Parfait – our executive chef tells us – is the French word for Perfect – and it commonly describes a type of frozen dessert.

In the USofA they take it a little further by layering the parfait, with flavoured jellies, whipped cream and all sorts of other things.

It can also refer to a smooth paste which is made from liver with added liqueurs.

However, for this recipe, we are going for the French version: the “perfect” frozen dessert:

WHAT YOU NEED

5 Egg Yolks

Parfait with Walnuts

125g Castor Sugar

500ml Fresh cream

50ml Wild Honey

Handful of Walnuts, thinly sliced

WHAT TO DO

Whisk the egg yolks and castor sugar until light and fluffy.

Whip the cream until soft peaks form, then fold the cram and the honey into the egg and sugar mixture.

Mix in the Walnuts

Pour in moulds, or spread an inch or 2 thick in a flat ceramic dish

Freeze for 4 hours

Cut into slices

Serve

Easy …

 Bon Appetite!!!

All the Colours of Darkness

By: Peter Robinson

Published by:  Hodder  2009

ISBN: 978 0 340 83694 1

A brutal murder and a suicide: it seems like a straight forward case.  Jealous lover murders his boyfriend and in great remorse hangs himself.  But nothing is as it seems as DCI Alan Bates and his  motley, but talented crew in the Major Crimes Police department (North Yorkshire) discover.
Full of false trails, spooks, and pressure to stop the investigation from above!

The Time thinks that “Peter Robinson has for too long, and unfairly, been in the shadow of Ian Rankin …” (And, what’s more, Ian Rankin’s books have been made into marvelous little artworks which appear mysteriously in libraries too!)

I think that if DCI Bates spent more time thinking about the case rather than the music he was listening too (and thus subjecting his poor reader to it too!) and spent less energy on his lacklustre love life, the plot would have been a lot more interesting.

Easy to read, not easy to remember a while later.

However, I digress.  I was invited to lunch with my prospective in-laws Jean & Guy one Sunday in early January.  So it was a bit of a fraught weekend!  Plus Jean & Guy were renowned for their wonderful dinners & hospitality throughout Grahamstown, so I didn’t want to let the side down.

Dutifully at noon, we presented ourselves at High Corner – David having no clue of the butterflies in my stomach – and in we went.

So to lunch – in the lovely sunny dining room, we sat at the long yellowwood table which Guy had made while Jean served up her renowned Spaghetti Bolognaise.

Faced with a large plate with enough to feed 2 armies – I was about to plunge in and do my best when David piped up & said “Jean, Joanna doesn’t eat mince!”

Well, that put the cat amongst the pigeons so to speak: “no, no, it’s absolutely fine!
This is great!”

“No it’s not, you hate mince,” said my darling, sweet, marvelous David!

“Well, let me see what I can rustle up for you,” said my gracious Mother-in-Law-to-be and bustled off to the kitchen to see what she could magic out of the air in 2 seconds flat, I am sure I heard her grinding her teeth.

So I had chicken and salad and the others tucked into their Spag Bol.

And after a pleasant conversation Jean goes into the kitchen to bring out the dessert – big plump slices of her famous Christmas Cake.

“Ah, Jean” said my erstwhile and helpful David “Joanna doesn’t eat raisins either!”

“I do eat the bits around them though” I defended myself

“Well Joanna,” and I definitely heard her teeth grind that time, “I am sure I have something you’ll enjoy.”  She rustled up peaches and ice cream for me.

Needless to say, every time we were invited around, there was a little phone call beforehand to check what was on my “eatable list”.

Jean's Scrumptious Christmas Cake

Apparently though, this is a DELICIOUS Christmas Cake, and easy to make – so although I cannot profess to have tasted it, David thinks it’s great and so did all the friends and family of the Butler’s who partook at Jean’s generous table:

Here it is:

FIRST:

Boil together for 15 mins in a covered pot 1 KILOGramme mixed fruit, 2 cups of sugar, 2 teaspoons of biacarb, 250g butter, 2 cups of hot water

SECOND

Cool the above then add: beaten together:

4 eggs

5ml vanilla essence

5ml almond essence

5ml lemon essence

5ml rum essence

100ml brandy

 THIRD

Sift together & add

4 cups flour

15ml baking powder

3 ml salt

3 ml cinnamon

3 ml nutmeg

3 ml ginger

3ml mixed spice

MIX WELL

FOURTH

Add: 1 Tablespoon glycerine, nuts,  cherries, ginger.  Bake for 2 hours at 160° in a covered pot.  Keep the lid on for 1 and a half hours at the start.

