A day at Babylonstoren

Babylonstoren

Do you ever get the feeling that your never really up for anything whether it be work or anything related to making an effort? Well on the 26th and 27th of February. A couple of classmates and I assisted a function at Babylonstoren wine farm for the design Indaba company. Its not that i didn't want to work but i needed to adjust to a new surrounding for the next two days. But what i experienced in their garden was nothing i could of dreamed of.

There i stood in-front of a large gate which appeared to me like a mysterious wardrobe which lead to a chefs equivalent to Narnia. Behind it a garden where fruits exploded into mammoth like creatures just roaming the garden freely. It was the sequel of Jurassic park but with a narrative twist where the dinosaurs have mysteriously disappeared and turned into fruits and vegetables.

There was a pumpkin which you could of mistaken it for a triceratops as Moskou demonstrates in the pictures. A unidentified flying object floating over me whispering in my ear saying "BEAM ME UP SCOTTY". I was amazed and shocked to find out how much was in the garden. 

All we needed were a few garden toys to pick what we needed for the kitchen which we did use for the function. What we didn't have in the kitchen we picked fresh in the garden. The tools we needed for the garden were:

• A small knife
• A basket
• Gumboots(Optional)
• Bottle of water(To stay hydrated)
• A tazer (to prevent an attack from any fruit or vegetable)

Back into the kitchen we went carrying with us some fennel tops, num nums, dill, cherry tomatoes and prickly pears. Prickly pears would strike fear into my previous jobs scullers. They have tiny like hairs on them which pierced your skin with ease. The initial prick from the pears wont be as bad as once they were in you already as they would give you the world of displeasure when you picked up something. Lets not forget the Barbary fig cactus you have to pick it from. Just try not to get caught in any of its thorns.

But they are very easy to clean as all you needed to do is char them over a high naked flame till they pitch black and then dip them in iced water then you can peal the skins right off. I use to make a sugar syrup where i took 2L of water and 1kg of sugar and brought it up to a boil with some rosemary and bay leaf till its nice and thick. Added my charred prickly pears in and we had preserved prickly pears.

Num nums are found on a thorny bush and are great in salads. Slice them nice and thinly and add them to your salad leafs with some deep fried capers, croutons, cashew nuts with a Cesar dressing. Now im just making myself hungry here but i cant help it. Just make sure when you pick them you get the nice darker red color ones. They are more pleasant to eat then the sour bright red ones.

Hope you guys enjoy this post of mine. Just wanted to share a few pictures of the day and what i did on this function. Nothing epic about foraging more like what you can grow in your garden that can become something truly breathe taking. 

Chicken of the Woods

My First Chicken of the Woods 

Now Mondays is no ones favorite day. My Mondays are a lot more relaxed compared to others so i like to think of my Mondays as Wednesdays now. I wake up late and all i have to worry about is getting to class at 16:30 which is my one and only class for the day. How fortunate am i hey? I decided to shake things up in my schedule and do a bit of foraging for my friend, Kevin, who works for Delaire Graff Estate. We were both impressed at what we found.

Monday morning on the 23rd of February 2015 was a sunny and bright day. Clouds were as non existent as a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. The suns heat creeping into my room turning it into a oven which was set to a low temperature ready to braise me in my own sweat. Now you could imagine that this wasn't the perfect weather to go mushroom hunting in. Kevin in the other hand was eager to get his hand dirty in the forest. So i figured i might as well since we had people telling us that mushroom season had started a little early this year.

On we go to Jonkershoek, a quiet area just outside of Stellenbosch. As Kevin said "This is what two chefs do on their off days". I felt guilty as i didn't have a job but i went with it. We stopped a long a field which was fenced off from locals. Now being chefs we ignored the fence and made our way over it to get to the river which was, figuratively speaking in a foraging aspect, DRY! We looked and looked but found nothing. We were wasting our time there and decided we would go back to the car and figure out our next move. 

Just as we were about to get back to the car. I spotted something in the corner of my eye. This huge fungus sticking out the bottom of a tree stump. Now lets be honest here, Stellenbosch is clean but people still dump their things in bushes on the side of the road. So at first i thought it was a banged up pillow lying against the tree. As i got closer the sun shines its ever so trusty light on it and brings out this almost sunset over the mountain color. It was amazing to find. We managed to find a "chicken in the woods" mushroom. Never been so excited.

Its name is given to it because it resembles the taste of chicken. A really good indication would be its bright orange color. Its not that easy to find this time of year and a KG usually goes for about R250. It is very delicious and sauteing it in butter would be lovely. You usually find them on hardwoods (Usually Oak trees) and grows in shelve like formations which can be from 5cm in diameter to about 60cm.

After a nice long day of walking in the sun foraging. Reward yourself with a cold beer or two. One thing to keep in mind as well is good company while foraging. That is one thing i have learned today. Sharing the enjoyment of finding a muddy treasure is twice the excitement then going at it alone. So hope you foragers forage well!

For more information about this mushroom. Visit http://www.mushroomguru.co.za/

Introduction to my blog

NomadicAeta 

Hi guys! Welcome to my blog

Just to make it clear to everyone who is reading this, my name is Scott Armstrong and i'm studying to be a chef with a media and communication background. Hence why im writing a blog. Your probably wondering why Nomadic Aeta? So let me stop wasting precious time as my lecturer might not be too impressed with my primary school introduction...

Anyways,

Nomadic Aeta was derived from two things. First, Nomadic is a forager who moves a lot in search of food whether it be gathered in a field or by hunting it, and second is Aeta, were indigenous Filipino foragers who lived in the mountains of Lozun, in Philippines. Since i am half Filipino, i thought it fitted my description of foraging. Yes, shocking that i'm half Asian but trust me, i wont be blogging about any Asian recipes, although, that could be very interesting fusion cuisine. I like how ideas just come to me as i'm writing this.

Now, the goal of my exciting blog of mine is to give you some guidelines to foraging and show you a thing or two about where to find certain things and keeping you away from dangerous plant life and animals. Its good your reading this and wondering how to forage but just to keep you and everyone around you safe. Rather Have an experienced person show you what is dangerous as you could seriously hurt yourself or even get killed. Sounds very violent but that is the reality of things. 

Well hope you keep reading this and enjoy what i have to offer. Just keep in mind seasons do bring different interesting things so not everything will be available. 

Hope you enjoy it!