Clan William @ The Yellow Aloe!!!

Arrival in Clan William on the evening of Wednesday 20/07/2011. Objective, to aid a close friend and owner of "Yellow Aloe" guesthouse, Cheryl Spilsbury in training her kitchen staff into bettering the menu that is currently in place and help to bring a renewed vigour and passion for food in this small but BEAUTIFUL town. What an amazing place!!??

Cheryl wanted to run a series of trial dinners to get the girls comfortable with running decent set menus for dinners in leu of the up and coming flower season. The few flowers I saw were absolutely stunning and being a world renowned tourist destination, the season has the locals taking a beating by hordes of tourists flocking in and out of this tiny 'dorp'.

The town has one SuperSpar that is the only place that you can possibly get anything that involves food and supplies. All be it a very nice one, they do have major difficulty in consistency regarding what they have in stock, especially in the fresh produce department. I walked to the shop everyday in the hopes that the delivery truck had updated with some new surprises :)

The way I wanted to structure the training was to teach the girls recipes and basics that they could use and expand on and could also run in time with the trial dinners that Cheryl was putting in place. Came up with some draft menus....

The first dinner was only for 4 which included Cheryl and myself as sitting guests.

Starter: Mediteranean Vegetable tarts with a basil cream cheese sauce

Main: Pan fried pepper fillet steaks on braised redwine cabbage, potato fodants, carrot puree and grilled zucchini & rosemary jus

 Dessert: Tipsy pecan brownies with Chantilly cream and alchy chocolate sauce or Bread and butter cappucinos

The dinner went down a treat and was really loved by all. Most rewarding of all was to watch Gwen and Hilde, the cooks that I had to train, go from making standard toasted sandwiches to baking their own confections and searing their own steaks!

We did 2 more big dinner nights, one on the Sunday night and another on the Monday. Within all the manic service and trying to get all the preperations done I didn't manage to take photos of all of the food. The one dessert that we did that was a real hit but unfortunately was camera shy was a Rooibos infused Creme Brulee with chocolate shortbread. So we ran  the 3 desserts for all the dinners and then varied the choices of starters and mains.

 

Left: Chicken and leak pies with butternut mash, honey glazed beetroot, chargrilled baby-corn and crunchy leak garnish.

Right: Cream of sweet potato and onion soup with herbed creme fraiche and crispy basil leaves.

After a truly amazing week working 14 hours a day teaching girls who truly have a passion but only require the confidence and the know how, I really feel truly rewarded by having the chance to impart with the knowledge I have to help better the lives of others.

I would like to thanks Cheryl Spilsbury for this wonderful opportunity and for a truly wonderful week at

Yellow Aloe Guesthouse

Po Box 196

Clan William

8135

South Africa

Office : +27 27 482 2018        Fax : +27 27 482 2018             Email : yellowaloe@mweb.co.za

Website : www.yellowaloe.co.za

Cheryl is currently looking for a chef to manage her kitchen at Yellow Aloe, please contact her for more details as it is a wonderful opportunity to manage your own kitchen!!!

Sorry it's been so long, but So much has happened...!!!

Hey there to all that are partially or even at all interested in reading about whats going on in this chefs life :)

I sincerely apologize for the lack of updates and posts on this blog but I unfortunately had to endure the total, utter failure and loss of my laptop hard drive recently. This has not only rendered my laptop useless but also wiped out all my 320gigs of information consisting of all my collected recipes, photos, updated CV's, music and you know all those little documents that you only remember about when you realize they were on that piece of useless technology. To be fair, I am the complete TW*******T for not being mindful enough to back it all up.

However I have managed to retrieve many of my recipes and most of my photos via friends and also had some stored within my email and my phone. So not all is lost.

So whats happened since I last updated everyone....the first thing was a wonderful weekend at the Wacky Wine Festival at Arabella wine estate in Robertson from the 2nd to the 5th of June. The weekend was spent freelancing to KNEAD bakery assisting at their events catering stand at Arabella itself. The Faull brothers, Ryan, Evan (owners of the brand), Jamie (the younger brother, an extremely talented Saxophonist), along with Emma Claassen (a Silwood 1st year) and myself comprised a strong team ready to take on the hungry and drunk!!!

