“Your sniff of salmon and skid-mark of jus Sir..”

For years I've poo-poo'd what I term hobsnobbery in wine, rather than the simple enjoyment and appreciation thereof quietly, or with those family or friends who are interested enough to want to chat more about it.  It’s not a show, it’s not to show how much one knows or to impress those around one, but to just enjoy and savour the flavours and complexities, no matter the price or brand thereon. 

As a wine maker and food lover, unfortunately I’ve come to learn over many years, (perhaps too many now), that some folk just love to show-off.  And without fail, they tend to be those who know the least about wine, but feel the need to prove otherwise in public. Most of them don’t hail from the so-called ‘Wine & Foodie Cities’, but perhaps suffer from wannabe deprivation.  Whether it’s name dropping of winemakers they may have met or spoken to at a wine event, and now refer to as ‘good friends’, or babble on about the wine ‘Terroir’, perhaps lamenting on about some exotic French Bordeaux or Burgundy they rate as something ‘unsurpassed’, or the fact that they only drink Champagne, because it is always the best Bubbly one can buy - nonsense.  I have to bite my tongue as I have little time for those types and tend to move away from the conversation as swiftly as possible.  My wife says that I battle to hide my disdain. 

In the same vain, I feel very much the same way regarding the wave of so-called 'hip' restaurants that suddenly became all the rage within the past decade (at the outside), in cities like Cape Town, Sydney, London, San Francisco to name a few, particularly it seems amongst the nouveau riche about town or foreigners who only read the ‘Hobsnobbery Places to Eat Out when visiting town’ ratings.  But more annoyingly those who feel the need to tell everyone-they've-been-and-you-really-should-go-types, when the truly honest response is more that they were left in awe of the creativity and all, but bloody hungry afterwards.  I just don’t like leaving a restaurant having paid a small bond on a 5 course meal with exorbitantly over-marked-up wine to need to pop into KFC for dinner afterwards.  It sort of goes against my grain.

Look, I'm all for art, my mother’s an artist, so I had no option but to.., but keep art in a gallery or on a wall somewhere appropriate.  I really don’t want to eat art, otherwise it would all be created on flavour, colour infused rice paper. However, when you want me to buy into the fact that the tiny morsel of whatever you're ripping me off with in your restaurant as a result of the apparent blood and sweat induced 'added value' creation before me, the result of over-touching, molding, infusing and nitrogen nuking a perfectly good raw ingredient in plastic bags under high pressure is worth it, I’m not really that impressed.  I get particularly disappointed when the plate arrives not with the Portabellini mushroom the waitron had so carefully and skillfully described, but a mushroom flavoured skid-mark thereof instead.  Don’t give me that ‘jus’ nonsense, this isn’t nouvelle cuisine Paris of the 70’s, give me ‘sauce’, or at least call it that.  ‘Jus’ for some reason gives one the right to up the price rather significantly.  It’s ‘posh’ you see.  Give me the bloody (ed) mushroom for god's sake.  I could have purchased something that looked very similar to that infused skid-mark at the babyfood section at Pick 'n Pay!  

OK, granted, it may not have been infused by truffle oil (squeezed out of a poor little innocent truffle apparently - is that even possible?!).  But don't tease me with bull, smoke and mirrors. Just give me the delectably prepared flavoured mushroom, so I can see what I'm about to tantalise my taste buds with next. What happened to being able to use all of one’s senses in enjoying food?  Like my wine, I like to see what I’m drinking, touch it if necessary (not in public of course..), at least be able to fork my food or pick it up with chopsticks (not a straw), chew it, feel it swirling about, taste it and assimilate all that together.  The good ol' tantalisation of the senses are what I'm after, not the equivalent of eating in the dark, whilst everyone fumbles about making the right noises.  Most often people around the table tend to have a hushed debate as to what's what, so as not to appear ignorant to the table of snooty, apparent food fundis sitting at the next table.

