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DISCLAIMER
The information and contributions contained in this newsletter are received from various readers local and international. Views and opinions reflected in our newsletter are not necessarily those of Biltongmakers.Com and its team members. Keerbergen
Belgium November 10, 2006 Hello everyone! It is still pitch dark outside as I sit here putting the final touches on the newsletter for this month.
Outside it has been raining all night and it seems that we had a lot of wind as well. All the hard work I did last week clearing the autumn leaves was undone last night. I guess I have to get in there with the leaf blower again this coming weekend. But, we like it! Autumn is here at last with its kaleidoscope of colours. Some of the sights are quite unbelievable and breath taking. No picture could ever do justice to the incredible beauty of especially the forests but also of normal shrubs and trees along the roads and in the gardens. And so November is here and with it the start of our winter. We haven’t had much of that yet this year. The temperatures have been very mild. But, it won’t last, that I can assure you! Both June and I are looking forward to the winter. We like the snow and the cold weather as most of our regular readers will know by now. For the southern part of our world summer is on its way. From what we hear from around those parts of the world it has been pretty warm already! Good luck to all of you there. You deserve it after the past winter! Looking at the weather on the BBC this morning I saw that it is not looking to good for the UK next week. We are going to the UK on a combined business/pleasure trip and decided to take the Ferry from Calais again. Nice and relaxing and the food is good too! Let’s just hope the Channel will not be too choppy! Well, I am not going to keep you long. There are a lot of contributions this month so let’s get going! Just one last thing; why don’t we make it a bumper issue next month with even more contributions from everybody? All the best and take care. Till next month, Lo
World’s easiest quiz Remember, you need 4 correct answers to pass.
What do you mean, you failed? Me, too. (And if you try to tell me you passed, you lie!) Pass this on to some brilliant friends, so they can feel useless too.
“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.”
– Albert Schweitzer – “You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.”
Family
I ran into a stranger as he passed by,
“Oh excuse me please” was my reply.
We were very polite, this stranger and I. But at home a different story is told, Later that day, cooking the evening meal,
He walked away, his little heart broken. While I lay awake in bed, “While dealing with a stranger, Go and look on the kitchen floor, Those are the flowers he brought for you.
By this time, I felt very small, I quietly went and knelt by his bed; “Are these the flowers you picked for me?” I picked ’em because they’re pretty like you.
I said, “Son, I love you too, FAMILY And come to think of it, we pour ourselves more Do you know what the word FAMILY means?
Eat drink and be merry!
Diets For those of you who watch what you eat, here’s the final word on nutrition and health. It’s a relief to know the truth after all those conflicting medical studies.
heart attacks than the Americans, Australians, British, or Canadians. Conclusion: Why diets don’t work A visitor from a far-off planet observing the way we behave could easily assume that dieting is a very good idea indeed. In fact, dieting is so popular that in the past 10 years it’s estimated that around 70 per cent of the adult female population and 30 per cent of of all adult males (in developed countries) have been on one. Although diets do produce results in the short term, very few dieters maintain their weight loss, no matter which diet they try. Even worse than this, most dieters end up bigger than they were before they started dieting. So, why don’t diets work? Diets are hard to do Dieting is also hard because it relies on our willpower to keep us on the right track. Willpower is often very strong at the start of a diet when we are desperate to change, but it can ebb and flow with the state of our health and the pressures and triggers of day-to-day life. Dieters rarely think of rehearsing how they will manage in difficult situations such as going out to dinner with friends; they just hope that their willpower will hold up and they punish themselves if it doesn’t. Willpower is hard to maintain for extended periods of time, especially if our dietary rules are too strict. Sometimes we feel like we’ve made some progress in our diet and so we become less inclined to put ourselves through the struggle of restricting our food. So dieting is hard because people haven’t learned the difference between willpower and commitment to long-term behaviour change. Diets make you feel hungry and deprived Dieters lapse and collapse Such people go from diet to diet hoping to find the one that will stop them from failing, but such a diet doesn’t exist, and they may end up bigger than ever each time they try. Diets fail to address the emotional aspect of overeating Dieters usually fail to change their core habits Dieters too often say or think things like: ‘When I’m slim I’ll never overeat again’ or ‘When I’ve lost this weight I’ll go out and celebrate with a cream cake’, or ‘Why should I change the family eating habits just because I’m on a diet?’ Conclusion For long-term weight loss, many things – not just your nutritional habits – will have to change.
