Food Interrupted Chapter 6: One World. One Love. One Dish.

15 Jul 2010, Posted by Cape Town Girl in BFFs, CTG, cape town, characters, food interrupted, girl stuff, lifestyle, south africa, 1 Comments

Puppies,
I am simply unmoved thrilled by the events of Sunday night my darlings. To watch China and Australia qualify to play each other in their FIRST tennis final in recent history was a drunken an emotional moment for me and for a handful of several trillion people.

And petals, the heroic battle of these two cities is not the only example of globalization around at the moment – no no! There are wonderful things afoot my darlings, wonderful opportunities for us to once again run barefoot and stark naked with a crazed amphetamine tilt to our heads carefree through the woods of our tomorrows.

The entire WORLD darlings, the WORLD is coming closer together darlings. Darlings, the bloody planet is shrinking and crumpling in on itself its getting so cosy with itself. The bloody stars darling, the bloody stars in that great big milky stain in the bloody sky darling, they’re coming together. It’s bloody continental drift darlings, in reverse. It’s, it’s drift continental, darlings.

And cherubs, what really excited Mummy about the closeness of her inter-continental brothers and sisters darlings, is the amount of wine I can get from other cities the sharing of information, the sharing of knowledge, the sharing of sexually transmitted diseases emotional resources. And so to celebrate this, this shrinkwrappage of the earth, I give unto you my endless, all consuming debt newest creation, honouring the planet and her peoples:

I give you: We-are-the-World-We-are-The-Children,-We Are A-Soy Steak-on-Cowboy-Bean with- Tomato-Salsa-Platter, So-Let’s-Start-Giving.

How fantastic, you crow, what makes such a heavenly treat?
A couple of Porterhouse steaks, trimmed of all fat
(we must be a healthy world populace darling, we can’t run toward each other in a field of poppies with gay abandon if we’re wheezing from the extra 25 kilos we’re carrying with our own breasts hitting us in the face one at a time with metronome succession now can we?)
Soya sauce
1 x can Red kidney beans
1 x can Lentils
Tabasco sauce
Fresh chilli
Black pepper
Good quality sliced salami (that means not the pink stuff with the green peppercorn lodged in it like bullet holes because you were too lazy to go to the deli)
2 x Onion
Garlic
Peppers, red and yellow
Stock of any sort (I prefer Fond, but then again, I also am fond of Argyle underwear and suppositories, so, each to their own)
2 x fresh tomatoes,
Sweet basil
Vinegar

Tell me how darling!

Place steaks in a bowl, pour soy sauce all over them (that one’s for you China! Mwah!) and allow to vibe.
Cut up an onion and the peppers, open a can of lentils and beans and gooi all into a hot-ish pan. When I say hot-ish, I mean, I can put my hand over it. If I were to touch it I would be in pain, but not as much pain as for example, if said hand was being slowly ingested by a python. That would indicate a slightly hotter pan.
Add about half a cup of your stock in and allow bean mix to vibe alongside already vibing steaks.
Toss into pan extra things like Tabasco, or chilli, or both, along with garlic and liberal, hippy-like tossings of black pepper.
Cut salami up into little squares and with restraints, tie your one hand to a spice rack or other solid installation to try to limit your premature consumption of aforementioned salami.
Into the pan goes the salami. You will notice that the beans are getting quite soft, so, after wriggling free from your makeshift handcuffs, get a potato masher and mash the beans mix into…well…mash.
Turn the heat down and turn attention to steaks.
Panfry steak in a little olive oil and a dash of red wine.

Chop fresh tomatoes and fresh onion and blend in a cap-ful of vinegar, some salt and sweet basil.
Set steak atop a serving of bean mash and serve with a little of the salsa.
Unless of course you are unable to serve at all, as you set the pan to python and were too late with your restraints, meaning you are now very badly burnt, but still alive, curled up at the bottom of the bean pan, trying not to break bits of your charred self off while humming Home On The Range.

Excuse me darlings, I’m off to befriend my neighbours. I think they’re from Pretoria!

Frances

Food Interrupted Chapter 5: World Cup Curry

24 Jun 2010, Posted by Cape Town Girl in CTG, characters, food interrupted, south africa, 2 Comments

Darlings,
Mummy’s back and she’s more evil she’s more bankrupt she’s drunker she’s never been better.
Having spent a little time away from you my darlings doing narcotic-related time in a Thai prison my quad-annual soul searching retreat, I’ve returned to find my country overrun by foreign vermin filled with delightful ‘friends-I-haven’t-met-yet.’ To my greatest surprise it isn’t because the Cape is one of the greatest wine-producing regions in the world, but rather, because of the Badminton World Cup.

