Gauteng is blessed with clear skies and sunny afternoons. Our Food editor, Nikki Werner tells you how to take advantage of the highveld weather with two new unconventional ways to picnic.
Also read: 11 of Joburg’s coolest places to hang out this summer
A real veld picnic
Three-course meals are served from the veld kitchen: here are slow-roasted lamb shanks with dukkah, potato bake and a salad of brown chickpeas and avo. Photos by Brandon de Kock.
Lientjie Wessels is an artist and cook who lives with her husband, Robert Scott Denton, on a farm in De Tweedespruit. Having developed a following with her restaurants Li-bel in Sunnyside and Albizia in Cullinan, this autumn Lientjie began hosting ‘veld picnics’ on her property. Albizia closed in 2013 and those who feel Lientjie’s absence have found the path to her door, or rather her white chair that marks the entrance.
A group of strangers who will leave lunch as friends hoick up skirts and pile into the back of Robert’s bakkie. Everyone holds on to Panama hats and designer sunglasses as the vehicle bumps over rocky terrain to where Lientjie is waiting under the wild syringa trees, next to a table decked out with roses, white linen and a pitcher of bay-leaf lemonade. From her kitchen station a few metres away, she produces warm filo tarts filled with smoked, braaied and marinated mushrooms scattered with thyme ‘ash,’ man-size lamb shanks slow-roasted with wonderbessie (resurrection bush) and wedges of orange, cashew and rosemary cake. The feast concludes with a serving of geselligheid when Lientjie and Robert join the party ‒ and reveal that Albizia on the farm is in the pipeline for 2017.
How to book: The menu (R550 per person) changes with each picnic and for larger groups is served as a packed lunch. Bring your own drinks and cool box. Portion 18, De Tweedespruit. Call for dates, bookings and directions on 0825316141.
Robert’s insider tip: ‘On Sundays we go to our “local” six kilometres along the dirt road, Wa-wiel at Sandwani Lodge, where you can get three T-bones, three portions of pap and sheba (tomato gravy), one salad, a good bottle each of white and red wine, four brandy and Coke and a Don Pedro for under R500 ‒ including the tip!’
You’ll find it on the M8, 15 kilometres outside Cullinan. 0832571516, sandwani.co.za
Picnic (in the) New town
Dim Sum offerings at New Town. Photo by Brandon de Kock.
On a ‘lawn’ laid along a sunny lane at Newtown Junction, toddlers romp on blankets while parents lounge on deck-chairs and older siblings play on wood-and-rope swings. Dressed-to-the-nines youth order trays of dry Martinis in vintage cocktail glasses. The Green Lane, hosted by Work Shop New Town, is the latest project by Trevyn and Julian McGowan (who established Watershed at the V&A Waterfront) aimed at rejuvenating the CBD. This is picnicking Joburg-style. It happens in a pedestrianised section of an inner-city precinct, the grass is AstroTurf, food is ordered from The Potato Shed and Town, and craft beer is on tap.
Also read: 13 unusual places to eat in Joburg
Baskets are designed to be shared and range from the ‘Pigeon Friendly’ Dim Sum Basket for two with spinach-and-cream-cheese and roast-butternut dim sum (12 pieces) from Town (R165) to the Veuve Picnic Basket for four, which contains a garden-box salad, cheese plate, lamb on the spit, twice-baked potato slices, loukoumades pastry and a bottle of Veuve Clicquot from The Potato Shed (R1 740).
How to do it: Saturdays from noon until 5pm. Hire blankets (R50 each) and deckchairs (R20 each), or bring your own.Corner of Miriam Makeba and Gwigwi Mrwebi streets, Newtown, Joburg. 0820951684
Drinks on the side?
Also part of Work Shop New Town is Town, a small but sexy bar with Gregor Jenkin tables and bamboo baskets of dim sum prepared by Newtown resident Sbu Msongelwa. (Sbu also has a stall at the Braamfontein Neighbourgoods Market.) Browse the fashion between drinks and order the saketini (R90). Corner of Miriam Makeba and Gwigwi Mrwebi streets, Newton, Joburg. 0712959241, workshopnewtown.com
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