 PS: Jean said it was actually Elaine’s Christmas Cake, but Jean made it so often for so many people over the years that it just became known as Jean’s Christmas Cake!

Oohs, in the morning at breakfast and Ahh’s  in the evening as dinners are served.

One of the biggest Ahh’s come when presented with his Decadent Chocolate Dessert.

It is not fat-free and it is not approved by the heart-foundation, but it is TRULY delicious:

What you will need:

145 g Dark Chocolate

12 egg yolks beaten

250 g Castor Sugar

45 ml granulated coffee dissolved in 60ml water

100g Clear Honey

300g Unsalted Butter

145g Cocoa Powder

500 ml Double Thick Cream

METHOD

Mix melted chocolate into the egg yolks, caster sugar, coffee & honey.    Melt 15ml of the butter and grease the loaf tin and line it with plastic wrap.  Beat the reminder of the butter and Cocoa together and stir into the egg mixture.  Whip cream into soft peaks and fold into the mixture using a metal spoon.  Pour into the greased & wrapped tin and refrigerate for
24 hours.

Serve with an Orange Crème Anglaise.   Joe says it is important to have something tangy or citrusy to cut the sweetness of the chocolate.  The orange adds to the taste sensation, and makes your taste buds twinkle with delight.

But you have to wait for the recipe for that until NEXT week!  Happy practising!

by: Ms Jo Melton Butler/Joanna Louise Melton Butler/Mrs Melting Butter/ Mr/Prof JL Retlub Notlem/whatever!

Once upon a time,  as many stories begin,  someone or some persons with clout and with nasty intent, possibly even someone who wanted to show his/her overbearing mother/father that he/she was indeed capable of greatness/infamy , decided that forms were the way to keep the world in check, or checked. Check mated actually.

The person/s that created these forms had very small, precise handwriting, similar to that of a Qwerty keyboard using the Times New Roman 10 font.   They (he/she/it) also
had a different logic when prescribing/proscribing what needs to be written in each block.  Perhaps they were failed crossword compilers.  Perhaps they were failed stand-up comics.  Or perhaps they were just evil.

Hospitals, Banks, anything vaguely Parastatal or Governmental, Insurance companies/houses, Traffic departments, anything Municipal, Home Affairs/Consulates passport applications and reapplications (yes, that is governmental,  but they are a particular breed!).     All have a seven or eight different forms to be filled in, in triplicate, duplicate, quadruplicate.

• Forms often come in luminous colours – yellow, green, blue, white (no silver or gold yet) –A4 portrait or landscape.
• Choose the correct form for your query
• Use the correct code for your application
• Only in black pen.
• Don’t go out the line or use tippex – it nullifies the information on the form as it might not be you making the change!
• And don’t worry if your signature looks nothing like it usually does, so long as it fits in the box, it’s FINE!
• Don’t contact them directly – what an actual PERSON asking a question??  Why it could be tea time, or lunch time or anytime that is not convenient to assist you.

Of course the internet has been a total bonus to the form makers.  Now they can claim greenness to their actions.  They don’t print out the forms, the applicant does.  It is
however, recommended that the information pages are printed so as to make for easy reference when filling in the form.

Armed with about 50 pages of assistance (all on scrap paper of course), the applicant prints out the five-page form (definitely not on scrap paper) and diligently cross references each block – in pencil first in case of a mistake – sweating through the turgid explanations for each sentence/sub sentence/part of a sub sentence.   Each section is written in just such a way as to obfuscate the actual meaning.  Ambiguity reaches new levels.

By the time the 5 page document is ready to be paid/posted/couriered (that’s another story altogether),  the applicant is no longer sure that s/he understands his/her mother tongue sufficiently well and may have applied to spend the rest of his/her natural life in a Thai Gaol on drug smuggling charges.

