It's the weeeeekennnnnd, baby!

So this weekend is a biggie, entertainment wise. Just thought I'd give you a headsup as to what awesome things are happening:

• The ILoveCoffee Festival. Coffee, as I've mentioned before, is the elixir of life. This weekend, ILoveCoffee has organised a first-of-its-kind-in-Cape-Town (as far as I'm aware) coffee festival. The festival will exhibit some of the best coffees available in the world, with all the aritsan roasters and baristas on hand to chat to you about the coffees, their origins, roasting methods and tasting profiles. It looks extremely exciting, and the details are as follows:

Where? : The Old Biscuit Mill, Woodstock

When? : Saturday morning, from 9am until 2pm

How much? :  Free! Seriously.

Web? : here

• Dont Party TV Launch. Already you should be getting excited. How can I put this event into words to get you stoked? Hmmm... Its going to be FUCKING INSANE. Pretty much. With the line up consisting ONLY of the BEST electro/drum'nbass/dubstep/grime artists in South Africa (possibly even the world), its impossible to be disappointed. Niskerone, Haezer, P.H. Fat, Bruce Willis??, Kennedy, Liver... need I say more? By the way, I suggest you get there early, as the queues are going to be long and the tickets are going to sell out 'so fast they gonna make fast tickets look, well, not fast." (Quote (ashamedly) adapted from The Longest Yard). All of this mindblowing music will be going down as follows:

Where? : The Assembly, Harrington Street

When? : Friday night, doors open at 9pm

How much? : R70 at the door (pre-sold tickets are already sold out)

Web? : Assembly event

            Facebook event

• Van Coke Kartel & Zebra and Giraffe. What? Another two of South Afrika's best music groups performing this weekend? Yep, thats right. These awesome Afrikaans rockers will be performing with Zebra and Giraffe this weekend; a night not to be missed. Lets hit it up!

Where? : The Assembly, Harrington Street

When? : Saturday night, doors open at 8pm

How much? : R60 pre-sale (at webtickets)

                      R70 at the door

Web? Assembly event

Have a great weekend.

dK

Errr... I'm back

So, I'm back. The reason I haven't posted in well over 4 weeks is complicated. Well, not really. I spilled water on my laptop. That was stupid. Anyway, I tried to save it by drying it off then sticking it in rice (yes, the rice that you eat) for two days. I had read somewhere that when electronic things - more commonly cellphones - have water spilled on them, you should dismantle them and put them in rice. The rice is said to have mystical powers of revival*. It worked! I switched the laptop on and all my data was still intact, but the power adapter was broken. No problem! That should be cheaply replaceable, should it not? Turns out, not. I sent the machine in to Digicape to have it assessed. It turned out it was going to cost more to fix the laptop than to buy a new one. Anyway, long story short, insurance paid for a new laptop (bonus for me) which is slightly better than the old one. The guys at Digicape were also very helpful, and that was nice to deal with people who are competent in what they do, for a change.

Now, I have to have a little bit of a rant to say just how great Apple products are. The laptop I have is a 13-inch Macbook Pro. Everything about it screams sex. The keyboard, the graphics, the design, the functionality, the simplicity, the EVERYTHING. Just as an example: seeing that my old hard-drive was still intact and contained some precious data, I wanted to get it onto my new computer. No prob, they said, and they housed it in a nice external HDD cover. Switch on laptop, run configuration program. Do I want to transfer information from and old computer? Why yes, yes I do. Plug in, leave 2 hours, come back. I expected some of the programs to have to be re-installed, the data to be re-organised, the personal settings to be reset, the calendar to be painstakingly reworked, etc. I look at my laptop and see everything EXACTLY AS IT HAD BEEN on my old Macbook Pro. I could not believe it. I nearly wanted to cry at the beauty of it all. Oh, thank you Apple technicians for designing such a wonderful, majestic, intelligent piece of technology. Everything was exactly as it had been, making this probably the simplest, most stress-free, effortless task I could have imagined when it comes to transferring everything from one computer to another. Wow. It was incredible. I am in awe of how great Apple products are.

If you have any other kind of computer, throw it in the bin and get yourself an Apple computer. It will change your life, for reals.

dK

*Clearly, you know nothing about rice. It has no such mystical powers. What it does do though, is absorb water (basic knowledge of rice people). Caught you :)
                                                                                             

The Test Kitchen

The Test Kitchen by Luke Dale-Roberts. Un-be-fucking-lievable.

So I went out for a much-belated birthday meal last night to The Test Kitchen. I felt like a little kid, I was so excited. Luke Dale-Roberts is a world-renowned chef, who pushed La Colombe to 12th place on the World's 50 Best Restaurants list last year. The man is a food genius, proven by the fact that The Test Kitchen has been open for about 8 months and is fully booked two weeks in advance.

There are two menu options on offer for dinner: the à la carte menu, where you can choose either 3 or 5 courses, with or without wine pairing, and then there's the other option - the reason you go to The Test Kitchen - the tasting menu. Currently The Test Kitchen is offering an incredible tasting menu which has been meticulously put together by Luke Dale-Roberts and winemakers Adi Badenhorst and Eben Sadie.  I know very little about wine, but I know that these guys produce some seriously good wine and I was very keen to see what kinds of foods would be paired with which wines.

