The Best of Local Fayre on Saturdays at the Jozi Food Market

Jozi Food Market

If you live in the Greenside area of Johannesburg and are look­ing for some­where a bit more novel than the local super­mar­ket for your weekly gro­cer­ies why not give the Jozi Food Market a try?  Open every Saturday from 08h30 to 13h30 and con­veni­ently loc­ated at the Pirates Sports Club you can expect to be greeted by artis­ans and stall hold­ers happy to share their love and know­ledge of food.

The mar­ket offers a wide selec­tion of food; take your pick from the 50 deli­cious recipes that Soup ‘n Stuff has per­fec­ted (who doesn’t love soup on a chilly day) while Sue’s Karoo Lemon Cordial (and ginger beer) is just the tonic on a sum­mers day.  Also avail­able is tasty muesli from All About Muesli, yummy, dec­ad­ent pies from The Granary Pies and don’t for­get La Bonne Cuisine’s chicken liver pate. Continued

I ♥ Edenvale Because ...

I ♥ Edenvale

Hi, I’m Bianca Hersov from Glendower View Guest House in Edenvale on the East Rand, Gauteng.

Edenvale IS BEST KNOWN FOR being really close to Africa’s largest air­port, OR Tambo International Airport.

GET YOUR PICTURE TAKEN AT Hunyani Reptile Educational and Breeding Centre with one of South Africa’s Deathly Dozen and listen to Clive’s anim­ated and super inter­est­ing present­a­tion on the edu­ca­tion and con­ser­va­tion of South African reptiles.

THE BEST bird PICTURES CAN BE TAKEN AT the Glendower Golf Course, which was pro­claimed a Nature Reserve in 1973 in order to pre­serve the excel­lent bird-life that is to be found on the course. Obviously, you could also aim for a dif­fer­ent type of “birdie” and go and play a round at golf at Glendower Golf Course or one of the many other golf courses nearby. Continued

Winner Weekend with Friends or Family in Joburg

CONGRATULATIONS to Dawie Degenaar of South Africa who has won a week­end away with friends or fam­ily (6 people) at Idwala Boutique Guest House, a lux­uri­ous and com­fort­able haven set in tran­quil indi­gen­ous gar­dens, in the leafy green sub­urb of Darrenwood in Johannesburg. Includes lux­ury accom­mod­a­tion for 6 people shar­ing for 2 con­sec­ut­ive nights dur­ing a week­end, two cham­pagne break­fasts for all 6 of you and Jo’burg con­ci­erge ser­vices (help with plan­ning and organ­iz­a­tion of activ­it­ies dur­ing your stay at Idwala).

Dawie, your voucher is on its way. Please con­tact Idwala Boutique Guest House to redeem your voucher (valid until 24 April 2012). We’re sure you’ll enjoy your stay! Continued

Win a Weekend with Friends or Family in Joburg (closed)

Idwala Guest House

WIN a week­end away with friends or fam­ily (6 people) at Idwala Boutique Guest House, a lux­uri­ous and com­fort­able haven set in tran­quil indi­gen­ous gar­dens, in the leafy green sub­urb of Darrenwood in Johannesburg.

This truly dis­tin­guished Boutique Guest House offers a very spe­cial and lux­uri­ous envir­on­ment com­bined with an embra­cing warm hos­pit­al­ity. Idwala’s pas­sion is to care for a hand­ful of guests who are look­ing for the finer things in life.

Idwala offers pure tran­quil­ity and the feel­ing of being ‘out in the bush’ even though it is situ­ated con­veni­ently in the middle of Johannesburg with easy access to shop­ping, enter­tain­ment and busi­ness hubs.

The Prize

Valued at R10 760, the prize includes:

• lux­ury accom­mod­a­tion for 6 people shar­ing for 2 con­sec­ut­ive nights dur­ing a weekend
• 2x cham­pagne break­fast for all 6 of you
• Continued

Shosholoza Meyl — an alternative to air travel?

