tasting red wine
i've had a lot of red wine over the last month.
first off was a trip to a wine tasting in the winelands. we paid a few bucks to get a wine glass, and 5 coupons for red wine. with 15 minutes left on the clock, we were forced to down (did i say that, i meant taste), 5 different red wines, and to try identify the wood, chocolate, fruit and other tastes in them.
i have also made a habit of ordering either a glass of red wine or a bottle of red wine whenever i go to a restaurant, and have become a little better at identifying flavours in the red wines.
occasionly, and it isn't happening often yet, i'll open a bottle of red to accompany my meal when i eat at home.
red wine
red wine is my new obsession. trying to have a glass of red wine every night, and trying to taste the chocolate, wood, and other flavours in each glass of red wine that i have.
there are some amazing red wines at the supermarket for good price and value, and so i'm sampling a large number of different types of red wine.
although i'm quite interested to now do a wine tasting and appreciation course - perhaps only on red wines, as i enjoy red wines far more than white wines, but i'll have to see what's available.
where is the wannabee culinary king
well, things have been really busy here, so i haven't had time to post 3 times a day. actually, i haven't had time to post once a day, or even once a week. it's been about 2 weeks since i last posted.
and i just noticed that my prepaid electricity is running out, so if i post a long blog now rather than head to the shop to top up my electricity, then i'll be posting in the dark tonight (well until my battery on my laptop runs out, and then i'll be totally stranded).
so the last few weeks, i haven't been eating that well. just haven't had time to think about food. actually, the gym also has taken a bit of a time off. i need to get back into good food and good wine, and good song and good gym, and all the other good things in life.
so hope all of you are well, and i'll write again when i get a chance, and hopefully the good food times will be back!
vegetable soup or vegatable moussaka
monday dinner:
this is my new challenge. trying to write down within 4 hours of finishing the meal. i doubt it will happen more than once a week though.
so 2 courses this evening - hang on - 3 if you count the tea at the end of the meal.
so here goes:
1. vegetable soup - i didn't make it! but it was good, from woolworths (surprise, surprise), but it did have a slightly artificial soup in the packet type taste, but still nice.
2. vegetable lentil mousaka - i've discussed mousaka before, so won't go over it again. last time i had to disguise the taste by eating bread with it, but today i actually enjoyed it. i had 3 pieces of bread ready to eat it with, and i admit i did eat them, but i actually enjoyed the mousaka - and it was vegetarian - so i don't have a conscience eating it. (which i'll leave to write about another day. the psychology of eating meat and fish and other non vegetarian stuff).
and then i had a cup of tea - rooibos with milk.
i was going to have the little yoghurt desserts i have on a regular basis, but i feel i'm getting addicted to the yoghurt desserts, so decided to give it a skip tonight.
anyway, i might have another cup of tea a little later, as the weather is turning here, the wind is blowing, and it's starting to get a little chilly (not like london or new york, but compared to the hot days we have had here the last few months, the weather is definately changing)
anyway, now that i've been writing about what i had for dinner, i'm feeling a little hungry! willpower!!!!!
merry is the food of merryfood
this is rather upsetting and i know it's not a food related gripe, but i just did a search for merryfood on a number of the search engines, and not only does my merryfood blog not appear, but no results appear under the search "merryfood".
so i'm thinking if i spend tons of time, making sure that the merryfood blog that is the wannabee culinary king gets into the search engines such as google, excite, aol, and ask jeeves, then will anyone search on the word "merryfood".
and the answer is probably no.
anyway, if my blog is going to be called merryfood, then i want merryfood to appear in the search engines.
so this is the start of the merryfood challenge to get my blog into the search engines.
it would really help if you could say something nice about my website - http://merryfood.blogspot.com somewhere on your website as the search engines like it when another websites links to this website, and that means my merryfood website will be put into the search engines.
so this is a please - say something nice about this site on your site.
thanks in advance! :)
avocado with spring onion
monday lunch:
after a usn protein whey shake, i waited awhile and then decided it was time for a late lunch.
