SIGN WITH AN E

Since we got back from Wonderful Copenhagen (17 days ago), I have cooked a meal only once. ONCE! It was a coq au vin, the kind of thing this African winter weather requires, and as far as I can remember, it was alright – not quite fantastic, but good enough on the night. Not good enough, though, to represent half the meals cooked in this kitchen in the course of almost three weeks (the philosophe grilled lamb chops one night, and they were very very good).

So what’s up? In part, we had some socialising to catch up on when we got back, and in the early post-travel days, doing that outside the hearth was simply easier. In bigger part, it’s because we’ve been on the job, helping to review restaurants for an upcoming guide. I used to think the life of a restaurant reviewer must be the coolest thing. But that’s in la-la-land, where all restaurant meals are actually good. There have been some good experiences, which I would surely not have had if it weren’t for the pressure of ‘the job’, such as finally getting to the Top of the Ritz, that time-warped restaurant on the 21st floor in Sea Point that revolves 360 degrees as you eat. The food is what you’d expect (think classic “haute”, chateaubriand and crepe suzettes, with the downside of modern classic “haute”: thick sauces and overcooked cauliflower, though my gemsbok with apple-cider sauce was pretty lovely), but it’s really the view that clinches this place, and even excuses the (— live!!) Richard Clayderman.

The next night I found myself at Nyoni’s Kraal, the kind of restaurant I would never normally set foot in (I have a deep suspicion of any “African” restaurants in Cape Town, which happens to be in Africa, but obviously not the Africa tourists are looking for). But first impressions were good: there were plenty of locals there, for one, and no signs of the faux-African spectacles you find at other places with tour busses parked outside. “Vuka Afrika”, their Friday night special, turned out to be a marimba band that was fortunately not right next to our table, so we had access to both decent music, and to head space for conversation. They bake good bread there (served with a great chilli-butter), and offer plenty of wierd things, like mopane worms (someone at our table had them; I did not) and the famous smiley (which fortunately no one at the table had since we didn’t feel like beholding the sight of half a sheep’s head). Beyond that, nothing special, except that now I can say I’ve been there.

The real problem with day after day of restaurants is not only the mediocre food – something you’d think would inspire you to go home and produce something ten times better – it’s the fact that what you end up wanting most on a day “off” is non-cooked and simple. So this weekend, which I looked forward to because it involved no restaurants, I’ve subsisted pretty much on apples and rice cakes (also some of the only food you can conjure without giving up the hot water bottle). Or have all the restaurants just made me lazy?

Let’s hope not. I still have lots of ribs to cook. And next time, a superb coq au vin. Etcetera.

So, I’ll surely get over it. But take heed, nevertheless: just look at the man who recently disappeared after his dinner at El Bulli. They call him the (disappearing) ‘Michelin man‘: he was on a tour of Michelin-starred restaurants when he suddenly vanished. Apparently he’s done this kind of Houdini thing before, though evidence suggests this time is a little different (he had a number of other restaurant bookings, but failed to show up for any of them). That’s pretty scary. Did he get swallowed up by Adria’s foam? Or did he go on a desperate search for a humble rice cake? You can’t blame the man; he had eaten in something like 40 Michelin restaurants in a month.

That’ll remind to stop complaining. (And to start cooking).

To celebrate the beginning of eel-season, they’ve distilled the slippery buggers into a drink. Eel is apparently cooler than we think.

‘Kazunori Hayashi, spokesman for Japan Tobacco Inc, the makers of the drink, said it is “mainly for men who are exhausted by the summer’s heat”.’

(From The Independent, which also reports on Japanese Pepsi Ice Cucumber, and Coca Cola’s Water Salad drinks. Concusion: who needs salad? Drink Coke!).

This reminds me of the philosophe in the sweet shop at Caledon Casino the other day, where he commented on some freaky liquid candy. Philosophising, he suggested it was probably for people too lazy to chew their sugar. Well, I asked, isn’t that why they invented Coke in the first place?

