Le Diner en Blanc is coming to Johannesburg!

Sunday Times article

Joburg is the first city in South Africa to host a Diner en Blanc, the 25 year old tradition which started in Paris. Take that, Cape Town! It is this Friday somewhere in the city. As per the custom, the actual setting is kept secret until the very last minute. We are invited and we can't wait!






What is Le Diner en Blanc you ask? If you don't know, then here is a description taken from the International Le Diner en Blanc website: (If you do, then skip ahead!)

 Sunday Times Lifestyle article

"Launched by François Pasquier and his close friends 25 years ago, Paris’ Dîner en Blanc now brings together over 10,000 people each year in some of the most prestigious locations throughout the French capital.

In the summer of 1988, Pasquier had just returned to Paris after a few years abroad and held a dinner party to reconnect with friends. So many wished to attend that he asked them to convene at Bois de Boulogne dressed in white, so as to be recognizable to one another. Each attendee was also asked to bring a friend. The evening was such a hit that guests wanted more friends to join-in the following year and thus was born the concept of Dîner en Blanc.

Saturday Star article

In June 1991, four years after the event’s debut, the founding group of friends decided to organize their Dîner in one of the French capital’s most beautiful locations, Pont des Arts, in the heart of Paris (a first). Knowing fully well that local authorities would never allow such an event to take place there, keeping the location a secret until the very last minute was crucial to the success of the event.

 

Le Diner en Blanc NYC

Following in his François Pasquier’s footsteps, one of his sons, Aymeric Pasquier, moved to Montreal and kept the family tradition going when he came together with friends to hold the first Dîner en Blanc^® in August of 2009. In 2011, Aymeric partnered-up with Sandy Safi to launch the first American Dîner en Blanc in New York. The United States held its first Dîner en Blanc^® in New York on August 25th, 2011. That evening, 1,200 diners (selected from over 30,000 hopefuls) celebrated outdoors at a yet-to-be-disclosed location amid live music and dancing, with festive white balloons and sparklers. Guests, dressed in elegant white, brought their own epicurean feasts, tables, chairs, glasses, silver and white napery.

Aymeric Pasquier and Sandy Safi then came together to create Dîner en Blanc International, a Dîner en Blanc^® organization that would promote the history and philosophy of this event through hosts worldwide, and create an international network of diners and Dîner en Blanc^® enthusiasts. With over a dozen cities having joined the Dîner en Blanc^® family in 2012, what began (and remains in Paris) as a “friends and word-of-mouth only” event has grown into an international epicurean phenomenon across five continents.

Though the technology behind the event may have changed over the years, the principles fuelling this fantastic event have not; diners continue to gather at a secret location with the sole purpose of sharing a high-quality meal with good friends at the heart of one of the city’s most beautiful locations."

We have planned our menu (we are going with an all-white menu too!), put together our all-white outfits and packed our picnic basket with an all-white service and napery.

All we need now is the location!

Coons, Klopse and Carnival

colourful minstrel costumes

I visited the Bo-Kaap Museum last week before I set out to explore the quarter of the same name where we usually stay when we are in Cape Town. In addition to some interesting displays on the history of the Cape Malay population of the Western Cape, I also found out about an American-Malay connection of which I was totally unaware.

Apparently when the British came on board in the eighteenth century to join the Dutch who were prospering just fine thank you in the Western Cape, they brought some of their own slaves with them. Many of the slaves were most recently from the West Indies and other Caribbean Islands where they had been working on plantations. (Of course they were originally from West Africa.) This created a meeting of cultures among the black and coloured populations of Cape Town with some interesting cultural results.

After the British freed their slaves in their holdings all over the world in the early nineteenth century, the Cape's former slaves were acutely aware that the tide was turning on the whole slave ownership concept in America too. People in the Cape were watching the American Civil War play out with great interest. One of the most popular songs at the time in the Cape Colony was a song called "Alabama" about a warship from the North in pursuit of a warship from the South called the Alabama. (It still is a folk favorite actually. A little South African boy visiting the museum starting singing it in Afrikaans when he recognized the ship in the display!)

display at the Bo-Kaap Museum

Malays in Africa started to exchange traditions with their Creole and Caribbean neighbors and the whole culture of Mardi Gras and Carnivals came to Cape Town.