What the fuck? I whispered, deep in thought. But from my recent experiences with hardened non English speaking criminals my inner child, I have realized that asking questions of others’ behaviour can often leave you missing a tooth awed by the individuality of our world.
‘Frances darling, sweetie, sweetie darling,’ Tanner crowed over the blower, “lets embrace this change darling. Let us hold out our arms to the foreigners, let us clutch them to our bosom, let us make them feel the beat of Africa’s all-giving heart.” Or something like that, Tanner and I had already delicately sipped at eighteen two glasses of something rather nice called Café-ccinno or Pino-latte or Espresso-vino-Cab-Sav or bloody Red-Wine-that-tastes-like-bloody-coffee darling.

So puppies, instead of ripping flags off cars, giving wrong directions and running into a packed guest-house covered in scratches, torn clothes and with a wild-look in my eyes whispering ‘lion’ ignoring all this Badminton madness and returning to an opium den my forest retreat, Tanner and I decided to open our arms to the foreign people by avoiding them completely celebrating their arrival with a TRULY South African dish my cherubs, the Boerewors Curry. It’s simply perfect for these cold winter nights watching the Badminton at home darlings, if you’re not going to watch the actual game at the big court they’ve set up in Durbanville.
Bugger Off Bloody Marvellous Boerie Curry

Oh ffs, what do I need?
2 large onions
A large pack of Grabouw boerwors (darlings, Grabouw is a small island off the coast of Chile – hence why their boerewors is so good for curry.)
1 can whole tomato
1 can chickpeas
Pinch of Cumin
Pinch of Paprika
Two teaspoons of curry powder (for proper curries you can use real spices darling. The boerewors curry is the Aromat of the curry world. Delicious, addictive but of humble makings…and luminous yellow)
Fish oil
Green pepper
Yellow pepper
Garlic
Fond (we’ve been through this darlings!)
Hot sauce
Red wine (ooooh!)
1/cup of sour cream (this is optional darlings, like getting the shoes in brown, or brown AND black)
2 cups brown wild rice
Coriander for topping

And now?
Wash and chop the peppers and onion.
Chop boerie into little rounds – like you would with a Vienna if this was the late eighties and you were throwing a 5th Avenue Cold Duck Party with snacks on toothpicks sticking out of oranges.
Dump together into a pot with a drizzle of olive oil and let sizzle (without burning darlings, so don’t open the wine just yet)
On the side, make about a cup of stock from the Fond with boiling water. Stir well.
Chuck into pan with the can of tomatoes (open the can first darlings) followed by the chickpeas.
Mix the two teaspoons of curry powder with a little water and chuck that in to the pan as well.
Now turn the heat down slightly so that the soupy-mix is just simmering.
Add a liberal sprinkling of fish oil (trust mummy darlings) the cumin, the paprika and the garlic.
Slap a lid on it and go and do something more deserving of your time, like drink.
Come back 10 minutes later and check it’s not set your house on fire. Here you can slosh in a bit of red wine and add a little sour cream if you want a slightly less aromatic flavor and want to thicken it.
Otherwise splash in a whole bunch of drops (don’t you love exact instruction?) of hot sauce and much pepper. Lid back on and out with you to drink.
After steaming the wild brown rice (oh come on, darlings, really? Cover the rice with water, bring to the boil. Drain excess water, put lid on pot and allow to steam until fluffy) serve with the boerie mix and lots of coriander.
Alternatively darlings, consume twenty bottle of Macchiato-Shiraz and go out on the town. The foreigner men types may have more to offer than we anticipate…

Frances

Food Interrupted Chapter 4: Dinner Don’ts

28 May 2010, Posted by Cape Town Girl in BFFs, CTG, Parties, cape town, characters, food, food interrupted, s1mz, sponsors, wine, 5 Comments

Bloody hell.
Darlings, in many of our conversations I talk about what we MUST do.
“Do this darlings, bloody do this and that and don’t forget this and what about that other thing, here darlings smoke this and drink that and oh look there’s a cat on your back” and on and on bloody ad bloody infinitum. But darlings, this past week I have been thinking very little about the myriad of things that we bloody must NEVER do my darlings, never! And what brought on this meaningless drivel most interesting insight? Why the monumentally poor decision of honour of hosting the first Dinner for Six of course!