And their last little joke at the bottom of the page:  ”If you have any queries, please contact us.   Fill in the form below….

passport application

Mr/Ms/Mrs/Dr/Prof/HRH/Other

First Names

Last Name

Type of Query

Query code

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

And for another bit of form-filling-in-fun:  try doing it ON-LINE!

Beware the Gods – they keep watch … and they still interefere in the lives of mortals.

The setting: archetypal Greek Island – Thiminos – surrounded by the extraordinary blues of the Mediterranean. From afar, idyllic, but far from so!
The story begins with a dead body of a young woman being removed from the bottom of a cliff – suicide? Or Murder? The local police have their own reasons for not investigating and the locals themselves are saying nothing. Into this morass of silence, fear, betrayal, greed, brutality, lies, archaic codes of ‘honour’ and cowardice comes the mysterious Hermes Diaktoros.

He opens Pandora’s box – who is he and how will the Islanders of Thiminos fare?
Exceptionally good read!

By: John le Carré

Published By: Hodder & Stoughton 2008

IBSN: 978 0 340 97797 1

A young Chechen Muslim illegal arrives in Hamburg, starving, yet with crisp hundred Euro notes secreted amongst his person.  Issa Karpov is the product of a brutal regime and a brutalized country.  The bastard son of a Russian general and beautiful Chechnya Muslim girl, his short life has seen little of the finer things: beaten, incarcerated and finally escaping with the assistance of his hated father’s Mafioso aide – he finds his way to Hamburg where he must find his father’s banker to inherit millions in ill-gotten gains ….

WHEW!

It’s a story of an unrequited love triangle between Issa, his ideological uptight civil rights lawyer, Annabel, and the English banker, Tommy Brue.  And it’s a story of how their
relationships and their lives unfold and are irrevocably changed under the minute scrutiny & manipulations of the dark world of espionage.  The “lovers” whirl within the whirls of the paranoid secret services that have their own tangled relationships and agendas.  It’s a bleak story of life as we don’t really know it post 9/11.

Double Whew!!

I came late to Le Carré’s works – the Cold War had been over for decades before I started with Smiley and Co.   Although I thoroughly enjoyed this book, it was lightweight compared to his earlier books, a sort of “Spy Stories for Beginners”.   Even his central spy master thinks that the intelligence and skill of the spy game has been eroded, and seems to echo the skill of the storyteller.

Minister of Tourism, Marthinus Van Schalkwyk and the Sinethemba Gospel Choir

Media Releases 2011

FTTSA MEDIA RELEASE                                                    14 September 2011

Industry responds positively to launch of South African National Minimum Standard for Responsible Tourism (SANMSRT)

South Africa’s leading Responsible Tourism Non Profit Organisation, Fair Trade in Tourism South Africa (FTTSA), today reiterated its full support of the new National Minimum Standard for Responsible Tourism (SANMSRT).

The SANMSRT was launched on 12 September 2011 by the National Minister of Tourism, Mr Marthinus van Schalkwyk, at Featherbed Nature Reserve in Knysna. Jennifer Seif, Executive Director of FTTSA and Chairperson of the Technical Working Group that led the development of the SANMSRT, represented industry at the event. “South Africa has helped to pioneer Responsible Tourism on the worldwide stage — our job now is to mainstream it”, says Seif.

For more information on the launch of the SANMSRT visit the FTTSA Media section.      

No other nation can do a braai like we can.  We don’t do Barbies  – that’s a doll for heaven sake and made of plastic, so, no, not edible!    And Barbeque, well that’s far too long & complicated to spell and BBQ is like the sauce you get in a plastic bottle which no self respecting Braai master would touch with a barge pole – or tongs for that matter.

This is not a sexist matter, but the truly great Braaiers are men.  The skill and dexterity they show when presented with building a fire, stoking the coals and cooking the
meat borders on eye watering perfection.

Consider the skills involved:  First the meat needs to be bought.  Worsies (little sausages), Karoo oysters (sheep’s balls wrapped in fat), Skilpadjies (sheep’s liver wrapped in neckfat),  boerrie (spiced sausage, South African style), tjops (chops),  sosaties (meat on a skewer), vleis (meat).  And, second, and probably most importantly, beer must be purchased to assist with the cooking.

So there is a lot of pressure.

