A Secret Night of Pure Imagination

SecretEATS prides itself on the fact that every dinner they produce is different from the last.

SecretEATS is the South African version of the biggest trend in fine dining around the world, the pop-up restaurant. You receive an invitation by email. Very little is told to you up front except for the date and the city. The rest is kept tightly under wraps until the morning of the dinner.











Dinners have been hosted in private homes, vacant warehouses, underground wine cellars and rooftops in Cape Town, Joburg and Durban. Chefs have included Brad Ball from Bistro Sixteen82 and Chef Randall Maarman of the Mount Nelson Hotel. 

Last night's SecretEATS  popped up in the pop-up art gallery The Bombay Sapphire Imagination Room  in the heart of Soweto. The thatched roofed art gallery was once a butchery and for a limited time it is showcasing internationally recognized local artists in a show curated by the Mashumi Arts Projects.


A secret pass phrase and the secret location were revealed to us by email early on the morning of the dinner. Whispering "a secret night of pure imagination" got you through the door.

We and about 30 other adventurers started off the night on the veranda with a signature cocktail. A Bombay gin watermelon mojito-like concoction. We were free to hang out under the thatched roof and mingle or peruse the artwork inside the gallery.





Movember mustaches and an amuse bouche of Brie Fritters in a Beetroot Puree.












Chef Sasha Simpson, the creator of Prep'd by Sasha, described her philosophy of food.















The curator was on hand to describe the art work for sale.
















A Pear, Feta & Avocado Salad followed by a White Almond Gazpacho with Green Melon Ribbons and Chorizo Confetti.


















The wine and conversation flowed freely! This Duke of Wellington Cabernet Sauvignon is a private reserve which came straight from the farm to the table.








Slow Roasted Lamb Shoulder with Carrot Puree, Braised Lentils, Caramelized Baby Carrots and Balsamic Jus.












Bunny chow. Use your imagination!

There was a raffle drawing with the proceeds going to a local Soweto school charity. It was a nice end to an imaginative evening.

Pilot in the Wild

John Bassi is a wildlife conservationist, bush pilot and founder of BassAir Aviation, an artist and sculptor, one of the founders of Stop Rhino Poaching and now a non-fiction author.

We heard him speak at Noble Books recently about his new autobiographical work called Pilot in the Wild. I had him sign several copies for my pilot friends for Christmas and one for my game ranger friend Azel who is studying as we speak to fly helicopters in the wild like John.

John painted a pretty bleak picture of the future of wildlife in Africa. I truly hope he is wrong but we both agree on one thing. If there is any hope whatsoever, it is going to take real financial support by dedicated individuals and commitment by forward-thinking organizations such as African Parks.

This is clearly the time to act before it truly is irrevocable and irreversible.

I got a job!

... with African Parks, a non-profit organization whose Development office headquarters are located in nearby Lonehill. I officially start in January but I have already been involved in a project to help determine their long term technology needs.  

Buffalo and egrets - Akagera, Rwanda [© 2010 Stephen Cunliffe]

African Parks takes total responsibility for the rehabilitation and long-term management of national parks in partnership with governments and local communities in Africa. They combines world-class conservation practice with business expertise and they place emphasis on achieving financial sustainability of the parks by combining long-term donor funding with tourism revenues, related business enterprise and payment for ecosystem services, which all serve as a foundation for economic development and poverty alleviation.

They believe (and so do I) that making wildlife parks socially and economically viable, particularly for the benefit of local communities, will contribute to their survival in the face of competing forms of land use.

An aerial view of an elephant herd - Zakouma, Chad [© 2013 Michael Viljoen]

African Parks currently manages seven parks in six African countries – Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Zambia. The total area under management covers 4.1 million hectares, an area as large as The Netherlands.

A landscape of the sunset - Majete, Malawi [© 2012 Horst Klemm]

Their objective is to become the leading player in protected area management on the African continent. By 2020 African Parks aims to have responsibility for a portfolio of 15 parks covering an area of 5–7 million hectares. Because of the geographic spread and representation of different ecosystems, this will be one of the most ecologically diverse portfolios of parks in the world.

Since moving to South Africa, I had been looking for an organization with a comprehensive conservation model like African Parks. They are doing incredible things, miraculous things even. I believe African Parks can make a major difference in community development and positively impact the effects of Africa's shrinking resources and rapidly decreasing wildlife.