Somehow when one ads an amuse-bouche to the proceedings (the French term meaning “Amuse the mouth”, aptly so as they are very small teaser samplings of food served before a meal, to whet the appetite and stimulate the palate – and boy won’t you need it!).  Or the entremets of palate cleansing sorbet between courses, somehow giving license to the establishment to now charge more than double that of the fantastic Bistro or Italian Trattoria down the road.  The one that uses the same ingredients, though absolutely fresh, doesn’t over complicate matters, but rather than employing stressed artists, uses passion and generations of skill past down from Nona to grandchildren, where simplicity of lovingly assembled natural flavours are ‘the art’.  Give me that, not sous-vide cooking methods where once fresh ingredients need to be sealed in vacuum-sealed plastic pouches then placed in a temperature-controlled steam environment for hours on end.  That’s just food abuse!

At the end of the day, I’m quite happy paying good money for great food, great wine, great service and ambiance, but I just don’t want to eat fragments of art on a plate and sip on pretentiously overpriced wine that is merely there to impress the snob among us, rather than its intended purpose, to simply enjoy lovingly created passion on a plate and in my glass.

Here's a little 'taste' of what I mean..  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvsWibR_nsk

Predictably irrational - rather the devil you know - Lauren Haworth

http://www.biznews.com/entrepreneur/2016/06/28/lauren-haworth-sa-predictably-irrational-rather-the-devil-you-know/

A Mammoth task, yet the Dodo thrives in Cape Town

For years I've waxed lyrical about the ‘poor’ driving habits of Cape Townians, which I still rate as undoubtedly the worst in the world.  Recently, a friend and fellow producer of fine alcoholic beverages, cider to be precise, had a rant about the shocking service she’d received from a service provider in the region, without even an apology from the management.  Well this is not unusual, although I'm not one to lump all service providers in this magnificent city together as poor.  Many are very good and a few even exceptional.  My retort to her however, was that I had just had a discussion with my painter, the same discussion I had with my electrician and my plumber some months back, suggesting that the best way for any service provider to differentiate themselves from the mass in this city (i.e. stand out from the crowd of competitors in their field), would be simply to arrive on time, as promised.  If not possible however for some valid reason, then a simple call to inform one is all that would be required.  That type of attention to service alone would set them apart from 90% of their competitors, without even having to quote on the job.  People can be very stupid at times, and it makes one wonder about the root cause.  Is it nature or nurture that is primarily to blame in getting us to this rather disappointing place in ‘intellect’ I wonder?

With that theme in mind, I have been reading with some interest about the recent successes in the genome sequencing of the woolly mammoth.  Having been fascinated with this prospect since I was a kid; perhaps I should have listened to my biology teacher Mrs. Dixon and the results of my aptitude test in Grade 12, and gone into medicine of some sort, ultimately specialising in the field of genetics.  But I didn't, and yet others have and have had enormous success in the use of stem cells and its incredible value in the pursuit of improving health in humans, in some cases before they are even born. 

Of course, as one would expect, some religions are vehemently against such ‘god-like’ interventions, but my response to that is simple. If one believes in a god the way some do, then surely ‘he’ gave the wisdom to the people involved enabling them to make some improvements and enhancements to ‘his’ somewhat questionable workmanship.  One just has to drive on the roads of Cape Town to realise that the Dodo is definitely not extinct, but in the genomes of many city drivers, as they tend to behave as if they have more than just one screw missing.  I suppose one could excuse the shoddy workmanship during ‘Creation’, as light had only been invented a few days earlier, and the effect on the eyes at the time, after a lifetime of darkness, must have been rather brutal.  After all, Ray Ban and Vuarnet sunglasses weren't invented until the 8^th day, I'm led to believe.

So with this US team already attempting to study the characteristics of the mammoth by inserting mammoth genes into elephant stem cells, perhaps there’s some light at the end of the long tunnel from Bellville to the City Bowl and surrounds.  At the risk of sounding sanctimonious, at least there may be hope that the many shocking drivers on Cape Town’s roads may now be captured (in cleverly devised ‘stupid traps’), and have the Dodo gene removed from their genetic make-up and replaced with a few fresh nuts and bolts.  I am going into this weekend feeling rather pleased at this notion, although it’s not likely to be in my lifetime, I know that there’s hope for human kind in the centuries to come.

