holiday retrospective

Brace yourself...this is going to be a lengthy and picture-filled post.

Way back in December, which feels like ages ago now, we kicked off our holidays with a trip to Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens for Carols by Candlelight with our friends Linda and Anna & Graham (and Juno, who was dressed as an elf). We picnicked, watched the sun go down, lit our candles, and sang our little hearts out.

Christmas Eve found us with the entire Crede family for a massive feast that concluded with all sorts of treats not the least of which was Sarah and Andreas' rumtopf. Christmas day began with breakfast with Sarah, Andreas, Hannah, Dave and Sue. We chowed, popped the homemade Christmas crackers Sarah made, and then went inside for presents and stockings. Later that afternoon we had a massive braai (BBQ) with the Credes and then went home to spend the next 12 hours digesting.

I sewed Hannah a super girl cape for one of her pressies

Part of our Christmas present to the family was a three course brunch on Boxing Day. The food was great, but playing with Hannah was probably the best part.

To end Boxing Day Brendan and I went up Table Mountain in the cable car. The table cloth (cloud cover on the mountain) was coming in thick, but that didn't stop us from enjoying some tea and dessert up at the top. I also saw my first dassies on the mountain. Did you know these little whipper snappers are the closest living relative of the elephant? Well now you do.

And then there was New Years Eve. Brendan and I got up at 5:30am and zooted up to Langebaan (about an hour and a half up the coast) to have breakfast with Anna, Elke, Graham, Dan and Juno. I baked us a pumpkin pie and we all over-indulged in true celebratory fashion, because eating croissants, brie, ham, and bubbly alone simply wasn't enough. After that all the menfolk went off kite surfing and the womenfolk (and babyfolk) went up to Paternoster (a town a bit further up the coast I have likened to a very windy, Afrikaans Greece) for lunch at Oep ve Koep. And oh what a lunch it was. I'm still dreaming about it. By 3:30pm Big B and I were zooming back to Cape Town to host the fam that night for a New Years Eve feast. We served baked camembert with a tomato pesto, caprese skewers, and prosciutto, ricotta and roast tomato nests for starters. This was followed by a chilled cucumber soup. The main course was an Asian vegetable stir fry, peanut noodles, and surf & turf (sesame crusted seared tuna and steak). For dessert there were mini rhubarb and custard souffles. It all went down a treat. We played some Taboo to pass the time until midnight, and got to ring in 2012 with Ant and Kate joining us on skype. Brendan and I ended the night by grabbing a glass of champagne and walking down to the ocean. We talked about all the excitement in store for 2012, which we have deemed our rock star year. Our three month South American adventure is now less than a month away. We will move into our house in May. We hope to travel to the States in July to see friends and family, and perhaps to Turkey in September (cross those fingers!). I'm going to start a new job and have the goal of running a half marathon. Brendan is going to keep churning out the publications and might just run that half marathon with me. Next Christmas will likely find us in York with the MB fam and hopefully next New Years Eve we will be in Paris, smooching under the Eiffel Tower. Oh la la! And even if half of these things don't happen, 2012 is still going to be one rockin year...I can just feel it.

Paternoster lunch spot

amuse bouche: calamari bobotie

watermelon gazpacho

sandveld potato dumplings with mushrooms, dune spinach, almonds and pine nuts

nectarine pavlova

mini rhubarb souffles

an app to facilitate our countdown to 2012

Happy New Year!

And on the morning of January 1, 2012 what was the first thing I ate? Leftover pumpkin pie in bed. Any year has to be a good one when your first food is pie!

Happy New Year to one and all! Here's to every plan and goal and dream coming to fruition!

xx

Wednesday pick-me-up

In less than 48 hours we leave our lovely little cottage in Wynberg. As delightful as spending the summer by the sea will be (and I am certain it will be), I'm feeling bummed out about the move. This place has been an amazing home for the last 15 months. It is full of such happy memories of incredible feasts, good times with so many friends (those just stopping by and those who stayed days and weeks in our guest room), holidays, visits with all the sweet babies our friends and family have had (and one particularly memorable babysitting experience), the birth of Becky Brown, and too many other things to list here. It has been the most perfect first home for us in Cape Town and we will miss it and living just down the road from our very wonderful neighbors Anna, Graham & Juno dearly. Plus moving is just a pain in the neck...no two ways about that. Exhibit A:

