Our first blog
So this is it, after years of thinking about it, dreaming about it, wanting to do it and now a few months of planning it, here it is, our food blog. I am beyond happy!
Honestly I’ve been surprised at how much work it’s taken to get it off of the ground and ready to go. We have been planning and writing and testing recipes and remaking food for pictures and looking things up and learning learning learning. The process was somewhat delayed because I wanted the recipe index in a certain way that is deemed unusual.
Once the decision was made that yes we would be doing a blog; then began the hard work of thinking what would we like to write about, how do we want it to look and designing the website. The look and feel did a complete 180 after watching My Kitchen Rules South Africa and a chance stumbling across another blog. Our initial draft was white with just small blog post pics, light and airy but this one had one large image on the homepage and looked really great. It set us on the path to what you see now and I could not be happier.
Deciding on the pic was difficult, what would sum us up? The image needed to be personal and should be the things we love most about food. There is not one single dish that can do that. Food is a discovery and the joy we get from that that. We both love eating out and tasting new things and getting ideas of how things work together and different techniques. We also love lazy days cooking on fire and parties that revolve around fire. Then it hit me, why not try to recreate dishes from of our most memorable meals we have had and cook the main elements outside on the braai so it truly is personal. If you are not South African you may not know that a Braai is actually a BBQ, always wood or charcoal and never gas.
Picking the actual dishes was very difficult but we knew the restaurants we wanted and after a lot of discussion over brandy we managed to get a menu and a plan together. We decided to have a tasting menu to get in all the dishes we wanted. We wrote our menu, made a plan and timeline and set aside a day. The work going into the picture was very labour intensive but really very enjoyable. Plus we got to eat lots of really delicious food and walk down memory lane.
Venice, Ristorante Quadri: Spaghetti langoustine
London, Patara: Tiger prawn satay
Leeds, The Man Behind The Curtain: Scallops with xo butter
Nice, JAN: Mosbolletjies with Amarula butter*
Lake District, L’Enclume: Wispy charred leeks with burnt onion ash and tunstone cream*
Brussels, Sea Grill: King crab with beurre Blanc and black pepper
Nice, JAN: Lamb loin with charred onion petals, mint sauce, sautéd morel mushrooms, potato crisps, blanched asparagus, thinly sliced raw asparagus, wilted spinach and a lamb jus
Jersey, The Atlantic: Coconut creme brûlée with exotic fruit salad
Birmingham, Purnells: Warm chocolate with chocolate crumble, tuile and mint ice cream**
* Somehow these dishes did not make it into the actual picture. I am really not sure how, When we laid out all of the dishes on the table I even thought I had counted them. I did think about removing these dishes from this post but since we did go to the trouble of making them and they had formed part of our overall menu and memories, we wanted them to remain.
** This dish is the best dessert I have ever eaten. No, the best DISH I have ever eaten. I love mint and chocolate and everything about this is beautiful, the soft mousse, the beautiful mint ice cream, the crunchy tuile and the billowing mint vapour from the dry ice. It’s just incredible. This dish is made spectacular by the mint vapour which really highlights the mint taste but if this had been on our table, all the other dishes would have been overshadowed and the table design ruined or it would have been a half dish. So I will save this dish for another post so watch this space. My favourite, favourite chef is Glynn Purnell and as a side note, as I am typing this I am being teased for my little fan girl crush on Mr Purnell!!