Entertaining with family

After our first spring dinner we decided to have regular Wednesday dinners where we all bring something else to the table. For this dinner I was in charge of cocktails and dessert, Alexander made salads and his sister Olivia got the main course.

To kick the evening off I prepared gin and limeade cocktails, inspired by the Panaka recipe from A Life(Time) of Cooking. Although I was very curious about the ghee and cardamom powder I skipped these two ingredients as I did not have time to search for them. It was a pretty refreshing drink and tasted great nonetheless.

Alexander outdid himself with the salads. They were perfect for spring. The salad on the left was an asparagus and roasted heirloom plum tomato salad. The one on the right consisted of fresh strawberries and pecans tossed with salad greens. Incredible salads. I think I could totally survive on this kind of salad for a while. Fresh!

For the main dish Olivia made an awesome pasta dish. Slices of spicy sausage tossed with broccoli, soft cheese and whole wheat penne. An excellent combination of textures as well as flavors and it worked brilliantly with the two salads.

Dessert was a Norwegian rhubarb cake. The easiest cake ever and a truly fun dessert. I got the recipe from Cooking Books. I could not believe how easy it was to prepare and it tasted perfect. So much so that I baked it again two nights later, but this time with blueberries.


I'm most certainly going to miss these Wednesday dinners when we're gone. Hopefully we can recreate a similar experience in Taiwan.

Entertaining visitors from afar

We leave today for the East. Everything is pretty chaotic on this side, but getting to a point. Our flight is this afternoon and I cannot wait to be on it and start relaxing again. But before that a quick entry.

Two college friends of Alexander who are on a world tour at the moment came to visit us over the last week and we've been having a great time hanging out with them again, going out for last meals at favorite spots and showing them around. We also had to cook them a South African meal of course and decided to make a bobotie and malva pudding.

The evening started with Alexander's new cocktail, the Capetonian, paying homage to the city that's been our home for the past year. It's a brandy-based drink and was the perfect way to start of the evening.

I started the bobotie earlier during the day so the spices could have time to develop their flavor. For those unfamiliar with this dish, it is a popular Cape Malay baked meatloaf with subtle hints of curry, turmeric and bay leaf with an egg custard on top. It often contains raisins, but we used chopped up dried Cape peaches which worked just as well. Also usually served with yellow rice, I used brown instead.

Thanks to Cape Town's late summer sun we took it out on the balcony enjoying the view of the setting sun over Lion's Head for one of the last times.

For dessert Alexander made a malva pudding, a local baked bread-like pudding with a sweet syrup poured over, usually served with cream or sometimes ice-cream. Alexander added an extra South African touch by using Amarula cream for the syrup and he baked the puddings in individual muffin tins. It looked great and tasted spectacular!


And so our year in South Africa has drawn to a close. The next time we entertain it will be in Taiwan! We fly to Bangkok now for a couple of days, then on to Taiwan for a month, followed by a couple of days in Malaysian Borneo, a quick visit to friends in Kuala Lumpur and then back here for a short visit to family before heading back to the US in April. Adventure! I will try to post often.

* Brett, one of our visitors, is keeping track of her travels at Around the World with Brett.
* For more of Alexander's cocktail hour endeavours go check out his section cocktail hour with primitives.