Steak tasties and a braai

This series of photographs came to me recently, in any of the major centres in South Africa you will see these private exhaust repair setups on the side of the road and whilst we applaud and encourage entrepreneures one can easily appreciate why a visit to a well established, albeit slighty more expensive dealership may prove to be better in the long run;

It's time to panic and get more help, the flames are already licking out under the rear wheelarch although the guys at the back of the vehicle don't seem to be too concerned.
That's it, I hope the owner had good insurance! In retrospect he probably should have taken his car to Quickfit!

I was busy Saturday with a meeting in Saint Helena Bay but as the weather was good today we decided to have a braai, quite a while since we last had one I think. Linda came up for a visit and she loves a braai, she and Janet spent Saturday afternoon watching first the Blue Bulls and then the Stormers beat their New Zealand opponents and I was home in time to watch the end of the cricket ODI where we also beat the West Indies. All in all a good day for South African sport.

This is another South African sport, a lekker braai! (A good barby!)

I had some excellent matured Sirloin steaks which I first rubbed with a bit of olive oil, sprinkled Aromat, garlic flakes, mixed herbs and ground black pepper and left to marinate while I built my fire.

I then braaied them over very hot coals, with flame, turning regularly until they were nicely darkened on the outside. After about five minutes I took them off and allowed them to stand for a minute or two. We like our steak medium to rare, if it is too rare you can always put it back to cook for a bit longer but obviously if you have overcooked it you cannot undo it. Happily I had timed it perfectly and after a little sprinkle of salt the three of us made short work of the delicious steak tasties while I built the fire up again for the main course.

I had earlier wrapped some sweetcorn miellies in butter wrappers and then in tinfoil, and these I placed in amongst the coals when I first started the fire, during the course of the braai I just kept rotating them to spread the heat evenly.

Then it was time for the karoo lamb chops and the boerewors (farmer's sausage), boerewors is a South African delicacy and you will very rarely see a braai anywhere in the country without this staple food. We have travelled all over South Africa and have tasted some good, some bad, some indifferent and some excellent varieties.In my opinion we are in the right area for lamb, we get the Karoo lamb and apparently the animals feed on the sweet Karoo fynbos which gives the meat it's delicate flavour - outstanding!
Here's lunch! Karoo lamb, boerewors, sweetcorn miellies and Janet's Creamy Aromat potatoes - not a hell of a lot wrong with that.
Through it all Cat was underwhelmed, he is not much of a meat eater so he just crashed on my chair, I had to find somewhere else to sit.

I did manage to get the bike out and go for a bit of a cruise in the afternoon, I pulled in at the Phoenix bar in time for a couple of beers while I watched the end of the MotoGP, so all in all a very good weekend.

Now it's another week of work and then a weekend again, all being well we are going to Hout Bay to help with an oyster extravaganza at the yacht club if the red tide has cleared. I suppose Dick and I will get involved with that damn whisky bottle! I'll keep you informed, man it's a tough life!