And behind the scenes….after…

5 September 201412 June 2021 ~ Fiona ~ Leave a comment

I have a love-hate relationship with trade shows and festivals. I have, in my time, been on both sides of the table – stall holder, exhibitor and visitor. I have also organised a number of conferences, so I have a good idea of what goes into the organisation of fairly large events: none of it is very glamorous; it is always hard work. I must be a glutton for punishment, because this weekend was McGregor’s equivalent of a food and wine festival with a few other things thrown in for good measure. We (because my wonderful, long suffering husband goes way above and beyond in support of my crazy notions – even though he doesn’t always agree…) were there. Preparations involved a visit to a town 45 minutes away to get bits and bobs, as well as to the the town in which we usually shop, to order what we needed. Our offering was Boerewors rolls with onion marmalade, butternut and ginger soup as well as chicken liver paté – all home made.

For the uninitiated, Boerewors (literal translation “farmers’ sausage) is a traditional sausage which can be compared with Chorizo or Bratwurst, except that it is usually made with beef. It was first made by the trek boers and is always spiced – the dominant one being dried coriander. Tom, in his time as a rancher, made his own, and every butcher worth his salt has his own recipe and secret ingredients. For this occasion we chose a Kudu (venison) wors.

So, after three days’ preparation, two of which were in the kitchen, peeling and chopping onions and butternut to make three kilograms of onion marmalade, 15 litres of butternut soup and 2,5 kilograms of chicken liver paté , we set off on Saturday morning at what seems, for me, an ungodly hour.

All of that said, there is a whole lot that goes on behind the scenes, that outsiders don’t get to experience. I’ve had tremendous fun at some of the events I’ve participated in, and this weekend was no different. We worked hard, and we played hard. Harder, on both counts than we had planned! Originally, we were not to have worked for two days and had booked for one of the evening functions, which we knew would be an “opskop” (a party with lots of loud music, laughter and dancing)… As we were shutting up shop, we were persuaded to return on Sunday – and we had sufficient stock to be able to do so.

Off we went to our evening “do”, with all sorts of good intentions… Good company, lovely wine and food and, best of all, toe-tapping music and we eventually turned off the light in the wee hours of Sunday morning, knowing we had to be set up and “smoking” by ten o’clock – just a few hours away. And no, I don’t have photographs of the evening, but I do have a picture of the inside of the tent, taken from our stall, before that day really began. I was not nearly as bright eyed and bushy tailed as on Saturday!

Although none of us enjoy days that are too quiet, it does give the stall holders time to talk to each other. Virtually everyone who comes to these festivals, either as participants or visitors, has an appreciation of artisan products, and much is often complementary or we have much in common. Conversations about business, products and how they might work together are invaluable.

Miss L J Hall produces the most wonderful range of Worcester Sauces – made in Worcester, South Africa – one of which we have used for years. She told me that her curried Worcester Sauce is a wonderful accompaniment to butternut soup and promptly gave a complimentary bottle. Understanding that there is always a cost, the least I could do, was give her a chicken liver paté. Actually, much sharing and bartering goes on at festivals – a boerewors roll for wonderful wine from Lord’s, butternut soup for wonderful dried olives from Voor Den Berg, pineapples from Bathurst (not far from the town where I grew up), not to mention being able to buy the most wonderful organic cheeses, also from the Eastern Cape.

And then it’s all over – the good-byes, the see-you-next-times, the travel-safelys. The tent is broken down and soon the grass patch next to the Church looks much as though the festival had never happened.

This is when the locals and the die-hards kick of their shoes and relax. And so it was on Sunday. Two benches were pushed together and we all gathered around the table. What followed was wonderful camaraderie, conversation and gales of laughter that continued well after the stalls had been packed up and the “gates” closed.

Dusk arrived and with it, the cool of early spring, necessitating a move under cover, so the gathering adjourned and moved across the road to the Overdraught Pub at the McGregor Country House ………..

Anyone for eggs?

25 August 2014 ~ Fiona ~ Leave a comment

I have always loved eggs. As a little girl, I loved eating Dad’s scrambled eggs; of course I had had my own, but they were much nicer when I perched on his knee, eating them off his plate. He loved his eggs on buttery toast and topped with a good sprinkling of freshly ground black pepper. Another “egg” memory associated with Dad, and which I’ve mentioned before, is my (actually Dad….) bidding for the winning egg and succeeding, at the Gonubie Agricultural Show. I guess those eggs must have been quite expensive in the grand scheme of things. Why was I besotted with those particular eggs? I have no idea, except that they were generally a beautiful white, not the brown we are used to, now. And always double yolkers.

