Some important dedications before we get onto the business of food...

I'm nearing the 5 month mark of no blog posts and that's a record I really don't want to hit! The reason for this spectacular laziness? None really, plenty of excuses, not many dinner parties and a thousand other details getting in the way. We did have a wonderful trip to Bali a month ago for my birthday that I will write about, but otherwise there's been different socialising and eating to stay trim and fit. Not that that isn't blog worthy, but there hasn't been much on the new and exciting front.

And then everything happens at once. We had a dinner party for the first time in ages and a few life events (that I'll get to) reignited the flame and here I am again with recipes, pearls of wisdom, and general stories to impart and entertain you with - and to keep me sane. I've found that without this regular blogging, or any of my writing really, my head gets too full of words and they either all come out at once or they get bottlenecked and can't make an appearance at all. A writers block if you will.

I digress. Let's begin at the beginning. The feast I'm about to tell you about is definitely the inspiration and body of this and the next couple of blogs, but there needs to be a dedication or 2 in here. In the last 3 months, 2 of my most important food mentors/teachers/guides have passed away. Both my grans. They both taught me very different skills but ultimately had the same set of knowledge. As I was preparing some of the dishes for Sunday night I got to thinking of their influences on how I cook and eat, and the skills they taught me in my day-to-day life. So this and any related posts are dedicated to Granny Fay and Nana.

Granny Fay, my paternal grandmother, passed away almost 3 months ago and she taught me all I needed to know in the craft department. I learnt to knit, embroider, craft, crochet and sew from her. I also learnt how to make chocolates for Easter and crackers fo Christmas. She was the Queen of the melktert or milktart, a traditional South African custard tart, that she was so good at she sold at a home industry and sold out within hours - after making 50 of them (or some such number). She taught me how to make delicious custard slices and sausage rolls from scratch, and every weekend I went to visit her was a new project. We would make something in the kitchen or be sewing something.

My strongest food influence and my biggest fan, Nana, passed away a couple of weeks ago. As my maternal grandmother her influence on what my mom cooked and passed down to me is obviously strongest. I can see it in the food traditions we have at Christmas and all year round. And some of my favourite dishes are ones that her or my mother would have or still do cook. And here's where I started thinking of her influence in my cooking. I was chopping onions to make the upcoming Carrot and Cumin salad and realised that this particular method of onion cutting was taught to me by her, in her kitchen in Old Belvidere, Knysna. I was sifting the flour for the biscotti and her advice to sift the flour 3 times to make sure the sponge cake was light and fluffy was as clear as day. I'm only sad she won't be able to read this and see that I still use those skills! After my grandfather had passed away, and while Marty was working nights, we had plenty of discussions while on Skype or the phone about cooking meals for 1 and how I often adapted bigger recipes for it, or the different storage methods. She was always interested in what we were doing and loved to read this blog.

I have no doubt over Christmas we will be having a few dishes that these ladies have always served up for our family, and hopefully we can start some new traditions of our own to carry on to our future generations along with these.

And now the feast. After a few fabulous dinner parties last year - particularily in BBQ season - and a couple where attendance was lacking, we decided to take a break and eat out a little more. You get stuck in the same dishes and menus when you don't eat out and experience new trends in food. We also had a fabulous set of guests to invite over who love food as we do and would appreciate something different. This was a feast! Quite literally a anti-pasti/tapas-inspired meal where we could enjoy unique flavours and dishes, but be able to pick and nibble and chat without too much hassle during dinner.

It consisted of -
A Selcection of olives
A selection of dips - namely basil pesto, salsa verde, garlic aioli, horseradish cream, tzatziki, yogurt, farmstyle relish and the list goes on
Cured meats
Smoked salmon
Bruschetta and fresh baguette
Tomato Salad
Chorizo sticks - cooked mild chorizo - YUM
Prawns marinated in garlic, olive oil, chilli and parsley
Carrot and cumin salad
Guacamole
Cucumber sticks
Fennel, radish, celery salad

There was also marinated lamb skewers and Portuguese chicken skewers but we never got to those because we were all full! I'll let you know what they're like because that's leftovers for the week!

And dessert....
Deconstructed truffles with homemade biscotti, nuts, cocoa and fresh fruit ~ a Jamie Oliver recipe.

The biscotti and carrot salad recipes and posts are to follow as they were the most interesting and not pre-bought or prepared. We have made the avocado salsa before and everything else was wonderfully easy. Wine flowed freely and I had a lovely Moscato from Montalto, Mornington Penisula to serve with dessert. A fabulous evening with fabulous company is all that one can ask for, but we got added inspiration and that's pretty great for the next few dinners! Keep reading for 2 awesome recipes...

Ciao for now
Helen
xoxo