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

Thanksgiving 2011

Last night Brendan and I stood with ten friends and family members, held hands around the incredible feast we were moments away from tucking into, and each of us spent a few moments verbalizing the things we gave thanks for this year. I love this tradition. I am, as always, so thankful for health and happiness, the many people whom I love and who love me in return, beautiful sights and sounds, delicious food, and a partner who is really just so dadgum wonderful. This year Brendan and I gave an extra special thankfulness shout-out for the house we bought this week! We are (soon to be) the proud owners of the lovely Victorian cottage we had been living in since our arrival in Cape Town last year. We move back in next May upon our return from our three month South American adventure.  The universe is smiling upon us in a big way.

In the mean time, here are some Thanksgiving highlights. We had a grand ol' party and I'm so thankful to everyone who made it possible (and to the dishwasher for handling the bulk of the clean up)!

Happy Halloween

Halloween isn't a big deal here, which is a bit of a bummer. I didn't even bother buying candy as we almost certainly won't have trick-or-treaters. This year, however, I managed to get my fix by helping to sew a Halloween costume with my friend Anna for her little girl Juno. Anna, being North American, understands the awesomeness of the holiday and Juno played along wonderfully for her photo shoot.

Isn't she the sweetest little mermaid?

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!! 

lately

We've had lots on the go lately. Last week was Valentine's Day and as per our tradition we had a fabulous meal at home, this time with our friends Annabelle and Dave. We dined on a feta and peppadew spread with veggies and mini pitas, a lemon, thyme & mascarpone risotto with walnut crusted chicken, and braided lemon bread for dessert. Yum all around.



We attended a protest in front of Parliament. School students and education activists were petitioning for increased financial support for schools in the Eastern Cape (like No-ofisi, the school that Write Our Future is assisting).


Our wonderful friend Atheen is here for a visit and work collaboration with Brendan. Last week we all had our debut visit to the Eastern Food Bazaar and loved it. It is basically an alleyway of cheap and great quality Indian, Chinese, and Middle Eastern foods. We are all very keen to get back there and try some more goodies.


And- perhaps the most exciting thing of all- we saw U2 last Friday night at the Cape Town stadium. It was the most amazing spectacle I have ever witnessed. The stage was trippy, political messages abounded, there was a great video clip from Desmond Tutu, and we sang our hearts out for two full hours. It was one heck of a cultural experience. I'll post a couple video clips from the show later in the week.





Oh, and pie. There has been lots of pie lately, like this peach and whiskey pie with a gluten free crust.

Good times.

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?

the Schriers visit Cape Town

The entire nuclear Schrier family was reunited for Christmas this year. It was our first Christmas all together in at least 5 years, and boy howdy did Brendan and I show the visitors a great time in the Mother City! Below are some highlights, and a full album of pictures is available if you click here. If these photos make it look like all we did was spend our time in beautiful places, seeing exciting things, and eating/drinking well...good, because that's precisely what we did for 10 days.

our festive baobab Christmas tree

at Steenberg winery

on top of a windy Table Mountain on Christmas morning

at Olympia Cafe in Kalk Bay on Boxing Day

Boxing Day lunch at Harbour House at the window table we booked 5 months ago!

along Chapman's Peak Drive

quite possibly my favorite trip picture :)

enjoying the local flavors

at Boschendal vineyard

treetop table at Moyo for New Years Eve

table-side entertainment

It was wonderful to have the family here and introduce them to our new home and show them so many of the things we love about living here. I think we have sufficiently convinced everyone that we don't live in "The Lion King" and that they really want to come back!

holiday time

My lack of camera has meant no pictures, which has left me without much to yammer on about since I like to show you pictures of the things I am yammering about. Lucky for you, all that is about to change since my new little baby camera is about to make her landing in Cape Town in about 25 hours.

We just returned from a wonderful trip to the Drakensberg mountains and visit to the Natal Midlands for B's cousin's wedding. There are pictures on B's camera, and at some point I will download them onto my computer so I can share the highlights. We had a wonderful hike in the mountains (my favorite to date), saw some muddy zebras (cuter than you would think!), and enjoyed a very Christmas-y wedding.

And in thoroughly exciting news, 2/5 of the nuclear Schrier family are now in South Africa. After much hullabaloo in London, Josh made it to Johannesburg this morning. He is now en route to Cape Town. Getting him out of Heathrow was a Christmas miracle of note! The remaining crew arrive tomorrow evening, and I couldn't be more jittery.

So consider this fair warning that there will be no new posts until the new year. I have a family to entertain and introduce to Cape Town, and I will be taking that responsibility very seriously :) Many new foods will be eaten, local wine will be consumed, sights seen, and adventures had.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holiday, and wonderful wishes for the New Year to one and all!

xx

Thanksgiving highlights

We had a whole lot of Thanksgiving this year. The cooking began on Wednesday for a tremendous feast Thursday night. Our friends Candice and Warren joined in the feeding frenzy.

The food was outstanding (if I do say so myself) and the company was even better. There was, however, one unfortunate accident. In an attempt to get a shot of us at the dinner table using the timer (as opposed to the extended arm self-snap you see above), my beautiful little camera fell to its death from the bookshelf. RIP lovely sort-of-new Canon digital elph SD1400. You were a star. I hope this bit of news will also serve as a fair warning as to why there will be a dearth of pictures on the blog for the next little while until my sweet little camera's baby sister comes to join us in South Africa later next month.

Aside from my camera's untimely demise, the night was wonderful and made even more wonderful by receiving my Christmas pressie early from my darling husband. He clearly knows me well enough to understand that I can't handle the suspense of presents. He also knows me well enough to have surprised me with this:

A Le Creuset 5 quart kiwi oval enameled cast iron pot. This is the dutch oven of my dreams. I'm so in love. I kiss this dish at least once a day. We will live happily ever after together. The end.

Saturday we had a very happy Thanksgiving-themed housewarming bash. We served Thanksgiving sandwiches (turkey, cranberry & stuffing), sweet potato "hummus", pumpkin and feta muffins, sweet potato & coconut pie, eggnog pie, pumpkin pie, and a big bowl of Thanksgiving popcorn. The popcorn (recipe here) was probably my greatest triumph. I swapped the cranberries (which I couldn't find here due to the lack of bogs in South Africa) for dried apples and pears. De-lish! People will love you even more than they already do if you give this to them.

And now it is Monday and I begin a week-long Art of Living course this evening. Started in 1981 (a good year to start things, as that is when I made my start in the world), the Art of Living is a non-profit educational and humanitarian NGO focused on stress management and service. It operates in 151 countries, and is all about helping people fully actualize their potential. I am really pumped about what I will learn and how I will grow from the instruction this week. I might also be a bit thrilled to gain access to their ashram in Bali.

Tomorrow is also the last day of Mo-vember. Oh how I have missed the sight of Brendan's upper lip.