Life is a Journey. Eat Well.
Rock Shandy for a Hot Summer Day
A Rock Shandy. Ask any bartender in South Africa or Zimbabwe for one of these and he will know exactly what you want.
I have struggled to find one in a UK pub, though, to be fair, it is a drink for a hot day, ideally on the beach, but the garden will do! The hot days we are currently experiencing are ideal.
Best of all, depending on how you make it, it can be sugar free, and is alcohol free.
Rock Shandy Recipe
You will need:
- Angostura Bitters
- Ice
- A slice of lemon (optional)
- Lemonade in some form – I often use 7-Up light, but any lemonade will do
- Sparkling water or soda water
- A long glass – either a highball or pint glass.
To make the Rock Shandy
- Put ice in the glass
- Add a couple of good splashes of Angostura Bitters
- Roll the glass to spread the bitters on the glass
- Add the lemon
- Fill the glass with half soda water and half lemonade
- Enjoy
One variation is the Malawi Shandy. Simply replace the lemonade with ginger beer to get a bit of a ginger tang.
Or Make a Sneaky
To make a Sneaky add a tot or two of vodka (Vodka Sneaky) or gin (Gin Sneaky).
Warning: It’s called a Sneaky for a reason – it sneaks up on you!
Cheers!
Happy New Year – And a Look Back at 2019
Wishing you all a happy, healthy and prosperous 2020.
May you have plenty of interesting places to visit, great food to eat, and take many photos!
Our 2019 was all of mad, crazy and busy. Starting with London by day and night and then the mad summer of the coffee trail. A city break in Cork, Ireland and a week in Zakynthos gave us a chance travel a bit and wind down. Here are a few of the highlights.
London Day out
The year started with a bang. Taking an overseas visitor to London. Camden Market for much of the day, just wandering. January is winter so the days are short. That didn’t stop us taking in the Winter Wonderland and London Christmas Lights. Who plays tourist at Trafalgar Square by night? We did!
Oxford
Oxford, on an open top bus, in January is COLD. But it was fun, followed by a walk around Oxford, looking at some of the historic sights.
Sourdough Bread
Yes I know this is a fad, but, not being a stranger to baking bread, it’s one I had not mastered. A few more-or-less successful attempts in April gave it some direction.
We now eat sourdough daily.
Sourdough is an endless journey. There are always tweaks to made to recipes and new tricks to try. More to come in 2020.
The Crazy Summer of 2019 – Coffee!
Also known as the Summer of Coffee Adventures.
We teamed up with Bretts Own Brews for a summer of delivering top class coffee at various events.
This jaunt saw us visiting some interesting places in the UK, which we would never have thought of visiting otherwise. For me the stand out highlights were:
- The British Grand Prix – 1200 cups of tea and coffee in 7 hours! A different view as a “worker”, but still a great experience;
- Standon Calling Music Festival – great experience and good to see Rag and Bone Man live;
- Cowley Road Carnival – music and colour an people from all over in the Cowley Road, Oxford.
Ireland – Glanmire
September saw us visiting Cork, in Ireland, staying at an AirBnB in the beautiful Glanmire Valley and visiting Cobh. Cobh, on the Cork Harbour is home to Spike Island and the impressive St Colman’s Cathedral, as well as being the last point where the Titanic touched land when it was called Queenstown.
Zakynthos (Zante) – Kalamaki Beach
All these adventures were tiring, so October saw us chilling out on the beach at Kalamaki on the Greek Island of Zakynthos. Definitely need another visit there for a bit longer to chill out and explore.
Blogging
Ducking and diving between coffee travels and work, the middle of the year saw very few blog posts, though a lot of effort went into improving SEO.
These are the highlights, but many more interesting stuff went unreported. Have to do better in the new year,
The year end saw a slight revamp, with a new logo and changes to page layouts.
Blogging remains a whole bunch learning curves – speed writing, cloud photo processing on the fly, using Canva and Trello to keep control.
Photography
Bluntly, my photography has been in the doldrums for a while. Watch this space for a revamp of my pixels.com site and more of the photos from our travels.
