The staff of life
A bread roll sustains in so many ways.
Cheers!" I raise my glass to the purple heavens. Mmm, what a rather unconventional choice of colour to paint a wine cellar. It looks like someone took a sponge, dipped it in a bucket of pink and purple food colouring, and then washed the walls down while drinking half a case of Odd Bins. It's a colour I would expect to see in a Bo-Kaap nursery school, or perhaps the colour of the walls of, say, a fifth-generation vegetarian café in lower Obz.
"What colour is that?" I tentatively ask Martin Meinert, who consults for Ken Forrester Wines as well as having his own label.
"It's the colour of fermenting Pinotage." "Oh." Of course. Now it all makes perfect sense. "Ken painted it," he says, as if to offer some sway of salvation. "He and a mate from England. And Ken fixed all the staves." "Ah. Nice staves."
Martin bares a striking resemblance to actor Michael Douglas. Actually I am convinced I am sampling 96 Winery Road restaurant's degustation menu with none other than Michael Douglas. I mean, why else would I have been invited?
"Michael, not Kurt," he barks. "Where's Catherine then?" "At the Spur." "What did you do before wine?" I ask. "I worked as a sub-editor on the Rand Daily Mail with Helen Zille."
"How did you go from there to wine?" "I just started drinking!" The strawberry blonde at our table takes a gulp of Devon Crest 2005, Martin's yummy Bordeaux-style red blend. "The people who lost their money in Europe, will they really still go to Rust en Vrede? After paying R1 600 for two, I don't feel it is value for money. But when you leave they give you a gift wrapped in tissue paper... it's a bread roll!" she chortles at the memory. "And do you know what I thought? Yes please! Because I was still hungry."
What perturbs me so is that there is not much talk today about the food, except when restaurant general manager Allan Forrester quips: "We get our smoked olive oil from Aphrodisiac Shack... guaranteed to lift your libido!"
I think to myself, what would the dear departed gastronome, Maurice Curnonsky, think? Now here's a man who at the height of his fame had 80 restaurants around Paris holding a table every night in case he showed up. Curnonsky ate with gusto and spoke about everything under the sun, except for the meal. Apparently he would yak about the execution of a convicted murderer, hold forth on the inherent anti-intellectualism of television, dissect Simone de Beauvoir's latest book and even rattle on about his last visit to his dentist. Only if the chef walked in did he rise to plant six wet kisses on his face before telling him precisely how magnificent each of the courses had been. And this is exactly what happens when our chef, Natasha Wray, waltzes in. Except for the sexy wet kisses.
"I loved the wild mushroom tarte tatin," coos one diner. "Yes, the mushrooms speak for themselves," aahs another. "And what did they say?" I want to ask, but my mouth is full. "The pepper fillet and that brandy sauce, traditional but divine!" hails another. And then it all gets too much as I'm feeling pinned down under these fermenting Pinotage walls.
All I want to do is shout: "Where's my goddam bread roll dammit? I'm starving!"
Suzy Bell is the deputy editor of Fresh Living magazine in Cape Town and will do lunch with anyone in South Africa who dares invite her.