On the any given evening, when the family gets together and some mates are invited round, the men gather around the braai area with the various tools of their trade, generally a braai grid, tongs and some beers.  The women relax as it’s their “night off”.  No cooking the meat for them, it’s not so much that they aren’t trustworthy, after all they prepare perfectly adequate food for the rest of the week!   This is different.

As they are having the night off, the women ensure that their braai masters are well  hydrated with bottles of chilled beer.  Which they have thoughtfully unpacked from the car and stacked in the fridge earlier in the day to ensure the temperature is just right.  And also, because it’s their night off, they’ve prepared the marinade for the meat and have it all in the pans covered with clean cloths ensuring the meat is at the correct room temperature for cooking.

The wood is lit: – there are some purists who just do wood, others who just use charcoals, and still others who use both.  The main point is, that the heat of the braai is of extreme importance to the success of the braai.  It’s not merely a matter of throwing the meat
on in a haphazard manner, it takes skill and technique to get the meat out in
the right order of the fire’s heat.

 Because it’s quite a process, what with building the fire,  getting the utensils out, shooting the breeze – the actual cooking doesn’t  start till quite late.  So to keep the  wolf from the door, or the children from fainting with hunger,  the women will have made some roosterkoek, which  are dough balls dry roasted on the fire, and then filled with butter and cheese  & tomato & onion (if you like).   And the good thing is the men like it too and nibble away on the ones  the kids don’t eat, so nothing is wasted.

Once the fire is ready, the appetite-whetters – Karoo Oysters and Skilpadjies – are grilled with a precision which breathtaking.  As they are lifted  from the grid, one of the women will bring out the chopping board with coarse  salt & a sharp knife, and the braai-master will slice the delicacies for  everyone to dip into the salt and snack on.   They are truly delicious.

Then it’s the turn of the sausages – the worsies are for the  kids, because they are quick to do, and then the boerewors gets laid down in  reverent coils on the grid sizzling in their skins.  The flame get’s quite high with the fat from  the sausage and beer is sprinkled over the meat and the coals to temper the  heat.

It’s important to keep an eye on  the meat at this stage because dry sausage isn’t nice, so the women are very  helpful here bringing out the dishes and taking the meat back to the kitchen  to keep in the warming drawer.  And as  they are already in the kitchen,  they  get the children’s sausages sorted out and put together the three bean salad (butter  beans, sugar beans & green beans); a leafy green salad with avocado, feta  cheese, a bowl of cocktail tomatoes and another of grated carrot, pineapple & raisins.

And now it’s time for the Chops – lamb chops are a sine qua non at a braai.  Tasty, meaty with a hint  of rosemary.  Again, it’s very important  not to have them overdone, a hint of pink in the centre and they are perfection.

So, while the Braaimasters are making sure the chops are not  in any danger, and because they aren’t doing anything else, the women will set the table, check on the pap & sous (cooked mealie meal with a tomato & onion sauce) and take the potato & leek bake out of the oven so it  can cool slightly.

With the chops and the sausage ready, the piece de resistance is about to be grilled – the slabs of rump or sirloin (depending on your taste).  It’s a very tricky business, this last leg, as everyone likes their meat grilled in a different way – the Braaimaster calls around and gets the orders and begins his Herculean task of getting it “right”!

The women have now set all the food out, and one of them has cunningly remembered to make Garlic Bread and even more cunningly ensured that, as some people ‘don’t do garlic’, that there are plain French Loaves too.

And finally the last of the meat arrives to ooh’s and ahh’s  and the Braai master sits at the head of the table and everyone applauds the great feast he has prepared for them.  The wine is opened and more chilled beers bought  to the table.  And the conversation flows,  and the evening slides gently onwards.

And that is why a vegetarian should always go to a braai.

 War & Peace

By: Leo Tolstoy

Translated by: Rosemary Edmonds

Published by: Penguin Classics

ISBN: 9780140444179

This is what a very fine person told me when he read that I was attempting a book club blog. But which of the Classics?  Jane Austen? The Brontes ? Daniel Defoe? Dickens (gasp)? Richardson? Thackeray? Fielding? Melville? So, I thought what about THAT book, the one we ALL know about, and have probably started at some stage in our life – Leo Tolstoy’s novel: WAR & PEACE!

