This has been such a busy week. Considering that I started out in a bit of a #StillHungOverFromSaturday state I am impressed with the fact I survived it all.

I had to rush home from work on Monday to meet Vanessa my manicurist. Vanessa still comes to my house despite the fact that she is now working from a salon in Hout Bay and is not purely mobile. She is such a sweet girl and I enjoy our little chats. I love that I can have the dogs running round and can relax in my pyjamas in my own home rather than in my work gear in a salon. I mostly wear skinny jeans to work so I have to change for her to do my feet anyway.

As it was late when we finished my pedicure we just got take aways from Spiro’s for dinner on Monday. I chose the chicken souvlakia as it is a huge portion and I always have plenty for lunch the next day. Lately having to trudge off to Food Lover’s Market and stand in those ridiculous queues is just too soul destroying. The tills are around the corner from where I was standing when I snapped this pic, from here there was still a Disney style convoluted queue through barriers before one gets to the tills.

This is an every day event – I take 15 minutes for lunch and I spend 10 of them in this queue. When I tweeted to Food Lovers Market to say that if they stopped making card payers who use a PIN to also sign it would save a lot of the delays at the till point they replied to blame the Payment Association Board.

I am not sure what makes Food Lovers any different to most other vendors in SA? Basically they are trying to protect themselves from invalid payments. It is a tiny little food market, so basically in order to avoid the risk of losing at most a few hundred rand due to a possibly stolen card (which would require that they also have stolen the PIN), they would rather inconvenience the hundreds of people who have to queue for ages every day?

But whatever Food Lovers until you sort your issues out, I will have my own form of protest, I will simply sign my slip with imaginary names. Depending on my mood I choose my identity for the day, Queen Elizabeth, Donald Trump, even Donald Duck. Some days I just sign ‘Noooooo’.

Speaking of food for lovers, (like how I did that segue?) all lovers of course know that last Tuesday was Valentines Day. We had booked to go to Massimo’s  which is a local Hout Bay Italian restaurant which creates the best pizzas in the Bay (some might argue in all of Cape Town).

They put on a 3 course menu for R298 which sounded divine so we decided to give it a go, especially as it is literally 5 minutes from our house it seemed the perfect choice.

I decided to wear the new shoes and one of the new dresses which Norm gave me for Christmas.

Dinner at Massimo’s was as yummy as always. We were offered a selection of cocktails on arrival. I chose a sweet berry and Gin cocktail.  

We were starving and we got our food orders in quickly. I started with the fritto misto. It came with a lovely lemon and dill aioli, I thought it tasted as if it also had a wee touch of mustard in it but not sure. The seafood dish was crispy, light and divine. I had never had mussels breaded and fried, they reminded me of the fried oysters we had back in Georgia, a dish I have not had outside of the US. It was so gorgeous.

This is my happy Kitten face after shoving it all in.

Norm had the ‘Opera’ which was 3 large slices of juicy melon wrapped in parma ham. It was massive and he really enjoyed it (so much so we forgot to snap a pic). We had a funny moment when he ordered his food and he said he wanted the ‘parma ham’ and the waitress said ‘The Opera’ and I did not realise that was the name of the dish, so I thought she could not understand his Scottish accent and ‘peehrrrrrmuh’ had been interpreted as ‘opera’. Oops. I had a giggle.

For my main I had really struggled to decide, I felt like it was Valentine’s so I should have something ‘special’, but my eyes had locked on one of my favourites of their pizzas, the meaty & spicy Hot Latina. I buckled in to the pressure of my salivating mouth and ordered it even though I have it often when we are having a ‘cheat night’ and eating carbs. It is so tasty, and it is hot, hot, hot. One bite caught me badly and I nearly choked on a chili. Can you imagine my epitaph? ‘She died for the sake of a Hot Latina.’ Rather confusing as I am married to a Scotsman.

Norm loves lamb and I never cook it as I cannot bear the gamey, fatty taste of it, so he was delighted to see lamb shank on the menu.

I sampled his Boulangère potatoes and they were so divine, rich and crispy on top and creamy but not overly rich. I wanted to steal them. The meat literally fell off of the bone and the portion was plentiful. Norm really enjoyed this course as well.

This is his happy face. That’s as merrry as he gets.

For dessert I chose my favourite dessert, crème brulee.

This was a perfect crème brulee. creamy, smooth, the topping brittle, crispy and sweet but not at all burnt (so many have a charred bitter taste from over browning the topping). The hazelnuts added a nice touch. I adored this little plate of heaven.

Norm had tried to stay as low carb as possible in his choices and he virtuously chose the cheese plate as his ‘dessert’. It had mozzarella, blue cheese, goats cheese and another bit which he could not identify. He thought this was OK, but thought the milder cheeses were a wee bit overpowered by the blue cheese. It would have benefitted by a bit of fruit compote or preserves or a sweet fig or something. 

