Make magic with winter's abundance

This winter menu is our invitation to look beyond the bewildered herb garden, move out of your comfort zone and bake a loaf of bread, appreciate the beauty of a head of cabbage, and invite the rain gods to the table to feast with you on venison pie, pudding and cake.

- ERRIEDA DU TOIT

Winter can be somewhat of a bully. The relentless cold penetrating your soul, the wind tugging at window frames and roof tiles like an omen. The days are short and the sun wan. Yet no other time of year gives us as much reason to eat rich, bold food like this season does. We live snugly in our cocoons and self-imposed isolation.

While no-one really wants to be reminded of the 2020 lockdown, we do have wonderful food memories of that time - like the day we received our first farm-to-table vegetable box in the heart of winter. I remember the excitement when the doorbell rang. The friendly delivery person must have had such a fright at the sight of this masked woman taking a dive into the box that held treasures from the Breede River area. The box was then placed in hushed devotion upon my mother's trousseau chest, a worthy place for the jewels of the season. My head was spinning at the prospect of all the feasting possibilities: persimmons, baby beetroot, a bunch of carrots, guavas and sweet potatoes, a gigantic cabbage, kebabs and venison, pomegranates, oranges and mandarins, free-range eggs, mushrooms and spinach, green beans, honey, butter, bread, raspberry jam, country cheeses, home bakes, bottled salads, oldfashioned ginger beer and coffee beans. This was the "De Luxe" box, after all!

Although we couldn't receive guests that winter, every farmworker, farmer, farmer's wife, food entrepreneur, butcher and vegetable packer was present in spirit at our table. Together, everything was possible.

Since then, the Du Toits have kept the route of their food from field to table as direct as possible. We still appreciate that we are able to come and go as we please, travel where we want to, and gather at the table with whomever we wish to, whenever we want to, until as late as we please. With wine. This the exuberance and abundance of this winter menu.

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