Eggs feature quite a bit on our menu; fortunately, we both could eat them for breakfast, lunch and supper! There was a time when an egg-rich diet was considered potentially dangerous. Not so, nowadays, and for two key reasons, it seems: they don’t contain “bad” cholesterol, and it would appear that there are now even questions about whether cholesterol is the consequence of too much unsaturated fat. Adding fuel to this fire is the move to a low carbohydrate, high-fat diet – people are Banting bonkers at the moment. I’m not knocking it as I have been leaning in that general direction for a while…

Eggs are an essential ingredient in many things we eat, often without realising it, for example mayonnaise, cakes and cookies, rich pastries and of course, in custards, including the savoury custard in a quiche. My home made pasta is egg-rich. So, we eat eggs, often, and not just for breakfast.

Breakfast

Over the weekend, have sort of a ritual. I loathe early mornings and am virtually non-functional, so what needs to be done must be done in “auto pilot”. On a Saturday, because there is no alarm, things are a little more leisurely, but we still need to be at the McGregor pop-up market, and set up by nine o’clock, so our day begins without breakfast.After the market, we get home and unpack the bakkie (also known, depending on where you live, as a pick-up or ute), and Tom does breakfast: soft boiled eggs, toast and coffee. He’s a real egg-boiling pro, and if the batch of eggs contains a speckled one – it’s always mine! The speckled egg is another throwback to my childhood and Alison Uttley’s wonderful stories about Grey Rabbit and Speckeld Hen; stories that my granny read to us when she visited South Africa in 1969 into 1970. A “speckeldy” egg always gets me clucking with childlike delight!

Sunday is a whole different ball game; breakfast is the full catastrophe! Fried egg, beautiful, homemade bacon, fried tomato, mushroom, brinjal, potato… And, needless to say, toast or croissant, and coffee. We love our Sunday brunch which, weather permitting, we usually eat on our lovely, sunny veranda.

Lunch

So, if that was breakfast, what about lunch, you ask. Well, ever since I was a tot, a favourite sandwich was egg mayonnaise – it still is. I even enjoyed the ones we got at boarding school! There can be few things more delicious than lovely fresh bread, hard boiled egg, grated and mixed with home made mayonnaise, seasoned with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Jazz that up with some fresh parsley, a lettuce leaf and some sliced tomato, and you have a feast!

But you don’t have to stop there: firm, but not quite hard-boiled eggs (so that the yolk is not quite cooked and a lovely rich, orange colour), added to a green salad are delicious, on a hot summer’s day.

On a cooler day, here’s a thought: poached eggs on freshly picked spinach, wilted, with tomatoes, topped with a dollop of cottage cheese, grilled. Fresh fennel goes well with all of these components, so I use it both as a garnish and as an element in the meal – with or without lovely crusty bread.About poaching eggs: make sure that your eggs are as fresh as possible, and add a little vinegar to the water when you cook them. Once they’re cooked to your taste, remove them with a slotted spoon and place them on a cloth (not paper towel – it sticks to the egg and is hard to get off). Allow them to drain for a little while – there is nothing worse than a poached egg that deposits puddles of water over your plate!

Supper

A regular supper, one night during the week, has egg as the main protein, in one form or another: an omelette, a Spanish Omelette, a frittata, or a quiche, accompanied by a garden salad. A two-egg omelette, with a filling of your choice, which includes cheese, is a really filling and easy meal.If you’re nervous about folding an omelette, and other than practice, my technique is to make sure that I use a pan that is the right size, and I don’t believe anything is non-stick, so I always add a knob of butter and olive oil. Don’t overheat the pan…. Once the eggs are in the pan, don’t fiddle with them until you see that the edges are cooking. Then, with a small egg lifter, draw a little egg towards the centre and allow the runny egg to flow out to the edge. Once the egg is mostly cooked, add your filling – on one side and then gently lift the other over it.

Another tip about folding omelettes over their fillings: make sure that you have the pan handle at nine o’clock. Put the filling on the same side, between twelve and six o’clock. Then you can comfortably hold the pan and gently lift the other side of the omelette over the filling, and then slide it onto a warm plate. If you’re left handed, do it the other way round, i.e. have the handle at three o’clock, etc…

Have a look at another supper that includes eggs, cooked in a tomato sauce….