Mummy with her breasts and her James. Yes darlings.

Let’s start at the very middle darlings, the very beginning makes me nervous, reminds me of my real age vast experience and in any case I’ve run out of sedatives energy. You MUST NOT call the party Dinner for 6, set the table for six, arrange glasses for six, cook Gazpacho and Cheddar Paprika Cheese Straws for starters, Chicken Kiev on Asparagus and Tomato Jus for mains and Strawberry Drop Scones and Cream for dessert for six, and then invite seven. You MUST NOT leave preparations to the last minute. You MUST NOT meet your guests at the door with a toilet brush behind one ear, a hand up a chicken’s bum and a wild look of terror on your face, drunk.

The La Capra selection of wine for the evening. The real guests of this whole Dinner Debarcle. The ones who caused all the nonsense.

You MUST NOT at, any point, consider inviting anyone even mildly interesting or remotely attractive. Specifically if you were too drunk busy to prep most of the courses the night before. The reason being my darlings, is that the funnier, smarter or sexier they are, the more time you’re going to spend sitting outside smoking a piece of your own hair, bouncing on someone’s knee with a bottle of KWV Orchestra pressed to your bosom like your first born.

CTG and S1mz, being smart, funny, interesting and attractive, causing Frances to smoke her hair outside.

The KWV Mentors range. They brought dignity to the gathering. And they took ours.

You MUST NOT pretend that anything is serious. You MUST NOT have real, meaningful conversations. You MUST NOT engage with anyone on any kind of authentic level. This real waste of time will only result in quiet, sophisticated exchanges and delicate phrasing and things like people’s needs and feelings and consideration and other boring fuckwittage rewarding experiences that may or may not cause the host of Dinner for 75 to pass out face forward into the wine spittoon.

Frances puts on a brave face for you darlings while CTG demonstrates how she 'has Frances's back'.

You MUST NOT ever let a man through the front door carrying a bottle of 30 year old Famous Grouse. This is non-negotiable. Regardless of how innocent this man looks, if he is in the company of the Grouse you must barricade yourself inside and switch off all the lights so that he cannot see you are at home. But should you make the fatal error of allowing him entrance, do not be surprised if you find yourself, a good EIGHT HOURS LATER, propped up at the dining room table like the cadaver in all the Weekend at Bernie’s films, both elbows in a puddle of Gazpacho, rolling tea bags for cigarettes and speaking like Groucho Marx.

Mains: Milla 'Chicken Kiev' Jovovich on asparagus, darlings.

You MUST NEVER do anything that involves any of the above on a weeknight. HAH! You think you know that? You think, “Frances is a bloody fool darling for having Dinner for Six Hundred Thousand on a Thursday night, I on the other hand darling would never do such a thing darling me? Never. Me? Never. Me? Never. Me….” Sorry darlings, got a little carried away – but you’re thinking it aren’t you? You bastards clever little things.

Do you like mummy's knife darling's?

Well even if you aren’t, what you MUST NOT DO is make all of the above mistakes, because if you do, I can guarantee you will find yourself walking the streets of Cape Town in the orange smoggy light of dawn like a lone survivor of the Rage Virus, bare, bloodied feet stumbling, Ferragamo dress stained red with La Capra and feathered with tobacco, confused, scared and alone, plaintively asking for directions back to Tamborskloof and normality, all the while a lone Cheddar and Paprika straw clings to the back of your 100% wool Gerard Darel pea coat – a tacit reminder of a once civilized world.

It sounds like a GREAT deal of fun doesn’t it? But after the merriment of trawling the streets like a gin-soaked loony has passed, you have to come home and …
WASH UP.
Tonight darlings, I ask you all very graciously to fuck off and leave me alone.
I’m doing Wine for One.
A shadow of the foodie formerly known as Frances
xxx

Food Interrupted Chapter 3: Persuasion Pie

14 May 2010, Posted by Cape Town Girl in BFFs, CTG, cape town, food interrupted, lifestyle, 1 Comments

Hello kittens, today I’d like to talk about excuse goodwill food. It’s a very important part of any manipulative experienced cook’s repertoire and is very good for getting exactly what you want giving back to the over-privileged community. I always find my icy frozen heart aching for those who live in households where drinking cooking hearty meals is not a priority. I think of them, standing in the rain for no real reason, shivering in their last season Paul Smith coats, pale, rather chic faces upturned to Lion’s Head as if pleading to the kind and generous souls of Upper Tamboerskloof to open their double volume imported doors and let these poor emaciated hipsters into the warm glow of butchery meat and Café Culture. Sigh. That’s the kind of woman I am, puppies. Truly evil deeply good.