Shosholoza Meyl

Everyone has a fond memory of tak­ing the train in their child­hood – pil­ing on with mom and dad, the lug­gage (ours were a series of rather dra­matic, bright red suit­cases that included a small, square one for my mother's cos­met­ics), egg and mayo sand­wiches and the wel­come delight of sleep­ing under crisp white sheets as the wheels chugged gently beneath you.

Remarkably, the inter-city train of our youth still exists, in the form of the Shosholoza Meyl, named such after the pop­u­lar South African song about train work­ers. The word 'meyl' refers to a long dis­tance by train. One would think I could have at least sus­pec­ted that this rather obvi­ous fact would prob­ably be the train's biggest chal­lenge. Continued

Fresh Earth Food Store — soul food comes to Jo'burg

Fresh Earth Food Store

I'm sit­ting at a wooden table in an alcove amidst the buzz of the café that lies to one side of the food store cum health shop that is the Fresh Earth Food Store, exclaim­ing over my break­fast. I can count on one hand the num­ber of eat­er­ies* where I can hope to find some­thing on the menu, like my choice of French Toast on wheat-free bread, with 'real' free-range eggs and real maple syrup (the Canadian kind not cheap, fla­voured syrup).

This par­tic­u­lar dish also comes with huge slices of haloumi cheese. You have no idea how good it was. Heart-warming stuff. Add to that the African-brewed organic  and Fair Trade decaf cof­fee (Bean There Coffee) that I'm enjoy­ing with, I have no doubt, 'real' milk (not the kind full of hor­mones and other stuff, because the cows are fed so badly) with a choice of rice or soy milk if you do not do dairy, or are vegan. Continued

When in Jo'burg: great spots at which to eat

Where shall we dine?

I feel the need to qual­ify right away that I am not a res­id­ent of Jozi. I used to be. Jo'burg was where I met and lived with my now hus­band. Those were the ini­tial heady days of our rela­tion­ship, and I loved the vibey, fast-paced, hec­tic, bright and overly focused envir­on­ment that was the major city of South Africa. Its hustle and sharp-edged tone suited us.

Each time we return it is some­thing of a cul­ture shock for me. Cape Town, where I now live, may as well be another coun­try the two cit­ies are so dis­sim­ilar. Johannesburg surges on a tide, where Cape Town gently melts into your psyche; Jo'burg jars, con­stantly moves in a sea of activ­ity and when you don't know the city, appears aggress­ive, whereas Cape Town lies in the shadow of a moun­tain that seems con­stantly there, no mat­ter where you are, its beau­ti­ful gar­dens and con­ten­ted life­style almost sooth­ing by comparison.

Besides hav­ing the rather cum­ber­some drive of 2000 odd kilo­metres between them, give or take a couple of miles, there is also the obvi­ous rich/poor divide that, whilst obvi­ous in both cit­ies, is far more so in Cape Town where the way things were has only mar­gin­ally changed for those who live there in a 'con­ten­ted bubble'. Continued

When in Jo'burg ...

The Jo'burg Skyline

Johannesburg is not a wee city by any stretch of the ima­gin­a­tion. It's an eco­nomic power­house , the pro­vin­cial cap­ital of Gauteng, has the largest eco­nomy in Sub-Saharan Africa, and is the world's largest city that is not built on a river, lake or coast­line, accord­ing to Wiki.

It is often per­ceived by those who do not live there to be some­thing of a con­crete jungle in which crime of every form and descrip­tion is rife. Some of this must be true as it fea­tures in the Real Clear World's top ten most dan­ger­ous cit­ies in the world not at war (quite a mouth­ful and not neces­sar­ily a cred­it­able list of dan­ger­ous cit­ies), but con­sid­er­ing that London makes it to the list as well, it is obvi­ously a rel­at­ive exper­i­ence and depends very much on how much of a vic­tim you make your­self — strolling around with your pocket bul­ging with a wal­let and your cam­era slung around your neck in the middle of down­time Jo'burg prob­ably qual­i­fies as such. Continued

A Pocket Oliver Twist at the National Children's Theatre

A Pocket Oliver Twist at the National Children's Theatre from 6 June to 23 July: “Please Sir, I want some more!” These immor­tal words will be trans­formed and given a new lease of life onstage at the National Children’s Theatre (NCT) dur­ing the winter school hol­i­days from 6 June 2011. This pro­duc­tion will trans­port audi­ences of all ages into the vibrant, visual heart of Victorian England.