i had an avocado which was going to go bad if i didn't use it, so i decided to have a straightforward lunch. avocado with spring onion on a slice of bread.
so i took the avocado and weeded out the parts which were still good, and then chopped up a spring onion, added a bit of black ground pepper, and the avocado concoction was ready.
i had 2 slices of the pumkin bread left over and i toasted 2 slices of wholewheat bread.
let me tell you - the toasted avo sandwhich was 100x better than the avo on the pumkin bread.
anyway. an easy lunch - avo with spring onion toasted sandwhiches. and takes 3 minutes to make.
and i finished off with a hot cup of rooibos tea.
anyway, i was having a break from work so decided to quickly update the wannabee culinary king blog, but i've just looked at the watch and it's now 6:30pm so i guess it's almost time for dinner!
time flies when i'm having fun!
water from the tap
i need to start drinking more water during the day. the idea is to drink at least 2 liters of water every day. so i'm filling up the l'aubade and valpre bottle and the idea will be drink both of them each day.
routine breakfast
monday breakfast:
i should just write "the routine" or "same as yesterday" or something like that.
anyway, had the usual - berrocca to feel healthy, then a plate of hi energy cereal (warmed up to perfection in the microwave) with a mug of nescafe coffee. the only thing different is that i added a little more coffee to the cup as i felt like a slighly stronger cup of coffee this morning.
i'm thinking seeing as though i enjoy my cup of coffee so much in the morning that i should purchase a cappachino machine - i've got one of the expresso pots which you place on the stove, and which forces the coffee to the top, but it makes an expresso, and then you have to boil or heat the milk seperately to make a cappachino which is an awesful lot of work.
so i'll have to go cappachino machine hunting one of these days.
parisienne potatoes
sunday dinner:
well, after a good gym workout, i felt the need to restock my empty cupboards and fridge. so off to woolworths i went to shop! :)
so sunday dinner was an experience.
i had parisienne potatoes with a garlic and butter type sauce. the parisienne potatoes are really easy to make. just make a small hole in the bag of the parisienne potatoes and chuck it in the microwave for 8 minutes or so. i suppose i could have left it in a few minutes longer. anyway, the garlic and butter mix with the parisienne potatoes and give them a delicious taste. i was also surprised that the fat content of the parisienne potatoes was so low - i'm definately going to start making them more often in the future.
i also bought some wheat free pumpkin seed rye bread. the bread is made from rye flour together with a combination of pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds.
The pumpkin seed rye bread is a little pricy, but it's nice to have it once in awhile, especially since it's part of the margaret roberto selection.
according to the packaging, rye flour has a low gluten content which makes it ideal for individuals with a gluten allergy. i don't think i have a gluten allergy but it is still good to know that i'm eating healthy.
i had bought a packet of fresh norwegian salmon ribbons, and a tub of low fat, actually it was fat free smooth cottage cheese. so i take a piece of the pumkin seed rye bread, add a strip (or should that be a ribbon :)) of norwegian salmon, having already laid some cream cheese onto the bread. then a dash of lemon juice (unfortunately i didn't have any lemons, so lemon juice out of the bottle will have to do), and then a dash of black pepper, and i have a smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwich.
but i wanted to take the sandwich to the next level, so i also cut a piece of spring onion into small diced pieces (i'm still not sure what they mean by diced when speaking about food), and sprinkled the spring onion onto the top of the salmon cream cheese sandwich.
so you can picture the dinner - a bag of parisienne potatoes accompanied by smoke salmon cream cheese sandwiches. the perfect meal for a lazy sunday night.
especially since phone booth was the movie of the night on tv, and the last time i saw phone booth was on circuit a few years ago. anyway, phone booth didn't disappoint, as colin farrel plays the role brilliantly.
l'aubade
well, sunday, i had the usual breakfast and cereal, but i was running a little short of food, so i spent most of the day drinking water out of the l'aubade bottle. the l'aubade bottle is a see through type blue, and has a chic look to it. so when i'm drinking tap water out of the l'aubade bottle it feels more special than simply drinking tap water.
