When in Napier, do the farmstall

Napier Farmstall

Napier is this won­der­ful little town in the middle of the Overberg at the foot of the Soetmuisberg. The unob­trus­ive town sign on the far side of the vil­lage proudly indic­ates that it's 266 feet in alti­tude. Until recently it was only a blip on the map and some­where I had heard was worth a visit.

It's funny how that alti­tude thing plays with the mind, because in hind­sight most of Napier rests on a slope. And the road through town has a rise and fall about it too. Put it this way, it def­in­itely isn't flat in Napier. Not that this unim­port­ant fact has any­thing to do with the lovely town, which has become pop­u­lar with artists and artis­ans who have moved here to escape city liv­ing ... Continued

Designer Maker Easter Market Photographs

After the roar­ing suc­cess of their Christmas Market, Freeworld Coatings and the the Evangelical Lutheran Church jointly held the Designer Maker Easter Market on Saturday, 16 April 2011 in the Cape Town City Bowl.  The mar­ket took place in the court­yard between Freeworld Coatings and the church and even when I arrived in the last hour of the mar­ket (it ended at 15h00) there were still a good crowd brows­ing the dif­fer­ent stalls.  Colourful bunt­ing had been draped across the tables which held a wide vari­ety of goods.  Lauren Shantall, Head of the Freeworld Design Centre did a mag­ni­fi­cent job in hand­pick­ing exhib­it­ors which included, among oth­ers, Helon Melon (I treated myself to one of her gor­geous hand woven, cot­ton scarves – hurry up winter), Heartworks, Clementina van der Walt, Lorenzo Nassimbeni and Design Africa.  I really enjoyed my, albeit, short time at the mar­ket and will def­in­itely be going to the Designer Festive Market. Continued

Upmarket, down-to-earth market in Somerset West, a great place to be

Heathersage Market

Make a space in your diar­ies for the second and last Sunday of every month, because this is a mar­ket, if you live any­where near Somerset West, that deserves your pat­ron­age. Not just because it sup­ports excep­tional, local food, or because it is a pos­it­ively sump­tu­ous venue and a won­der­ful space in which to spend a Sunday morn­ing, but also because this is a food mar­ket that is happening.

Hathersage is easy to find for those of us who don't live in Somerset West. It's straight up Gordon Road (simply turn left off Main Road) on a wine farm snuggled up against the foot­hills of the Schapenberg in the Helderberg Valley, on the banks of the Lourens River. Forget using Google maps to find the farm, as it isn't there (yet), as our sorry Garmin-less selves dis­covered this week­end. Continued

The Blue Bird Garage Market in Muizenberg

Known for her pas­sion, drive and abil­ity to open a beau­ti­ful boutique overnight, Kim Speer, the owner of Mythology in Kalk Bay and Constantia, and her hus­band, Dylan, saw a gap in the mar­ket in Muizenberg and took the cour­ageous step in open­ing a night mar­ket. The Blue Bird Garage Market, loc­ated at 39 Albertyn Road, has been a suc­cess since first open­ing and is sup­por­ted by Muizenberg loc­als through to inner city dwell­ers, par­ents, young­sters and lov­ers of fine food ... Continued

To market, to market to buy a ...

Stellenbosch Organic

I'm a sucker for mar­kets. So shoot me. If I can, I visit mar­kets as often as pos­sible, and sel­dom the same one more than twice in a row. And we are so spoilt for choice in the Western Cape, that I can do vir­tu­ally that – visit one a week­end for most of sum­mer, without get­ting bored, not that you can pos­sibly get 'bored' with any of these markets.

The Stellenbosch Organic Farmer's Market has been at its new loc­ale adja­cent to Spier, along Allandale Road — you swing right off Baden Powell Drive at Lyndoch sta­tion and the big straw­berry (make sure you crane your neck to look at the bus stop on your left along Allandale, shortly after the turn, as someone has spray painted a clas­sic pair of angel wings inside the shel­ter) — for just short of a year. Continued

An eco-village market — Camphill village shows us how

Camphill Village

We're on the N7. It's a per­fect Sunday morn­ing – the skies are blue, the morn­ing already hot, our win­dow filled with scenic farm­land and the prom­ise of a mar­ket. Camphill Village, on the West Coast (well, not exactly, it's just down Klein Dassenberg Road from Atlantis so not far from the sea, on a beau­ti­ful, remote piece of land) is an eco vil­lage that holds a mar­ket on the first Sunday of every month, except January.