So we made it back in one piece from a ten day jaunt in Wonderful Copenhagen, as it’s known, and which is mostly true in summer when the sun hardly sets and the Danes really do appear to be a happy bunch with few cares in the world. We took to the streets on borrowed bicycles, drank lots of beer (the only thing we could afford at sit-down places, bar one “cheap” Bloody Mary at a skanky bar where we got embroiled in political discourse with a drunk local who had actually visited South Africa as a trade unionist and could even speak English – kind of), and ate.

I managed to give the philosophe a taste of most of my childhood favourites: bright red sausages with spicy ketchup (he made good work of the hotdog stands in general); Danish fish’n chips (crumbed plaice or other flat fish with chips and remoulade, that wonderful yellow relish); a proper Danish lunch with rye bread and all the goodies: herring, roast beef with horseradish, salami with remoulade and crispy fried onions, frikadeller with red cabbage, liver pate with beetroot etc etc, naturally finished off with beer, snaps and plenty of Skål!, and of course a good shwarma, which is about as Danish as all the rest these days.

Hoarding travellers as we are, we’ve now got remoulade and crispy onions in the kitchen, which will help us tackle the litre of Aalborg Aquavit in the freezer (and for the next morning, a stiff shot of Gammel Dansk to calm the nerves).

The philosophe also promises to recreate another of his favourite meals from the trip, the classic “Pariserbøf” (Parisian burger): a beef patty fried with a piece of white bread on one side (the bread goes golden and crispy), served with lots of grated horseradish, capers, raw onions, and pickled beetroot. The Danes add raw egg yolk, though fortunately no one in this household is that gung-ho.

Why is this Danish classic called a Parisian burger? I have no idea. You’d think it’s one of those misrepresentations, like the fact that what the rest of the world calls Danish pastry, the Danes call Vienna bread (wienerbrød), because that’s where it originates. But this one confuses me. For one, a recent article in the New York Times details how burgers (the previously villified “American” staple, though as that name tells us, they actually come from Germany) are only now penetrating the Parisian gastronomic scene, and makes no mention of the thing Danes call a Parisian burger. And neither does the Larousse Gastronomique, which my sweet husband has just gifted me for my birthday.

That can remain a mystery, and while it does, the Danish Parisian burger will make its way into our Cape Town kitchen, and I’m pretty sure it will rock.

If you plan to drink more than one in the time it takes for a litre of tomato juice to go off, do yourself a favour and pretend you’re a bar. In other words, do a major muddle.

Mix 1 l tomato cocktail with:

plenty tabasco

good glug of Worcestershire sauce

1 good pinch of grated horseradish

freshly squeezed lemon juice

a generous pinch celery salt

Maldon salt (or similar)

Freshly ground black pepper

(All adjectives denoting size/quantity are entirely subjective)

Shake up and keep in the fridge for a wonderful just-add-(to)-vodka convenience item.

For this gourmet version, add

I small slice of lemon

2 speared green olives (this works!)

1 trimmed stalk of celery, dusted with Old Bay seasoning.

I give you:

Bloody Mary.

So it’s been a week since our return from the US of A (where we finished the trip in grand style with a meal at the establishment closest to our New York hotel in the dubiously named but conveniently close-to-JFK “suburb” of Jamaica: Burger King. I had something called crisp-’n-chickeny or chick’n-crisp or such like, which turned out to be the most measly burger type thing ever seen, a slab of white crumbed “meat” in a sloppy white bun, and some onion rings, quite easily the worst I’ve ever had. We did earlier that day sample the new Bud Lite with Lime, which was actually pretty good).

I’ve been sleeping a lot since I got back, which I put down to some delayed version of jetlag, but it may also be related to the amounts of wine drunk in a week of general celebration following the donning of a red cloak and being pronounced doctor of philosophy by the vice-chancellor (not an everyday sort of thing).

This night I dread the sleep because it must be rudely interrupted at 3.30am for a 4.50am pick-up tomorrow. By friends, though, who are treating the philosophe and his wife to a weekend in Zambia, and not any shoddy old place, mind you. I’m sure it will be sweet, with things like spit-roasted warthogs to usher in the sunset, not to mention bucket loads of gin and tonic (we took no malaria prophylactics!!), and once the first hour of wretched awakeness is over and done with, it’ll be about time for a breakfast bloody mary, which is not the worst thing I could think of. (Imagine those poor people who have to go to work tomorrow?)