Dinner event music is one thing that is difficult to crack. The volume needs to be such that guests can still chat and converse, also the playlist needs to be suited to the vibe of the type of event and we expected something gentle and romantic when we saw that there would be music. There was a duo singing and when the dude was singing on his own it was very pleasant. He started out with a few nice relaxing songs including one of my all time faves,  ‘Crazy’ by Patsy Cline and we were really enjoying it. But after he sang about 3 tunes the girl joined in and sang a few songs. Oh dear. She was so off key. The volume seemed to get louder as well which made it hard to chat for two half deaf people like me and Norm so we just tucked into our food. The couple at the table next to us kept catching our eye and giggling when the girl would hit a bad note. The duo took a long break and we could chat again and then our waitress and another member of the staff grabbed the mike and belted out a couple of impromptu songs. The waitresses were fabulous!!

The food was so brilliant and we just giggled over the music and still had a fabulous evening. All in all I give the night 4.5 Kitten Stars.

We also had a late night on Thursday as we were booked to attend the Opera. We saw  ‘Rigoletto’ at The Artscape. It is the classic Verdi opera but presented from an African perspective.

Wow. 

Just Wow. 

The stage had a large screen at the back of the stage where we had sight of various clips or of the filming being done on stage by the mobile camera men.

The cast all appeared to be predominately local with the lead being played beautifully by Metropolitan Opera regular Fikile Mvinjelwa. The singer who portrayed Rigoletto’s daughter Gilda is Noluvuyiso Mpofu and she is both beautiful to watch as well as exquisite to listen to. It is the last time she will appear in Africa before she launches an international career. She is the actress who is seated in the above  photo. The actor who played Sparafucile is in the red suit, he is persuaded to murder Gilda by his sister Maddalena who was played by the actress in the red dress. She was in love with the Duke and the interactions between the actors were very sexually charged.

Lukhanyo Moyake sings the role of the Duke of Mantua and has a naughty twinkle in his eye as he sexily mesmerizes all of the female members of the cast. His voice is fabulous and his combined with Noluvuyiso’s voice was absolutely magical. I feel privileged to have seen this cast in this show. 

A solid 5 Kitten Stars. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

We got home late after three acts, so I went in to work a bit late on Friday. I was quite busy trying to get out a deliverable which is our subject for a workshop I will be facilitating on Monday. Traffic up Table Mountain has been a nightmare all week and so I decided if I’m going to sit in traffic I may as well have a sea view. I went via High Level Road and cut through Camps Bay. 

Caitlin was still in George Friday so Norm and I were solo, we were exhausted so just had a quiet night at home and ordered Thai take aways. I had chicken satay and wontons. We just watched a bit of telly and had a lazy cozy night with our pups. They went to the groomer this week so are far less stinky.

Saturday we were at Retha for a braai so we had to shop for bits and pieces. I also picked up this cool plant. I love succulents. 

We also stopped at Tanya Seeber and bought Norm some nice new reading glasses and popped by Allegria Cafe for brunch.

I had Eggs Benedict. 

Norm had scrambled eggs, bacon and mushrooms. 

When I got home I made a platter of deviled eggs for the braai.

We headed round to Retha about 7 and the fire was already lit but as there were so many people it took ages to cook all of the meat. I have a food poisoning phobia and always ask for my chicken to be incinerated so my charred kebabs always come off last.

But I don’t die. 
The wind was howling insanely so we all wrapped up warmly. I hoped the crazy wind might bring some rain to our drought ridden country. But no such luck.

Retha surprised me with the cutest coasters in my favourite colour and they all say sweet little phrases. The funny thing is that Norm and I had been lamenting the dreadful state of our coasters at home just that day and then I arrive to a random surprise gift of coasters! My psychic connection to Retha never fails to surprise me.

We had a fun night and before we realized it was midnight. 

Today we are having a quiet relaxing day. Caitlin is back from George and I made brunch. 

Later I am making a Sunday Banting roast dinner. I’m roasting a fat chicken, making fondant sweet potatoes fried in butter and red cabbage. 

And so begins week four of reign under Twitler. It delighted me to hear that National Security Adviser Michael Flynn resigned this week. He should still be tried for treason in my opinion, but no one cares about my opinion.

One of the funniest protests I saw this week was the “Rumps Against Trump” mass mooning organised at Trump Towers.

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The new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Head Scott Pruitt is yet another highly protested appointment made by this upside down president. It’s like putting a fox in charge of the hen house. he is a disastrous choice and could make the changes he has repeatedly sued the EPA over. Insanity. 

Speaking of insanity. Twitler held a completely unhinged ‘press conference’ which was so far from being a press conference, but I have no idea wtf it should be called, a lecture? A rant? The ravings of a lunatic? 

It is scary that he is in office, it’s even scarier that those idiots who put him in office are still drinking that koolaid. 

Image credit.