The Friday was an extremely busy day doing lunch and dinner service but it was a great night spent working making amazing artisan Sandwiches with delicious fresh toppings like buffalo mozzarella, parmaham, crispy rocket to name but a few. As well as their sweet treats of Chocolate ganache covered brownies :) mmmmm...YUM!

The Saturday was manic as we hit lunchtime as the people at the gate had let in plus-minus 2000 people more than what the venue could accommodate for. This took down Bacinni's Pizza who ran out of food very early as well as a bout of rain frying the electrics of the tent next to us doing curry and rice.

So that left us at KNEAD as the only vendors with food available and around 5000 drunken hungry mouths to feed. From 13:00 until around 21:00 the queue in front of us stood at least 20 meters long and 5 people thick. We literally had to fight for survival. Jamie was almost attacked by some psycho blonde woman offering sexual favours for food, as well as me having to deal with people sneaking around to the back of the tent to get some food ahead of the masses.

There were some that were drunk and desperate enough, and waving around wads of cash for any type of food to be thrown their way. My parents always said I had the ability to sell ice to an Eskimo but how's about selling Prego Rolls at R100.00 a pop to those willing to pay the price. The tally came to R1000.00 in the kitty for about 8 Pregos, a coupla croissants, and a few bottles of water. Still debating as to whether to feel proud or guilty but man it was great fun!!!

After completing a few other random catering gigs, a couple again for Creative Cuisine (read more about Zoe @ http://www.southafricanfoodies.co.za/Listings-Caterers-Cooking-Schools/creative-cuisine-cape-town.shtml). 

I helped out at a wonderful wedding held at Stellenrust wine estate cooking with the amazing Charmaine Lilje of http://chardonnaychefs.co.za/ ,Which as there slogan goes "A dining affair to remember" this event was also "A kitchen nightmare to remember". The  kitchen we were given to cook in was a technical disaster involving table top work surfaces that sat a good 30cm below a comfortable working height as well as collapsing under the weight of anything heavier a large bain-marie with anything in it! The ovens had one shelf each that did not fit and were propped up by bricks, now whilst trying to get 160 tomato tarts hot and ready for plating this can become a logistical nightmare. However with all the odds stacked against us we prevailed (not without a few temper losses and kitchen tensions) and the guests, as per the organisers feedback, loved everything!!!!

It was shortly after this function by a few days that I got an email from an old friend Judi Fourie. I studied with her back in first year at Silwood (http://www.silwood.co.za) in 2007. After she completed her 1st year she went off to Zanzibar to go and work on an island. With occasional updates on Facebook and quick chats when I managed to catch her online, I got wind of the fact that she might be leaving. So her email was basically to ask for my CV, if I were interested in taking over her position on the island and before I even realised, we were face to face having the interview with her beaming smile meeting mine and the job being offered as mine for the taking. Over the past month I have accepted the position and will be moving there as of the 2nd of August 2011!!! I never thought after the Seychelles that Island life would become an opportunity again in such a hurry!

So please have a look at where I will be working over the next while from August onwards!

http://www.andbeyondafrica.com/luxury_safari/tanzania/zanzibar/and_beyond_mnemba

Subsequently I found out that a family connection of mine sorts out the wireless and internet for Mnemba Island so I will be updating my blog from there along with a new baby I am going to be adopting...

A Nikon D3100 so that I can show you all the pictures of paradise!!!

Watch this space for more updates. I still have lots to do before the end of the month, including going back to Cape west coast to do some training for a guesthouse owned by the wonderful Cheryl Spilsbury! I will be there from 21st until the 28th of July so if any of you are in the area, please make a stop at the gorgeous Yellow Aloe guesthouse! 

http://www.yellowaloe.co.za/