Chef's night out

What happens when you get a dozen of South Africa's top chefs together to judge a culinary competition in Durban and you've got to entertain the guys. Well Craig knows the answer to that one because instead of whisking them off to to one of Durban's glitzy restaurants he took us to Don's place in Umhlanga. There were no flighty Maitre d's , no hauty waiters or waitresses, no standing on ceremony, just good food and good company.
It was great to touch base with some of the guys who I hadn't seen for some time, Glenda with her newly touched up highlights, specially for the final of the competition, Jeff the Chef who never seems to age under that facial growth and Craig who had the good sense to realise that chefs actually like simple food that is well prepared as opposed to poncey food that looks good but tastes terrible.
So what do 12 chefs eat when they're out on the prowl. Well of course they do like a drink so we'll take that as a given, we also are the most unfussy customers so Craig had briefed the restaurant to just keep bringing platters of food and dumping them on the table until we were finished. We had carpaccio of beef with shaved parmesan, pizza bianca topped with thinly sliced black forest ham, chefs salad with cheese and balsamic, grilled strips of calamari, chicken livers with Portugese rolls, grilled tiger prawns with garlic butter and peri peri, chilli roasted chicken with french fries, pan seared spiced beef strips and then even more grilled prawns. Simple food, simply great. If they did serve a dessert then I don't remember because by that time there were expressos and bottles of grappa on the table, memories were flying thick and fast about previous culinary encounters and rash promises made about culinary adventures to come. It really doesn't matter if future plans don't come to pass because the fact we committed to them for even a brief period is good enough for me and maybe that's what friendship is really all about at the end of the day.

Good nite, sleep tight, don't let the bugs bite!

Coriander is one of those few herbs which attracts really bad press and can send people into fits of near rage - garlic is perhaps another. There is no doubt that you either like or you don't like coriander leaves in, under, over or around your food, few people seem to be indifferent to it. Whether you refer to it as coriander, dhania, cilantro or kothmir it will provoke strong reactions.
It appears that coriander comes from the Greek word Koris meaning a bedbug and Ancient Greeks and also many contemporary Europeans believed that coriander leaves smelt like bed sheets infested with bed bugs. Hence the name and hence the absence of the herb from traditional European cuisine. However in Asia, Latin America and Africa the herb was universally accepted, perhaps they had different sleeping habits.
As for me I tend to side more with the Chinese who although they do not use a lot of it in their cooking, have the good grace to refer to it as " fragrant greens ". I like the fresh, almost citrusy, biting tang and it's essential in many Thai, Mexican and even Cape Malay dishes. I've never had the misfortune of encountering any bedbugs and therefore cannot relate to the Greek reaction.
Here's a recipe for a really fresh tasting chutney/salsa to use as a dip for your pappadums or to smear on rotis or chappatis :
Roasted Chilli and Coriander Chutney
60 gm green chillis roasted till soft and just beginning to colour
60 gm fresh coriander leaves
60 gm fresh mint leaves
60 ml freshly squeezed lemon juice
30 gm palm sugar or soft brown sugar
5 gm salt
20 gm chopped garlic
30 gm chopped ginger
Zap everything in a blender and moisten if necessary with a little water. As always feel free to change quantities to suit your palate.

Happy birthday Mrs S

What a day to celebrate your birthday and share it with such celebrities as Freddie Mercury and Raquel Welch. I don't know if you could carry off Bohemian Rhapsody as well as Freddie but judging from the photo albums today you certainly could have given Racquel a run for her money in your younger days. But all that doesn't matter anymore because the most important thing today was to have your family and friends around to celebrate this momentous occasion.
And momentous it certainly was because for anyone to reach the ripe old age of 80 is worthy of celebration. Family celebrations are always very rich experiences and when you are priviliged to be a part of one as a friend then its a great honour. Add to that some fantastic food from argueably two of Cape Town's top chefs and you have the recipe for a great Sunday afternoon. The smoked salmon and avocado starter swimming in gazpacho was first class although if you'd caught me on any other day I might have discussed the finer points of the dish. The perfectly cooked roast fillet of beef offered no cause for dissention and the chocolate tart was exactly what all tarts should be, mysterious, in yer face and over the top. To finish off we had some of Jason's "Van der Jason liqueur" which was very moorish - if he doesn't make it as a chef then at least he has a great future with Distell.
The food was fantastic, the company magnificent, Mrs S was radiant - isn't life great!

Mageirocophobia

No it's not the 1 st April and I'm not pulling your leg with this one. There really is such a word with it's roots in classical Greek. Phobia is the easy bit, we all know it's a fear of something or other and mageiric has got nothing to do with magic although some people may argue to the contrary. Mageiric is from mageirokos a Greek adjective referring to cooking or describing someone who is skilled in that art and so mageirocophobia, a not so uncommon affliction, is actually a fear of cooking!
People suffering from this phobia have frightening scenes from TV cooking shows running around in their heads, they breathe rapidly, feel nauseous and start to sweat, all the symptoms of having the mother-in-law round for dinner. But the good news is that it can be cured in 3 simple steps :
1. Let go of negative emotions from the past - it's no good feeling anger, hurt and guilt about all those TV dinners you subjected your family to in the past.
2. Let go of limiting decisions - like " But I always buy at Checkers " or " I'm not good enough to pan fry a fish fillet "
3. Create a compelling vision of the future : so you produce the results you want in life.. like serving your family a really tasty pasta meal with an empty bottle of instant arrabiatta sauce hidden behind your back.
Vanquish your fear and anxiety in a fast, painless and totally safe process and recover your confidence, calm and happiness. A gradual dose of TV cooking shows featuring Ainsley Harriott should increase from 30 mins per day to the full 12 or so hours that he performs on our screens daily coupled with bedtime reading of all 20 volumes of the Atkins Diet and before you know it, you'll be as fat as the rest of us.