you can do this with any mineral water bottle, and i know of a number of people that use valpre type bottles to drink tap water. so whether you are using a l'aubade bottle or valpre bottle or another type of mineral water type bottle, change your tap water into a drinking experience.
chicken strips
saturday night:
i can't remember what i had for saturday lunch! got to become more diligent at writing down the tales of the wannabee culinary king.
anyway, saturday night i headed to A's restaurant with BS for a late dinner. we shared a mushroom starter which was great - their were 4 mushrooms and they had a spinach type topping.
for mains we both had the chicken strips in the basket with french fries. a really good value for money type meal.
chocolate nutella or nutella chocolate?
saturday breakfast:
after the usual berrocca (this must be getting repetitive by now, as i have berrocca every day now), i decided to have a slight change with my coffee as it's saturday.
so i made 4 slices of brown toast - and then had the following on them:
2 x nutella chocolate spread
1 x syrup
1 x peanut butter with a drop of syrup
the nutella slices of brown toast were amazing - like eating chocloate - guess that what nutella is - chocolate!!! :)
litchi sorbet
well, i was going to get a pizza and watch a dvd but s convinced me to go to g's cousin for dinner.
so started off with some sort of tart - it might have been asparagus - but not sure. then a meat and rice and other veg type dish. finishing off with fruit salad & sorbet.
the sorbet was amazing. it was litchi flavour, and i should get some for home. although someone at the table commented that litchi sorbet or in fact any sorbet is pure sugar.
can't remember
friday breakfast & lunch:
that's the problem with not posting on a blog every day - you quickly forget.
so i probably had the usual for breakfast yesterday - the hi energy cereal, the cup of coffee, and the berrocca vitamin to get me going for the day, but i actually can't remember eating breakfast.
also lunch? i think i had scrambled eggs on toast! yes - i did. ummmm. i think.
yes - i did - i finished off the cream cheese, on a couple slices brown toast with scrambled eggs.
Vegetarian Cottage Pie
saturday lunch:
i had a late lunch today. a vegetarian cottage pie from woolworths. i'm not sure why but i'm finding the vegetarian dishes from woolworths a little strong if i don't eat them with a few slices of bread - and i must admit i don't know how healthy that will be in the long run?
anyway, with a few slices of brown bread, the vegetarian cottage pie is tasty. i make cottage pie sandwiches! quite creative! LOL
lentil moussaka
thursday dinner:
well, a chilled out dinner tonight - i was watching desperate housewives on tv - last week was the pilot episode of desperate housewives and i only managed to catch the first half of it. it's an entertaining show - although i'm not as impressed as i thought it would be, as desperate housewives has been getting a lot of attention lately. however, i think it might have been overhyped.
anyway, i heated up a vegetarian lentil moussaka which i bought at woolworths a few days ago. the packaging says that the lentil moussaka "is crated to assist in achieving a healthy vegetarian lifestyle".
i need to actually write the way they describe the vegetarian lentil moussaka, as i couldn't do it nearly as well: "slices of caamelised aubergine layered with a rich combination of lentils and tomato, all topped with a creamy, yet light bechamel sauce." poetic. i haven't quite managed to capture the poetic spirit yet of describing food in that way.
anyway, the only problem with the lentil moussaka is that the fat content is high. the total fat content is 10 grams per 100 grams. (anyone know the difference between mono unsaturated fatty acids, poly unsaturated fatty acids, saturated fatty acids, and trans fatty acids?).
i finished off the meal with the low fat yoghurt with black cherries dessert from woolworths - i'm getting quite addicted to this dessert - it tastes great. although the yoghurt is a little sour if you don't mix it with the cherries.
