Jane Austen & Constantia

The world’s most famous playboy, Giacomo Girolamo Casanova, wooed his women with it, Napoleon drank it daily while in exile on St Helena and royalty have ordered it by the hundreds.

And on the page, the wine Vin de Constance, made exclusively at Klein Constantia, even had a shout-out in Fifty Shades of Grey! In the book the wine is listed on the menu at a masked ball which lovers Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele attend. On the opposite end of the literary scale, Dickens mentioned it in The Mystery of Edwin Drood, when it was served to Reverend Septimus by his mother.

Jane Austen Valentine shadowbox

But the literary connection that got my attention was the one made with one of  my favorite authors, Jane Austen! In Sense and Sensibility, Elinor is offered a glass of the wine for her sister by Mrs. Jennings, who says her husband described it as “more good than any thing else in the world”. After being thrown over by Mr. Willoughby for Miss Gray and her 50,000 pounds, Mrs. Jennings recommends a little Constantia to Marianne for "its healing powers on a disappointed heart".

Now I have reread every one of Jane Austen's six novels countless times and, shame on me, never noticed or wondered about this elixir for a disappointed heart. So I was surprised when James brought the connection to my attention in the Tasting Room at Groot Constantia. "Do you like Jane Austen?" he queried with a twinkle in his eye. He knew he had me at cheerio.

We bought a few bottles of the sweet dessert Muscat of course after tasting its liquid-y goodness - perfect for us to drink next Valentine's Day! Even though it is a delight to drink, I just hope I never need to.

Sunday = Mass

Vince and I go to Mass every Sunday even on vacation. Our friend Ralph calls us hard-core Catholics because of this, but I do not see it that way. It is just what we do. Not only have we assembled some great memories, we have shared experience with the locals and have seen some great architectural gems in their Sunday best.

The Lady Chapel in St. Patrick's Cathedral

Vince and I were married and our sons were baptized in one of the great cathedrals of the world, St. Patrick's in New York City but we appreciate churches of all shapes, sizes and styles.

rose petals in the Pantheon

We have been to Mass in some grand cathedrals on high holy days such as the Papal Christmas Eve midnight Mass we attended at St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City or the Feast of the Pentecost in the Pantheon in Rome when red rose petals are dropped through the rotunda's oculus to symbolize the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Mary and the Apostles.

In quieter settings such as the solemn St. Peter's Cathedral in the Fells Road area of Belfast, Northern Ireland and the stately family chapel on the grounds of Stonor House in Oxfordshire. Not just for the family anymore, Lord Camoys welcomes the entire village to Sunday Mass in the Jacobite chapel which has been used to celebrate Mass continuously since 1349. It was used even during the Reformation when the priests would hide out in the chapel's priest's hole during Protestant raids.

Dad in Zborov

We have taken Communion at the badly damaged, previously ransacked and pillaged and newly reconsecrated St. Catherine's Cathedral in St. Petersburg, Russia and St. Margaret's, the village Church where my father was baptized in Zborov, Slovakia. Closed as a place of worship during Soviet rule, for 30 years St. Catherine's was used only as storage space for the "Museum of History of Religion and of Atheism" across the street. In comparison, St. Margaret's in Zborov remained open even while under Soviet occupation which it still was when we visited.

Sagrada Familia

We suffered like good little Catholics through one of the longest homilies we ever experienced - and in Spanish no less - in an open air cathedral in Panama City, Panama and thoroughly enjoyed another Spanish Mass tucked in a corner of the unfinished Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.

Mass at the Cathedrale Notre Dame in Strasbourg gave new meaning to the term bi-lingual when the Alsatian priest alternated parts of the same Mass in both German and French. We attended many Masses in French at countless churches in Paris including Notre Dame and Sacre Couer,  as well as in the opulent Notre Dame Basilica and the well-situated St. Joseph's Oratory in Montreal.

renewing our vows at The American Church in Paris

Surrounded by Matisse murals and vestments, Mass at the modern La Chapelle du Rosaire in St. Paul-de-Vence was just as unforgettable as the sunrise service in a chapel built into the bauxite cliff at Le Baux or by candlelight in the underground cathedral at Lourdes. (We did however choose to renew our wedding vows on our 30th wedding anniversary in English at The American Church in Paris on the campus of the American University in Paris.)