Samic has excellent meat cutting charts. Just click on the banner below for lots of interesting information.
Hi Biltongmakers!
I think I may have another couple of orders for you. The Germans I work with were so impressed with my homemade biltong, they want to do it themselves! Gunter Pibernik
Thank you again My first batch turned out great, absolutely love having biltong “on tap”! Now I can experiment to my hearts content! Lee Ann Cantrell
Details on ROCKEY’S 5kg Home Biltong Maker can be found by clicking on this link.
You can have a look at the BILTONG BUDDY here.
Christmas is only a couple of shopping weeks away! …..
In two months time we’ll be halfway through January 2007! There is still time to have your Biltong Maker delivered before Christmas but only if you place your order now!! As an extra bonus to end this year off on a high note, the following prices will apply: Rockey’s incredible 5kg Home Biltong Maker @ only R 850.00! (Normal retail is R 950.00). Make use of this opportunity and ask for surface mail! It costs a fraction of the airmail cost. Surprise your family and friends with a piece of real South African Biltong this Christmas. It’s as easy as 1-2-3 and loads of fun too! Click here to go to our on-line shop.
Microwaved Water – See what it does to plants! Then after cooling she used the water to water two identical plants to see if there would be any difference in the growth between the normal boiled water and the water boiled in a microwave. She was thinking that the structure or energy of the water may be compromised by microwave. As it turned out, even she was amazed at the difference.
So the body wraps it in fat cells to protect itself from the dead food or it eliminates it fast. Think of all the Mothers heating up milk in these “Safe” appliances. What about the nurse in Canada that warmed up blood for a transfusion patient and accidentally killed them when the blood went in dead! But the makers say it’s safe. Never mind then, keep using them. Ask your Doctor I am sure they will say it’s safe too. Proof is in the pictures of living plants dying. Remember You are also Living! Take Care.
Ten Reasons to throw out your Microwave Oven From the conclusions of the Swiss, Russian and German scientific clinical studies, we can no longer ignore the microwave oven sitting in our kitchens. Based on this research, we will conclude this article with the following:
Have you tossed out your microwave oven yet? After you throw out your microwave you can use a toaster oven as a replacement. It works well for most and is nearly as quick. The use of artificial microwave transmissions for subliminal psychological control, a.k.a. “brainwashing”, has also been proven.
Meat Cutting Charts
Below you will find three meat cutting charts.
These are displayed with the compliments of SAMIC.
We went to see Anton Goosen in November and apart from an excellent show the organization was faultless. Good food, good music and a very enjoyable evening.
To see all upcoming events please click on South African Events in Europe web site. There are loads of things happening!