So darlings, a weekend ago I was floating along Kloof street dressed in a very NOW maxi and ankles, swinging a rather sweet little basket full of herbs and newly laid eggs, whistling the theme to the Lion King when I kicked tripped over a bedraggled designer, swaddled only in late nineties Rosenworth and vintage Escada to keep out the cold.

‘Darling! What the fuck are you doing lying in the road in cream spats?’ I politely asked.

It turned out his no-carb-no-sugar-no-veg-no-fruit-no-protein diet had eventually led to his untimely death. Being very well dressed however, he was allowed a second life and so found himself where all stylish people do after dying violently – Vida. I thought I could use some of his contacts wisdom. I also needed some good red wine, some well matured cheese, a new coat, a couple of chairs for outside and my back clicked into alignment, so I thought I’d have a dinner party for some of my suppliers friends.

And thus my darlings, I threw together the ultimate Tikka Chicken I Have My Eye on Your New Trench Coat Pie. There must be something you want from someone darlings? Apart from viewing their happiness of course. That cute little clutch? Your car serviced? YOU serviced? Do it darlings. Make it, bake it, and all the while, fake it. People will do anything for it, it’s that good. I remember once making it in Bolivia and being held aloft the villagers’ heads on a litter made from the hair of one thousand cherubim for weeks thereafter. This time round I only got a bloody massage, a red umbrella and my washing machine door fixed. But that’s bloody South Africa for you isn’t it darlings? No bloody celestial treatment here darlings, NO! Just some pitter potter flimsy flimsy wish washy domestic fuckwittage darlings. It’s depressing but then so was what happened to Britney.

Persuasion Tikka Chicken Pie

What must I scrounge for?

Lots of things go into this pie darlings, just not ALL the wine.

A small bag of carrots
A big onion
Punnet of mushrooms (not the naughty ones darlings)
A couple of baby marrows (if you get the big dildo ones you can use one not two…in the pie darlings! Use it in the pie! Really, your minds.)
Several large potatoes
A biggish pack of drumsticks and thighs (just chop the latter off a couple of passing joggers…jokes!)
A bottle of red wine (you’ll use about half of this for the stew)
Another bottle of red wine (you’ll use all of this for drinking)
Nomu’s Chicken Fond (about 2 cups or so)
*A note here darlings, if you were going to meet the Pope, or Mandela, or that man that does the carpentry stuff on Top Billing without a shirt on, would you just fling on a scratchy bag made from the underbelly of sharks? Or a bloody all-in-one you made from straw glued together with rabbit droppings? No? No? Then please darlings don’t use that disgusting chicken stock that comes in a little bitty blocky block block for your Persuasion Pie. Alright? Only Nomu will do. And that’s a rhyme you can keep.
Whole cloves of garlic
Two rolls of puff pastry
Two cans of potato and leek soup
Tabasco sauce
Paprika
Black pepper
An egg
Now what?

Piranha?

First, pour yourself a glass of something so strong it could pick itself out of the tumbler and walk across the kitchen, thrusting its hips and giving shout-outs to your friends in London. Now. Wash your chicken pieces, cover them in flour and dump them in a VERY BIG pot with chopped onion and mushrooms and olive oil. Fry till chicken a little browned and veg soft. Toss in washed and chopped potatoes, carrots and courgettes. Turn heat down now (from about 7 to about 5) toss in your diluted Nomu fond and the red wine. Chuck in a clove or two of garlic and bugger off to smoke something and talk about your needs. Keep checking on your stew, but it should take about an hour and a half. You’ll know it’s ready when the chicken actually falls off the bone without encouragement.

This is my friend Beyerskloof. And something to do with the tikka sauce in the front.

