Confession of a CDWM addict
Come Dine With Me on BBC Lifestyle. I am completely hooked. It is hilarious, embarrassing, fly-on-the-wall reality TV that has captured me. In every show four strangers hold dinner parties for each other and score each other’s attempts in a competition for a money prize. It’s often the most unlikely combinations of people who get bitchy, lovey dovey, rude, pompous, sycophantic, and completely ridiculous, particularly in their own kitchens. I love seeing their menus and what they try to prepare. I love seeing their houses. I love noticing their class, manners, and how drunk they get; by the time they have to score they are often beyond able to speak! The best part is the guy who does the voice overs; he is ridiculous and brilliant. So, don’t phone me on weekdays at 1830, I’ll be watching Come Dine With Me.
Salmon, beetroot daze
I’m an ok cook; I do some things better than others. I make a great lemon tart (no cooking involved), good biscuits, great soups (just like my dad used to) and the rest is hit or miss. But today I was starving for proper healthy stuff and, even if I say so myself, I cooked up two winners. Here are the recipes.
Salmon Trout on Green Beans
Steam up some green beans, but keep them crunchy. Cut salmon into big, bite size chunks and rub with olive oil on both sides. Then make a sauce with soya sauce, lemon juice, sliced fresh ginger, sliced fresh red chillies, a teeny blob of honey, salt and pepper. Make a non-stick pan very, very hot and sear off the fish, skin side down for 15 seconds and then flip for about 5 secs. Take the pan off the heat and throw the sauce over the fish. Then leave it to bubble while you plate up the beans and then put the chunks of fish on top. Amazing.
Roast Beetroot Salad
Supper was roast beetroot salad and it was delish. Top and tail (and halve and quarter the big ones) a bag of raw beetroot. Smash up some coriander seeds, cumin seeds, dried red chillies, salt and pepper in a pestle and mortar. Toss in with your beetroot and about a tablespoon of olive oil and a squirt of balsamic vinegar. Add a sprig of rosemary and some fresh oregano and throw onto a baking tray. Bung in the oven for about half an hour at 180 degrees. Done. When they’re cool, toss green leaves, I love Woolies Italian salad mix, some feta and left over green beans and the beetroot together. Then drizzle with a teeny drop of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Unbelievable. And healthy.
Vaudevi…wait a minute!
I was chatting to my friend today and he asked me what I thought about this new supper theatre thing that has opened up in Cape Town called Vaudeville, and my response was so clear that my brain said, remember everything and blog about it. So here I am.
I first became aware of it last week when I got back from my trip and I saw that a few of my friends had joined the Vaudeville facebook page, so I went to have a virtual look see.
And is it just me who thinks that the fabulous Richard’s Madame Zingara’s Theatre of Dreams has been ripped off and copied, even down to the emcee being the same Irit Noble?
I need to say at the outset that I am not a great fan of supper theatre. I hate having to perform while people eat, and I struggle to eat while people perform, but I loved Madame Zingara’s. I loved the spiegeltent, the costumes and even the circus acts, which had nothing to do with theatre and everything to to with theatricality. I loved the dressed up table staff, I loved the ‘other world’ that was created and I loved the detail of everything, including the menu.
I dunno. Seems like Vaudeville is pretty much a direct rip-off, with circus acts, a three course meal, and the same over the top styling, only in a building and not in a tent. Has anyone spent the R350 for a normal ticket (the VIP ones cost R395) and gone to check it out? I’d love to hear about it.
Recycling
I really, really want to start recycling properly. I get depressed every time I remove anything organic (even organic, organic) from a cellophane or plastic wrapper, in a plastic punnet, with a sticky label and a cardboard outside label. Woolies are the worst for over packaging their stuff! I am definitely going to buy a worm farm for the wet stuff, but it’s all the other recyclables I need a solution for.
I make a half-hearted attempt to take our glass to the school drop-off up the road, and I usually leave our newspapers outside for the pre-garbage collectors, who I think get some money for paper and cardboard. But that’s it.
So when I heard about my friend’s whole block getting recycle aware I decided to contact Think Twice. Unfortunately, they only do the Atlantic Seaboard. And I am back where I started. I can’t find someone to come and fetch my stuff, nor somewhere to drop everything off. This place does glass; that place does paper, still looking for plastic, cans, etc.
Is anyone managing this better than me in my neck of the woods, Woodstock?
Great advertising
If you haven’t already, pick yourself up a hard copy of this week’s Mail and Guardian. On the page that Shaun De Waal reviews District 9 there is a fabulous ad for The Flamingo restaurant at The Troyville Hotel in Jozi. I love advertising like that; totally opportunistic, cheeky, hilarious and creative. And I’ll remember it for a while.
