Birthday celebrations

My wife is one of those people who celebrate their birthday for a whole week! The festivities started at Il Giardino Degli Ulivi at 44 Stanley on Friday evening, followed by a visit to the Food Wine Design fair at Hyde Park on Saturday and a family Sunday lunch yesterday.

Il Giardino Degli Ulivi is a rustic little restaurant, most tables being outside underneath the olive trees. On weekends there is a live band, The Runaway Train Cult, which really adds to the atmosphere. The food was tasteful and interesting and the wine list was fresh including some lesser known wines (for us in Joburg anyway). Overall a great experience and I'll put it on my list of recommendations.

I've been looking forward to the Food Wine Design fair bringing some of Cape Town's best food & wine to Joburg. On the rooftop of Hyde Park shopping centre you can sip your glass of wine while enjoying the highveld sunset. As the name suggests the fair consists of 3 parts. 

The wine section was great and unlike other festivals it offered the choice of buying a bottle (or 6) or buying a glass of wine to enjoy while strolling through the rest of the fair but also offering tastings to sample before buying. The best part was that you get a proper wine glass and not those tiny tasting glasses, of which we have dozens of by now, that you always have to buy before you can proceed to the tastings. 

The stalls representing the design aspect of the fair were in the minority and there were some interesting things on display but nothing that really caught my eye. Then again my attention was focused on the food and the wine!

Some of the highlights for me was Richard Bosman's meats, our old friends at Petit Cochon, the Ficksburg cheese producer and the Mushroom factory (I see growing your own mushrooms is becoming more popular).

But overall it was really disappointing. I got the feeling that everyone went out of their way to exploit us, the Joburg public, by charging ridiculous prices for the food on display. I think there are many others like me,  who envy the food culture of Cape Town so much and who, as a result, attend these festivals & fairs almost religiously and we're being ripped off for it.

To pay R130 for a mini-me red pepper stuffed with Ricotta, 1 chicken breast and 2 baby potatoes served on a paper plate doesn't sound like fair trade to me. Or 4/5 deep fried courgette flowers for R60?

Anyway - great fair, well organised and bringing a bit of Cape Town to Joburg…but at a price.

Next up was a Sunday lunch at our own home. No markups, no surprises, no sneaky salesmen. Just lots of laughter, lots of meat and lots of close family!

I was planning to take photos of the food I prepared for the day, the spread on the table, the meat on the braai…but afterwards I realised that all our photos were of our family and almost none of the food. A bit upset at first, I later realised how awesome that actually is! The Gemütlichkeit soon became more important than the food and that's how it should be. 

Karlien's birthday is actually only on Tuesday and so the festivities continues!

Cheers

Chris