In the meantime, in a separate pot mix a healthy dose of Tabasco sauce with the potato and leek soup and generously add the paprika and black pepper. This is the tikka sauce. The colour of the soup should change subtly to a light sort of inflamed ruddy colour. Sort of like that of the nose of that man who sells you import gin on every second Thursday of the month in the parking lot. Put your oven to 180 and lay out the puff pastry on the bottom of a big roasting pan. Save the other half for the top.

Remember to leave some pastry over for profanity!

Now it’s time to do Bone Retrieval. It’s a fairly grisly task, but darlings mark my words when I say, you cannot make Persuasion Pie with those no-flavour chicken breast things. Just like you wouldn’t drink Papillon, ever, you wouldn’t use breasts in this pie, ever. With me? Take a pasta spoon and start trawling through the stew, collecting bones and dumping them on a plate. I quite like to pretend that I’m Dr Reid from Criminal Minds’ sexy assistant and we’re doing a very important forensic procedure with a lot of innuendo and tension peppering our very serious conversation. You’ll also be amazed at how clean the bones come out, like they’ve been seen to by a piranha swimming round under the carrots. Once you’re sure you’ve got all bones out, pour into the roasting pan, cover with tikka sauce and cover sauce with pastry. Brush this final layer with a beaten egg and just before you gooi it into the oven to brown, you get to do the best part.

You’ll find you have a few pieces of pastry left over, and with these, you shall ceremoniously create a word for your pie. You can do anything darlings. It’s just too much fun. And by this stage of events, you’ve had at least 6 glasses of Café Culture and your imagination is working over time.

I’d suggest something inspired like:
Pie
Or, if you want to be a little more obvious about what it is you desire then what about:
Your Trench
Or if, like me, at this stage it looks like you wont be having any joy in getting what it is you want after all, you might like to try:
Poes.
Frances xx

Wine-tasting and dinner at maze

10 May 2010, Posted by Cape Town Girl in CTG, CTG recommends, cape town, food, food interrupted, lifestyle, restaurants, south africa, 1 Comments

Eric from One&Only Cape Town

It was with much excitement that Frances Sauvage, Chris Rawlinson, Therese and myself found ourselves handing our keys over to the valets at One&Only Cape Town for an evening with Eric, renowned sommelier and dinner at Gordon Ramsey’s restaurant, maze. Just read Eric’s story:

“Eric moved from the Northern Cape to Cape Town in 1994/1995 and got a job at a bottle store. The bottle store was often quiet, so he used to read the back of wine labels and this is where his interest in wine developed. He managed to get his hands on a John Platter guide and through studying it, learnt more about the topic. Via the John Platter guide, Eric heard about the Cape Wine Academy and over time, Eric entered himself for courses at the Cape Wine Academy at this own expense. Eric left the bottle store and joined Woolworths as a shelf packer. He requested to work in the food & beverage section, and eventually his path crossed with Alan Mullins, legendary wine consultant for Woolworths. Alan took Eric under his wing, and the rest is history. Today Eric lives in Woodstock with his mother and his children, and he’s studying for a Diploma in Wine through the Cape Wine Academy.”

How fantastic is that! Our gracious hosts, Etienne and Adele, informed us that first we’d have a brief tour of One&Only Cape Town’s cellar, which holds over 5 000 bottles - just think about that! It’s a collection that took over 7 years in the making, which makes it older than the hotel itself.

Into the cellar, Frances leading the way

The most expensive bottle of wine in the collection is the Cheval Blanc from France, which will cost you a cool R17 000. So we ordered 5 bottles of that, just to kick off the mood.We proceeded to taste 4 different types of wine, including a Pinot Noir, a Cab Sauv, a Gewurtztraminer and a Chardonnay. Eric really put the pressure on the tasting notes which caused Etienne and Frances Sauvage to giggle like naughty children in the corner.

The Glen Carlou Pinot Noir

For starters we all sampled various dishes including wood fired prawns (amazing), Kentucky Fried Quail and Coleslaw (delicious) and the ultimate dish from the starters if you ask me, the soft-shell crab claws, which we all eyed greedily (oh you have it, no no, please, go ahead through gritted teeth).

For mains I ate the roasted kingklip on crayfish risotoo with bouillabaise sauce on a bed of garlic and parsley mussels. It tasted as good as it sounds. The others ate from the impressive meat selection – I will most definitely be ordering a steak next time. maze is, in fact, a grill restaurant, so steaks are their speciality.