Christmas Eve at Schloss Monchstein

On another memorable Christmas Eve, we attended midnight Mass in the tiny baroque chapel attached to the Schloss Monchstein castle in Salzburg where we were staying for the holiday. The chapel only held about 10 people and most of the worshipers spilled out into the hall. As we were all visitors from other countries, the officiant reminded us that even though we were far from home, we are always "home" in a Roman Catholic Church. I have never forgotten that and I think back fondly on that empathetic priest whenever we attend Mass on our travels.



This weekend we added Mass at St. Mary's Cathedral in Cape Town to our list of unforgettable spiritual experiences. The full name of the church is the Cathedral Church of Our Lady of the Flight into Egypt. Great name! It is the oldest Roman Catholic church in South Africa and was located around the corner from our hotel so we couldn't resist. It did not disappoint. Once again we felt right at home.

Goats do Roam

In addition to a stellar lineup of wines, Fairview Vineyards near Paarl also produces some incredible cheeses, brie, camembert, bleu and especially the chevres. You can sample them in the restaurant on the vineyard  grounds, the Goatshed, or you can combine your wine tasting with a cheese tasting in a master tasting room where they will pair the wines with the appropriate cheese. The chevre is produced on site side by side with the Fairview, Spice Route, La Capra and, my favorite, the Goats do Roam wine brands.

Vince and I have been big fans of chevre since our honeymoon in France in 1980. We were introduced to French goat cheeses, specifically Saint Maure, in Paris at Tour D'Argent where we sampled some from the cheese cart early in our trip. Love at first bite!

The "moon" in honeymoon stands for a month and we decided to take it literally and after Paris, traveled around France from the Loire Valley to Mont Saint-Michel, down the Atlantic coast to Bordeaux, across to Provence and Burgundy for an entire month. Armed with a suitcase full of Michelin maps (this was before the GPS took the sport and skill out of car travel), Vince drove and I navigated our way through France.

One of the beauties of navigation by maps is that you can see the big picture and survey the entire area as you plan and drive your route. We have had some of our best adventures by going off the beaten path and following detours towards things that attracted our interest on the map. I noticed as we were making our way through the Loire Valley that there was a little town called Saint Maure near the Chateau we were driving to in Chinon. I wondered if that was where the cheese we had tasted after dinner and loved in Paris originated. We decided to take a detour and check it out.

NY Philharmonic in Central Park

We were rewarded with a series of fromageries and goat farms all advertising fresh chevre for sale. We pulled into a farm that looked good following a hand-lettered sign at the top of their driveway that read "fromage de chevre a vendre". We were met and guided by a woman into a goat barn and shown a case filled with chevres wrapped in grape leaves, straw and herbs. Each shelf had a name written on it - Pepe, Gigi, etc. - the names of the goats whose milk was used to make each shelf's selection. And roaming around the farm were the goats themselves with their names identifying them on their neck bells! We sampled a few and took an assortment to eat on our daily picnics for lunch. We liked Pepe's the best!

Lou and Serge like goat cheese too!

For many summers afterwards, chevre was a staple in all the picnics we assembled for the annual NY Philharmonic and Metropolitan Opera concerts we enjoyed on blankets in Central Park. Chevre was just starting to become popular in the US in the early 80's. We would buy our chevre at Zabar's on the Upper West Side or Balducci's in the Village before it became commonplace at supermarkets and suburban cheese shops.

Our favorite cheeses at Fairview? The cow's milk Cream Cheeses with Chakalaka, with Black Pepper and with Onion & Chives were delicious as were their Feta and Chevins with Garlic & Herb and Black Pepper & Paprika. The goats do indeed roam at Fairview. And as an added bonus, goat cheese is low in lactose. Since I am lactose-intolerant, this made us both very happy!