Don’t try this at home
I am still suffering and it’s already Monday morning. I made margaritas on Saturday night and we had a delish Kabeljou braai, but I just can’t do alcohol like I used to and I am still suffering. Yesterday I stayed on the couch. It was so hot I had to peel myself off to get stuff to drink and eat. Eish. I am full of resolve this morning. I will eat healthily and lose weight. I will go to gym every day. Eish.
PS. For some reason snoek braai is one of the reasons visitors come to this blog, so I thought I should write down what we did with the Kabeljou. I got a big fish at the fish shop and they butterflied it but took the head off (kids were coming over). Then all I did was get the Woolies lemon and herb marinade and slather the fish in it for a couple of hours before Big Friendly stuck it on not too hot coals.The flavour of the fish is very subtle (I like it more than Yellowtail) and the marinade is light and delicious.
Braaiing in the rain
Cousin Alan has been in town and we promised him our famous Snoek braai but only managed to get it together yesterday; cousin Alan is leaving today. Of course, big Friendly and I are not allowed to even say the B(raai) word, because every time we suggest it the Cape wind picks up and it becomes impossible to execute. Yesterday it went a step further, and it literally bucketed down. But we were onward and forward regardless, and the results were wolfed down with glee. But here is Big Friendly doing a McGyver with braai and brolly. 
The Best Snoek Braai ever
On Saturday I made a last minute dash to the fish shop and most of the fancy stuff was already sold out. Big Friendly is generally not a fan of bony fish, but it was a choice of Blue Nose, which was huge and very dense and very expensive, or Snoek. My jaw almost fell off when the fish was weighed; a whole filleted Snoek cost less than R20. So it was back home to get Big Friendly to dump the charcoal on the braai. I made the number one, best, most delicious marinade for that Snoek and here is the recipe.
Snoek marinade for the Braai
Take a third of a tin of Koo smooth apricot jam and mix in a couple of cloves of crushed garlic, a table spoon of best olive oil, a big splash of Kikoman soya sauce, and the juice of one lemon. Put a slash of Tabasco in and season with salt and pepper. Smear all over the fish and leave in the fridge until the fire is ready. Then braai until the sauce gets brown and sticky and bubbly. That is it. The best.
Hot
I love chillies. I love hot food. I firmly believe that anything can be improved with a fresh chilli, chilli paste, dried chilli flakes or even Tabasco. I almost died and went to heaven after eating a Lindt limited edition Dark Chocolate with Chilli. I always have some kind of chilli thing in my fridge and at various stages I have even grown my own. My shvester-in-law once gave me a bottle of pickled bird’s eye chillies that destroyed your stomach lining.
At the moment Woolies are selling a little pack of mixed chillies and there is a helpful chart on the back that tells you the heat of each kind of chilli in the pack, ranging from mild to very hot. Only, they’ve got it completely wrong! what they describe as mild, and you throw huge chunks of into your salad, are the killers! Hilarious! And dangerous.
The most amazing Madame Zingara
We were lucky enough to be taken to the press night of the opening of Madame Zingara’s Tent of Dreams new show in the grounds of Montecasino up here in Jozi last night.
We did the experience in Cape Town, in its first incarnation, but the concept, show, new theme, food, sound and even fancy port-a-loos have so doubled in excellence we had a better time than before.
Richard is Madame Zingara and he is busy realising his dream. He has pushed for this amazing celebration to get bigger, better, slicker and it has paid off. The whole magnificent Spiegeltent, cast, crew, cooks and all other mad-crazies are flying off to London at the end of the year to do the whole thing there. it’s phenomenal.
The whole idea is brilliant. The five hours spent eating, socialising, watching brilliant spectacle, being served by superb staff, spending money on ridiculous hats at the shop and even dancing to eighties’ hits late into the night is the best fun ever.
Richard has done some really clever basic business and he has thought of everything. Firstly, he has the most loyal team working with and for him (apparently most of them have travelled since the beginning one in Cape Town). Then there is an attention to detail. The decor, entrance, costumes of the staff and performers, toilets, bar, shop, are all excellent, no skimping. The food is superb; and miraculous. I can’t believe that all that food is made and delivered impeccably to 500 people virtually at once. The wait-staff are firm and confident; the performers all help out at the tables. This guy knows what he is doing and it’s absolutely brilliant. The lights are pretty and the sound is excellent; crystal clear and loud.
The acts were superb. I also preferred the new theme which is more adult bondage. The last theme was more fantasy and I like the new shift. Everyone looks magnificent. Nicky Smuts has designed the most spectacular costumes and every tassel, frill, leather strap and sequin is perfect.
Well done all at the magnificent Madame Zingara and thanks for a brilliant time.
PS. We are up in Jozi for a fandamily thing, which we are off to right now.
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Randomness