The fillet

We were then granted the special privilege of a kitchen tour by maze head chef Phil Carmichael. Frances could not control herself, and proceeded to ply him with a slew of questions, from ‘What do you cook for yourself when you’re at home?’ and ‘What’s your last minute backup plan if you stuff everything up?’. Phil handled her like a pro, citing ‘A cheese and tomato sandwich’ and ’spaghetti bolognese’ as his answers.

with Phil Carmichael, the head chef at maze

Post kitchen tour we were presented with a spread of various desserts. The maze breakfast was an unusual if delicious take on cereal (unbelievably good, you have to try it), while the chocolate orange fondant was just out of this world, as was the peanut butter and jelly ice cream bar. The raspberry sorbet was refreshing and delicious, and the vanilla rice pudding was gentle and creamy. With all that wine in us, there was little conscience left to stop us pigging out, which is exactly what we did. And it was awesome!

Mmmm dessert

With our coffee came these tiny moist squares of brownie goodness, as well as some handmade orange turkish delight jellies.

Brownie delights!

There wasn’t room in my stomach, but I made room. The service was out of this world! It also looks awesome. The triple volume ceiling and the oversized lightbulbs create a sense of drama.

Frances Sauvage holding a Baked Alaska also creates a sense of drama

I’m definitely going back! Who’s with me? Click here to book yourself a dinner at maze.

Just order your own Soft-shell Crab Claws. I’m being serious.

Food Interrupted Chapter 2

07 May 2010, Posted by Cape Town Girl in BFFs, characters, food interrupted, 3 Comments

Darlings, let mummy tell you a secret. Don’t be afraid now, everything will be fine. Just breathe deeply, and if you feel faint, put your head between your knees and have another shot from the bottle in your bottom drawer. Ready?

I am not perfect. I know it’s completely unbelievable, but darlings it’s a lie fact. Sometimes the great among us must falter to teach us all that we are moving towards one common goal: sobriety equality. Darlings, naughty things sometimes happen, and when they do, it’s important to have someone to scrape you off the floor help you out. Do you have someone like that on speed-dial darlings? Do you? If you don’t, best you make a plan to find one because sure as I am drunk Frances Sauvage, naughty things will happen.

This past weekend was one such occasion, and Aunty Frances found herself in a right fucking mess pickle. While the details are blurry, I believe it involved a female barbershop quartet, Springfield Life from Stone and something to do with Mama Jolie’s remarks about Somalia. Regardless, I needed to make that sorry phone call, and true as Uncle Bob is now Aunty Bobbi, my Knight in Shining Toyota swept in to rehydrate rescue me. Putting a disorientated Frances up for the night is no mean feat – I demand certain luxuries –  nothing too grandeous darlings, just little pleasures, like satin pillow slips, morning Juang Li Jet Su Kung Fu tea, a Dermalogica facial and an intravenous drip of saline and Evian. Little things. You can imagine then my darlings that this person needed to be thanked, and how do we thank people for facing almost certain jail time assisting us? Well we give them something sweet, don’t we darlings?
I mean, when someone helps you out you don’t hand them a sack of bloody T-Bones do we darlings? Or a bowl full of boerie? Or a sack full of bloody wheat chaff? No darlings. If we act like tarts, we apologize with tarts. Go on darlings, make Mummy’s Sorry-I’m- A -Bloody –Tart- Darling-Lemon-&-Ginger- Meringue-Humble-Pie, because you never know when next you might be naughty….

What on earth goes into that?

2 lemons – grated to produce a small heap of fine rind and squeezed to produce about ¾ cup of juice
A small section of fresh ginger root – grated to produce a small heap of fine rind
4 eggs – separated into 4 yolks and 4 whites in separate bowls
2 tablespoons corn flour
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 cup of white sugar
6 teaspoons of sugar
1 cup of water
2 tablespoons of butter
2 packs of ginger biscuits
Pinch of salt

How the bloody hell do you put it together?