If we have not given an answer and you can help these people could you please mail them? (Please copy us in on your mails @ info@biltongmakers.com so we can help other people who might have the same questions in the future) QUESTION
I have bought a Biltong Maker for my butchery and need to know at what temperature the meat dries? Is this something you would know or have you any suggestion of how I would find this out? Rory
I’m American, but please don’t hold that against me. Politics aside, I have some questions about biltong preparation that I can’t get properly answered here. Food safety is of great concern here, such that I doubt biltong could be legally sold, due to the center portion still being raw and pink. However, I would like to make biltong out of wild venison, as hunting season for deer is currently open. The only bacteria or parasite that could possibly be present in the venison from my area is Lyme disease, which is bacterial. The Afrikaner who introduced me to biltong years ago said they made it from fresh Kudu meat after a hunt, but didn’t mention whether there was any health risk associated with using wild game. Lastly, a few questions on ingredients. Your recipes call for “rock salt” or “coarse salt”. What is generally available in the U.S. is Kosher salt, although I believe I might find something closer to what you call coarse salt at a specialty shop. What we call “rock salt” is used only for the making of home-made ice cream. This stuff is generally considered unfit for human consumption, as it is rough-mined and can contain dirt and other impurities. (It’s other use is for de-icing walkways in freezing weather.) Lastly, can you help define “brown vinegar”? Sounds like the malt vinegar we use on fish and chips, which is brown. If it has another name, could you clue me in? We have a couple of large, specialty grocers in my area, and I bet I can find it, or something suitable. I do hope I am not overly complicating what you folks consider a fairly simple recipe. In any case, I’ll be ordering your biltong cutter shortly. Thank you most sincerely,
Ek is op soek na Boerewors en Biltong resepte op CD vir my kinders in Engeland.
All that trouble about a forgotten lipstick …..
By James Clarke Having, not long ago, been rear-ended by a young woman motorist (whose crisp turn of phrase revealed her to be no lady) I became a bit nervous when, a few mornings ago, I found a Yofex (young female executive) driving a hair’s breadth from my rear bumper and chatting away on her cellphone.
Even minibus taxi drivers pull over when they see a Yofex approaching. Yofexes, white or black, have pale skins because they are never outdoors. They spend their weekends rearranging their Filofaxes, working on flow charts for their next presentation, cooking three-course meals for their Maltese terriers and working off calories at the local gym in incredibly expensive leotards. If a Yofex dents her car or finds she has a grey hair she is likely to seek her bed and go into a foetal position from which only the jaws of life can unfold her. Not much else fazes her. I was driving along the M1 North, relaxed, feet up on the dashboard and noting how green the trees were when, as I say, this white BMW became glued to my rear. I slowed down, giving her the opportunity to pull out and overtake and ferret her way into the tangle of traffic ahead. Everybody gave way but I doubt she noticed. Anyway the Yofex code is: “Death, before acknowledging a courtesy.” I eventually found myself behind her and, to signal that she was taking the next off-ramp, she turned on her windscreen wipers. I was taking the same off-ramp and at the top we both turned right but then, to my surprise, she turned right again – back on to the highway but this time in the opposite direction from whence she had come. I noticed she was still on the phone. She might even have been doing her nails. I could be mistaken. She might just as well have been making notes. Obviously she had forgotten something – her flow charts perhaps; notes for her presentation; maybe her lipstick… I imagined her jinking her way through Rosebank and back into Parktown North where many Yofexes live in singularly anonymous quarters behind blank white walls. I could imagine the sound of her reverse thrust as she came to a stop outside her house. Her hysterical ankle-biting Maltese would be flinging itself against the grill gate where also stood her man. Yofexes rarely have husbands. Even if they do they still refer to him as their man. Their men generally have a more leisurely approach to their jobs, hence they leave home later. She would have phoned ahead and her man would have been standing there holding out the forgotten item. Then her tyres would have smoked as she threw her car forward having grabbed something from her man’s outstretched hand – yes, the forgotten lipstick, I bet. Talking of Maltese… a reader, Ian Sabook sent me some frankly worded ads from the Pets’ Corner in the classified section: Found: Maltese terrier: Eight years old. Hateful little bitch. Bites. Found: Dirty white dog. Looks like a rat… Been out a while. Better be a reward. Free puppies: 1/2 cocker spaniel – 1/2 sneaky neighbour’s dog. Free German shepherd: 85lbs. Neutered. Speaks German
Met die seisoen wat weer amper op ons is, moet ons begin dink daaraan om the bak! Kerskoek Bestanddele:
Proe die vodka om gehalte te toets.
Luandré Volschenk The Cake Ingredients
Ingredients
Serve hot or cold with whipped cream.