So that was 2019 – and 2020?
Plans are in progress. Perhaps some more coffee and some new travels.
What have you got planned?
Happy new Year.
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The Falkland Arms for Lunch- Great Tew
A couple of Saturdays back we wandered over to Great Tew, mainly to visit BakerGirl, which, sadly, was about to close down. Being lunch time we decided to have a bite to eat at the local pub, The Falkland Arms.
The Falkland Arms Pub
Walking into the pub made me think of a “proper” English pub (from a Southern African’s view anyway). Low ceiling, a bit smoky with a lovely log fire in the fireplace – something necessary on a cold Saturday. A cosy and welcoming space.
On a previous visit to Great Tew and a short walk my wife had commented that she could “smell that the food was good” without even going into the pub. It was no disappointment.
The menu offered more than a normal pub menu, prepared on site from fresh ingredients. Indeed, the Falkland Arms prides itself on the use of local produce and support for local business.
We were too late to sample the chicken pie. Beef features very low in our diet preferences, though the beef pie was tempting. We chose a lighter option in the form of fish cakes. Served on a bed of french fries with creamed spinach, the salmon and chive fishcakes were “full meal” sized and well cooked and presented. Accompanied by a glass of wine for my wife and a glass of cider for me, they made an excellent Saturday Lunch.
Note to self – take food photos. Sorry readers, though I had two cameras, the food photos didn’t happen. May be we need another visit?
The meal cost just on £40. Arguably expensive for a pub lunch, but good value as a better quality meal. No complaints from us on that score.
Stay at the Inn
The Falkland Arms offers B & B accomodation in 6 rooms in their 16th century building. These look good and, if the accomodation is anything like the food, would be a great weekend getaway or a base to visit Oxfordshire.
A Bit of History
There is evidence that there was human habitation in the Great Tew area in the Bronze age, and the remains of a Roman Villa have been found nearby.
Th Falkland Arms pub, itself, has carried the name since 1830.
Source: Wikipedia entry for Great Tew.
Would we Return
Many places to explore, and too few free weekends, but the Falkland Arms is on the list for a return visit. Perhaps even a weekend getaway!
Please share the Story.
Coffee at Holistic Harborough
Following on from our 3 Counties Saturday, with a visit to Market Harborough, we decided to tag along and visit Holistic Harborough to see BOB (Brett’s Own Brews) and Betty (the coffee shop on wheels, pictured above) in action.
Bretts Own Brews – It’s All About the Coffee
Of course the coffee is the main event for Betty. Take your pick of the usual – flat white, espresso, cappucino or latte. I have to admit to being spoiled – I drink their excellent house blend and dark blend every day as filter coffee.
Brett’s Own Brews coffee is 100% Arabica, sourced from reputable Fair Trade suppliers and roasted in the UK. Take your pick of regular milk, or a selection of non-dairy milks, such as oat, almond or soya.
If you prefer your tea, choose from a number of biodegrable pyramids from Tea People.
Keeping it Sustainable
Bretts Own Brews is a strong supporter of sustainability, using Vegware cups, which are compostible, and bamboo stirrers. That goes even to the point of separating the compostible rubbish in the bin and sending that to a recycler.
Plastic packaging, not totally avoidable in a commercial food environment, is kept to a minimum.
And A Snack Alongside Your Coffee
There is a good range of snacks available from various places:
Sourdough based biscuits from Modern Baker, specialists in healthy baking.
Cakes, brownies and flapjacks from Nat’s Kitchen. I love that lemon tart!
Holistic Harborough
Though we saw some sun, it was a cold day, due to a cold wind. The Square in Market Harborough is, however a great spot for a small festival of this type. People on their way to do their shopping and the like have little choice but to pass through the square and see the festival stands.
Though small, the festival attracted a number of interesting stands covering health, hemp and similar clothing and plastic reduction. A great idea was the Festival Bookshop in its distinctive blue Citroen van.
I’ll let the photos tell the story.
