There’s something to be said about a sunny Highveld autumn day. On a farm. By a river. For a feast. Tanner farm was the venue for the seventh Down to Earth Farm Feast, which is run by best friends Dany & Danielle. The duo are responsible for a string of successful events around Gauteng, where they scout out local farms around the province, looking for beautiful venues to be the backdrops for their delightful feasts.
Well, this was an unexpected surprise. While shopping for a dinner party yesterday, I popped into Dunkeld Fruit & Veg for a few fresh and tasty things to jazz up a whole baked fish. As I was about to pay for my goods, my eye wandered back into the store and fell upon a basket of some oddly-shaped, familiar brown gems… Fresh porcini mushrooms!
Last Saturday found me adventuring the back roads of Irene, a farming suburb on the outskirts of Pretoria. Sun Herbs farm was my destination, where a farm feast was being prepared… inside a custom-fitted vintage bull-nose Mercedes Benz truck.
It’s likely you’ll have heard names such as The Fat Duck, Noma and El Bulli before and you may even know their chefs, but do you know the guy who helped Heston Blumenthal develop his scientific approach to cooking?
Peter Barham was recently brought out to South Africa by Wehrner Gutstadt and his daughter Daniela over at Culinary Equipment Company, (oh, they’re just the whose who in exquisite professional kitchen equipment) to lecture on this fascinating topic. My colleagues and I attended the first one at Delaire Graff Estate in Stellenbosch on the Helshoogte Pass, along with some of Cape Town’s finest chefs and foodies.