anyway, ali g in da usa 2 is on at the moment. ali g is hilarious! i can't decide whether i like ali g, borat or the new character he has created. sasha baron cohen is a genius for thinking of the ali g show. actually, there are quite a few of these shows at the moment. the ashton kutcher show - punked (on mtv) is brilliant as well, and there is some new show which has started here - the jamie kennedy experiment. i caught the last few minutes of the jamie kennedy experiment the other day, and it didn't look brilliant, but maybe i have to watch a few episodes and then i'll see whether i enjoy it more.
anyway, ali g is in the character of the slightly camp guy (okay - not slightly camp), and he's busy interviewing a minister, and telling the guy how much he likes being gay! hilarious!!!
go Ali G!!!!
soup (again)
thursday lunch - late:
finished off the potato and parsnip soup that i started the other day. real good!
cuppichino x2
thursday breakfast:
i had an 11 meeting and didn't feel like having an early breakfast, so i downed my berocca which is becoming routine, and headed for the meeting.
after, VL wanted a bite to eat, so we headed to simply aisa, a noodle restaurant. i think simply aisa might be connected to the aisan kitchen group - actually thinking about it, perhaps not.
anyway, i had a cappachino.
then had a chat with AJ and he needed a bite to eat, so we headed to strega - strega is below po na na, and has a court yard - the place was full of models - i definately know that strega is the place to have lunch. i think there might be a number of modelling agencies across the road from strega.
anyway, what did i have to drink at strega? that's right - a cappachino.
so by the time i got back to my place around 4 this afternoon (after a good gym workout), i had had the grand total of a glass of berrocca and 2 cappachino's. i should start noting what flavour coffee the various restaurants use for the cappachino's.
planet bar mount nelson
the mount nelson is a five star hotel in cape town, and the planet bar is no exception to this five star accomplishment.
it is a small bar to the left of the main entrance, and although i didn't go outside, it appears that the outside area of the planet bar overlooks the mount nelson gardens.
what was my first impression of the planet bar - small, it looks much bigger in photo's. why is that? well, it's a small rectangular bar with the bottles at the far end, and behind the barmen is a huge mirror, so when you take photo's of the plant bar, it looks much bigger than it is because of the mirror.
the second impression is classy - the chairs, couches and general theme of the planet bar is victorian (well, not modern - some sort of 17 or 18th century theme), and the ceilings are pressed (as NB pointed out to me). the couches are comfortable, and their are scatter cushions lieing around to help you relax as much as possible.
the clientele are interesting. when we first walked in to the planet bar, there were about 3 people in the bar, but people walked in and out the entire hour we were there, many of them with foreign accents - it could be the people staying in the mount nelson from international destinations, or simply that foreign tourists to cape town are told to take a visit to the planet bar.
near the end a large group of tourists, seemingly from germany, walked through the bar to the outside section - there must have been about 15 of them, and in the small planet bar it was funny to watch them walk through, as it seemed like a queue had formed! :)
we didn't feel like more alchohol, so opted for cuppuccino's, and this is my only problem with the dear planet bar at mount nelson. yes - the mount nelson is five star and one of the top hotels in cape town. yes - the planet bar is luxurious, and a great place to have a drink or coffee. but R18 per cuppuccino! that's the most expensive cup of coffee i have had in south africa. and the cuppuchino definately wasn't the best cup of coffee i have had - it was mediocre, and NB remarked that she found it too strong. i had heard rumours that the mount nelson charges in dollars for eating there, and now i can understand that these might not just be rumours.
nevertheless, i guess paying an extra R10 per cup of coffee is worth it, as the planet bar really makes you feel you are in victorian space (enjoy the pun - lol) for awhile!
an interesting tip is that there are 2 entrances to the mount nelson, and the smaller one (i think it's in kloof street - the mount nelson's official address is in orange street in gardens) is much closer to the parking lot, so it's easier to drive in and out of that entrance.
i'll definately be back to the planet bar - but next time for a drink!
tuscany beach camps bay
wednesday dinner:
i met NB in camps bay for a walk along the promenade. we were talking quite a bit, so walked from one side of camps bay to the other twice. the camps bay beach has an interesting new shape in the water - some sort of sandbank - which was most likely caused by the storm in cape town last week.