Transport Minister Jeff Radebe says South Africa is well on its way to meeting airport and air safety requirements in order to deal with the flood of tourists expected to hit the country during the 2010 soccer World Cup and beyond. Speaking at the Airports Council International World Annual Assembly being held in Cape Town, Radebe stressed that the country was not sitting idle. “South Africa, through Airports Company SA, is already making huge investments on airport developments to address the high growth rate in air transportation and the added demands of accelerating infrastructure development plans to cater to the forecast traffic peak presented by the Fifa World Cup in 2010,” he said.
As a result of this expenditure, Radebe said, South Africa’s international and regional airports would be able to provide the capacity required for the World Cup. Leonard Ramatlakane, MEC for Community Safety, who also attended the event, said he was confident that the country would be able to handle the expected increase in both international and domestic travelers beyond 2010. “We have no doubt about our capacity to deliver airports that will be able to cater to the ever greater needs of passenger loads,” he said. The Air Traffic and Navigation Services Company has also been busy renewing aeronautical navigation systems and has begun replacing older radar systems across the country, in preparation for the World Cup. “Safety and security is high on our agenda,” Radebe said. He also stressed the growing importance of tourism’s contribution, via the airport industry, to the country’s economic vitality. As a result of this, Radebe said, South Africa had identified tourism as one of the country’s immediate priorities for future job creation and economic growth. A five-year plan to increase aviation’s contribution to the tourism sector has been implemented that aims to make South Africa a preferred air travel destination, and which improves airport services.
The following was submitted by Monique van Schalkwyk
Horrific violence now an everyday sight as the Rainbow Nation ends in a pool of blood.
The distinguished anti-apartheid novelist André Brink has shocked many of his politically correct countrymen by warning that football’s World Cup, coming to South Africa in 2010, threatens a “potential massacre which could make the Munich Olympics of a few decades ago look like a picnic outing”. Brink, whose novels were banned by apartheid governments and who has twice been nominated for the Booker Prize and short-listed several times for the Nobel Prize for Literature, is no everyday scaremonger. In one of a number of articles he has written about the crises facing South Africa, he said: “For 12 years after our first democratic elections [held in 1994, resulting in Nelson Mandela becoming president] I went out of my way to assure people inside and outside the country who had doubts about the new South Africa that we were moving in the direction of democracy, truth and justice, and that the darker by-products of the change were temporary and superficial accidents. I can no longer do that.” While South Africa has bathed in the accolade of the Rainbow Nation since the end of apartheid in 1994, a torrent of commentators and swathes of the general public now say that the rainbow’s end has been reached and the nation is sliding back into the storm. Just this month , Nobel Peace Prize winner archbishop Desmond Tutu said the country had lost its “moral compass and reverence for life“. He said: “Is it not horrendous for an adult man to rape a nine-month-old baby? [a reference to the country’s plague of baby rape in the belief that sex with infants cures Aids] What has come over us?” Like many South Africans, Brink is appalled by violent crime levels that are seemingly out of control – he finally felt impelled to speak out when his own daughter, son-in-law and their children were caught in a restaurant hold-up of the sort that has become a near-everyday occurrence. Five men armed with pistols stormed the Cape Town restaurant where his daughter’s family were dining; ordered everyone to lie face down on the floor and strip themselves of rings, jewelry, watches, cell-phones and wallets. The men then emptied the safe and cash register and beat up and kicked the customers before herding them into a small back room, locking it and making their escape. Apart from a single paragraph in a small community newspaper, the incident was not reported. “It is too insignificant,” said Brink, “to banal, to commonplace in the new South Africa. No-one has been killed, no-one raped. South Africa now ranks alongside Colombia, Chechnya and the occupied Palestinian Territories as among the most violent places on earth. In a new report, the South African Institute of Race Relations said that one million whites have left the country in the past decade. This is partly because of the escalating violence, but also because they see no future in a country once proclaimed as “non-racist” but which has implemented a damaging raft of reverse-racist policies with similarities to those adopted by past white governments. More whites began packing their bags for Europe, North America and Australasia when justice minister Charles Nqakula, responding to a question about the scores of daily murders and hundreds of daily rapes, told parliament that those who complained about crime were “unpatriotic moaners”. He went on: “They can continue to whinge until they’re blue in the face or they can simply leave this country.” The justice minister’s implication was that only whites “whinged” about the rampant violence. But most of those raped, mugged and killed are black people . One woman, who had been gang-raped and mugged by fellow blacks, and who lives in a paralysis of fear in her township, wrote to a newspaper asking: “Where, honourable minister, do you suggest I go?” And last week it was too late for 15-month-old Khensani Miteleni to consider going anywhere – she and her mother were caught in one of the near-daily wild west-style gunfights that make Johannesburg’s city centre resemble a war zone. Violence is just one element of the developing South African crisis: As South Africa slid off the rainbow, one leading newspaper columnist warned: “We have all been lulled into a sense of false security over the past 12 years. We look north to Zimbabwe with pitying eyes and tell ourselves it couldn’t happen here. “Well, my friends, the seeds have been sown. Just wait for the harvest.”
