On Saturday last we had a social "Surf and Turf" braai out at Columbine lodge after the meeting, my friend and brother Ian and his lady Hester took care of the "Surf" side of things and Janet and I did the "Turf".
First on the menu was the usual and traditional Columbine mussel scrum, we are renowned for the mussel scrum after each meeting and visitor look forward to it. I steam the fresh mussels in a little white wine with some chunks of lemon, then tip them out onto a big tray and the guys gather round the table to eat them and believe me it is a scrum!
While everyone was tucking into the mussels Ian and Hester got busy smoking the Snoek, the ubiquitous Cape Snoek (thyrsites atun) is a delicacy in the western cape and there are many ways to prepare it. 
Ian has fashioned an amazingly effective smoker out of a Cape wine barrel and he uses "Manuka" sawdust from New Zealand to give the fish a wonderful flavour.
He easily fits three of the fish onto two racks and the lid stays closed for about half an hour while the heat and the smoke perform their magic.
Soon it was time to serve the second course and the people tucked into freshly smoked Snoek with bread and Apricot Jam, the fish was moist and delicious with a delicate smokey flavour and there was not a speck left over!
It was then our turn to do the turf part of the meal, Janet fried up ten kilograms of chips and I braaied forty pieces of Sirloin steak while Maureen put a salad together.
It was a lot of work for a few people but between us we managed to feed forty hungry friends and had a very enjoyable afternoon.
We'll do it again but not for a while, I think we are going to start running out of sunny days pretty soon, winter is coming.We are going on a "Ride the beast" run with a bunch of bikers from the Hout Bay Yacht Club, sounds like fun, I will tell you all about it in my next post.
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