I am really looking forward to getting to work in 2014!

Hangin' in the 'hood ...

2summers blog-tress Heather informed me yesterday that Gerald Garner of JoburgPlaces is compiling a new book about places in Sandton. Woo hoo! SandtonPlaces is scheduled to be published next year and I cannot wait. I too have busy compiling my list of Sandton places (La Vie en Sandton,   Walking 'round the Richest Square Mile of Africa,  33, Is that the Duck Anniversary? for example) but I am always on the look-out for more suggestions for fun things to do in my local 'hood.

Coincidentally we already had a very local night planned in Sandton for last evening. I started out at the San Deck for sundowner hour with Vince and his work mates. It was a beautiful night for it. The San Deck offers guests breathtaking views over Sandton and the surrounding landscape.

With three large fire pits and luxurious couches, this amazing space offers the best of Joburg's beautiful sunsets in the centre of the Sandton CBD. Like many of the places in the Sandton CBD, Vince and his work mates can easily walk over from their office on Rivonia Road.

The Sandton CBD is booming. The city bird is the crane!

I walked over too. Not from home but from my parking space under the nearby Radisson Blu Gautrain Hotel where we had dinner reservations at Central One, the hotel's award-winning restaurant.

Central One had just been awarded Best Dish by Restaurant Week South Africa. So close by. I had to try it.

It was a great mix of flavors. Complex but not too fussy. Vince took advantage of their weekly special  prix fixe menu. They offer two and three course options. A lamb first course, a surf and turf main featuring sweet sweet Mozambique prawns and an Italian fruit-filled dessert. The vanilla-infused hollandaise sauce for the main course was especially good.

Fun night hangin' in the 'hood.

South Africa's Favorite Pastime

my sister and I at a classic @ Fenway, the Sox vs. the Yanks

My son Nick is a true sports fanatic. He loves watching all sports all the time. And not just the team sports he's played himself like ice hockey, football, baseball, and soccer. He will watch anything. And if there isn't a game on, he will listen to ESPN talk about the game that was and the game that will be.

I consider myself lucky because my husband is not an all-sports fanatic like Nick. Even though Vince played ice hockey and football in high school and college, I am luckily neither a hockey nor a football widow. However he is a rabid baseball fanatic, specifically the New York Yankees, which just may be worse than both of them combined.

Vince has been a dedicated Yankee fan since childhood even though he grew up in America's Heartland far from the streets of the Bronx, the Yankees' home turf. Maybe it is because his mother was from the Bronx. Or the fact that her brother and nephew were both one of New York's Finest and their beat was ... Yankee Stadium!

When Vince moved to New York after college to work at Bell Laboratories and study engineering at Columbia University, the stadium was just a quick train ride away. His relatives would sneak him into the stadium whenever they were working during the season. Later on, after Uncle Anthony and Cousin Sal had each retired from the police force and moved to Florida, Vince and my brother, another die-hard Yankee fan, brought season tickets for all the Saturday home games. Every Saturday, when the Yankees were home, Vince and Bob brought our sons, Alex and Nick, and Bob's daughter Tori to see the Yankees play in their Cathedral in the Bronx.

Captain

It is a commitment to be a baseball fan - or even the spouse of one. Opening Day at Yankee Stadium is in early April. The Yankees usually play about 162 games per season until the end of September.

ticker tape parade for the 2009 World Series Champions

Then there is post-season play and the World Series. For most of the years we've been married, that meant the Yankees played through October. If Vince did not go to the games, he watched them on TV or more likely he listened to them on the radio. Every single one of them. You do the math.

But now we are in South Africa. No real baseball here. South Africa's answer to America's favorite pastime is cricket. Vince has been trying on cricket, watching it on television while he tries to figure out the rules and especially the impenetrable statistical scorecard. I think of cricket as kind of like methadone for a baseball fanatic. It has helped to ease the pain of leaving his beloved Yankees habit behind.

with Ros and friends

So when I met Ros a few months ago at a Jobug meet-up event she was running, I knew I had to have her meet up with Vince and arrange for the two of them to sit together at a cricket match.

Ros has an incredible job for a self-described cricket fanatic. She is a cricket scorekeeper who started her career working for the South African Cricket Association. She also freelances her way around the cricket world and has worked for other cricket countries such as the Indian Cricket Association. And she is a website editor for South Africa's largest sports channel so her expertise is not just limited to cricket. And if that is not enough, she also works for the Soccer World Cup organization.