Talking to customers. Inside Bretts Own Brews’ Betty at Market Harborough. 
Holistic Harborough on the right in The Square. 
Distinctive blue Citroen van of the Festival Bookshop. 
Sustainable clothing using hemp, nettles and the like. Holistic harborough Festival in The Squaare. 
Rural Trading – getting rid of the single use plastic in practical ways. Holistic harborough Festival in The Squaare. 
The Burritos stands seemed to busy. 
A view of the Holistic Harborough Festival in The Square. Bretts Own Brews on the right in line with the steeple.
And the Next One
I believe Bretts Own Brews will be at the the Holistic Harborough events in June and September, as well as a number of other markets.
Given a sunny day, they should be good events.
One to pin to your board
Grab A Mug
Love your coffee? Drop in and check out this selection of coffee mugs from my store.
I use these myself to drink my Bretts Own Brews house blend coffee every morning.
They are a quality mug. Mine has now lasted around 3 years of daily coffee and dishwasher treatment.
A Sunday Roast in your Hand – Yorkshire Burrito
After a busy and interesting morning walking around the market, it’s time for lunch. Camden Market offers plenty of choice, whether you want to sit in a pub, or retaurant, or, like us, explore the street food. We checked out a few places, but wanted something different. Then we spotted the Yorkshire Burrito stand.
On various visits to the market we have enjoyed many dishes from simple fish and chips to exotic Chinese and Vietnamese dishes. This was something unusual.
Okay, in England we know that they do things differently “up north” :). But what is a Yorkshire Burrito?
Put simply, it’s a good old Sunday roast, in your hand.
Take a large Yorkshire pudding. Add some stuffing and a few spinach leaves. Take your choice of beef, chicken or cauliflower cheese, add it to the Yorkshire pudding along with a splash of gravy and, most importantly, some crispy roast potatoes. Carefully roll it up and seal it in a panini toaster (or something like).
What a different way to do the traditional roast! And very tasty too.
We tend to think of “street food” in terms of exotic foreign dishes, so it’s great to see something very English as a street dish.
Actually, talking to the guys running the stall, it was only their second day. They had sold out early on the first day, and were heading that way very quickly when we visited. Good luck to them – it’s a great idea!
Have a look at their site: A special English hand meal – A Yorkshire Burrito.
Have you tried a Yorkshire Burrito?
What sort of interesting but unexpected street foods have you discovered in your travels?
Pin a YorkshireBurrito Link
Weald Smokery – Great Lunch Stop
Smoked Seafood Lunch
Common to many bistro style cafes Weald Smokery offers a selection of sandwiches along with a few meals. All looked tasty and interesting. Following the “smokery” theme we opted to share a fish pate and a Fish Sharing platter. Service was quick and very polite, and we didn’t have to wait long for our food, sitting outside in warm sunshine. We were definitely not disappointed and enjoyed a tasty and ample fish meal. The pate was served with salad leaves and toast. The sharing platter included salmon, trout, smoked prawns (which I had never tried before) accompanied by taramasalata, a dill sauce, salad leaves and olives, and an assortment of artisan breads. Sitting in the sun in this countryside spot it is easy to think that you are in the countryside, and forget that it is only 17 miles to Hastings, at the coast, and a good source of fresh fish, as we discovered on our visit to Robertsbridge on a previous trip.A Bit More about the Weald Smokery
The Weald Smokery is one of a limited number of smokehouses in the UK producing smoked foods by traditional artisan methods. It has been family owned for 30 years, and has received awards for its products. Do check out the website.Why Visit this Part of Sussex
Flimwell is a village on the A21 route between the M25 London ring road and Hastings and St Leonards-on-Sea, both on the coast and popular in the summer holidays. The village is situated in an Area of Natural Beauty, and is inside “1066 Country”, near the site of the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Medieval Bodiam Castle is nearby.Pay The Area a Visit
Travelling down towards Hastings? Stop in and have a look around. Or just take a day trip….Bunny Chow – A Durban Speciality
One thing that has to be a part of any trip to Durban is a Bunny Chow. But Durban is far away, so I had to make one at home. There is something really delicious and comforting about a serving of good curry in a hollowed out loaf of bread with the gravy soaked into the bread! That’s my latest attempt above. A lamb curry garnished simply with coriander leaves. A bunny chow is, of course, eaten with fingers, using the bread.