Turn your oven on to 175 degrees. If you know you are going to take a bloody age putting this thing together though, you might want to hold off until you’re halfway close to actually baking the pie before turning it on. We don’t want your Humble Pie to turn into Bitter Revenge.
Haul out a fair sized casserole or oven-safe dish – sort of a medium sized one (if you flip the thing over it usually tells you on the underside if it can go into the oven without blowing your house up)
You need to crush the 2 packs of ginger biscuits now. Some people crush their biscuits by hand. Those same people probably whip their dogs and sleep with their grandpas. I am not in this for sado-masochism. Darlings get a clean dish cloth, fill it with biscuits, fold it into a sack like shape and either slam it against a wall or use one foot to stamp on it. Far quicker, with added stress release.
Once biscuits are crushed to a fairly small size, melt some butter (a tablespoon or two should do) and mix biscuits and butter together. Line your casserole dish with biscuit mix to form base. Put dish into fridge to chill.

In a saucepan, throw together the cup of sugar, the 2 tablespoons of corn flour, the 2 tablespoons of flour, the salt, the lemon zest, the lemon juice and the cup of water. Allow this to come to a SLOW and GENTLE boil. So like, if your oven goes up to 10, put it on a 6, but watch it closely while whisking it.
While this is happening, use the third arm that grows out of the middle of your back to melt the two tablespoons of butter. Add this to the saucepan.

Whisk your 4 egg yolks together and then with a ladle, scoop some of the hot saucepan mix into the egg mix. Just a ladle-full will do. Mix together. Then when mixed add this back into saucepan.
This is called ‘introducing’  the yolks to the hot sugar mix. Makes sense. I mean, think about it, wouldn’t you like to at least MEET the thing you’re about to become one with before you ‘go the whole way’?

Keep mix on soft boil and you’ll notice it becomes very thick and sort of gelatinous. Congratulations darlings you’ve made lemon curd!
Remove from heat. And pour into the biscuit-lined casserole dish.
In separate bowl (and I strongly recommend plastic) pour in your egg whites. The difficulty here is in getting them stiff. Heheh. There are 4 cardinal rules when beating eggs:
1.    The bowl in which they are beaten MUST be clean and dry with not a hint of grease
2.    The egg whites cannot have an IOTA of yolk in them
3.    If you are using an electric beater, be very careful not to over-beat, rather start on a low setting
4.    If you are using a hand whisk, ensure it is BONE DRY
Now. Scatter a pinch of salt into the whites (it helps a bit) and begin beating. Only when the colour becomes a runny white can you add the first teaspoon of the 6 teaspoons of sugar. Continue to beat until sugar is dissolved. Add next teaspoon. Beat again. Ad-bloody-infinitum until the sugar is gone, the egg whites are delightfully white and making little peaks and you have carpal tunnel syndrome.
Pour stiff whites over lemon curd and pop into the oven for ten minutes or until the meringue mix goes a light golden brown.

Remove from oven, pour stiff whiskey and possibly visit emergency room for Voltaren injection and strapping for wrist. If this much bloody effort doesn’t say “I’m truly bloody sorry darling” then I give up.

Frances

CTG presents Food, Interrupted: The Second Coming of an Old Trout

15 Apr 2010, Posted by Cape Town Girl in BFFs, CTG, cape town, characters, food, food interrupted, lifestyle, 6 Comments

Introducing CTG’s resident foodie, the infamous Frances Sauvage. Frances used to write a blog called Food Interrupted, and now she will be writing it as a column for CTG every Thursday. In her own words: “I do so love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even add it to the food.”

Without any further ado, I present to you Frances Sauvage’s fabulous recipe for Hot Trout Salad. Enjoy!

And so I’m back from outer space and I’m simply too thrilled to be here with you cherubs!
Hurrah for the gracious Cape Town Girl who plucked me from culinary obscurity. You see, after many moons of warbling about pots and pans, I felt I needed a sabbatical. There are only so many deflated soufflés and weary chocolate tortes one woman can handle. So I took time off from the pantry to try to find myself. And then luckily, one day, I went for a walk along the beach and there I was!
Darlings you have the misfortune pleasure of pondering my ramblings EVERY THURSDAY, for forever! And while there is much you need to know of me, as that old crone from that ghastly movie about the iceberg said, A Women’s Heart Is A Deep Ocean of Secrets so every Thursday when I have your undivided attention I shall extol one or two of my three pearls of wisdom.
But for now to the kitchen!

Darlings I bloody hate bloody Autumn, there’s zippo fabulous about it. Summer’s barely out the door in her Louboutins when Autumn comes thundering around the corner in a kaftan and trakkie-daks. It’s dreadful, is what it is, so we must cling, cling like Nag Apies to the remnants of the hot and happy season. There’s simply no better way to do this than to have a lunch. I LOVE a lunch.
Nothing says I’m barely alive quite like 3 bottles of Café Culture before 2:30 in the arvie, lounging about in the brown and decaying garden, gesticulating wildly whilst bemoaning your very existence celebrating life’s little pleasures. Like trout.

