppose!) – because we had expected them to go with Neil Moorhouse’s lovely Zorgvliet Argentum red blend, but they didn’t. Recovering ground rapidly, Carey opined that it was because the creamy peanut sauce was the dominant flavour and not the meat. The Van Loveren Reserve Chardonnay found friends instantly and then, coming up on the rails (and rather surprisingly), the Boland Cellars Cappupinoccinotage also impressed.

Results – 6 for the Chardonnay and 4 for the choc/coff Pinotage.

“We’re all about the sauce tonight” declared Cath and it certainly looked as if this was going to be the case. She then proceeded to drive everyone to drink by cracking her ‘Beer can sandwich’ joke, and following it up with a hilarious ice bucket story from her time in the UK, as Cathy anxiously watched the oven to see what the Double-baked Gruyere Souffles were going to do.

First bake                                              Double-baked

These had been lovingly baked for the first time by Chef Caro, and I hereby take back everything  derogatory I might have said about her sabayon or aubergine pate – these were the food of the gods. Topped with a creamy wholegrain mustard sauce (of which there was, of course, extra on the table) these were wobbly and wonderful. This was the easiest match of the evening and to be honest, one of the best matches we have had since Vin-atics began, with nearly everyone going for the apple-y, unwooded Graham Beck Game Reserve Chenin Blanc. Interestingly enough, several people had the Nederburg Rhine Riesling as their second choice whereas Cameron and Cathy thought it was a revolting combination – no accounting for tastes!

Results – 8 votes for the Graham Beck Chenin, 2 for the Flagstone Noon Gun.

By this stage, the evening was settling into a nice rhythm– incredibly we were all still outside enjoying the balmy night air. As we waited for the Chicken in White Wine, there was a tad more drinking than tasting going on and it was noticeable that the bottles with the least in were the Zorgvliet Argentum, the Flagstone Noon Gun and the Graham Beck Chenin.

Finally the chicken arrived at the table – accompanied, as always, by yet more sauce. This was the most contentious match of the evening with several people being very surprised at the wines they preferred – both Jan and Carey were amazed at the Nederburg Riesling and how well it went with food, whilst Laura was gobsmacked by how much she was enjoying the Zorgvliet.

Final scores on the doors – 3 votes each for the Flagstone Noon Gun and the Nederburg Riesling and 4 votes for the Zorgvliet.

And finally – onto the most exciting part of the evening. Following last month’s iPhone Karaoke, we were inspired to introduce an entertainment angle to our Vin-atics dinners – 30 Seconds. Here are some of our better moments:

Nicole – ‘Am I on this team?’

Paul – ‘Where you eat pizza’ (real answer – Italy) Anel – ‘Pizza Hut’

Nicole – ‘Big panties! Big panties!’ (any ideas?)

Laura – ‘The person that Catholics like – the chick. You know – the one who never had sex.’ (Mmm, that’d be the Virgin Mary would it?)

Anel – ‘Some Greek guy – was he in Fiddler on the Roof?’ (answer – Indianapolis!)

Johan – “South African singer with hair like mine” – Cath – “Kurt Darren!” (answer – Danny K)

Cathy, Jan, Anel, Nicole, Paul, Cameron (hidden), Lauren and Carey – The Dream Team

The final course of Baked Apples with walnuts, honey, raisins and cinnamon was introduced before the game had gone too far and proved to be a light and sweet end to the meal with most votes going to the off-dry Nederburg Riesling although Carey and Johan both preferred the choc/coff Cappupinoccinotage.  A couple of final rounds of 30 Seconds before a über-combination of Cath and Cathy scored a whopping great 7 points to come from behind and win the game – cheers, cheers.

Thanks to all our guests who were awesome, to our hostesses, Cath and Nicole and to all who were tweeting as we were eating – definitely one of the most fun Vin-atics so far.

WE WANT TO GIVE YOU R500!!!!

It truly, truly doesn’t get any easier than this month’s selection of food and drink. All we want you to do is get hold of a bottle or two of our Vin-atics wines, try out a couple of the recipes with some friends, take pics and send them to us and we will give a R500 Cybercellar voucher to the party with the most pizz-azz! Come on – you know you want to! Send us your pics to editor@food24.com or post them on your blog and send us the link.

And if you think you can take on the Caths at 30 Seconds and want to come to our next Vin-atics diner, drop us a line and state your case!

What a star girl this is! Okay, it may help you to get hold of older vintages of wines if you actually work at a wine farm anyway (she’s marketing manager at Steenberg) but still – big up to Anetha for buying the La Motte Shirazes, trying out a couple of dishes and then taking pics of the evening for us all to enjoy.

Here’s what she said about her evening: 

Thanks for last night – it looked like you guys had a ball as well!!

Prepping the pork and aubergines the day before

We absolutely loved it! Unfortunately I did not take any pics of the guests, as it changed completely, (I had invited Brad Ball, the chef from Bistro 1682 and his wife but sadly he was sick) but we ate and drank our hearts out! Just to mention that Helene Rabe, marketing & Sales Manager at Hartenberg, and Lida van Heerden, Cellar door manager at Steenberg, were there with me on the night.

Ready and raring to go!