They were also influenced by the American Minstrel Shows who traveled to Cape Town to perform. These traveling minstrel shows, like the Christies, were composed of white performers in black face. Local troupes of musicians called Coon Societies or Klopse began to form their own minstrel shows and would perform at Carnival time as well as at the Christmas and New Year's  festivals called Kaapse Klopse. Their music of choice? Ragtime. Al Jolson. Minstrel songs. Different societies dressed in their own distinctive colours and competed with each other for best performance, just like the Krewes do at Mardi Gras.

The holiday performances and competitions culminated on January 2 for Tweede Nuwe Jaart. January 2 was traditionally the only day off for slaves and servants after a working holiday season so they partied in the streets all day!

The Bo-Kaap Museum had a whole room dedicated to this phenomenon including costumes and props and other visual displays. Coons? Minstrels? Black Face? Wow, I had no idea! Coming from a place where a person's career could be destroyed by even performing in blackface as a spoof, this acceptance and celebration was a little hard to fathom.

a Kaapse Klopse

But since we will be spending New Year's in Cape Town this year, I made a note and decided I would look into the tradition a little further. It might be a fun way to celebrate my first New Year's Eve in South Africa.
 
I did not have to wait for long to start my research! When we got back into town Sunday night we went back to our room at the hotel overlooking Bo-Kaap. As we were unpacking, we could hear what sounded like a marching band outside our window. Lots of brass and drums and singing. We went out on the balcony and we could see that there was a little festival going on in the street right below in celebration of Heritage Day on Tuesday!








Vince went downstairs to check it out up close and personal.















He came back with an invitation to view the parade from one of the societies' headquarters on New Year's Eve!

Going to be a rockin' New Year's!

Save the Rhino-Save the Dugong-Save the Ocean-Save the Cheetah-Cure Malaria-Keep the Wild Dogs Wild

I have been buying and wearing beaded bracelets to support various causes. It started with the Rhino bracelets and now, when I see any one for sale, I buy it!

Some of the bracelets are created for the Relate organization which benefits charities such as the Endangered Wildlife Trust and United Against Malaria. Other bracelets benefit Ocean Force, Project Aware and Rhino Force.

Please somebody stop me when I look like this!













A year later ... getting there!

10/18/2014

National Braai Day

September 24th was National Braai Day ... which is how most South Africans refer to the holiday of Heritage Day. Vince had the day off as opposed to the Fourth of July or Labor Day when he had to work. So I asked myself, "how should we spend our first Heritage Day in South Africa?"

We were invited to a couple of braais, including a Luau ... because you know nothing says South African Heritage like a Hawaiian Luau. Not! We could have had a braai in our own garden, maybe invite some friends or neighbors over. Meh. Didn't seem festive enough for a National Braai Day. Besides, shouldn't we be visiting an actual Heritage site on Heritage Day?

Then I came across this headline in the Heritage Foundation's online newsletter, the Heritage Portal,

World Record Attempt finishing on Heritage Day

And that is how we happened to spend our first Heritage Day taking part in a Guinness World Record Attempt Braai on Constitution Hill in the CBD.

The record was being attempted by Bra Wor, one of the Awethu Project's very first entrepreneurs. Awethu is a public/private partnership whose mission is to create jobs. And lots of them. They are currently incubating over 400 small start-up businesses in Joburg.

Bra Wor (aka Sekhabile) owns a successful braai catering company called Braaifontein which offers the "chisa nyama" experience. Chisa nyama is Zulu for braai and it takes the South African braai up a notch or two, turning it into a real party with music, dancing and lots of laughter.

In order to promote his chisa nyama philosophy of braai-ing, Bra Wor decided to attempt to break the standing Guinness Book of World Records' barbeque marathon record. Based in the Con Hill Precinct in Braamfontein, Bra Wor continuously held a braai from Saturday evening at 5:00 pm on the 21st to Heritage Day on Tuesday at 1:00 pm (> 62 hours!) in the Old Fort courtyard.

There are many rules and regulations governing an attempt to break or set a record with the Guinness people. And you need a slew of volunteers. Timekeepers, witnesses, stewards around the clock from start to finish. Even during the graveyard shifts.

