The Revival

Hallo world!! After much ragging and abuse my poor little foodie soul has now decided to resurrect this little-known blog and try again. (YAY! Chorus of happy friends!) I have decided to try and streamline the process because I'm lazy and it was becoming a lus frankly. The reason I am writing today is that we are having a little dinner paaaaaarty (said in the voice of Patsy Stone) at the Beanpod tonight. Expect prestigious new judges, new faces, new scoring and general merriment. However, old fans - don't be disgruntled - there will still be a girl

a guy
& a gay

avec drama, humour and all the things we're used to...

As you all remember - we had various categories and I'd still like to maintain that, but just have one score out of ten that I get given at the end of the meal. I then have to upload the scores and the recipes in the aftermath (i.e. when I'm avoiding being a dishwasher). SO YAY!!!! I hope we get somewhere...I hope I don't get accused of bias by a disgruntled Albean and I hope merriment on jollity will be had by all. I think I should also have an invite application form - you can fill it out :) Hahahaha (scared, mad laugh)....

I LOVE macaroons

Ok so things have fallen apart to coin a much-used book title..the admin intensiveness of this blog has caused it to somewhat fall on the wayside..but fear not! I am developing a new mechanic as we speak. To catch up to speed, Buffin the love Puffin and I have been on a "culinary journey" which involves him feeling me like a goldfish with deliciously decadent food. This is not usually something I would ordinarily complain about..however this food all contains lots of butter, lots of meat and lots of general amazingness. BUT Buffin the love Puffin is sneaky - whilst he feeds me, he has a Virgin Active gym contract. He's got a Virgin Active in his building and can just pop down willy nilly whenever the fancy takes him. He is buffing up (hahahah) whilst I get squidgier.

Why don't I do the same I hear you say - well because I can't afford gym. The sole reason for this is because I LOVE MACAROONS. I am completely obsessed. Macaroons are the food of rich people and since my addiction has taken hold I have become broke.

Look clearly only people such as Serena and Blaire can afford to eat these...

I remember my first macaroon...and I felt that things finally made sense. I forgot about them completely and then all of a sudden, remembered that I loved them. I decided to make it my mission to find the best in town.

SO..my first stop was to Cassis in Gardens. I used to live in Gardens and used to pass my time hanging out at the mall (it was zef ok!?!) No I'm only joking..I was just obsessed with the patisserie. I was pleasantly surprised to find that each delectable delight was only R5 a pop! JOY! I bought R50's worth and presented to the Love Puffin for Valentines Day..and proceeded to eat them all with gusto. OUR favourites were the vanilla and the chocolate. Beautiful crunchy and yielding on the outside, and smooth and soft on the inside. PERFECT.

Om Noooom!!!

I sneakily pop off and buy them whenever I can, but then after a while I start to feel guilty about the cost - to both my wallet and my waistline. So then I buy them as gifts for people. I am a subscriber to the saying that you should get people gifts that you yourself would love to get. I love macaroons and I would love to get macaroons. (The Love Puffin knows this but refuses to indulge my habit...) My next experiment was Daniella's at the Cape Quarter. It is a sweet little stall that sells beautiful confectionery and patisserie. It seems to be very popular because every time I go there they only have the lame flavours left. I am told that their lemon macaroon is the best but have yet to have gotten my sticky paws on it yet. :( Anyways..that's besides the point..Daniella's is expensive - R10 a pop, BUT during March they have a 25% discount. You have to buy 6 at a time which is quite cheeky, especially since they only ever have the lame flavours left. I did find out the reason they go through them so quickly however: when I was there the other day, a very camp man had bought R300-worth of macaroons! ARE YOU JOKING!? And why do WE not live together??? So anyways, whilst this internal conversation was going on inside my head he proceeded to explain that he has this ritual every weekend - "it's just because a talking point, and EVERYONE pops over for tea!" My eyes glazed over as I envisioned R300-worth of macaroons in my belly...or just sitting prettily on my table, so joyous and colourful...it would be a happy day...

How DE-licious...

So yes, the quest continues and I will continue to let you know my favourites. If anyone has any other suggestions about where else to get macaroons in CPT, please shout. Sorry for the delay of the actual AGAGAAGTUCO (the abbreviation for this blog lol) - we had a lovely dinner with Shannon, Craig and Adam on Tuesday which I must let you know about. Have a joyous day and remember... you can bribe me with macaroons (pay attention Love Puffin!)

Back to Reality - Jan 2011

My sincere apologies for the lack of updates since last year! Christmas and New Year was a time of tremendous feasting as you would expect and I was in a constant food coma for the majority of Dec and Jan! 

Happily I had to be dragged out of it and have undertaken about 40 new year's resolutions that all involve exercise because if we carry on eating the way we are, we will all look like Oprah in the 90s. Buff and I got about 10 cookbooks between the two of us for Christmas, so now everyone is expecting good things - we will all be doing out absolute best not to disappoint in 2011. Hopefully this will be the year of "The Ultimat" (which is the abbreviated name for this blog as I didn't realise that Blogger has cut off half my URL) so thank you all for your support previously and hopefully I will have you ALL to dinner soon. I think I'd better start a rotation :)

The first "Girl,Guy and Gay" meal of 2010 was cooked by our lovely "Gay", Al. It was a wonderful combination of tastes and even better, it was a really innovative and resourceful way of using up food in our fridge that would have otherwise have gone to waste. Incidentally, our combined food resolution for 2011 is to be greener, more organic and more resourceful. We have a budding kitchen herb garden and are soon embarking on finding a suitable recycling service. Anyway...that's besides the point..the point is that we cook, we rate and we score. Al (with the help of Michael) decided on a sumptuous vegetarian lasagna which comprised of really tasty alternating layers of cinnamon oven-roasted butternut and lentils with basil-spiced tomatoes, Grana Pardano cheese and a Bechamel sauce. It was a perfect Sunday meal as it was quite a laborious and time-consuming meal made with loads of love and passion. Al and Michael choreographed their kitchen antics perfectly and although the aftermath was quite hectic, the meal was definitely well worth it. 

Our guests for the evening were Michael and Bruce, both of whom have made appearances here before. Bruce's only task was to sit, drink wine and entertain us and Michael was sous-chef extraordinaire. 

Al hard at work at his masterpiece

Salad, wine & cheese! Yum

Accompanying this comforting soul-food was a light and simple rocket, blue cheese and onion salad. Al makes this vinaigrette using balsamic vinegar, olive oil, mustard powder, salt and pepper and raw onions. It is sooo yummy and a firm favourite with us when it comes to salads. 

 The evening was such fun and the perfect way to keep the Sunday blues at bay. We drank wine and plenty of whiskey which were interesting pairings to say the least. 


And now the scores, overall, Al scored an overall 88%!!!! Very good score indeed. His highest marks we due to the taste of this food which averaged in at 32 out of 35(really delicious!)Second highest score was the price of the meal, scoring him an average 28 out of 30 which is a very high mark, also considering that we were so resourceful with using all our leftover ingredients. This correlates with his score for availability = 4 out of 5. Congrats Al for kicking the year off with a very competitive score. Looking forward to the awesome things to come!!

The vege lasange

The aftermath!