It being February, we've decided to pay a visit. Our second. This one is with our son, and we spend a while in the car nar­rat­ing our ini­tial visit 'sans child' to child, who is fas­cin­ated with the concept that there was a life before him at all! He can't quite get his head around the idea that, whilst he might not remem­ber being on the back seat of the car, he must have 'been' there, surely? I always tell him he was always in my mind's eye. Continued

Slaley Farm Market — with an emphasis on food, family and fun

Slaley Farm Market

'Well,' says the brightly attired pan­cake man, whose name is Siegfried Kitching and whose kit­chen skills, I assure you, are rather admir­able, con­sid­er­ing I can't flip a pan­cake to save my life, 'there is sugar and cin­na­mon, syrup, or sugar, cin­na­mon and syrup!'

I look flum­moxed. Not my fault, prom­ise. But not hav­ing had time for an extra cup of cof­fee before head­ing out to Stellenbosch and the Slaley Farm Market is begin­ning to tell, and now it's too darn hot to con­tem­plate another, des­pite a stall selling what looks like really good cof­fee. My five-year old son is quietly burst­ing for a pan­cake (and he does few things quietly), which of course, would be the very first stand in the entire place, wouldn't it? Continued

Christmas Markets and Gift Fairs taking place throughout South Africa

Christmas Markets

A friend of mine in London recently updated her Facebook status and smugly announced that she’d bought and wrapped her Christmas presents.  Having lived in London for a sub­stan­tial amount of time myself I can see her wis­dom in being this organ­ised and with only ten weeks to go maybe I should fol­low suit!

There are a num­ber of lovely Christmas mar­kets tak­ing place through­out South Africa. Shopping for gifts at these mar­kets elim­in­ates the hor­ror that is Saturday after­noon mall shop­ping so read on for a bit of inspir­a­tion ... Continued

'Kom proe' farm stall — a gem of Citrusdal

'Kom proe' Farm stall

Let me warn you that there are no fewer than five farm stalls as you travel the N7 past Citrusdal, all com­pet­ing for your atten­tion. But if you approach the pop­u­lar little vil­lage with Cape Town behind you, Alex Gordon's 'kom proe' farm stall will prob­ably be the first — you can't help but notice the sign boards placed at stra­tegic inter­vals advert­ising vari­ous fruit and veg.

Actually, it's not offi­cially called 'kom proe'. It hasn't got a name. Not that this wor­ried any of the pass­ers by who stop here by the dozen to sample whatever it is that Oom Alex is selling today. Standing out­side mind­ing our own busi­ness, a noisy truck belch­ing diesel whizzed past hoot­ing, and Alex waved explain­ing that he'd helped the trucker a while back and now every time he passes all and sun­dry are recip­i­ents of his grat­it­ude. Continued

Visit the Irene Dairy Farm for a farm style breakfast or five litre bucket of milk!

Irene Dairy Farm

I have vis­ited Irene in Northern Gauteng a hand­ful of times and one of my most favour­ite spots is the cen­tury old Irene Dairy Farm.  The farm star­ted oper­at­ing in 1889 and now, five gen­er­a­tions down the line it’s still the van der Byl fam­ily at the helm.

