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CUISINE
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FED UP
Can you tell the difference between an Egg McMuffin and the toasted bacon and egg sandwhich served at One Stop? If you do, you need serious help and another guest house. But if you can tell when condiments and lubricants have been switched and you have been Wimpyed one time too many, here is the chance to broaden your culinary horizons. The most memorable activity at De Erf is consuming fine food.
The blacksmith's workshop has been turned into the dining room where breakfasts for headaches are served. Ilse does not stuff around with good food and she uses only the best and freshest ingredients.
The adroit observer would have, by now, noticed two photographs below; one of which depicts a fruit board (platter if you wish) with a muesli and yoghurt arrangement in a glass and the other a fruit arrangement in a glass sans platter. Frightfully fancy. No matter which breakfast you prefer, this you will get for starters and I won't. Obviously the availability of the fruit thing, which strikes me as being very vegetarian and unhealthy, depends on the season.
Out here many things depend on the season; even tourists do. You see, it gets a little warm here - sometimes, that is. Well perhaps a little more often than sometimes. And, I am not talking about the launch of the iPod.
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SENSE OF HUMOUR
While I am still in bed (in the vice grip of a headache from hell) Ilse and Helen serve the two mighty fine breakfasts. The Continental breakfast is not the boring nonsense you get elsewhere. You know what I mean? Toast that you can play frisbee with, those little jam plastic thingies, not enough butter and an egg that resembles an old golf ball. Our continental feast, on the other hand, will take the oil out of your day. There are lots of different delectable cold meats, kudu salami and delightful fresh, homemade bread or muffins. The milk is farm fresh and the juice too, depending on the season. At least we don't lie and tell something that resembles boiled tennis balls is fresh orange juice. There are a lot of other things like boiled eggs & super cheeses but enough said. If you don't get the idea by now I suggest a quick visit to the nearest public swimming pool or perhaps a haircut at your friendly greengrocer. The almost English breakfast (you don't get karoo lamb sausage in England, I am told as I am never up and about in time) is something else. We also don't get lamb sausages all the time (probably because they are exported to England) in case of which you will get a few bangers. The eggs are from De Erf (Ok, I lie we buy them next door, but they are good and prepared to perfection in whatever form you want and believe you me, we have had some really finicky people here). The bacon is as good as it gets. Then to get you properly stuffed we have home baked bread (this time it is true, honest Injun), tomatoes & mushrooms all to be washed down by refreshing fruit juice. A fine cup of coffee is always on the lurk, that is if you don't want tea. I don't have much of a sense of humour at 8 am, so Ilse will look after you. She will also decorate your plate with little flowers and other things I don't get to see. You don't want an angry egg around, do you? Get going before I have had my aspirin.
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YOU ARE THE EGG YOUR MOTHER MADE YOU
It took me forty years to realise that everyone else needs psychiatric help. Take egg-angst as an example. Ten people can sit at a table and each would want a personal egg, almost like a friend. Lets take fried eggs as an example. One wants an easy over, the other sunny-side up, another demands the yolk to dribble everywhere whereas some prefer the yolk and the white (good grief) to be very runny. Some people like eggs in a way that make me run. I have reached the conclusion that you are the egg your mother made you eat. I no longer, as of now, eat eggs. But, Ilse will make your egg be the egg you want and are. Make peace with your inner yolk and your outer berry. Carpe diem. By the way, I don't like my eggs runny. People who eat runny eggs should be shot. People who eat poached eggs need be tied to an ant mound and covered in something ants like eating - which, in my experience, is anything but runny eggs.
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GPS
I know. All of you will have some sort of GPS with you - even if it is hidden in a blackberry fancy cell phone. Unless you were only looking for a hot place to see a blue back tortoise, you would have read about the Valley of Desolation. Now, just imagine where you will have breakfast. On the photograph that follows there is an arrow that indicates where you sit when a photographer took this picture from the vantage point at the Valley not long after daguerreotype landed at our shores, conceivably in the 1880's or earlier. Anyway, I don't know who took the picture. Just go up there. It is worth it even if only to see where you drank your coffee earlier or will later. The mountain on the right above is called Spandau Kop. Try and find it without tripping over your own feet.
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SAVING MONEY
I am a culinary visionary and am, like all true geniuses and visionaries, not appreciated or recognised in their lifetime. If I had my way, which I never have, true rugby cuisine would have found its way onto the breakfast menu.
photograph numero uno: English
photograph numero duo: Continental
photograph numero tres: De luxe Combo.
It will cost me 15 bucks and I will feed the lot.
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