Needless to say, I opted for the tasting menu. The menu is called "The Fantastic Eben, Adi and Luke show". And what a show it was. I wish I could describe the quality of the food which I was served. We were sitting at the kitchen bar counter, which was literally right next to the pass (where the food is plated and sent out). Luke was standing a metre away from me plating the dishes to be served. It was unreal to have that kind of dining experience. I was able to ask him questions about the food, and it was incredible how open he was about the food, his preparation methods and what his flavour combinations are. The food itself was mind-blowing. Every ingredient complemented the next expertly and made my mouth sink into a cloud of blissful enjoyment. The tasting menu is an 11 course meal, composed of small flavour explosions which just happen to arrive in the form of food on a plate. I couldn't believe how complex the food was (yet it seemed so simple? - incredible), and at the same time how balanced the flavours, textures and ingredients were in every dish. This is extremely difficult to get right, so to get it right 11 courses in a row was phenomenal. Everything was (dare I say) perfect. It seems like whirl of colour, flavour and emotion made up my world last night. Little surprises probe your tastebuds to ask "Hey! What is that? Thats a match I never would have imagined but it just works so well."

I would explain each course to you, but that would take far to long and would not even do the garnish on the plate justice. The wine parings were beautiful, and brought out flavours in the dishes that were hiding away. This really opened up my eyes to just how well wine can complement food.

To say that I had a meal would be lying. What Luke and his team provide is an unparalleled, mouthwatering, exquisite food experience. The food, the service, the wine, the setting, everything came together to provide what is probably the most intimate, sensual food experience available in Africa. Don't hesitate, get yourself to The Test Kitchen for a food experience like no other.

dK

*please excuse the lack of quality pictures. It was a "I-half-forgot-my-camera-at-home-half-left-it-there-because-I-thought-it-might-be-rude-taking-pictures-of-restaurant-food" kind of situation. But I'll be sure to take it next time. The potential for great photos is huge in that space. The photos of the menu are taken by me, the others are copied off the interweb.

Mojitos

Yay! Its Friday! And Fridays mean one thing to me: cocktails. Every week, I experiment with cocktails, getting pretty slaughtered in the process of finding the ultimate balance between the alcohols used and the other ingredients. But hey, thats all for you guys, you should be thanking me for doing all the dirty work. I think its a noble quest, anyhow.

I like cocktails where you can taste the ingredients. Good ingredients = good cocktails. So don't be stingy, go and buy proper limes, use the best rum you can find and use fresh mint. You'll get to notice that I like my cocktails rather strong, so if you're a bit of a pussy feel free to water it down a little by using more ice / water / soda water.

Today, I found what I think is a great recipe for Mojitos.

Ingredients

8 mint leaves

3 level teaspoons sugar (I use brown sugar)

juice of half a lime

2 shots white rum

crushed ice

• Place the sugar, mint and lime juice in a pestle and mortar, then grind together to form a nice liquidy paste.
• Pour the liquidy paste into a low tumbler glass, add the rum, and fill the glass with crushed ice. Stir together, garnish with a mint sprig (if you're in the mood) and serve.

This cocktail is great, and I like the fact that you can taste the sugar, mint and rum quite clearly, and there's a good balance between them. The original recipe uses soda water, but I don't dig it, so guess what? I don't use it.

Get drinking!

dK

# Photographically, I like to see the difference in focus range, and the overall feel of the photo, when I focus on objects which are in the foreground, and then take the same photo but focusing on the objects in the background, as in the following 2 photos. #

Almond and Lemon Cake

"S'ils n'ont plus de pain, qu’ils mangent de la brioche." - Marie Antionette

"If they have no bread, let them eat cake!" This famous misquotation (What? You didn't know it was a misquotation? Read about it here.) by Marie Antionette is wonderful when you analyse it and realise that, really, all she was trying to do is do the peasants a favour and let them eat glorious cake. 

Speaking of, this IS a glorious cake. I found the recipe while blog-trawling the other day, promptly gave it a try and was very impressed with what came out of my oven. Its very simple, and is made using very traditional cake baking methods. I would encourage anyone to bake it; you can't really fuck it up unless you overbake it, which is unlikely to happen seeing that you, being such a keen food enthusiast, are here, reading this post. Or whatever. Just make the cake. You will be thanking me.

Ingredients

225g unsalted butter, at room temperature

225g castor sugar

4 free range eggs

125g plain flour*

100g almonds*

zest and juice of 2 lemons

1 tsp almond or lemon extract, if you can find it, or just use vanilla extract if you want

*The mixture of ground almonds and flour can be altered. If you can afford it, go for as much ground almonds as possible, just make sure that the total mixture makes up 225g. E.g. use 175g ground almonds and 50g flour, etc. DO NOT use less than 100g ground almonds. You can make ground almonds by processing whole almonds in a food processor if you can't find it at the shops. Try dry-roasting your almonds first, it'll probably give off a completely different, more complex, flavour.