History of the Bunny Chow
The bunny chow appears to have originated in Durban in the 1940’s, though there are different stories about how it came to be. One way or another Durban, and for that matter a good part of kwaZulu-Natal, has a large population of Indian descent. Durban is known for its curries.
The bunny chow is basically a curry in bread, with the bread used as a bowl. Originally the curry would have been vegetable, but over the years mutton and chicken have become common. I have also eaten beef curry in a bunny. And, of course, it is unusual to find a mutton curry in the UK, so lamb it is!
Typically it comes, in Durban, as a “full” (i.e. 800g loaf), “half” (half an 800g loaf) or a “quarter” (typically half a small, or 400g loaf). The middle of the bread is carefully removed as a single piece, leaving the crust as the bowl. The crust is filled with curry, and the bread removed from the middle used to top the filling. Sambals can be added as necessary.
Bunny Chow in the UK and Making Your Own
There are a number of places in the UK advertising bunny chow in various forms, though I have only once sampled a local version, from a South African kiosk in Camden Market in London. I have heard that it is popular in some places, with pubs offering it on one day a week, then two, then all week.
If you are making your own bunny chow, there are two parts to remember:
- Bread which can form a bowl;
- Curry which has plenty of rich gravy. It can be meat or veg.
Personally I prefer to make the curry to fill the bread, but you can buy the curry from your local Indian takeaway. The do look at you sideways if you don’t order rice or naan, though.
Simply remove the centre of the bread, fill the crust with your chosen curry, and enjoy!
A Google search brought up a few UK based bunny chow restaurants. Not surprising as there are a few South Africans around:
- Now Now Food in Cambridge.
- Braai Shack Restaurant in Milton Keynes.
- The Swan at Flitwick in Bedford.
- Mowgli Street Food, in various places, apparently also does bunny chow.
My Bunny Chow Recipe
I have a big family, so this is intended to feed 8 people. Curry freezes well, though we rarely have any leftovers to freeze.
Play with quantities and spice mix as you wish, using this as a base.
This recipe has been used for mutton and beef, and, with a couple of variations, chicken. In the UK i use it with lamb.
Ingredients
- Cooking oil
- 3 large white onions
- 12 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
- Ginger – I use about half of a ginger root from the supermarket
- 4 teaspoons ground coriander
- 6 teaspoons ground cumin
- 2 sticks cinnamon
- 3 or 4 chillies – depending on how hot you like it. I use 4 supermarket chillies
- salt to taste
- 2kg meat
- 3 tins tomato
- Coriander leaves
- Bread – 4 x 400g loaves, farmhouse, split tin or small sandwich loaves
Method
Brown the onions. add the garlic and ginger and fry it all together for a minute.
Add the coriander, cumin, cinnamon, salt and stir it all up together.
Add the meat, mix it all up and mix it all up well. Let it cook for ten minutes.
Add the tomatoes and chillies, turn the heat down and let it simmer slowly for about an hour. It’s cooked when the meat is tender and the oil is rising to the surface.
Cut the loaves in half and carefully remove the bread from the centre in one piece. Fill the crusts with curry, garnish with coriander leaves, put the removed bread and top and enjoy.
Boerewors on the Braai (Even in the English Winter)
The Saffa influence is clearly here in England. The boerewors in the picture was sourced from our local butcher in England. And good ‘wors it was too. I’m told that his first 20kg production of boerewors sold out in 2 hours, based solely on word of mouth and facebook!
In fact, the sun dared to come out on a Sunday afternoon in late January. Winter or not, we lit the fire and cooked up a sample of the sausage. Great way to spend a Sunday.