The entire process needed to be recorded on video. Bra Wor was required to have five different foods on the braai at all times. Vegies counted as one food. He also cooked pork chops, beef steaks, boerewors, and chicken to make up the other five. The witness was there to oversee the braai inventory and make sure he complied at all times.

And Bra Wor had to be at the braai the entire time, except for timed breaks. He was given 5 minutes per hour for a break. He could save up his break times and use them for a longer power nap or shower. All breaks needed to be timed by the timekeeper and recorded by the steward.
.

witnesses needed to fill out a time sheet and questionnaire

I was given the job of steward during the last shift on Tuesday morning. Bra Wor actually broke the record just as my shift started!  So I was working with a Guiness World Record holder throughout my shift. All the local newspapers and television stations came to interview him. He had made the morning papers already. Needless to say everyone was in a celebratory mood!

the entire braai was recorded for compliance

Besides my responsibility to record breaks, I also had to weigh each piece of food that came off the braai, and document the type of food and the weight. At the end of my shift, I had to tally and record the total number of pieces cooked and the total break time used up.

my tools: scale for weighing the meat and veg and tally sheet

serving up the menu

with Kate from Awethu & Bra Wor, record holder

Congratulations Bra Wor!

Winos for Rhinos

This was the theme for a fundraiser held this past weekend in Salt Lake City, UT by the Utah Zookeepers for World Rhino Day! Why didn't I think of this?

Colorful Bo-Kaap!

The Bo-Kaap-ers are not afraid of color!

The Bo-Kaap quarter of Cape Town was originally settled by the Cape Malays, the Muslim slaves and indentured servants from Indonesia, India and other parts of Asia and Africa. They did not own the small Georgian style cottages but rather "leased" the homes from their bosses. The law at the time strictly stated that the houses had to be painted white, just like the Dutch architecture of their masters.

So when slavery was abolished and the inhabitants were finally free, they were able to open shops in Bo-Kaap and make their own money. And when they bought those very same houses, they understandably went crazy with color!

See?

Lighthouses!

Phare des Baleines on L'Ile-d-Ré

Vince and I never miss an opportunity to climb a lighthouse. And we climbed one this weekend in Cape Agulhas in the Western Cape.

Cape Agulhas is the southern most point in Africa. Not the Cape of Good Hope as is commonly believed.

And it is probably the place where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet. Again not the Cape of Good Hope where they would like you to believe. I say probably because really, how can you tell? It's water.

I mean of course besides the plaque that says Indian Ocean this way and Atlantic Ocean that way!






But Cape Agulhas is definitely more southern than the Cape of Good Hope. And guarding its rocky needle point is the 1874 Cape Agulhas Lighthouse.

Pharos all the way on the left, Agulhas in red.

Its shape is modeled after the Ancient Wonder of the World, the Pharos of Alexandria. They had a chart in the Museum with silhouettes of many different lighthouses of the world, past and present, showing their relative size.










Agulhas's lighthouse is a little smaller than Sandy Hook in NY Harbor

But while no one really knows what color the Pharos was, Agulhas is red and and white. They are restoring it again and the painters were working on it when we visited. They let us climb to the top to see the great view.

And the huge unlit fresnel lens.

Thank goodness they weren't testing it that day!










The shape of the Cape Agulhas Light reminded me a little of another lighthouse where Vince and I and our sons spent the night once many years ago, the red lighthouse on Monomoy Island off the coast of Cape Cod.

Organized through the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History, we ... and our naturalist Thor (that was his name really; a great name for a naturalist) ... spent the night together in the decommissioned lighthouse. You could stay in the lightkeeper's house or you could bring your sleeping bags up into the lighthouse and sleep on the top of the light! Which we did.

Monomoy Island was once attached to nearby Chatham by land. A nor'easter in 1987 resulted in the Chatham Break which created the uninhabited Monomoy Island. At the time, the only way to reach the island was by boat which is how we got there. I haven't been to that part of Cape Cod in a while, but I understand the break has been slowly filling in and has formed a land bridge again back to Chatham. Too bad. It was much cooler and more romantic when it was more inaccessible.