snack – Page 26 – Myfrenchkitchen

A beautifully set table makes all the difference to a meal. Our good friends are leaving for Australia to visit their children for Christmas and we shared a lovely lunch this past weekend at their beautiful home in the French country side…saying our thanks for this year, our goodbyes as well as just sharing good home cooked food.

I present to you her gorgeous table.

A cocktail was made by another friend, Carol, perfect to start our afternoon off with….Tequila sunrise: Mix about 3 parts of orange juice to 1 part of Tequila. Slowly pour in some grenadine to have it sink to the bottom and serve with a slice of lime or lemon, or dip the glass rim in lime and sugar.

The demand was high for comfort food, so that was the menu for this sunny winter’s afternoon. Starting off with the Tequila sunrise got us into the mood to continue with a goat’s cheese amuse bouche in Joanna’s pretty rose coloured glasses.

Take some soft goats’ cheese, and roll into balls. Keep refrigerated until needed. Finely chop some black olives, sun-dried tomatoes, capers, basil leaves. Add some olive oil, syrupy balsamic vinegar, a dash of lemon juice and some grated lemon rind. Mix it all together. Place a spoonful of olive mixture in a pretty glass, top with a goats’ cheese ball and finish off with a sprinkling of the olive mixture, a drizzle of olive oil and a small basil leaf. No quantities are given…taste as you go along and add or leave out as your taste-buds dictate. Adapted from a recipe of Sharon.

Then we followed up with a carrot and pineapple soup, lingered over heartwarming, old fashioned shepherd’s pie, creamed spinach and roasted parsnips with rosemary and maple syrup. A great wine and enthusiastic conversation brought us to dessert; steamed ginger pudding and a pumpkin flummery with rich, voluptuous home made custard.

The end of a memorable afternoon; a fire crackling in the fireplace, music softly sounding up in the background, the sun playing frivolously on the glassware, the intermingling of voices and laughter – like J.R.R Tolkien said: “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.“

It is an experience….a memory that doesn’t stretch too far into the past and has actually nothing to do with my mother or grandmother, or my childhood at home. Neither does it stay only a memory, and neither was it created in the kitchen. But it does take me down wander lane and I remember, and it does evoke a smile and I do have whiffs of aromas floating around me.

It is a memory that takes me back home. To where the mountains meet the seas and the vineyards in Stellenbosch, South Africa. Where a part of my heart will always be swirled up in the howl of the South-Easter wind, the gay dancing of the African sun and the misty spray of the winter rains. It takes me back to family. And it takes me back to friends. To Mariaan and her vetkoek.

On our visits back home, a regular stop is at Vredenheim where we stay with good friends. We step into an old home, where the smell of wooden floors and the sound of farm life remind us that we’ve been away. Time falls away after the first coffee with an accompanying koeksister and we catch up on how much the kids have changed and grown, their exciting first jobs and the latest boyfriends…We tease about each other’s grey hair and giggle about all our new little habits. We dig into the latest gossip and ooh about the recent marriages and sigh about sad losses.

As the sun sets magically over the mountains, the evening comes alive with the clinging of wine glasses and popping of corks, feminine giggles in the kitchen and woody cracklings of the starting barbecue fire. It is time for braaivleis, traditional way. Real wingerdstompies (vineyard stumps) ; no gas or bought charcoal or brickets or fancy tools. Fresh meat. Fresh simple salads. And vetkoek, drizzled with golden syrup, or draped with spoonfuls of homemade apricot jam.

We sit back by the cleared table; dishes cleaned, last coffee of the day. We start telling our stories, filled with history and culture, nostalgia and invention. We exaggerate, we colour, we gesture, we interrupt, we laugh. And finally, when the moon starts nodding and the night becomes very quiet, we move on to our rooms, content with being who we are and where we are.

An old memory has come alive, pulsating with the excitement of new details and it will always be the same and it will always be different and it will aways be precious.

Mariaan’s vetkoek

1 c lukewarm water
1/2 tsp sugar
1 tsp dry yeast
500 g all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
11/2 tsp melted butter
Oil for deep frying

Pour half of the water over the sugar and dry yeast. Leave aside for 15 minutes until foamy.
Mix the salt in to the flour. Pour the flour onto a flat surface and make a well in the middle. Pour the yeast and melted butter into the well.
Mice with your fingers and add more water until you have a dough that can be kneaded. Knead well, cover and leave aside in a warm corner to rise until twice the original size.
Heat up the oil and test with a small piece of dough….if sizzling, the oil is ready.
Keep the temperature low. Pinch a round ball from the dough, the size of a walnut. Flatten and stretch it out and fry in the oil until a nice golden colour. Remove from the oil and drain on toweling paper.
Serve with a nice honey, or syrup, jam of your choice, grated cheese or a filling of curried ground beef, or chicken…any filling of your choice. It is delicious slightly warm, but is just as great cold.
If you want it real easy…..ask your baker for a handful of his bread dough, go home, pinch off some pieces and just deep fry it!