Heading down to my favourite place for a quick winter weekend visit, we made a wholly unplanned and wholly unpleasant stop just north of Napier.
Parents will understand.
The silver lining to this vomitty visit was this photo, the perfectly still water of a farm dam a tranquil juxtaposition to the harrowing events continuing behind me as I pressed the shutter.
She’s fine now. She was fine almost immediately anyway. Better out then in, hey?
We’re chilling out by the coast and there are important things to do like walking on the beach and cooking meat on the braai so blogging is always going to take a bit of a back seat.
Still, you need your fix and so here is not one, but two quota panoramae! [cue gasps of astonishment from the expectant crowd]
The first one is from our journey down here last night. Some nameless dirt road just north of Napier where stopped to give Colin a comfort break and to take photos of the sun setting over the Southern Cape farmland.
The second is from the beach near Suiderstrand, this time walking Colin until it broke and needed to be carried home.
I suppose that if there is one thing to be said for having a dog, it’s that you get the opportunity to take photos like these, when otherwise, you’d probably be in a pub somewhere, enjoying a nice drink and some good laughs.
Hmm.
We decided that since we had the time and inclination, we would stop at some of the places we never stop at en route to and from the cottage while on our way back to Cape Town today.
Top of the list was the Moerse Farm Stall in Napier, which regularly almost entices us with its promise of “Flippen Lekker Viskoekies” & “Sexy Warm Brood”. (“Flipping Lovely Fishcakes” and “Sexy Hot Bread” to to the uninitiated…)
The actual farm stall bit of it is great, with all the traditional fare on offer: rusks, bread, milk tart, etc etc (but sadly, no FLVs, which had sold out already). The place was also filled with homemade placards of famous and inspirational quotes and quirky anecdotes as well.
This one – typical of the dry sense of humour of Manie Kriel, the owner (who also warned Alex only to pet Rosie the dachshund with his left hand, since he would need the fingers on his right hand to hold a pen when he went back to school) (Alex, not the daschsund) – caught my eye as we returned to our hectic urban existences.
But it was the nursery at the back that was so very unexpected: what an utterly amazing oasis of coolness and calmness in the 38°C heat.
The plants were healthy, happy (you could hear them singing), colourful and cool – awesome value too, especially when compared to Cape Town prices. Should you wish, you can sit in the sun (or the shade) and enjoy scones and coffee amongst the flowers before continuing your onward journey.
And – if you don’t want to miss out on the hugely popular “Flippen Lekker Viskoekies” & “Sexy Warm Brood”, simply ring ahead (028 423 3440) and place your order on the morning of your trip.
Our next stop was Dassiesfontein, which impressed me less. It’s bizarre, completely mad, and a stop that you really must make just to experience the eclectic nature of the place – rusks, biltong, antiques, leather goods, wood-burning stoves and ovens, a small restaurant, a tiny bar, cheese, chocolates, wine, and even a large range of chandeliers.
There’s no doubt that it’s a well-run and slick operation, but if this is SA Farm Stall v2.0, then I’m not going to bother upgrading. It was soulless, commercial and dangerously expensive – a far cry from our friendly, personal experience in Napier earlier in the day. If, as Dassiesfontein claim, they “represent the spirit of true South African hospitality”, then this country is in more trouble than we thought.
That said, I’m looking forward to enjoying a glass of the local “foot stomped” port (ABV 20% *whimper*) and some of the homemade cheese we bought there. And I’m glad we popped in, but I won’t be hurrying back.
Depending on how good the port is, obviously.
Forgive me for this. I recognise that different people have different passions – I’ve even heard it said that some individuals don’t support Sheffield United, although I’m sure this can’t actually be true. But it’s wrong to expect others to be interested in your passion – even to understand it, no matter how great your enthusiasm or how flowery your language.
Food is one of those things that people can wax lyrical about food forever and a day. Even, it appears, if it’s just bread. Check this feature on The Larder in Napier, taken from the Discover Cape Agulhas group on Facebook.
THE LARDER IN NAPIER
At the Larder in Napier we do not only bake bread but rather experience bread everyday. It is a living element that we partake of from early in the morning when the previous day’s dough is shaped, proved and baked. To see the mounds of white suddenly explode in the oven into beautiful crisp brown breads is a revelation every day. Afterwards we will mix the batch of dough for the following day and leave it quietly for 5 hours to develop. By mid afternoon we will prepare the dough for the overnight rising, working with it for 1 ½ hours to stretch the gluten and to benefit the maximum from our starter. Thereafter it is left overnight to let nature run its course. This process gives us a robust bread with lots of flavour, a crisp crust and soft on the inside. Eating our bread is an experience and not for the fainthearted.
Thus is our daily ritual every day, four days a week.
“A living element”? (Yeah, sure, until you stick it into the oven and KILL IT!)
“Mounds of white” suddenly exploding?
“Not for the fainthearted”?
Do we really knead this overly and overtly descriptive prose? You make it sound like a horror movie, when at the end of the day (and actually, reading again, throughout it) you are just baking.
It’s just bread.
Also, I couldn’t help but notice that while you claim to “experience bread everyday”, you actually only make it on 57.1% of the days of the week. Even allowing for the following day’s baking, this hardly constitutes “everyday” and I will be speaking to the DTI’s Consumer Affairs Board about this.