(Mmmm – Anetha’s terrine looks better than mine!! – Cathy)

We thought the 2008 Shiraz worked best with the Aubergine pate, the terrine brought the best out in the Grenache blend, and the star of the evening around our table was definitely the 2003 with the Rib-eye steak and Green peppercorn sauce.  Delicious evening!  

Wine, women and song. That was clearly the theme of last night’s Vin-atics dinner with La Motte wines. Fortunately for Claremont and the surrounding areas, I missed out on the ‘greatest invention since Cointreau shooters’ – iPhone Karaoke – by leaving early. Won’t be making that mistake again as it appears I missed a rattling good last hour – but more from Sam and Cath on that later.

I must say I was particularly excited about this month’s Vin-atics. La Motte had sent us 4 vintages of their straight Shiraz (2003, 2005, 2006, 2008) and two blends (Shiraz/Viognier and Shiraz Grenache, both 2007). We’ve never had a vertical tasting before were quite interested to see if we could all tell the difference between the 6 wines (click here for details on the wines). And did we? Read on…

Paul and Cathy kick off the tasting

Guests for the evening were Paul and Tracy from NoMu (@NoMUChirps) and Simon Williamson (writer for GoTravel24.com @simonwillo) and partner Mike McClelland. Simon was one of the first Vin-atics guests way back at the beginning of the year (click here to read about it), but claimed he was more relaxed this time as he realised we didn’t care that he knows nothing about wine! Restaurant ed Cath arrived accompanied by a scruffy mongrel which she found running around the main road. Newly-christened ‘La Mutt’, it joined Sam’s two dogs in the back garden and added a canine dimension to the evening. And so the scene was set.

Tracy getting right into the swing of things

We decided to serve two dishes together as starters as they were both cold and went with bread. Cooking for chefs is always intimidating but frankly, on this occasion, we were delighted that Tracy Foulkes was joining us as the Aubergine Paté had gone horribly wrong. ‘Mmm – not sure about the mascarpone’ mused Tracy as she kindly grated lemon rind and chopped up parsley in an attempt to salvage something from the suspicious pile of baby vomit lurking in the bowl. I am sorry to say that the verdict was unanimous on this dish. Not good.

The Pork, Pistachio and Apricot Terrine, on the other hand was an absolute triumph as was the onion marmalade whipped up that afternoon by Cathy (preen, preen). Admittedly, after a glass or two, it did get re-named ‘The Latrine Terrine’ but I’m sure that was just wordplay. At least I think so. The terrine didn’t work with the little gherkins or the mustard, but general consensus was that the dish was a good match for Shiraz.

Terrine

And now we come to our first problem – we achieved absolutely no consensus whatsoever as to exactly which one. Every wine had at least one backer with each dish, proving perhaps that our palates are just not that refined at all! Or, that the wines were all so good that they could make even the dodgiest of patés taste palatable. Either way, there were no votes here this evening, but by the end of the night, everyone had settled on their favourite – AS YOU WILL SEE!!

Asian Duck Salad

During the delay to cook the Asian Duck Salad, some severe tweeting took place. ‘I’m twalking to my twollerers’ declared Paul, clearly several glasses to the good at this point. ‘What’s your twitter address?’ enquired Simon, who then totally misheard the answer and spent several minutes copying in ‘No more chips’ onto his tweets instead of ‘NoMUChirps’.

The Asian Duck Salad was good – duck could have been a little crispier and the orange segments were a little overpowering – and once again, we all had a favourite Shiraz (for what it’s worth, mine was the 2006 Shiraz which showed lovely black fruit and peppery spice).  And then the final course of Lamb Chops with Black Cherry and Mint sauce. This was a great dish, the lamb was tender and juicy and the sauce really went well with it. Winner here for me was the 2007 Shiraz/Grenache which has just a tweak of eucalyptus which was picked up by the sauce, but once again, the votes were completely spread out.

Lamb chops

So before I hand over to someone else who can report back on the final act of the evening, we did try and work out which wine was peoples’ favourite. These are some of the comments:

‘The 2008 caused me to burst into song!’ spouted Mike following his rendition of ‘A Whole New World’.

‘I like this one because it said decant on the label. So I did – into my glass!’ was Tracy’s vote for the Shiraz/Viognier.

‘I like the Shiraz/Grenache’ decided Andreas. ‘Why, erm, I dunno. It just tastes nice.’

‘The 2006 was swashbuckling’ declared Simon.

‘I thought the two thowand and thix was ravithing.’ agreed Paul, clearly even MORE glasses of wine to the good now.

But the final word goes to Mike again – ‘It reminded me of Tolstoy – long, deep, dark and dusky and Helen Mirren had sex with it!’ … and I’m not sure I can improve on that.

And that’s about it from me. I’m waiting to get an update from Food24 reader, Anetha, who was having a parallel Vin-atics party at the same time – watch this space to see how she got on. If you also want to grab a few friends, buy a bottle or two of La Motte wines and cook a few of these recipes – then you’ve got until the end of the month to do so and send your pics and write-up to editor@food24.com. Best entry will win a case of stunning La Motte Shirazes worth almost R1,000!

And now over to the iPhone Karaoke Queens…..

Well all we really can say is that a picture (or 2 or 3) speaks a thousand words… so here we go… for your entertainment…

and I think this one sums it ALL up nicely

Personally we think iPhone karaoke is the next BIG thing…