anyway, we were going to go to sand bar, and then decided to look at the menu's at the other side of the camps bay promenade, but decided to give summerville and blues and the usual restaurants a skip, and head back (walking back sure builds up an appetite), and decided to spend the night at tuscany beach.
tuscany beach is a restaurant, but as most cape town restaurants have these days, they also have a great cocktail menu. tuscany beach is inside and outside, so we decided to opt for the outside table so we could watch the passerby's (no eating is fully complete without some people watching!), and also to hear the waves of camps bay beach crashing every few minutes (camps bay beach doesn't usually have waves crashing, but they sure were last night).
anyway, after we had relaxed for a few minutes, i had a martini fruit cocktail, made from fresh apple juice and apple chunks, and a lot of alchohol, and NB had a strawberry daiquiri. the service was great, and the friendly waiter was totally understanding when we kept telling him that we weren't ready to order, as we were busy talking about a variety of subjects.
after some delicious brown and white bread (interesting to see tuscany beach serving both), i opted for the linefish catch of the day, which was the grilled salmon. although it was delicious, this is my only gripe of the evening, as the waiter said the chilli sauce was MILD, and it was anything but mild, with a kick every mouthful. lucky i like chilli sauce. the meal is accompanied by vegetables, and i was happy that tuscany beach was also happy to give me half chips / half potato, rather than a choice of one from the french fries, mash potato and rice. the vegetables of the day were tasty - creamed spinach and pumpkin (i was trying to work out whether it was pumpkin or butternut, but i've decided that it was pumpkin).
the cape salmon was great! and i accompanied the meal with a glass of cabernet sauvignon - i'm not sure which house white brand wine they brought me in the end, as there were 2 on the menu (3 but one was sold out - ahhhh - my first choice, the sole was also sold out). i'm not at the stage where i can tell a good cabernet sauvignon from a bad or mediocre one, so i can't tell if it was good. i still need to aquire a taste (which i'm starting to do with red wine). the first couple mouthfuls of the white wine tasted like vinegar, and only after forcing down a number of mouthfuls, did it start to taste anywhere near decent. NB had a sip of the white wine, and said it was good, (and she's more of a wine connosieur than me), so i'll have to just accept i know nothing about white wine.
NB had a penne pasta dish and said it was delicious.
i suppose tuscany beach should have turned on the heaters outside the restaurant, as it was getting a little chilly, but they didn't, and after a good meal, we decided to head for coffee to another restaurant - after intense debate we chose the planet bar at the mount nelson hotel which i've been wanting to go to for some time.
platter
wednesday lunch:
i was at a weekly lunch seminar which i'm going to try attend weekly from now on.
their was a platter to snack on while the presentation was going on, and the platter snacks, were to my surprice delicious. it was a fish and vegetarian platter, and had small snacky things that i have no idea what are called. things like blepes (don't know if that is a word), salmon on some sort of bread, small fish balls, some pancake type food, and a couple of other things that i can't begin to describe.
but this was probably the best platter snacks i have had!
alta rica
wednesday breakfast:
after my usual berocca effervescnet this morning, i had the usual - hi energy breakfast cereal and a cup of coffee. breakfast is quite a routine meal, and i don't like to be too innovative with it. little changes here and there - but that is it.
so today there were 2 changes.
firstly, i had alta rica coffee instead of the normal nescafe (although alta rica is a nescafe coffee as well).
alta rica describes itself as follows: "100% arabica beans, long roasted to release the complex and intense flavour. best enjoyed black to fully appreciate the intensity of this coffee".
alta rica is rated 3 on the nescafe coffee intensive index.
i'm still trying to decide whether i'm an alta rica fan or not.
i also remembered to warm up the hi energy cereal in the microwave today. it tastes a lot better when it is slightly warm.
knorr soup
i was watching television and an advert was shown for knorr soup.
the punchline was "every meal is a story".
i thought the knorr advert was really good, and made me think that the reason for this online diary is to let my food adventure be told to the world.
good for knorr!