This is the state of our home at the moment. Oy! This amount of upheaval just wears me down. Enter Exhibit B:

I got the most awesome pick-me-up package from my Dad and Diane today. Halloween themed mini spatulas and Thanksgiving themed cupcake decorations. The perfect thing for this little ex-pat/baker. Turkeys dressed as pilgrims?! What is better than that, and who is better than them? Now I'm even more excited for turkey day!! 

wildflowers

This weekend we ventured out of the city to Darling to catch a glimpse of the wildflowers. We packed a picnic and hoped for a leisurely afternoon in the sun. We didn't quite get that. The flowers were great, but it was BUGGY. A zillion little gnat-like things swarmed us immediately. It was a race to see if we could finish our sandwiches without ingesting a dozen or more of the little suckers. So no lingering among the flowers, but they were lovely to spend a bit of time (and as a consolation prize we went to Groote Post for a wine tasting).

In fashion news, I have two items to report:
1. My darlingest niece is now borrowing my clothes. She only needs about another ten years to fit into them.

2. We babysat our favorite neighbor's super wonderful little girl Juno. We dressed her up like a Mexican. It was awesome.

this week

On Monday the MB parents left Cape Town to go back home. We had a wonderful two week visit during which, among other things, we celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary (!!) with a very special dinner.

On Tuesday I made some heavenly macaroons. The simple coconut kind, not the fancy and incredibly complicated French almond kind. I'll take simple over complicated any day. In need of a macaroon? Just ask Becky Brown.

On Wednesday I got stuck in an hour of Cape Town rush hour traffic (something I am wholly un-used to) and resigned myself to the fact that this will be the story of my life for the next five Wednesdays while I conduct a workshop out of town. But my oh my, what a view to be stuck with.

On Thursday Brendan called me out onto our porch to see the rainbow over our neighborhood. These beauties are a wonderful byproduct of our rainy winters. I also channelled my inner Julia Child and made the most *EPIC* and delicious boeuf bourguignon. The six hours of effort were fully worth it.

And today is Friday. We are going out for a big sushi supper. Life is good.

Hannah turns one

Our wonderful little niece, and my peach of a goddaughter, turned one on the 14th. It has been so special to be around her for the last year and watch her grow from a baby into a running, laughing, smiling little girl.

Hannah's birthday cake was a collaborative family effort and turned out fantastic and mighty delicious.

Hannah definitely agrees with the "delicious" part!

the Northern Hemisphere trip

** Sorry for the technical difficulties- YouTube didn't approve of my original musical accompaniment. It should work now!**

We got back from our epic Northern Hemisphere whirlwind trip about a week and a half ago and we are still glowing from all the fun...and finally not jet-lagged. I had just over three weeks of family time, friend time, birthday time (hello 30!) and treat time with some favorite American delicacies (hush puppies! Carolina BBQ! Reese's peanut butter cups! bagels!). Big B was gone a bit longer what with his trip to Brown University (a total success by the way). Our return wasn't the smoothest- more in a later post- but it is great to back home in Cape Town, enjoying the beautiful weather, catching up with friends and family, and setting our sights on spring.

There was just too much goodness to share conventional blog style so instead here is the under four minute highlight reel! Enjoy!!

3 things

Tomorrow I begin the Great Northern Hemisphere Tour of 2011. There will be visits with friends & family, hot weather (at least once I get to the US), oodles of good food & wine, a special wedding, belated, future, and on-time birthdays to celebrate, a reunion with Big B who left nearly two weeks ago, and a birthday of note for yours truly. I'm beside myself with excitement. I'm even taking my famous guava swirl cheesecake on the road, where it will be making guest appearances in York and ol' Virginny with the two fams. Good times.

But before I say adieu for now, here are three quick stories of the recent goings-on around here.

Brendan has been an all star in the birthday department (which will be getting its own post next month). We went away to Franschhoek a few weekends back for a pre-bday celebration as I won't be seeing him until after the big day. Among the many wonderful gifties I received were two pizza baking trays, thus ensuring Brendan with an abundance of my absolute favorite savory treat food for years to come. I wanted to take the trays for a test drive before he left, so I dug out a pizza crust recipe and got to work. However, being winter here, it was a cold, drizzly day and I was nervous the dough wouldn't rise properly. Time for Plan B: I filled a hot water bottle, rested the dough bowl on top, tucked it into our bed, swaddled it with the duvet, and voila! Parker and I might have crawled under the covers to spoon the bowl, enjoy the warmth, and have a nap at some stage too. The end result was delish. I highly recommend the snuggle-your-dough-to-make-it-rise method.