I am going home, I just love the place, its sounds ….. its smells … I have been a bit slow in reading the last two newsletters as we have been moving and then went on holiday, but now that I have finally gotten down to it, I am enjoying reading through once again. I don’t actually eat meat (yes I am South African), but still love reading your newsletter. There is one topic I would like to comment on, your ‘Going home or staying put’ article. I agree that South Africa is suffering a backlash from apartheid days and that the crime is a sad state of affairs. I feel awful that you and many others have suffered. I am currently living in the UK and to be honest with you, I am more fearful here than back home. Not only of potential attack by individuals but by organized, political groups. I am horrified by what some of the teenagers are capable of here, where they go on sprees of attacks for no purpose whatsoever. I am mentioning this because in South Africa people are subject to utter poverty and I honestly don’t know how I would react to this situation (poverty stricken) should I be in it. Also, while this is no excuse, for many years black people were subject to the same and worse violence by the white people and for this reason I am not entirely surprised that there is this backlash. My comparison is because the violence in South Africa comes from a place of desperation and vengeance, whereas here, there is NO reason other than sick pleasure. I have been out of South Africa for three years now and go home (to Cape Town) every year. We were in Johannesburg this year and was amazed at how well our friends and family are doing. They do stay in these secure villages, but still enjoy a lovely quality of life. We are hoping to be able to go back to South Africa to live next year. I have two groups of friends that I made while staying in Denmark who are so relieved to be back in South Africa as they found it extremely difficult to keep track of their teenage kids while in Denmark. There is a wholesomeness and old fashioned manners still present in South Africa that just doesn’t seem to exist in Denmark and England. I am saying this from what I have heard from them as I don’t have kids, but I have witnessed some very rude behaviour from kids this end of the equator. When I moved to Denmark I thought that it epitomized everything I would hope for South Africa, but you know what, they have the highest level of depression and suicide. I believe that there is a new generation growing up in South Africa that has not been subject to apartheid or national service and frankly don’t give too much of a hoot about it. They are tolerant of all races (and by-the-way I find South Africa one of the most tolerant, non judgmental places I have been to) and will start to influence changes which will make South Africa the absolute best place to be in the world. I love the place now, the sights, sounds. Even the smell of the place makes me feel ‘home’. I want to be there to be part of the solution, because I admit that solutions are required. It is HOME. I hope I make some sort of sense. I understand that some people don’t want to be in South Africa for many reasons. Very best wishes
Hello everybody! I have been living in Naperville, Illinois, USA since March of this year. We still have to get use to the cold winters we have here! Already we have had a few nights where it has gone 3’C past freezing point. We got a taste of the cold when we arrived in January and could not believe that it could get this cold. The people in the neighbourhood here were so tremendously nice when we moved in. They came over to welcome us and even brought us food. I have become so used to the safety here and being able to walk with my dog at 22h00 at night and not feeling scared at all! Thanksgiving is coming up soon and we will spend it with friends at their place so we can see all the traditional things they do and eat on this holiday. My eldest is in school and has already started speaking in an American accent. It is not too bad cause here in Illinois they actually speak a decent dialect. Wishing you all of the best! Marinda van der Brugghen