For more info.. http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32432693

Certain UCT Students Poo-poo Cecil, yet choose to ignore Jacob - Where's the consistency in that?

Perhaps we're in a good space in South Africa when the most offensive issue facing students of the University of Cape Town today is a statue of a chubby old dude who donated all of his land to the City, including the very grounds of the current campus.  Sure, Cecil John Rhodes did come from an era of naivety and an entitled feeling of colonialist superiority. But so did King Shaka Zulu, although his rape and plunder of the Xhosa, Swazi, Pondo amongst others wasn't quite regarded as colonisation for some reason.  Merely a 'redistribution of wealth and women' perhaps?

I wonder however, which of the current protesters own children will one day give the same treatment to a statue of another chubby old dude who currently resides over the country, for very similar reasons, bar a few nuanced differences in terms of property dealings perhaps (i.e. one 'paid back the land', the other simply kept his)? Where is the consistency in that?

After all, rape and plunder are one and the same, black, white or beige..  And I thought UCT was a bastion of esteemed higher education.

For more on the story behind the comment:  http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2015-03-11-op-ed-the-rhodes-less-travelled-or-whats-in-a-name/#.VP_2PIgaKBZ

Wash your Humus down with a Martini and chill

Ok, so we spied a little, worked together with 'friends' on ‘weapons of mass destruction’ (sea to air and air to ground anti-tank missiles and a few nuclear bombs in the 1970’s and 80’s), and traded in oil and illegal arms during the so-called 'isolation years'.  It still happens to this day unsurprisingly, although perhaps not the nuclear bomb part, yet in a slightly different guise and perhaps less transparent a manner than one might hope.  But really, are these 'spy documents' really so shocking?  Perhaps to the naive and ignorant, however there's no country worth its salt, that isn't doing likewise.  Perhaps the only thing worth noting is the fact that the South African State Security Agency (SSA) is a little understaffed these days and that the information has somehow, embarrassingly gotten out.  Someone wanting a little extra retirement money perhaps?  Nevertheless, I have no doubt that their reward was safely stashed into a numbered Swiss Bank account, with a pseudonym of ‘The Spy Who Never Really Loved Us’ as the account ID.

Yesterday (Mon 23^rd Feb 2015), Al Jazeera and The Guardian exposed piles of confidential and top secret documents, allegedly communication links between the South African State Security Agency (SSA), Russia’s FSB (the renewed KGB), the UK’s MI6 (home of the real James Bond types), Israel’s Mossad (in my opinion the most effective ‘spy’ agency globally), as well as numerous other Middle Eastern agencies, amongst others. These documents supposedly cover correspondence between the various secret bodies between 2006 until the end of 2014.

Sorry to say, but I’m damn sure that this is a mere storm in a tea-cup, as it has been going on for years, and that’s no secret.  Anyone who served in Naval Intelligence during the ‘dark years’, will know what I mean.  Who we have been spying on, and why, may however be somewhat embarrassing, particularly to the ANC, who openly pride themselves in their friendships with countries the USA believe to be unsavoury bed fellows.  I’m not saying either is right or wrong here, as there are many contradictions and manifestations of propaganda in the making. Nevertheless, it may however expose a touch of ‘forked tongue’ when it comes to our ‘true friendships’. I’m not sure how our Iranian, Syrian, Egyptian, Lebanese, Libyan and other ‘mates’ will think of our close friendship and ties with the likes of Israel, when ‘we’ go all out publically to side with the Palestinians at every given opportunity.

What does it say about us?  Well, it confirms that there’s never a dull moment in being South African, that’s for sure, but more than that it says that we are merely diplomatic traders and associates of anyone who wishes to be our friends, or doesn’t.  Will it have any major implications? I doubt it, however it all depends on what sort of detail is revealed, and perhaps questions the motivation behind the leaks in the first place.  Who really wants to hurt whom?  I suspect it may be a plot to embarrass Israel more than South Africa.  Let’s wait and see.  