Darlings, not only is trout an excellent and fair name to call a woman who has not yet entertained the idea of plastic surgery but should have, it is also a source of great nutrition, taste and most importantly goes very bloody well with a G&T thank you very bloody much.
Darlings this weekend I urge you to throw together this Hot Trout Salad as a sort of sacrificial offering to the weather gods. It’s so easy you could go out and pay for lunch while allowing your cat to do it at home. Invite your friends darlings. They’ll love you for it, even if the last time you threw a lunch the chicken was like python and the wine the colour of morning pee. Go for it darlings!

Asparagus, celery and Buitenverwachting Buitenblanc

What you’ll need to ferret for:

1 fillet Rainbow trout, just bigger than the size of your outstretched hand and about an inch thick.
Carton of reduced fat cream (no one likes a fatty!)
Olive oil
2 onions
2 segments garlic
1 cup of white wine (for the pot darling, the pot, not you)
Seasoned flour
Pack of fresh asparagus spears
1 long celery stalk chopped into rounds
Black pepper
½ cup veg stock
Fresh rocket
1 or 2 satsumas or naartjies
Organic whole-wheat couscous (not the plain white one, the whole-wheat one. Because we care darlings, don’t we? We care about lunar farming and sustainable stilettos and overgrazed rivers and barefoot malnourished children in artsy black and white photos. We’re cool like that darlings, we care.)

What a perfect slab of salmon trout

WTF to do with it all

Turn a fairly deep pan (we’re thinking saucepan here, not a pancake number) on low-ish (if your heat dial goes up to 10 or so, then about 4 would be right)
While oil in pan heats, chop up onion and garlic. With a small sharp knife sommer rip shreds of trout off the thin silvery skin, whilst imagining it is the face of that bitch in PR.
When you have a pile of shredded fish, drizzle it in olive oil and then roll it in seasoned flour. All seasoned flour is, is a bunch of normal cake flour with loads of herbs and peppers and whatever-the-hell else you want in it.
Now chuck whole lot into pan and brown.
Meanwhile, sneakily, you will blanche the asparagus and celery in boiling water (with a bit of salt)
When soft (but not as soft as Snow Patrol) chuck ass (hahahah) and celery into the onion, garlic and fish pan.
Quick as Edith Venter to a photo opportunity, add a cup of veg stock and the cup of wine (I know it, was a sacrifice.)
Now stand over saucepan and grind enormous amounts of black pepper into it.
Allow to sort of, vibe for a while.

Boil a small pot of water (about 4 cups) with olive oil and salt. When boiling toss in the I’m Wearing Linen And Am A Responsible Earth Citizen couscous. Take off the heat and allow to expand.
Meanwhile chuck the cream into the sauce mix and stir well.
Once the couscous has sucked up most of the water you can drain the excess.
Set a heap of it on a plate; add rocket and a dollop of the trout sauce. You can then either squeeze a Satsuma over the sauce itself or peel the bloody thing and let people do the squeezing themselves the lazy bastards. Citrus is a must with fish darlings. Unexpected, but inseparable. Kind of like Woody Allen and that Asian daughter of his. Grind some pepper on the plate and…

Ta-da! Or rather as we say it here at Food Interrupted,

Pra-da!

Pra-da!

Till next week, I wish you satisfaction and slight inebriation.
Frances

Coming Soon to CTG: Food, Interrupted

11 Apr 2010, Posted by Cape Town Girl in BFFs, CTG, bloggers, cape town, food, food interrupted, girl stuff, lifestyle, 2 Comments

CTG is exploding with thrills to announce that we will soon have a foodie column happening here every thursday, called Food, Interrupted. More details to follow later in the week, when I introduce you properly to CTG’s resident foodie, Frances Sauvage. In the meantime, please enjoy this sneak peek from our shoot on Saturday:

Frances will be dishing on all things on dishes, some of which she’ll be making herself. She’s killer in the kitchen – this woman bakes her own biscuits when she gets home from work and can rack up a roast on a whim. I look most forward to sharing her with you. Like a rich dessert. Stay tuned.