Hi there in Belgium. Not back yet in the good old country? After living for 40 years in Helmond in Holland, I am back where I grew up as a kid for 14 years in Durban! I also used to order Boerewors over the internet from a shop in the UK! But boy, was it expensive! But since 18 months I am now back in Kwazulu-Natal, where I bought a house in Newcastle. I must say that the Boerewors and Droëwors is much cheaper than overseas!! My name is Sjoerd Walda (male). I was born in Helmond in Holland in 1948. We went to South Africa in 1949 and lived there till 1963. So at the age of 56 I retired and left Holland for good. Yes there is such a lot of crime here in South Africa and how the country changed since 1963! I still receive your newsletters and always like to read what South Africans overseas have to say about how much they miss there homeland!! Kind regards, Sjoerd Walda
To all the kids born before the 1980’s !! First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking. As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat. We were always outside, playing …. We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the street lights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K!! We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem. We did not have PlayStation’s, Nintendo, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms ………. WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them! We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. School sports had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!! These generations has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever! We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL! And if YOU are one of them! CONGRATULATIONS! You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good. And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.
Zulu still angling for the big prize Aussie PM predicts home win in Ashes Series Land re-zoning for 2010 stadium to be appealed Boks head out for ‘tough’ British tour Some unusual names in World Cup Masterplan
-Where can you watch rugby on TV?-
Click here to find out where in most countries!
Many people subscribe to our newsletter and many more are joining every day. They do so because they enjoy reading it and they like to hear from people in other parts of the world. They would love to hear from you too!! Why not put pen to paper (or fingers to the keyboard!), and tell us about anything interesting. About life in your part of the world, what you do and how you live. Perhaps something that happened to you. Perhaps you have some advice to give? Of course it does not have to be about Biltong or food. Anything that is of interest is welcome! Share it with other people around the world!
We have a freshly made batch in the freezers all vacuum packed and ready to go! Just imagine some “lekker” pap and wors with a nice tomato and onion sauce! Our Boerewors is vacuum packed in quantities of about 500 gram.
Droëwors, as it is known in South Africa, is as much part of the country’s culinary culture as Biltong, Pap, Boerewors and Potjiekos. The price will be € 28.00 per kg or € 7.00 per 250 gram packet. Droëwors travels well and posting is an ideal option. Interested? Give us a call or email.
The Braai season is over in Europe (except for some diehards!) but there is always the Spring and Summer of 2007!! Lamb on the Spit is a way of entertaining as only known by very few mainly because it is thought to be very expensive ……. Not so!
Together with the lamb we will treat you to a big pot of curried potatoes as well as a choice between a pasta salad or three-bean salad. Garlic or bread rolls are included as well. Booking early is essential and you can do so on
+32(16) 53-9625 or email us. (A Lamb on the Spit can only be done outside because we cook on coals!)
You can click on the links below to view some of the previous issues of our newsletter.
Yes, please subscribe me to your monthly Newsletter! If you prefer not to receive email from us, you can unsubscribe from Biltongmakers.Com! by clicking on this link. |
He said, “Please excuse me too;
When I turned, I nearly knocked him down.
He stood very quietly not to spoil the surprise,
I said, “Son, I’m very sorry for the way I acted today;
The sub-cult of the Johannesburg Yofex is instantly recognizable. Its members drive white BMW 3 Series; nearly always have a cigarette between their fingers and a phone tucked under their ear so that they have to drive with their heads sharply inclined to one side. Not that I am one to generalize, you understand.
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.
The spices are of course imported especially from South Africa so you will get the “real” thing!
