 
We have extended the Eat In/RMB Private Bank SA Producer Awards voting until 11th June! Vote now and you stand a chance of winning a must-have Grappa spray for your next dinner party!
I know I’m always banging-on about all things local, lekker and South African and I genuinely am a fan but just recently I’ve been treated to two extraordinary European culinary moments...
One was a seminar on Spanish food in Johannesburg, complete with indecent amounts of Serrano ham, chorizo and olive oil. The other was an Italian evening hosted by Bottega (a third generation Italian distillery) complete with prosecco, grappa, organic olive oil and aged Balsamic vinegar, all served with a rather spectacular meal prepared by Giorgio Nava from 95 on Keerom in the Cape. Ordinarily I wouldn’t dwell on the international side of things – local foodies have waxed sycophantic enough over the years. But both events offered some incredibly delicious food, as well as insight into just how demand for their particular products is growing on our shores.
So with your obvious desire for European fare, I climbed down off my fiercely loyal and patriotic culinary horse and took stock.
In fact it required a fair amount of pride swallowing, made all the easier with, bizarrely, single estate grappa sipped from a spoon. (One or two of us almost mistook the bowl of clear liquid for a finger bowl – an honest mistake especially when you consider that not even the real Italians sip their grappa from a spoon. I’m still not entirely certain why we did, but it certainly, in my non-grappa loving opinion, improved the flavour of both the grappa and my pride!)
Now we make some pretty good charcuterie here - Neil Jewel’s offerings from Bread and Wine in particular spring to mind - but nothing quite beats the melt-in-your-mouth, slightly salty, faintly sweet taste of real Spanish Serrano ham, not to mention the Iberico version, the cured meat of which is made from pigs who feed solely on acorns – I kid you not! The chorizo on offer (and I sampled more than my fair share) under the brand name NOEL Alimentaria and available in myriad SA delis was a perfect blend of fat, meat and spices and the only one I will be buying from now on.
Then there was the Italian job…
Mostly it was about the wonderfully light and fruity prosecco and rather good grappa (including one blended with Belgian white chocolate) made by the folk from Bottega. But what I found especially wonderful, hilariously pretentious but nevertheless a must-have at your next dinner party was the Grappa spray. Straight out of an episode of Absolutely Fabulous, the grappa comes in an atomiser and you simply spray it on your pasta, cigar, espresso or whatever else takes your fancy…it works like a charm and provides endless hours of astounded laughter and risqué conversation, at least it did at the dinner I attended.
We are giving away five Grappa sprays to people who vote in the Eat In RMB Private Bank SA Producer Awards. Vote now!
Anyway the point is, that although local is lekker and we really should be supporting it, sometimes, just sometimes, it is worth indulging in a little foreign fare!
Go to www.profumiditalia.co.za to find an outlet near you.
Happy eating…in!
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Wrap up in your softest blanket, curl up on the sofa and indulge in this risotto recipe using Bottega grappa, from Chef Dario Corso, Restaurant Del Principe, Palermo. For this recipe use Alexander Grappa... or simply spray with the grappa spray for a hint.
Grappa Risotto 
1 onion, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, chopped
20g butter
olive oil
1kg courgettes, finely chopped
300g cherry tomatoes
350g Arborio risotto rice
300 g prawns,
1 glass white wine,
1.5L hot fish or vegetable stock,
Alexander Grappa,
knob of butter to finish.
Serves 4
Sauté half the onion and the garlic cloves with a little olive oil and butter, then add the courgettes. When the vegetables are half cooked, add the cherry tomatoes, and just at the end the prawns. Simmer for a couple of minutes and remove from heat. In another pot, sauté the remaining onion with olive oil and butter, then add the rice and stir until translucent. Add the wine and only when the wine has been totally absorbed add a ladleful of stock and a pinch of salt. Stir rice until the liquid has been absorbed and keep adding stock, little by little, stirring constantly until rice is cooked (al dente) 15-20 minutes. Halfway through cooking add the cooked vegetables courgettes and prawns, and a little grappa. Simmer and stir for a few more minutes, remove from heat and whip or beat a knob of butter into rice, to make it creamy and serve immediately.
Click here for more scrumptious new recipes on our website…
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Meet some of the folk who make eating-in all the better:
The Big Cheese
Robert von Tobien eschewed his life of designer suits to open the successful Kimilili Cheesery in Tulbagh. Since its inception in 2005, Kimilili has won numerous esteemed awards; the most recent being two first prizes at the 2008 South African Dairy Championships.
Click here to find out more about the mastermind behind this success story.
SA restaurants make us proud!
With much anticipation, the S.Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants have been announced and we are so incredibly proud of Margot Janse and her team at The Tasting Room at Le Quartier Francais for again being voted the 50th best place to eat in the world for the fifth year running!
Click here to read more. |
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Eat your garden
Help reduce your carbon footprint, lessen food miles and reconnect with nature while getting all the nutritional benefits of eating fresh and seasonal vegetables. Order your very own seasonal vegetable, herb or fruit patch through Eat your garden, a vegetable garden service that will custom design and plant your garden.
Read More |
 Elephant treads grapes
For thousands of years, mankind has produced wine through treading the grapes with his feet. For the first time in history, an elephant is used to help produce a wine through treading the grapes with his feet.
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 De Krans hits gold again
De Krans Wine Cellar in Calitzdorp, has done quite well in the 2008 Swiss International Air Lines Awards. Their 2006 Touriga Nacional, a dry red wine, has been awarded a gold medal - one of only 34 gold medals out of more than 700 entries.
Read more… |
Nigella Express
The Domestic Goddess is back, and this time it's instant. Nigella Lawson cooks up fabulous fast food and reveals incredible short cuts and brilliant time-saving ideas, in Nigella Express. The series covers every real-life cooking eventuality, from breakfast, lunch and dinner to parties and food on the go.
Read more |
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All Gold celebrates their 100th year anniversary this year and as their birthday gift to you, they are giving away 5 exciting hampers packed with quality All Gold products and a beautifully designed Carrol Boyes pewter serving spoon to the value of R500 to 5 lucky winners. 