• Preheat your oven to 180°C. Set up an oven rack on the lowest level. Grease a 24cm springform cake tin well with butter. You can line it as well if you want to.
• In a large, wide bowl, cream your butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. ("creaming" is a process whereby you beat butter and sugar together vigorously so that the sugar and butter become one pale and fluffy mixture).
• Add one egg to the creamed butter and flour mixture along with about 2tbsp of the flour. Mix it in well. Add another egg and another 2tbsp flour, mix in, and continue like this until all the eggs and flour are well mixed in.
• Carefully mix in the ground almonds, lemon zest and juice, and whatever flavoured extract you may be using. Don't worry if you think the mixture looks curdled when you add the lemon juice, it will be fine. And if it does look curdled, just mix well and it will turn out fine.
• Pour the mixture into the prepared tin, even it out, and place on the oven rack on the lowest shelf (this will make sure that the top of the cake does not burn as it bakes). Turn down the oven to 170 °C and bake for 20 minutes. 
• After 20 minutes, place the cake and oven rack onto the middle shelf (this will help the top to brown evenly in the final stage of baking). Bake for a further 5-10 minutes. Check regularly by inserting a toothpick into the middle of the cake. The cake is done when the toothpick comes out almost clean and the top of the cake is firm. TAKE CARE NOT TO OVERBAKE, as this will cause the cake to dry out and will ruin the whole point of this cake.
• Take the cake out of the oven when it is done and allow to cool on a wire rack for about 15 minutes in the tin. Unmould the cake and place it back on the wire rack to finish cooling. 

Try not to cut the cake before the cake has cooled properly. It WILL tempt you. Your willpower WILL be tested. It's that good. But, seriously, if you cut the cake before it is cool, it will not complete its baking process properly and it will end up crumbly. I would say allow at least 30 minutes cooling time.

If you want, sprinkle over some toasted almond slivers, and dust with icing sugar (if you're aiming for that super-duper professional look).

This cake is moist, rich, and really simple. You can taste the almonds and lemon beautifully, which epitomises the whole point of this being such a simple cake: you can taste what is in it!

dK

#  On a photographic note, notice the difference between the lighting of the picture above and the one below, and what it does to the overall colour of the picture. The one above was taken using a flash, and the one below without, with the same background lighting. Seeing as they are relatively similar pictures, I was interested by the differences in colour hue, amount of noise in the picture (the one below is far "noisier") and overall clarity and definition. #

Esp015 from Espressolab

Coffee. Its the elixir of life. Seriously, as much as you'd like to say "Nahhh, come on now," its true. Plus its good for you. But this is about a new coffee blend, in particular, the Esp015 from Espressolab Microroasters. When I buy coffee, it usually comes from one of two places:

Origin Coffee Roasting (Hudson Street in de Waterkant)
Espressolab Microroasters (the shop is located in the Old Biscuit Mill in Woodstock)

I like Espressolab because of the people there. They've got a serious passion for coffee and are very conscious of sourcing their coffee from farms where the farmers are paid the correct prices for their coffee, and as far as possible the coffee is organic. If you didn't know, the coffee trading industry is notorious for drastically underpaying farmers for incredible quality coffees and exploiting the farmers in general. If you're interested, go and watch a movie called Black Gold. That'll be as good an education as any about the coffee industry. Its a sad, but true, reality.

So Espressolab really make me feel like I'm doing a good thing by buying their ethically-sourced coffee.
Plus, the coffee is fucking amazing. I was there this morning, and I've read about their new blends on their blog. I'm always sceptical about the way people say that they taste all these "profiles" and "flavours" in the coffee. I just know when a coffee tastes great or tastes shit. But anyway, wanting to make a believer out of myself, I took their words into consideration and decided that I would taste their new blend with an open mind, and I decided to really look for those flavours, and see what I could find.

The Esp015 really surprised me. Read how they describe the blend here. I'd forgotten every flavour profile they had mentioned, so I wanted to see what came up for me. In the aroma, I could smell honey, fynbos, and dark chocolate. These smells were all quite distinct, which impressed me. In the cup, I tasted a smoky, woody flavour, with fruity notes, and a slight chocolate backtaste. The finish was extraordinary, and remained around my tongue for a good 20 minutes. When I read the flavour profile afterwards, it seemed quite different, but I was nonetheless still astounded by the complexity of the coffee.

I love discovering new things like this. This next week will now be that much better because of it (I promptly bought myself a bag of the goods).

Espressolab. Check it out. They're doing some great things down there.


Monday-Friday from 8am-4pm
Saturday from 8am-2pm

The Old Biscuit Mill
373-375 Albert Road, Woodstock
Cape Town, South Africa

t: +27 21 4470845
e: info@espressolabmicroroasters.com


website: http://www.espressolabmicroroasters.com/
blog: http://espressolabmicroroasters.blogspot.com/


dK

Focus! on the espresso

Pictures from the Biscuit Mill. I got lazy. So these are all unedited. Notice the HUGE jar of Nutella...