Awesome. Vince meet Ros. Ros meet Vince.


We went with Ros last night to see South Africa play Pakistan in a Twenty20 Test Match at the nearby Wanderers Stadium.

Now I am not even going to pretend I really know the difference between a test match and an international one day match and I couldn't reliably tell you exactly what an "over" is.

All I know is that Vince sat next to Ros at the match and proceeded in rapid-fire succession to question her about the nuances of the game all night long. She had all the answers.

scorekeepers hq

The game was called because of rain after a couple of hours play. South Africa 153 for 7 (de Kock 43) beat Pakistan 60 for 2 by four runs (D/L method). I don't really even understand the score!

But before I encourage this new habit for Vince, I am going to have to find out how many games the South African Cricket team plays and how long their season is.

Ladies who (Christmas) Lunch

@ Fresco by Scotto

Christmas in the New York metropolitan area was a non-stop run of Christmas dinners and cocktail parties, holiday brunches and teas, banquets and open houses from Thanksgiving right up to Christmas Eve.

@ Rouge Tomato

And especially the ubiquitous Christmas Ladies' Lunches. Every ladies' club, sports group, board, office, alumni organization, and gaggle of girlfriends scheduled one. Even the ladies from my summer-only yacht club would resurrect themselves for a bite of lunch and some Christmas cheer in mid-winter. I loved hosting them and even more, going to them.

@Monkey Bar

I looked forward to them all, but none more than my annual tennis group Christmas lunch. Maybe it was the mix of personalities. Or the fact that we always ate at the New York restaurant of the moment. Maybe because it was one of the first celebrations of the season early in December. Or maybe it was the fact that it was a hands-down, sure-bet, absolutely-guaranteed good time!

@ Fred's at Barney's

If I was feeling a little of the "holiday blues" or seriously Chris-stressed out, it could always get me into the spirit of the season. In fact, if you didn't come away from one of our Christmas lunches singing carols and ho-ho-ho-ing all the way home just thinkin' about the sweet and funny things that were said and done, then you had some serious Scrooge on! You should expect a visit from a couple of the ghosts of Christmases Past and Present in your Christmas Future.

Well, ladies will be ladies whether you are in America or South Africa. The only difference is that the South Africans start and end their lunch season a little earlier. Christmas lunches started in October (!) and they go until the South African Christmas exodus beginning on December 16, Reconciliation Day when the city empties out for the holiday. I missed my mahjong Christmas lunch in October! Crazy.  

IWC @ Bryanston Country Club

red velvet cake for the Bookworms Christmas lunch

But there are plenty more to come. Happy Christmas!

some of the Bookworms

Meerkat Katy

My fellow Kariega volunteer Katy stopped over in Joburg on her way to her new adventure in the Kalahari. Katy is from the UK. She studied animal management at university there and has been working as a zookeeper for the past four years at Longleat Safari Park in Bath. If you don't know, Longleat House is the Elizabethan manor house presided over by the 7th Marquess of Bath.

In 1966, the 6th Marquess decided to turn the grounds of Longleat into England's first drive-through game reserve in order to attract tourism. It worked. We visited in 1996 when we took our sons to England for the first time. I think we even have a certificate somewhere in storage given to us by Longleat for completing their other major tourist attraction - to my boys anyway - their yew hedge maze.

When I met Katy in Kariega, she had just found out she had been accepted into a meerkat study program in the South Africa's Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park where Namibia, Botswana and South Africa come together. It is the ancestral home of the Bushman. We are so excited for Katy and so excited for us too. Now we have a friend there to visit when we go to the nearby Tswalu Desert Reserve!



What do you do with a zookeeper in Joburg? You visit the Johannesburg Zoo of course.

I made arrangements ahead of time with Alice, the Zoo's rhino keeper, for Katy to get up close and personal with the rhinos Pete and Zimbie and pet them.

Katy is overpowered by her springbok shank dinner at Moyo at Zoo Lake. (This one's for you Becky!)

I think I may have even convinced her to write a blog while she is there and share her experiences as the marchioness of meerkat manor. I know of at least 9 other people who would be interested in reading it. Best of luck for the next year Katy! See you soon.