Great Coffee Packaging.

Wow. How cool is this packaging? This has to be some of the best coffee packaging – actually some of the best packaging on anything – I’ve seen. It mixes New York TriBeCa cool with a patriotic springbok emblem. And rad colours. The whole thing is genius, really. Who is responsible? Well, that sharp designer Peet Pienaar and his crew at The President. And TriBeCa coffee? Founded by someone that lived in Seattle, which seems like all the resume you need to become the next coffee guru. Either way, the stuff is awesome, and you’ve probably unwittingly tried it yourself. Well, if you’ve bought any of the Woolworths blends or a coffee at any W cafe, then you have. But keep a lookout for these nifty packages. Worth collecting.

Poached Eggs on Salmon Fishcakes.

I just made this for lunch because I had the ingredients in my fridge, but I’m going to recommend you do it for Sunday brunch this weekend. If you’re like me, you’ll probably be a little hungover after heavily celebrating Argentina’s imminent victory over Germany, so this will go down a treat. Anyways, it’s very simple to make, especially since you’re not a restaurant and don’t have to make your fishcakes or mayonnaise from scratch (though kudos if you do).

Poached eggs, man, they make me happy… and no Sunday brunch should pass without them! Oh, and try not to burn the shit out of your palate on the steaming hot fishcakes because you’re so excited to eat them. I bloody well do that all the time…

Ingredients: (for 2 portions)

4 salmon fishcakes (bought mine at Woolworths)

4 eggs

2 handfuls of pak choi leaves (Pick ‘n Pay usually has)

6 Tbsp mayonnaise

2 Tbsp Dijon mustard

1 Tbsp white wine vinegar

2 tsp chopped fresh parsley

Preparation:

Heat the fishcakes in the oven till warm; 160′C for 15-minutes works well.

Blanche the pak choi in a frying pan with boiling water for 2-minutes. Remove and place in colander.

Pour water out and boil more water in the pan. Should be about 2 fingers of water for poaching the eggs. Add the vinegar once it’s boiling (not too roughly, just a fine bubble rising). Individually crack each egg into a cup/mug and gently transfer to water. Using the side of the pan helps not end up with a yolky mess in the pan, but temperature is key.

While your eggs are poaching, mix your mayonnaise with your mustard. Divide the pak choi onto two plates, place two salmon fishcakes on top on each portion and then divide your Dijonnaise over the top. Once the eggs are as you like them, simple place one on top of each fishcake. Sprinkle the parsley on top of each and enjoy.

Not Your Average Tuesday.

Yesterday was a pretty freaking good day.  A classic. That’s because it involved:

1. a beer tasting in the afternoon. Yup, happened to pop around to the folks at &UNION as they were cracking open some new brews from a microbrewery in Namibia called ‘Camelthorn.’ Yes, I hear your sniggers. The cameltoe jokes are inevitable, especially after a few. One wonders how that goes down in the hard-knock bars in Windhoek? Not that I’ve ever been to a hard-knock bar in Windhoek, but I imagine they’re filled with big, hairy German-speaking locals that ride Harley rip-offs and say the German word for ‘wench’ a lot. Anyways, the beers were okay, not amazing, with the Camelthorn Weissbier being the best, and their American Ale (which is a Pale Ale, really) also quite tasty. Poor packaging though. Checkout a video on the brewery here if you’re trying to avoid work today.

2. a wine tasting after work. Nothing wrong with that at all. Tasted a few decent wines at Caveau as part of a little ‘bring your own bottle’ gathering they want to do every Tuesday with mates. Very unlike Caveau, since if you (foolishly) decided to bring your own bottle on a normal day, you’d probably get asked – politely, but only at first – to take it back to the car. However, a few regulars brought bottles and gathered around the main table, which was good fun. What was good? Groot Constantia ‘Gouverneurs’ Shiraz 2006 is a cracking wine, that’ll seemingly age forever. Veenwouden Syrah 2007 is tasting gangbusters right now. And Hedonist Red 2008 (Syrah Grenache Carignan Viognier) was also a favourite, though the bottle was maybe slightly heat-exposed.

3. a catchup dinner with a mate. One that involved far too much wine. In fact, with partners, the four of us consumed 6 bottles and about two kilograms of bacon & asparagus risotto. Then at midnight we strolled up to the Engen Woolworths on Orange where upon return we consumed 8 cheese “chickenburgers” from Barcelos and a pack of Bugles (those Woolworths ones that are addictive). Anyways, enough about that, the wines we drank were: Deetleefs Familie Brut 2006, a clean, fresh bubbly with nothing too remarkable about it; Hawksmoor ‘Barrel 59′ Syrah 2008, made in a delicious, ‘chocolatey’ style; Ondine Cabernet Sauvignon 2007, rather nasty stuff; JH Pacas Shiraz 2004*, possibly the worst wine I’ve had in years, I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, not even Julius Malema, he who berates wine-drinkers; and two bottles of Mapoggo Cab Franc/Cab Sauv/Merlot 2008, a pleasant red that goes down well after four bottles of other wine, whatever that means.

It’s not often I get to do a beer tasting, a wine tasting and a catchup dinner with a good mate of all in one day. Needless to say I needed a Disprin this morning. Well, two really.

* this Pacas wine is so bad I actually went and looked up about it online, which you can do at their website if you’re extremely bored. Anyway, rather hilariously, they write “After researching into the name “Pacas”, we discovered that it is the name of a rodent found in south and central America…” WTF?! They actually have that on their site! This is quite apt though, since the wine tastes like it was made by rodents in south and central America.

Engen/Woolworths on Orange.

This shop never ceases to amaze me. Not just because everyone – e.v.e.r.y.o.n.e. – knows where it is (when was the last time you didn’t use it when giving directions?), but because it is the Mecca of garage shops. Someone told me that it turns over about R15m per month. That would be R180m a year! From a freaking garage and a pie shop!! That is highly impressive. And just think if they started serving alcohol there. Though I guess being a petrol station this sort of thinking would be counterproductive to the concept of ‘Arrive Alive.’

Anyways, I was in a rush today and (shock-horror!) hadn’t made an appointment to meet anyone for lunch somewhere tasty, so pulled in to the Woolies to grab a quick sandwich. But strolling in their got me thinking about how amazing the place is. Open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It has a mini Woolworths food shop. It has the full snack/grocery section with everything from 2 Minute Noodles to shoe polish to tooth paste. It has locally made roti’s. It has a complete takeout counter serving a flame-grilled chicken menu. It has a bakery cranking out not-so-bad croissants daily. They sell ciabattas from Knead bakery. There’s a Melissa’s Foods rack. They even have a toilet inside there. I mean, if your house burnt down or got repossessed you could basically move in there. Jeepers, someone needs to give this station a medal of honour for service to the Cape Town community. From the solo bachelors getting dinner after work to the drunk students stealing pies at 3am to the middle-aged women buying bread for the family dinner, this place serves all.

A Cape Town icon if ever there was one. Thank you Engen/Woolworths, Restaurant L’Orange, or whatever you wish to be known…