At the market
Markets are always great places for photos, especially when there is great food. And when you goto a market in an Afrikaans area, you are assured of plenty of great food shooting opportunities.
This particular market was in the park directly across the road from our holiday house in Langebaan. Langebaan is a small seaside holiday village on the West coast about an hour from Cape Town. Like most small town markets, it had an eclectic collection of great food, lovely hand-crafts and rubbish. It amazes me how you can see wonderful food and beautiful carvings right next to miscellaneous junk from somebody’s recently cleaned up house. And I am not talking about old antiques. No, this is just junk that nobody wants, but is still for sale on the off-chance that somebody might buy it. And have you noticed how all markets have at least one junk stall?
Anyway, lets straight past the junk to the good stuff.
Big yellow blocks of Boere-kaas (farm cheese)
Handmade dark chocolate cupcakes
Handmade pepper grinders
These pepper grinders are hand made from tree branches, resulting in grinders that have a natural variation in shape and size. If you examine the quality of these grinders, and the hard work that went into the turning and varnishing of them, it is difficult to really put a fair price on them. They are truly beautiful.
These samosas were a little unexpected at an Afrikaans market (especially vegetarian samosas), but nevertheless they were freshly made, crispy and excellent.
Like most small markets you can walk through and see everything in about 1/2 an hour. Will you life be unfulfilled if you miss it? No. Will you have an enjoyable 1/2 hour delay if you are driving past? Yes, worth the visit, but don’t stay too long.
Go hungry!
Mince pies for luck
In some traditions, it is considered good luck to eat a mince pie every day for the 12 days before Christmas, and even luckier to eat each pie in a different home. In my family it is far more simple.
Every mince pie eaten before Christmas gives you a month’s good luck.
So the more you eat, the better your luck (assuming they don’t kill you from a heart attack). Of course eating 12 pies guarantees your luck for the next year. To continue this nonsensical and superstitious tradition, I ate my first mince pie of the season last night; like I need an excuse to eat a mince pie. It was supplied by my friend Sandra, and baked by her husband.
Ok to tell the truth, my luck is guaranteed for at least the next two months, and I am bound to have a little more luck coming my way soon.
Enjoy the pies :-)
Baguettes and left overs for lunch
There is only one thing to do when you have some roast beef and tomato, rocket & feta salad left over from dinner, and that is to buy a fresh baguette and turn it into a scrummy lunch.
Of course Lois would not eat any of the beef, so some cheese for her.
I bought the baguette at Knead bakery in Muizenberg, which is a good thing because I realised on the way there that today is the big walk, so many of the roads were closed, Fortunately, I could still get to the bakery on the beach front.
It was an excellent meal!
Lamb Shank
On Saturday night Lois made me slow-cooked lamb shank with mushrooms and baby tomatoes. Of course lots of chilli and garlic went in as well. The strange thing in our house is that Lois is vegetarian (ok that in itself is not that strange), but Lois is usually the one that cooks the meat dishes, and I am the one that usually cook the vegetarian dishes.
So while I cooked Lois a pumpkin bake, she cooked me the lamb shank. Personally, I think that I got the better deal :-)
Espetada at Forries
Francois’ Espedata
The weather this weekend has been glorious (you may notice that Capetonians have an obsession with the weather), so a group of us decided to have an outdoor lunch at Forries in Claremont. Foresters Arms, which is a traditional English pub, has been around for as long as I can remember. And they server about 15 beers on tap (which is very rare for Cape Town).
Francois could not resist the Espedata, which looked fantastic. But at 400 grams, it was simply big a meal for me, so I settled on a chicken burger covered with Bree and cranberry sauce.
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