In the meantime, don’t forget to accompany your matzah bread and humus dip snacks with a dry Martini, shaken or stirred, as variety is the spice of life..

Is the BDS's Paradoxical Campaign selectively targeting Woolworths?

I feel particularly strongly about religious interference in anything.  Influence, sure, but not interference in so far as my constitutional right is concerned as either a believer in another religion or no religion at all.  That goes for one's political beliefs too.  Share your views, debate vociferously (I love debate) and yet respect the other's perspective and stance.  That way there would be far fewer wars and friendships ending in tears. After all, there are always two sides to the story at the end of the day. It really should be as simple as all that.

With that theme in mind, it could be argued that the Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions Campaign (BDS), current targeting Woolies in apparent isolation, (Woolworths South Africa not to be confused with Woolworths Australia or UK), raises serious questions about the BDS's apparent contradictorily selective agenda. Perhaps it is merely designed to stir up media hype, however it is highly unlikely to influence Israel's approach regarding the Palestinian situation.  There is not doubt that if this is in fact their real objective, that there are far better ways of going about this.  This is tantamount to bullying, not only the retailer but other shoppers and consumers too.  Just as one may argue against having to have one's own religion's stamp of approval on everyone else's food, be-it Kosher or Halaal or anything else for that matter.  And then usually at the exclusion of the other's stamp, just for spite.  Why not have everyone's if any at all?  Ok, so bacon may only need to have a cross on it, but then will Christian Vegans get uptight?  I have a very Christian aunt who refuses to buy products with Halaal stamps on them, but that's entirely her own choice.  She's never suggested that other people should boycott Woolies because they have Halaal stamps on their chicken packaging, due to human rights abuses in many Muslim run Middle Eastern countries.  She simply follows her own convictions albeit purely religiously motivated.

At the same time, I find it rather ironic and disingenuous that countries with far worse human rights abuses on record, are somehow exempt from the BDS campaign.  Is it due to their religious or political alignment perhaps, which may blinker their objectivity?  Could that not be argued to be racist, anti-Semitic or xenophobic, or all of the above?

I want to be able to make my own choices based upon available information and my own moral convictions, and therefore don't need anyone else to tell me which figs or pretzels I should or should not buy.  Particularly if their agenda is not totally transparent or equitably targeted...

See article by Stephen Grootes on the subject.. BDS vs. Woolworths: Just stop it!

Naive post-colonialist claptrap

Greg Castle responds to Irish journalist and writer, Kevin Myers’ article, in which he criticises left-wing opinion on Africa and the so-called “liberal consensus”.  His essay appeared in The Irish Independent.. To read the article that incited this response, see - http://africaunauthorised.com/?p=1311

As much as this article (see link above) was clearly a brave and controversial one to write, and there are undoubtedly many truths within it, it is still clearly a rather naive, post-colonialist approach. It conveniently omits the centuries of damage caused by the colonialists themselves, Britain being one of the worst, to otherwise very peaceful nations and tribes, living in harmony with nature and feeding themselves perfectly. The Egyptians, Malians, Ghanaians, Moroccans, etc, were way more civilised than the Dark Aged Europeans, and thousands of years earlier too. That was until they were trustingly duped and forced to grow crops for the Europeans that they didn't consume themselves. Tobacco, coffee, tea, wheat, and mine diamonds, gold and oil, none of which made their lives richer, just a few handfuls of colourful glass beads perhaps. 

Let's not forget the slave trade to the Americas, making those once culturally rich countries in Africa rather more and more dependent on their colonial masters.

So it suited the colonialists at the time to rape and pillage, leaving in their wake mayhem and devastation. That's why they feel a degree of guilt to this day. But the damage has been done. It'll take much more than Bob Galdorf, Bono, Bill Gates and the like's charitable handouts to correct.

A rather ironic article from someone who comes from a Nation where a third of the slobby, lazy and undisciplined population get weekly charity of a similar sort, from hard working individual tax payers in the form of the Dole..