The novel is set in the early 19 century when the divine right of Tsar’s is unquestioned, the aristocracy has everything, and Napoleon Bonaparte is stamping his authority everywhere in Europe and bits of Africa. Pacts are made and broken (why bother writing them in the first place?), and finally in 1812, Napoleon makes his disastrous thrust into Russia.

To read the novel, it’s useful to know the main families and a few of the other major players. Tolstoy introduces most of the main characters in the first book, so pay attention then, otherwise it’s difficult:

Here we go:

The Bezuhov’s:

Count Bezuhov, is dying from a series of strokes very early on in the book, and the question on the lips of Moscow is: who will inherit?  He leaves (no thanks to Prince Vasili Kuragin Machiavellian interventions) his illegitimate son (he has many illegitimate children) Pierre (Pyotr Kirillovich) his entire fortune.

From being a good natured, well educated, tall, socially awkward and rather isolated, stolid young man much maligned by the high society in which he circulates, his fortune turns him into the catch of Moscow.  He is cunningly manipulated into marrying Hélène Kuragina who sends him on a merry runaround, only to discover he’s passionately in love with Natasha.  He is a good person, mainly confused and slow to get things done, but he tries to make a difference.  Pierre is the main character of the story and he takes some getting used to!

 The Bolkonsy Family:

Prince Bolkonsky Snr – A reclusive, clever, arrogant & hard man who rules his lands with a firm but (for those days) fair hand, who loves his children but doesn’t bend to show it. Only on his deathbed does he recant and express his love for his daughter.  His manservant deserved a medal!

His son, the proud, intellectual Prince Andrei, bored with the stifling superficiality of Russian high society joins the Russian army as an aide-de-camp during the Napoleonic Wars and proves his worth. He suffers many a crisis of conscience. After his wife’s death, and against his better judgement, he falls in love with & proposes to, the young and carefree Natasha.  He really grows on you!

Andrei’s young, popular & pretty socialite wife Lise, dies while giving birth to their only child, their son, little Nikolai.

Maria, Andrei’s sweet natured, loving, strong-willed at times and totally devout sister brings up little Nikolai as her own (which is a good thing as Prince Andrei is a very hands-off Papa), and falls head over heels in love with Nikolai Rostov;

Maria’s evergreen companion Madame Bourienne, who causes no end of problems, falling for people above her station (Anatole Kuragin) who are wholly inappropriate (Anatole!) and then wheedling her way into the Prince Bolkonsky’s heart at the expense of Maria.

 The Rostov Family:

Count IIya Rostov & his wife, Countess Natalia. They are a kind and caring couple who love each other dearly. Both are completely useless with money (the Count more so) always helping their friends and less fortunates, although they have vast tracts of lands and many properties. With their rapidly declining fortunes they fear for the future of their children, especially in the light of war, so getting them well married is essential.

Their children:

Vera the rather humourless eldest child (she’s hilariously dour) who marries a German career officer, Berg.  They have a splendid time together and are completely without feeling for anything which doesn’t directly concern, or affect them.

Count Nikolai the eldest son, a light-hearted, lovely young man, who joins the Cossacks and has many varied adventures. He has loved his cousin Sonia from childhood, but finds his love growing to for Maria Bolkonsky. Poor Sonia is penniless, while Maria is heir to the Bolkonsky fortune … who will win his hand?

Pytor, the youngest and most beloved who can’t wait to go off to war, to be a man, and fight the French.  A sweet boy, cut down before he has the chance to live;

Natasha, (the main female character): her childhood sweetheart is Boris, but after the heady delights of her first ball, finds her attentions wandering elsewhere. Prince Andrei’s proposal is very exciting and she eagerly agrees, only to be swept off her giddy feet by the wicked Anatole. It causes an outrage in the “good” high society of Moscow! Deeply regretting her behaviour she attempts suicide, and becomes ill, spending many months atoning for her foolishness. At Andrei’s deathbed she realizes how much she loves him, but it is too late. Fortunately, she has another suitor waiting in the wings – the super wealthy and now, super centred Pierre!;

and the Rostov’s orphaned cousin Sonja, who loves only Nicholas and has to suffer a lot for it. She prays vehemently for Prince Andrei’s recovery, because, according to Russian Orthodox law, siblings may not marry into the same family. So if Andrei lives, Maria can’t marry Nikolai, leaving him free for her.