South African Wines Part Two: Kindergarten

We started our on-site training on South African wines in earnest this weekend. We visited vineyards and cellars south of Cape Town in Noerdhoek (Cape Point) and the Constantia Valley (Groot and Klein Constantia) and east to the Stellenbosch (De Toren),  Paarl (Fairview) and Franschhoek (Rickety Bridge) winelands. The variety of grapes are endless! You name it, they produce it! Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, Chenin Blanc, Pinot Noir, etc., etc., and of course the classic Pinotage everyone associates with South African wines.

Throw out every assumption and opinion you have made about South African wines, especially the signature Pinotage. Compared to the quality available here in South Africa, the Pinotage exported to the USA is dreck! The wines here are complex and a pleasure to drink.

And the wine country is magnificent to tour. Vines as far as the eye can see in the shadow of picturesque mountain ranges dotted with thatched white Dutch colonial farmhouses and vineyards diving down to the sea amid olive, eucalyptus and palm trees. And keep an eye out for ostrich, baboon, penguin and leopard toad crossings! We saw them all!

We added six more cases to our collection and we've only just begun! In fact we barely scratched the surface in Lesson One. We think to begin Lesson Two, we will start by going north from Cape Town towards the Northern Cape along the wine and olive route or maybe further east to Plettenberg Bay along Route 62 and the Garden Route or northeast towards the Karoo. But not until we drink through some of this wine haul to make some more room!

It's a tough job but somebody's got to do it!

LOVE is everywhere in the Western Cape

in Groot Constantia

in the Old Biscuit Mill's Neighbourgoods Market

in the Bean There cafe

at the Cape of Good Hope

in Stellenbosch

Serendipity strikes again at the Uitsig Manor House!

I have a split personality when it comes to travel. On the one hand I am the consummate itinerary planner, going to great lengths to get tickets into the Royal Enclosure at Ascot or into the Steward's Enclosure to watch the Henley Royal Regatta.


 
 

Oberndorf on Christmas Eve

Able to ferret out the details on exactly how one attends the Christmas Eve concert of Silent Night in the chapel where it first debuted in 1818 in Oberndorf, Austria, thereby creating a family Christmas memory to last a lifetime.

But I also always like to leave time in the itinerary for serendipity. And it has given us back rewards in spades. From something as simple as taking a detour to discover the delights of goat cheese fresh from the goat farms amongst the chateaus of the Loire Valley on our honeymoon. Or magically arriving at the exact time every single guided tour was about to start on the private garden tours during the Charleston Garden Club's Annual Private House and Garden Tour. My friend Teri and I wasted absolutely no time waiting for each tour to begin, thereby allowing us to see every garden we wanted to see on our extensive list. “You’re in luck. The tour is just about to start,” they’d say at every house. “Of course it is,” we’d reply.

our ceramic alpine Snow Village collection with the ...

Serendipity has also rewarded us cosmically three times when all the stars and moons aligned for us on two special solstices in England and in Ireland and an equinox in Mexico. 

Silent Night Chapel music box

But sometimes it is even more fortuitous. Like the time we just happened upon a Renaissance Festival getting underway in Honfleur on the Normandy Coast. That afternoon spent learning how to smith swords and daggers, watching a jester’s pantomime and cheering on the descendants of real knights as they jousted and ran the gauntlet - not to mention eating our food with our hands - kept my seven and nine year old sons (and 30 something year old husband!) entertained far better than any day planned at Euro Disney could have done.

Or the time we stumbled upon a poster announcing the medieval Fete de la Saint Jean going on that evening in the alpine village of Megeve where we were staying one summer.






We were able to see a traditional French midsummer's night bonfire lighting in the village square, another ancient practice to celebrate the summer solstice. Megeve is one of the few villages left in France who maintains this practice which was once common all over the country.

The bonfire was followed by a festival where the young couples of the village dressed in traditional Savoie costume and danced traditional reels on stage. The ritual brought us back in time better than any visit to a museum could have done.

Or the long weekend my son Nick and I spent one summer on Mackinac Island after we had dropped my older son Alex off for his summer robotics camp at Michigan’s Ann Arbor campus. We had started our trip in Chicago where we saw the launch of the Chicago to Mackinac Yacht Race with friends at the Chicago Yacht Club and we made it to the island just in time to see the winners coming in! Totally unplanned, total serendipity.

