April Newsletter

We hope you are all well and have been eating some good food...please let us know where as we would like to share this info with others. April already...where has this year gone?! It feels like just the other day we were planning our Christmas range – on that note, our Cranberry relish proved to be such a hit that we are now making it available all year round.

The good news:

Fridge – we have a deli fridge in the shop now so that means we have a lot more refrigerated products. Our mayonnaise (free range eggs and olive oil) and Baonnaise (baobab flavoured, eggless mayonnaise) are now available every day of the week. Tannie Zelda’s pickled gherkins, preserved lemon dressing, chocolate chilli marinade, hummus, baba ganoush & mahammrah as well as several other products will also be available on a daily basis. We are proud to announce that we now also stock Rudi’s Sausages (http://www.urbansprout.co.za/?q=node/3265) – if you have never had them before, get yourself into the shop for a taster. We know Rudi from the various markets we do and have always swapped a jar of preserves for a pack of his sausages.

Classes – our next class will be on Sunday 17 April and it will be a traditional Jewish cooking class. The menu will include chopped chicken liver (starter), Holishkes (main course - stuffed cabbage leaves with wild and cultivated mushrooms), potato kugel, carrot tzimmes and for dessert Oded’s famous cheese blintzes. The class will run from 11am to around 3pm on Sunday and will be R400 per person - we do have two slots still available, but the class is filling up quickly. Please note: Although we do not follow the rules of kosher, we do not use any pork/shellfish during the cooking process.

Quince – quince season is upon us again and we will soon be doing a batch of quince jelly, quince chutney and membrillo.

Twitter/website/Facebook – if you would like to follow us on Twitter, our screen name is OdedsKitchen. We have started a Facebook group (called Oded’s Kitchen) and are in the process of updating the website.

The bad news:

Markets – we will be trying to do as many markets as we can, however, the Franschhoek market is closing down for winter quite soon and the Tokai Porter’s Estate market is entering its winter trading times and will be closed if it’s raining.

Highlights since last mail:

Taste of CT – we had a very successful Taste of CT – hard work, but very rewarding. To all of you who came, thanks for stopping at the stand and for your various comments. As a result of the success of our new range of dips (hummus, baba ganoush & Mahammrah) we have decided to keep them on the menu for the foreseeable future. To all of you who took us up on our offer of free tickets for the show, hope you had a good time. The food was of an exceptionally high standard and we ate very well as a result!

Slow Food Talk – on Saturday we hosted a lecture on preserving for the Slow food movement (http://slowfoodmothercity.co.za/salt-and-vinegar/). The talk lasted around 90 minutes and included a lecture from Oded on the history of preserving, the techniques and applications thereof and finally a Q&A session and tasting of the range,. A big thanks to Michelle Matthews (http://www.michellematthews.co.za/) & Dax (http://www.relax-with-dax.co.za) for organising and publicizing the event as well as Jack Black (http://www.jackblackbeer.com/) for sponsoring the beer (a great accompaniment to the range).

Preserving Course – our course on preserving went down very well last month. Thanks to those who attended and we hope you have been trying out the various techniques learnt since then. Each participant assisted in the making of 3 preserves which highlighted 3 different techniques. A great intro to the world of preserving and an excellent grounding in the basic techniques.

Looking for a job?

We are looking for fun-loving; food-savvy people to (wo)/man a stand for us at markets. If you are interested please contact me - details can be found at the bottom of this mail.

Where to find us this week?

Markets:

Wednesday – Earth Fair (3pm to 8pm)

Saturday – Biscuit Mill; Stellenbosch; Tokai Porter’s Estate & Tokai Earth Fair

Tastings: (lunch time – between 12 & 2pm)

Tues – Food Barn (Noordhoek) & Organic Living (Constantia Village)

Wed – Spar (Somerset West)

Thurs – Spar (Woodstock & Cape Quarter)

Fri – Tokara (Stellenbosch) & Joostenberg (R101 between Paarl & Stellenbosch)

Eat, drink and be merry

Oded & Lewis