About Boerewors
If you have visited South Africa, or been to a South African braai (barbecue, but no hamburger allowed 🙂 ) you may have eaten boerewors. If not, it was almost certainly offered. It is commonly eaten in the Southern African region, largely in South Africa and Zimbabwe, and also common in Botswana and Namibia. As people have migrated from those regions they have taken their favourite recipes with them, so it is available in many parts of the world where you will find South Africans. In fact the name comes from the afrikaans “boer”(farmer) and “wors”(sausage).
Boerewors is made primarily of beef, often with pork or lamb, sometimes with a mixture of both, with a mixture of spices. Each boerewors maker has his/her own preferred mix, so it can be a challenge to find the ideal taste.
Cook boerewors on the braai for best results, but cook like any other sausage in the oven or on the stove.
That Was 2017
That was 2017
2017 is one of those years where we can say we did a lot and enjoyed ourselves. Some of it has been blogged, some not. Read my next post for more on that.
Here’s a quick look back at 2017
France
Our first trip of the year was to France. the first time I have been to France. It was really a great get together with friends. Eating good food and sitting ’til the early hours near the beach drinking wine and enjoying ourselves.
Blue Bayou
We stayed at Blue Bayou, with the beach just a short walk away.
Carcassonne
Flying in and out of Carcassonnne, La Cite, the old Citadel was a must for a visit.
Agde
Known for its naturist beach, which we didn’t visit, we had a short time there and took a boat trip, then experienced a bit of local take-away cuisine.
Valras Plage
We visited the market in Valras Plage and then enjoyed cocktails with a beach view.
GreatFood
As always we found great food, and even tried that French delicacy, frog’s legs.
South Africa
With family ties in SA, a long planned visit came together exactly as planned. That was a mixture of hectic days and relaxation by the sea.
Hermanus – Whales and Prawns
Having been in Hermanus once before, we had a long standing plan to visit. We were not disappointed!
Hermanus is in South Africa’s Western Cape area.
Hermanus – Winelands
A day trip into the Hermanus Winelands was a surprise find. A great day out.
Umdloti
Umdloti, north of Durban on South Africa’s kwaZulu-Natal coast provided a few days of tranquil getaway.
Durban
Visiting Durban while staying at Umdloti, we had a few good days in the area, visiting the beachfront, harbour and the Valley of a Thousand Hills.
Closer to Home
Of course it is not all about long trips. There’s a lot happening closer to home. Have a look.
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And 2018?
Who knows. There are a lot of changes coming our way, so watch this space.
Wishing you all a very happy and prosperous 2018
Burgundy Restaurant Hermanus
Hermanus Burgundy Restaurant
Breakfast Under the Tree
A lasting memory from my 2010 Hermanus visit is walking into town and eating breakfast under a tree looking over Walker Bay.
Of course, in 2017, we had to find that tree. It wasn’t hard, it is in the Burgundy Restaurant right on the edge of the bay.
Our group enjoyed a varied selection of breakfast dishes and club sandwiches. All well served and very tasty. Highlight of the meal seems to have been the eggs benedict, served, unusually, with chicken livers instead of ham or bacon. That’s a dish that none of us had ever tried.
All, of course, sitting in the open air with a view over the bay. hard to beat that.
The “after breakfast” part was also interesting, but at this point it is necessary to add a side comment. In our family, on weekends and holidays, “breakfast” is typically any food eaten before about 2:00 p.m. In fact the Burgundy Restaurant stops serving breakfast at 10:00 a.m., but agreed to serve us a good hour later. so the drinking of alcohol immediately after breakfast was quite acceptable.
Gin Tasting
The restaurant was running a gin tasting promotion for a brand called “Three Dogs”. A couple of the group sampled three different gins, with tonic. Not to outdone those who preferred beers washed down breakfast with beer shandies.
I’m told that rosemary and blueberry gin is not great, but pomegranate, and mandarin and thyme are pretty good.
Verdict
True to the memory of my earlier breakfast, it was a great breakfast experience and one I would happily repeat.
The menu looks interesting, and the restaurant is popular, judging by the number of people there. I would certainly like to try out a few other meals here. Next trip maybe?
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