But the grand-dipity-daddy of them all was the annual San Ranieri Feast in Pisa, Italy. Vince was working in Switzerland at the time and I was taking our sons on a tour around Italy. The boys and I had been to Venice and Rome already and we were on our way to meet Vince on the Amalfi coast for a few days. We were stopping on the train in Pisa for one night only so that I could show them the Tower and I had innocently booked a hotel giving us a "room with a view" of the Arno. 

As we were checking into our hotel, I started to notice out of the corner of my eye hundreds of votive candles being unpacked by the staff and set up on stairs and fireplace mantles in the lobby. “Oh no,” I thought, “are we preparing for one of the famous Italian strikes?” My mind started a panic stream. No dinner tonight? No blow dryer? No electric power to run the trains for our departure tomorrow to Naples? 

I timidly inquired of the desk manager, “Excuse me. Why are there votive candles? Are you expecting a power outage?” “It is for the feast,” he answered. “What feast?”  I pushed on. “Don’t you know?" he answered quite incredulously, "Tonight is the Feast of San Ranieri and tomorrow is the Regatta!” He didn’t say it, but I could see the words “ … you stunad!” were right on the tip of his tongue!

We were rewarded with an unprecedented view from the hotel rooftop of the Leaning Tower of Pisa  lit up with thousands of little votive candles!

And all the window frames on all the windows of all the buildings lining both sides of the Arno as well as the quaysides themselves.








And we were able to watch the midnight fireworks over the Arno from our hotel "room with a view "windows!

Serendipity jackpot!

I cherish these serendipitous moments even more that those events that come off like clockwork exactly as I had meticulously planned. Those are the result of hard work. These are a gift.

And I am happy to say they just keep on coming.

Serendipity struck again as we picked a great day to visit the wine country in the Constantia Valley. The Constantia Food and Wine Festival was in full swing on the grounds of the Constantia Uitsig Winery. We were able to taste all that the Constantia region had to offer all in one place. And to top it off, it was the 20th Anniversary of the Uitsig Manor House, their fabulous restaurant.

vintner and chef

Tables at the restaurant were of course completely sold out. Some of the diners probably planned and made their reservations last year at this time. But the maître d' took pity on us and he set up a little table for two in the dining room nestled close to the entrance to the front lobby. Okay, actually in the front lobby!

We ate and drank their celebration menu which included Vichyssoise with Seared Atlantic Scallops, Mozzarella Caprese, Wild Mushroom Ravioli, Volcanic Orange Sorbet, Seared Yellow Fin Tuna, Springbok Loin, and Rhubarb Creme Brulee, housemade Turkish Delight and Biscotti with wine pairings which were all exquisite!

Viva La Serendipity!!

First Impressions of Cape Town

getting ready to take the cable car

OK I get it now. Cape Town is a beautiful city. The setting is breathtaking and the climate is superb (or it was when I was there. Joburg is still supposed to have the better overall weather.) Table Mountain, the Company Gardens, the V&A Waterfront, vineyards, beaches, Cape of Good Hope, British and Dutch colonial architecture and wrought iron. Very different vibe from Joburg too. Everything I've seen in Joburg so far is new, skyscrapers, malls, glass and steel. Joburg is the largest man-made forest in the world. I guess that means that before it was planted, there was nothing but high desert. Cape Town was blessed with a natural canopy and the city grew on top of an already verdant landscape.

to Table Mountain top

It is hard not to compare the two cities. And to look for parallels. Cape Town to Joburg. Rio to Sao Paulo or San Francisco to LA. Even Hong Kong to Beijing. Incomparable New York is to New York.

False Bay Yacht Club

I am happy that Vince has alot of business here because it means he will be visiting here often which means I will be visiting here often. In fact he is considering opening an office in Cape Town so we may end up moving here from Joburg eventually. In the meantime there is alot to explore in Cape Town on long weekends and the occasional week.

But I really haven't even scratched the surface yet in Joburg. I have a list of places I want to explore in the city and surrounding areas too The Origins Museum, the Apartheid Museum, Kruger National Park, the Cradle of Humankind, Madikwe, ...










... so I hope we stay there a while!