The farm was ori­gin­ally pur­chased by an Alois Nellmapius and after nam­ing the vil­lage for his daugh­ter (Irene means peace) he set about cre­at­ing Irene Estate.  Farmlands were expan­ded but only five years later the land was sold to Albertus van der Byl and its still belongs to that fam­ily.  Albertus built up the dairy herd, planted hun­dreds of trees and laid out the beau­ti­ful Irene Golf Course (I’ve walked the course and it’s lit­er­ally a walk in the coun­try).  The vil­lage of Irene has grown with the gen­er­a­tions and through this time the fam­ily has worked tire­lessly to keep the farm atmo­sphere ... Continued

The Litchi Orchard Market in Umhlali, Dolphin Coast

Litchi Orchard Market

The Litchi Orchard Market is loc­ated on Seaforth Avenue in the KwaZulu Natal coastal town of Umhlali and takes place on the first and third Saturday of each month between 8am and 1pm.  Currently boast­ing just less than 30 stall­hold­ers with products ran­ging from artisan breads, organic veget­ables, homemade cur­ries and Indian spe­ci­al­it­ies to pan­cakes, dresses, nuts, pre­serves, German baked goods and the undis­puted mar­ket favour­ite break­fast stall, the Litchi Market is obvi­ously worth a visit on a Saturday morning ...

The focus of the mar­ket is on food products that are local, farm-fresh, sea­sonal and sus­tain­able and the oppor­tun­ity to buy straight from the farmer means you are cut­ting down on your car­bon foot­print ... Continued

Craft Beer Festival, National Braai Day and other ideas for the 24^th September ...

We ♥ Real Beer

Is every­one aware of the fact that FRIDAY, September 24^th is Heritage Day or as it’s more fondly known, National Braai Day?  That’s three short weeks away and we’ll all have a lovely long week­end to look for­ward to.

Now if you’re not plan­ning a mini break away or, if like me you don’t have your first wed­ding anniversary week­end away (wasn’t I clever plan­ning our wed­ding around the time of a pub­lic hol­i­day?) then why not start the week­end off with a bang and head down to the Neighbourgoods Market on the 23^rd September for the We LOVE Real Beer Craft Beer Festival!  Sounds good doesn’t it? Continued

Dassiesfontein on the N2 – if you visit one farmstall...

Dassiesfontein

Dassiesfontein is a smor­gas­bord of THINGS. We're talk­ing room after room of this and that – from antique fur­niture through kit­chen plates, cloth­ing and shoes, to Victorian fire­places. The venue is a ver­it­able collector's dream of kitsch and paraphenalia, so set aside at least an hour for your stop at this farmstall.

We piled out of the car, now des­per­ate for a breather, to stretch legs and maybe pick up a quick munch while we were at it. Immediately I sense that this farm­stall is not like any of the oth­ers we have vis­ited on the N2 (and there are numer­ous between Cape Town and Caledon). Continued

Cape Town & Western Cape Markets — When & Where to find them

Earth Fair Market

I’m a big fan of a food mar­ket and have decided to try and make more of a con­cer­ted effort to pur­chase fresh veget­ables, bread, flowers and in some cases even meat and fish from our local mar­ket (the thor­oughly divine Earth Fair Market in Tokai).

I popped in for the mar­kets 1^st birth­day on Saturday and bought our weekly veges; two auber­gines (one of them the size of a semi deflated rugby ball!), a bunch of leeks, car­rots, cel­ery, spin­ach, cour­gettes and mush­rooms.  All of that for the bar­gain price of R43 AND I didn’t have to pay for the card­board box they were pack­aged into.  Can you believe that; R43? Continued

Montagu's village market – fun filled Saturday mornings

Montagu Market

Heading off to explore the Montagu vil­lage mar­ket on a Saturday morn­ing to grab some break­fast is a stand­ard social affair for Montagu's res­id­ents, judging by the turn-out on a sunny morn­ing in winter. It's also a fun out­ing for vis­it­ors, and a great way to mingle with the townies, if that's your intention.

Everyone is bundled up in coats, scarves and gloves, but it looks as though the day will be fine as the first rays of sun hit the market's venue, Euvrard Park in Bath Street just across the way from the Tourism Information Bureau. There is a real sense of camaraderie as vis­it­ors and loc­als mingle around the foun­tain that forms the centre piece of the glade, filled with gor­geous old trees that in sum­mer serve as shade and in winter add oodles of char­ac­ter to the mar­ket. Continued