DAY 18: GUILTY PLEASURES

The guilty pleasures of life… it’s quite an oxymoron, isn’t it? Because surely something that makes us feel good couldn’t also leave us riddled with guilt, which is after all a negative emotion.

I have a long list of guilty pleasures which all fall under the same banner. They’re different, but the same. Off the top of my head, a few that spring to mind are Merlot, Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay. Yes, I’m talking about wine. But what makes wine so good?

THE IMAGE

Every alcoholic drink has some kind of image attached to it. Brandy and Coke, for example, makes me think of braais on someone’s patio, with everyone relaxed, marinating meat and talking about life. Throw in a bowl or two of sticky, sugary ‘mebos’ and a few paper plates, and you’ll quite literally see what I mean.

Beer conjures up images of pubs, Friday evenings after work, sport-watching and a sense of letting go of the stressors from the week that has passed. That top button of your shirt? Yes, it’ll probably be taking a break from its primary task if there are a few beers in sight.

Then, we have the more hard-core stuff: Tequila and Vodka.  They mostly disgust me, and the image here is of sheer and utter madness. A kind of madness I’m happy to have removed myself from as I approach 30.

Finally, we have wine. The visual that springs to mind is of intimate dinners by candlelight, or more free-spirited dinner parties with friends. I’m seeing a drive out to Stellenbosch in the sun, and a classy wine-tasting afternoon for all of 40 or 50 bucks. Without a doubt, wine has attached to it a classier image than other drinks. With wine, the emphasis is on the taste itself, rather than the madness that will likely ensue two hours after your first sip of beer.

THE COMPLEXITY OF TASTE

You could spend a lifetime exploring the different taste sensations of different wines. Bitter, sweet, dry, red, white, fruity, woody – each has its own appeal, and each taste complements a certain style of cuisine.

THE GLASSES AND BOTTLES

Could there by anything more cultured or romantic than pouring wine into elegant, tall, perfectly polished glasses? Not really. There’s such a sense of occasion that accompanies opening a fine bottle of wine around friends. The loud and harsh scraping of a beer cap when it is being opened just doesn’t have the same appeal, does it?

Similarly, wine bottles too can be admired. Once you’ve got a feel for what a good wine is and have shopped around enough, the packaging of a bottle is all the indication you need as to whether you’ll be drinking something a cut above the rest - or not.

IT’S NOT UNHEALTHY

Ok, so a bottle per day of anything alcoholic is not only unhealthy, but hazardous. But enough studies have been done to prove that a glass of wine is actually beneficial to one’s health – I can’t really think of another alcoholic drink that has a single health benefit attached to it.

Wine is my ultimate guilty pleasure, although I have to confess to there being more ‘pleasure’ than ‘guilt’ attached to its consumption. In moderation, it’s delicious, adds a definite richness to any dinner or social event, and... it is possibly the only beverage to have entire farms dedicated to its production. 

Please, go out there and support our farmers.

The (Average) Food and Wine Show

There is a sickness infecting all of us on social media. We post pictures and videos of ourselves at events that seem like ‘the place to be’ or ‘all the rage’, and often, we post these pictures before we’ve taken in the experience as a whole. It’s only when we get home that we realise that the event we attended and splurged about online was, in retrospect, rather average.

Yesterday, I posted this picture of myself and my colleague, Tracey Bruton, at the Good Food and Wine Show at the CTICC:

While we enjoyed each other’s company (you know how much I love you, Tracey), it must be said that this picture represents a degree of false advertising! The event was not as spectacularly good fun as the picture may make it out to be, and here are a few reasons why a ‘good’ show was merely an ‘average’ one:

THE FOOD:

Okay, so it wasn’t all bad. Tracey had a biltong pie that was delicious, and I bought some individually well-priced chocolates and ostrich biltong. But overall, I just didn’t feel wowed by the food on display. Too much of it looked too normal, and there are a variety of markets dotted around Cape Town that offer cheaper, tastier and more interesting choices – plus, you get to forgo the R125 entrance fee.

THE SETTING:

The CTICC is a great venue when it comes to hosting large-scale conferences and even artistic events such as the Design Indaba. With these, walking on carpeted floors that remind you of your office at work isn’t a problem.

But when you come to what is purported to be a world-class food and wine show, the clinical environment just doesn’t taste that good. Typical food markets are homely, inviting, smell good and make you feel like you’re in your kitchen – just a much, much larger version of it, of course. I didn’t get the sense that I was at a food show until half of my freshly baked cheese stick unintentionally ended up all over my face.

A LACK OF SMALLER FOOD OPTIONS / TASTERS:

The joy of wine tasting as an activity is being able to sample several different types of wine, experiencing several different sensations, without having so much that you’ll end up crashing into the nearest vineyard on the way home. Similarly, I expected to be able to sample many different types of foods at the Good Food and Wine Show without needing to stuff myself to the brim at the first stall I came across.

The problem was, most stalls were selling large meals in excess of 45 bucks. I knew that if I bought just one, I wouldn’t have the option of trying out something else that looked good later because I’d just be too full. I expected far more flirtatious tastings of many different foods, without having to commit to a long-term and monogamous digestion process with a giant, gourmet cheeseburger. 

THE COST:

R125 to get in, R30 for a wine glass and a few wine-tasting vouchers and R50 for one meal. That’s without mentioning the expensive kitchen equipment for sale (I saw a Jamie Oliver dish that could probably accommodate a small bag of Jelly Tots for R105, after which I needed a tot of something strong myself).

It all amounts to a very expensive outing.

The cherry on top – or should I say the microscopic piece of shredded chicken at the bottom – was that I was sold two ‘chicken’ spring rolls that were overflowing with nothing but vegetables.

Sure, I had fun (thanks to my food partner and a tasty cooking class at the Sea Harvest stand...) and was happy to have attended a show devoted to two of my loved ones, but this really was a rather average show and I felt just a little bit guilty about posting a smiling picture of myself at an event that didn’t set my taste buds – or any of my remaining four senses - on fire. So, at least I’ve set the record straight!

Here’s hoping that a show with all the potential in the world truly lives up to its name in 2015.