The Kuragins: What family they are!

Prince Vasili – a ruthless wheeler and dealer with an eye on every chance for him and his family.  Verily he is a nasty piece of work!

His three children: the beautiful,  amoral and sexually alluring Hélène; there are whispers about that she and her brother Anatole are lovers!  She, however, with her magnificent beauty, entrances everyone, especially Pierre, who knows it’s the wrong thing to do.  But the poor lad is but putty in the hands of Prince Vasili, who thwarted in his first attempt on Pierre’s inheritance, gets his daughter married to it.  And Hélène certainly spices up the pages with her various pecadillos & loves!  She dies in mysterious circumstances (another whisper of an abortion), fortunately, paving the way for Pierre to marry Natasha

Anatole, dashingly handsome and as amoral as his sister (you know what the whispers are), who cares nothing for the reputation of others, but is completely self absorbed and self involved.  Although secretly married (because being married SO limits one!) tries to elope with Natasha shattering her reputation! He meets a perfectly dreadful end at the Battle of Borodino!

And their incredibly thick and rather ugly brother Hippolyte, who creates much humour in that he always says the wrong thing at the wrong time.

 The Drubetskoy’s:

the impoverished Princess Anna Drubestkaya.  A desperately devoted mother.  All she can give to her beloved son, is her name, which still has sway in high places.  Thanks to her machinations against Prince Vasili, Pierre inherits his fortune and, she hope, helps to secure Boris’ way forward.   Boris (who once loved Natasha), joins the army and his ambition to succeed tramples friendship and love alike.

Vasily Denisov: a captain in the Russian army who befriends Nicholas Rostov and proposes to Natasha (she is a popular girl). He’s a delightful character with a charming lisp who comes back from the brink of despair to harry the retreating French army in the cunning guerilla raids.

Fyodor Dolokhov – a cold, heartless man, who is also brave and his own man in the very stratified society in which he moves, a complex and strangely compelling man. Dolokhov is soldier in the Russian army, who takes malicious delight in financially ruining Nikolai Rostov in a game of cards.

Platon Krataev – the good Russian peasant.  He’s simple, cheerful, resourceful and pragmaticl and fatalistic, with wise homespun advice on every topic.  He is Russia.  Pierre meets up with him while they are interned in a French prisoner of war camp after the fall of Moscow and Krataev becomes, along with the prison camp experience, the turning point for Pierre.

 Prince Mikhail Kutuzov :– the Commander in Chief of the Russian army in the 1812 campaign and a wise old military campaigner.  A man who has seen it all, and tried as far as he could to keep his hotheaded soldiers alive while still meeting the demands and directives of the Supreme Command – the Tsar and his psychophants.

Tzar Alexander I :– well he did nothing for me! What a damp squid and the adulation and reverence he inspired, it’s quite incomprehensible! The scene where he throws biscuits to the crowds in the square was just OUT THERE!

Napoleon: Tolstoy is hard on all the military elite, and Napoleon is given no quarter! But it is fascinating reading the descriptions of life in camp and his battle preparations and Toltosy’s philosophy about war in general and men in particular.

It’s got EVERYTHING! It’s an incredibly racy book. Those publicists of old, knew how to keep their readers hooked.  War & Peace was serialized when it first came out.  Imagine … waiting with baited breath for the next nail-biting installment.

This is better than ANY plot devised by our TV series writers. In fact, they should read W&P to get some tips.

It’s utterly gripping: there is scandal (lots of), intrigue, sex!, love – so much love! It graphically recounts the tragedy of war, the waste of life and the battles torn out in the fields and towns of Eastern Europe & Russia. The novel depicts the poignancy and frailty of life. There is humour and ordinary every-day living in all it’s normalcy and minuteness.  He paints the glories of nature and her implacability too. He warns of the precariousness of wealth, the transitory nature of titles and dues. He makes fascinating insights into well-known historical figures and yet it’s a book also for the unsung and the masses, you live completely in that world he creates.

I know you aren’t going to read it, but it is ABSOLUTELY worth it! And I’ve only SCRATCHED the surface of it’s complexities!  Apologies for not being able to keep this one short!!

PS: Thank you James Westrip!