Eating to live and living to eat?

17 July 2014 ~ Fiona ~ Leave a comment

I enjoy preparing and eating food. I lost my sweet tooth a long time ago, although I do enjoy the odd dessert from time to time. My preference is for uncomplicated meals which, in old fashioned language, would have been known as “balanced”. Although not vegetarian, I prefer not to eat meat every day, eating quite a few vegetarian meals – often with eggs and cheese.

Over the last few weeks I have heard and read much about converts to the Banting diet, and similarly also heard what the detractors are saying about it. Also, over the past few months, I have made certain choices about my own eating habits: in mid-January, I decided to try to do without bread and potatoes. During the week.

I know from previous efforts at diets that they are deadly: for personal harmony and for the weekly menu, particularly if it’s not just me that’s to be considered. So, I decided that those were the only two things that I would change – and only for me. I continued having my evening tipple and cooking dinner in exactly the same way as I always had. Lunches, for me, are salads which include either lots of cheese or cold chicken and, sometimes quiche or soup (there is always a protein, and with most tasty protein, there is fat). As time has progressed, I have found myself avoiding other starches, particularly rice and commercial pasta. I make my own pasta, and as I’ve mentioned before, that has had an impact on the quantity we eat per serving, so I’m still eating that. Also, when we entertain, I still make and keep our guests company with dessert, and the menu choices are not influenced by my particular proclivities.

Since I’ve been thinking consciously about these choices, and as more and more people are Banting, I have realised that for some, their conversion to a particular eating regime has become an all or nothing affair. Similarly, I am astounded, respect but fail to understand, people who go on diets that make them feel as though they are living in hell. Each to their own.

So, my “almost-no-carb-journey” has been a relatively easy one because I’ve not cut it completely. I have taken on board, with great relief, that full cream milk and butter are ok. (Tom has never approved of low fat anything…) I have long rejected margarine because of the way it was made, and what it consists of (and it tastes horrid). A few years ago, on examining the contents of yoghurt, come to the conclusion that Greek yoghurt was better for one than the low fat options that are full of sugar and starch stabilisers!

And then, there’s more: Having stuck to my choices, I no longer get hungry and consequently am not eating as much. I am happy to stop eating when I am satisfied. I thought that I would find it difficult to stick to this when I was travelling; it hasn’t been. It’s easy to “lose the chips” and order a burger without the bun.

And what has all of this meant in terms of my own well-being? I have certainly lost weight – my friends and my clothes are telling me so. I don’t have a scale, so I couldn’t tell you how much. I feel better in myself and have more energy. And best of all, because I do still get to enjoy a slice of toast and Bovril or pizza, and my glass(es) of wine, I really don’t miss the bread and potato.

So, I do eat to live, and I live to (cook and) eat!

Waste not, want not – I

10 July 2014 ~ Fiona ~ 7 Comments

Both my parents grew up in the UK in the Second World War: Mum in Oxford, where her mother took in evacuees and then later also billeted soldiers. Dad grew up in Glasgow, and with his sister, Belle, evacuated to a poultry farm . Consequently, we grew up constantly hearing, “waste not, want not”. Little was thrown away.

So, last Friday, I was making quiches. One of the fillings was broccoli and blue cheese. Having cut off the florets, I was left with this beautiful, thick broccoli stem.

Too good to put into the compost bucket, I thought; and it was a cold, cold day.

Soup is always a good lunch during winter, and a vegetable soup relatively quick to make. So, why not turn the stem into broccoli soup?

Here’s what I did: chopped an onion and sautéd it in a little butter, and then added about a table spoon of flour (you want the soup to have a bit of body). Covered the chopped stalk with vegetable stock and allowed it to boil. Simmer until the vegetables are soft; liquidise and then add some cheese (because I had some, I used Camembert) and liquidise again to ensure the cheese is well distributed. Re-heat and serve with sprinkling of freshly grated nutmeg.

Tips:

I use Ina Paarman’s vegetable stock powder – it’s a useful standby, and is neither too salty, nor has too many preservatives
Save some of the broccoli florets – steam them and add them to the soup when you serve it.
Of course, you can also add a swirl of cream or a dollop of Greek yoghurt to serve…