The world's oldest cuisine

Don't let the glossy magazines fool you, there's nothing new in food. Our forefathers were hunters and gatherers before they learned to control fire and all food was by necessity consumed raw. Well now the Raw Food Movement is rapidly gaining ground in the States and we're seeing some sort of return to our roots as it were. I'm talking real raw food here by the way, not sushi or oysters or even just salads and fruit.
As usual, since it's an American trend, we'd best call it a " lifestyle " , a raw-plant-food-based lifestyle. Now I have my own theory why this is moving centre stage and I reckon it's because vegetarians are becoming normal. Time was when you used to look upon vegetarians as some type of freak with flowery printed shirts, beads and sandals but now so many people are eating less meat for health reasons that the edges have kind of blurred between the carrot munchers and the rest of us. So now it's time to reassert their individuality, to stand out from the crowd, to disassociate themselves from the " psuedo vegetarians " and boldly tiptoe through the tulips again.
The uncooked food lifestyle has certainly attracted many of the inhabitants of Tinseltown - why am I not surprised? - including Woody Harrelson who believes that cooked food fills your body with waste matter that causes frequent colds and many diseases and is happy to tuck into a "sunburger" made from flax meal, almonds, sunflower seeds, celery, carrots, herbs and spices. Of course there's no baked bun, it's served on butter lettuce. It all contributes to his " lightness of being "

As for me, well I tend to side with the nutritionists who believe this diet is downright dangerous and anyway we should be trying to develop chefs and culinary skills not make them extinct. So please excuse me if I pass on the wild grasses containing "the essence of love, joy, strength, wisdom, knowledge and humility'', if I skip the thinly sliced zucchini noodles with raw tomato sauce and macadamia nuts and move right on to the pan seared escalope of fresh kingklip with roasted vegetables and some crispy ciabatta.

Poor old Jamie!

It was a very noble idea if he was doing it to give something back to the industry, it was a marketing man's dream if he was doing it for publicity, it was a wily scam if he was doing it for tax reasons but it's turned into a nightmare for Jamie as the restaurant guides have turned on him. Jamie Oliver, the darling of middle aged dowagers everywhere, opened his restaurant " Fifteen " in a newly trendy area of London's East End amid a blaze of publicity and on the back of a six part BBC television series. He took 15 young, unemployed and untrained youngsters under his wing to coach them in the culinary arts and set them loose in a posh restaurant with minimal supervision.
We all saw the televised trials and tribulations as Jamie struggled to instill some sort of discipline in to what seemed to be singularily ungrateful brats and despite the high number of dropouts who just couldn't get to grips with the industry, we all held thumbs for Jamie to succeed in this unique experiment. Unfortunately all it has proved is that you cannot turn out high calibre chefs by fast tracking them and if your other business activities require you to spend most of your time making TV programmes, signing books, doing personal appearances, endorsing supermarket products etc, etc then you have no chance of moulding these young aspiring culinarians. Jamie unfortunately left the day to day running of the restaurant and training of his proteges to others who possibly did not have the same passion and vision that he had. Pitching up once or twice a week on filming day just wasn't enough. In it's 2005 edition, Harden's London Restaurant Guide describes the restaurant as " amateurish ".
That other magnificent TV Chef who can also juggle numerous restaurants and business interests at the same time, Mr Gordon Ramsey, does a TV show called Hell's Kitchen where he goes in to other restaurant kitchens experiencing problems which he then solves in his own inimitable style. Perhaps Jamie's people could call Gordon's people, set up a lunch and toss it around - there could be a great TV programme waiting to be made!

Time for an oil change

You can forget about those fancy oils in pretty bottles that someone suckered you for a few years ago and you haven't yet found an opportunity to use them because they are definitely last year's news. Even gold medal winning olive oil, whether it's virgin, extra virgin or medically certified extra extra extra virgin can be relegated to the back of the cupboard as being slightly passe and I know we didn't really give avocado oil a fair chance but it too is out of favour because the new kid on the block is Argan Oil. It's guaranteed to send you into overdraft at approximately R 400 per litre but what the hell, you'll be right up there on a culinary par with all the trendy Parisian chefs falling over themselves to feature it in new recipes and on their menus.
So what's the excitement? Well it's from Morocco which is very much in the current food focus, the Argan tree providing the nuts from which the oil is extracted only grows in the Atlas Mountains in an area covering approx 700,000 hectares and the tree has been added to the World Heritage list by UNESCO. Add to this the fact that until recently the oil was extracted by hand by Berber woman and you have all the makings of a " must have" ingredient or in this case a " mustapha ingredient ".
It has a subtle nuttiness and is slightly darker than olive oil but unusually for an oil it has a powerful fragrance especially when the seeds have been lightly toasted. In Morocco it is used mainly as a finishing touch for tagines and sometimes for couscous. Limited production and the vast quantities which the Berbers refuse to release to the marketing gurus will ensure it's premium price. They prefer to mix the oil with ground almonds and honey and spread it on semolina bread in the preparation of a local dish known as amlou which is reputed to have aphrodisiac qualities but then it would have to wouldn't it, at that crazy price?