Multi-award win­ning Artistic Director Joyce Levinsohn, adap­ted this Charles Dickens time­less tale of the orphan boy who dared to ask for more, into a fun, pro­fes­sional piece of enter­tain­ment. She cre­ates a story telling space that engages audi­ences from the open­ing scene. Great care has been taken to high­light the mes­sages from the Dickens’ clas­sic. Both young and old will be enthralled by this new musical ver­sion ... Continued

I ♥ Melville Because ...

I ♥ Melville

Hi, I’m Andrew Cleland from The Hillside House in Melville, Johannesburg.

Melville IS BEST KNOWN FOR its vibrant night life, trendy cof­fee shops and vari­ety of eat­ing joints.

GET YOUR PICTURE TAKEN AT 4^th Ave, between 7^th & 8^th Street, because there is a great view of the Joburg sky­line in the background.

THE BEST day­time PICTURES CAN BE TAKEN AT any­one of the fol­low­ing spots — the  Johannesburg Botanical Gardens, the Johannesburg Zoo, Melville Koppies, or why not stop at The Westcliff Hotel for a High Tea.

OTHER HAPPY SNAPS AT The Hillside House, in our lovely indi­gen­ous garden. Continued

Top things to do in Jo'burg — residents give insider tips

Mandela Bridge

Whether you call it Jozie, Jo'burg, or just plain Johannesburg, if you live here you love it, whilst the rest of the coun­try talks about it in hushed tones as a place riddled with crime and best avoided, espe­cially at peak hour, which is most of the day. A visit to Jo'burg is a crash course in stay­ing aware, all the time. But if you want to exper­i­ence a real met­ro­pol­itan buzz then you can't beat it. Time speeds up. So does the traffic, the num­ber of advert­ising bill­boards, the speed at which traffic does (and some­times doesn't) get around. Continued

5 days — Cape Town to Johannesburg, via the Free State

Fields of Cosmos

Ah, the heart of the coun­try where the sun almost always shines, or at least for 340 days of the year. Swathes of wheat fields, cos­mos and sun­flowers with a back­drop of rolling hills, incred­ible sand­stone moun­tains, and roads that lack con­ges­tion, give or take the odd pothole. This is the Free State.

Right through the middle of this province runs the main route between Cape Town and Johannesburg. Called the N1, this road runs straight, very straight, through ter­rain utterly land-locked that is also the country's third-largest province — known as the bread bas­ket of the coun­try because it pro­duces soya, sorghum, wheat, pota­toes and sun­flowers. But how many of us have fol­lowed our heart's desire and spent time off the N1 in amongst the cos­mos and fields of wheat? Continued

Joburg Theatre line-up

This year the line up at the Joburg Theatre is cer­tainly some­thing, it is going to provide enter­tain­ment from every angle and will get even the most timid of theatre goers excited. This is just a taste of what you get to look for­ward to in the begin­ning of this year ... Continued

Pippi Longstocking — the Musical at the National Children's Theatre in March

Back by pop­u­lar demand,The National Children’s Theatre (NCT) in Parktown, Johannesburg, is proud to announce the second sta­ging sea­son of Pippi Longstocking a clas­sic children’s comic tale of Astrid Lindgren’s, (adap­ted by Thomas W Olson, with music by Roberta Carlson). This pro­duc­tion will run dur­ing the Easter School Holiday, from 7 March 2011. Continued

Peter and the Wolf in Johannesburg from 11 November to 15 December

While grow­ing up I have fond memor­ies of my parent’s old record player and I would often enter­tain myself by put­ting on a record and mak­ing up my own story to the music. One record how­ever told a story through the vari­ous instru­ments and I took great pleas­ure in listen­ing to this one. The story of Peter and the Wolf.

If you would like to intro­duce your chil­dren to this lovely work or if you would like to indulge your­self in a trip down memory lane then you will be pleased to hear that this clas­sic children’s tale will be show­ing at the Joburg Promusica from 11 November to 15 December 2010 ... Continued