On said weekend away we came to possess about 30 lemons. I'm not going to go into details about how these lemons came to join us, but let it suffice to say they became ours after a champagne tasting at the Graham Beck Estate*. After a few glasses of pre-lunch champagne, anything sounds like a great idea. So last weekend I made lemon curd with my friend Annabelle. It is tart and bright yellow and the next best thing to sunshine on a winter's day.

*As an aside, the Graham Beck Brut was the sparkly stuff we served at our wedding in Connecticut AND it was the bubbles of choice for Obama's inauguration. I can't believe he took our idea. I bet he gave our wire beaded animals as favors too.

Finally, a lesson in parenting. When asked what he wanted for his birthday, or nephew James asked for a dog. Kate, being the generous mom that she is, responded that James could have Digger. James was thrilled. Digger is her parents' dog, who lives in South Africa (while Ant, Kate, James & Matt live in England). James is now a proud "owner" of a dog that his parents never have to care for. Best parenting move ever! To continue this trend, Brendan and I decided to give him a "cat", so James got a large printout of Parker to call his very own. As James prefers chats with Parker to us on Skype, this seemed a great plan. So Parker now lives a double life, and James got two pets for his birthday. 

Enjoy the rest of June. Have a glass of champagne on the 23rd for the youngest looking 30 year old around!

Friday movies

*sorry for the glitch with the movies- should be all better now!*

It has been a great week! Write Our Future is off the ground and doing well. As of last night we have raised funds to feed 12 schoolchildren for the year, and we trust that that this achievement will only multiply further. Thanks to everyone for their support. To keep up with our progress, go to our website (www.writeourfuture.org). From there you can click to follow us on Facebook and receive email updates- two more great ways to stay connected!

Since it is Friday and since we are off to the movies tonight, I wanted to share a couple of home videos with you. The first is from my family's visit to Cape Town. On New Years Eve we had dinner at an awesome restaurant at Spier wine estate called Moyo. We sat in a treetop table and enjoyed all the fun entertainment...some of us more than others as evidenced by this video.

The other is of our super nephew James having a bit of fun by the pool with Brendan. This might just have to make another appearance with the little fella turns 21!

We are off to see Black Swan tonight. There is a significant delay in the release of movies here as compared to the US, so I hope we can at least get most of the top contenders in before the Oscars roll around. We saw Winter's Bone (good, albeit depressing) on Tuesday, and are off to see The King's Speech next Friday. Do you have any favorite Oscar contenders?

happy days

Four years ago today I went on a date with a really handsome guy I met on the first night of tango class. It was an icy sub-zero day in New Haven. We had Thai food. Later that evening we drank rooibos tea and I was introduced to Johnny Clegg. We saw each other the next day, and the next day, and the day after that. It was bliss then and it still is.


Our days of late have been very full and happy in other ways too. We've spent a few glorious days on the beach, my new favorite of which is Llandudno though we've spent a fair bit of time in Fish Hoek too.


We went for a sunset walk along Hout Bay beach, watching the mountain change colors and the clouds roll in.


Afterward we had a drink at a bar on the beach and watched the full moon rise. Our chairs were in the sand and we could kick our feet up and relax.


There has been loads of family time as well. We've had more time with this little cutie and his brother. I have a great video of James and Brendan that I will figure out how to post and get up here soon.



There was a gathering of all the M-B sibs, their partners, and their kiddies (I'm glad Ant & Kate have two so I could have someone to hold!).


And now we have B's cousin Kate and her husband James here. On Sunday we packed a picnic and parked off at Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens for one of their summer concerts.



Sadly the Nepal training has been a bit back-burnered because of my broken toe. I think it is nearly better enough to start hiking and we will hopefully recommence soon. In the mean time, Brendan has been harassing me (I think he would say he is strongly encouraging me) to do wall squats to increase leg strength. I decided that I would do them when Parker did.


While his form leaves something to be desired, I guess this means I need to start doing wall squats. Dang.