Hello French Market friends,
This Sunday is the 45th Cape Town Cycle Tour, racing around 109kms of our City’s beautiful peninsula and the weather is looking good. This is the largest timed bike race in the world. Taking 
part this year is ZA’s leading international female cyclist, Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio. Through her Rocacorba Collective, a virtual community for cycling, Ashleigh has partnered wit
h Khaltsha Cycles, a cycling shop based in Khayelitsha created by Sindile Mavunndla. Ashleigh’s aim is getting more women on bikes and giving young girls an opportunity to become cyclists. Khaltsha Cycles identified the 30 girls to participate in the Cycle Tour, Rocacorba Collective and Ashleigh were able to raise funds for bikes, kit, helmets, and other items that the girls will need to get through the event. Ashleigh said “I’m coming to the Tour to meet the girls in person, to hand over the bikes to them and to ride the Cape Town Cycle Tour with them”. This is a great initiative and will encourage more girls to participate in the sport.
New cheese in this week for the first time, is a unique mature cloth bound cheddar from 
Quicke’s Farm in Devonshire. This dairy farm has been in the Quicke’s family for 15 generations and is located outside of Exeter. The Devon cows graze in the deep grass pastures of this West Country farm and produce rich creamy milk. Across the channel lies Normandie which has similar deep grass pastures. The cheddar is handmade using muslin cloth. The taste is tart, and the texture is dense, it is probably the best cheddar I have tasted, but of course I am biased as I was born in Devonshire.
We also have plenty of Epoisses in large wheels that we slice into p
ortions and in 250g boxes. This pungent cheese from Burgundy gets its aroma from being washed (fine sprayed) in Marc de Bourgogne, the brandy from Burgundy. Other washed rind cheeses include Pont l’Eveque and Munster. We have lots of Camemberts and Bries, Vacherousse, Reblochons, St Nectaire, Tomme de Savoie, Raclette, Comtes and blue cheeses.
If you are entertaining friends from far off cities such as Durban and Jo’burg this weekend, then I suggest pop in and get some picnic snacks. Apart from the cheese, we have lots of Saucisson sec, rillettes, pates and other delicious treats which make a great picnic , either to enjoy as you sit by the roadside and cheer on the cyclists or to eat if you are watching at home, in front of the TV.
With the CT cycle tour this weekend, lots of cyclists are looking to carbo load. We stock frozen filled pastas, spaghetti and tagliatelle made in Italy, so I have chosen a pasta dish with a difference for this weekend’s recipe. This is one of my favourite dishes, tagliatelle with a mushroom and truffle butter s
auce. As an elderly Italian client said to me recently, all you need is good ingredients for the sauce, it does not have to be a complicated recipe. It is the topping of Italian white truffle butter that creates a delicious aroma and makes this dish special. This is one of my easy recipes, you can add cream to the mushrooms if you want a richer sauce. You can use field mushrooms or porcinis in season. In this recipe I used slices of sirloin steak, but you could also use fillet steak. See recipe below. Suggest pairing with a Ca’Bianca Barolo from the Piedmonte.
Good luck to the Cyclists this weekend and to all the helpers along the route. I shall be at the Start area on Sunday morning at 4.30, along with my fellow Claremont Rotarian helpers. My job is to make a million sandwiches to feed some of the helpers, (unfortunately for them, they don’t get my French Brie in their sandwiches, as it is outside of the catering budget).
Enjoy your weekend and stock up on lots of pasta.
Regards