In South Africa we have several names for a convenience store. A cafe (pronounced ca-fee), a superette and a corner shop are all small convenience stores selling everything from sweets and milk to detergents and candles. Prices are normally a little inflated - irrespective of what Tahiera has written on the wall - and as a rule, we NEVER buy meat from this kind of store (even if it is an emergency) as one can never be sure how long the meat's really been in that fridge! :)
We happened upon Chrisna's new farm-style shop at the DelVera estate (just outside of Stellenbosch) today. While Kerry-Anne was tasting all the pastes, olives and flavoured vinegars I got chatting to one of Chrisna's assistants who was busy with the laborious task of removing all the pips from a HUGE bucket of olives. As we chatted, this is what I learned:
Chrisna started her olive business more than ten years ago as a home "project" while tending an old lady's olive tree. Soon word about her amazing olives spread and Chrisna started selling olives, olive oil and olive paste to friends. Things started to snowball from that point leading to her moving her business into her garage at home and by the end of last year Chrisna and her small team were processing about 10 tons of organically grown olives each year! Chrisna and her staff make the pastes and pickled olives, while they outsource the pressing of the oil from the fruit to local... well... olive-pressing-people. (Say, what would you call people who press olives?)
It seems as though Chrisna's made a roaring success from her one-tree beginning. If you love olives and feel like chatting to friendly locals, make a point of taking a drive along the R44 to DelVera - you won't regret the trip.
Yesterday had most of Cape Town celebrating Valentine's Day - restaurants were fully booked, and parties all over Cape Town were buzzing. While we were driving to the friend's party that I spoke of yesterday, Kerry-Anne spotted this lingerie shop in Kloofnek Road. Isn't it an awesome display?
To get back to the title of this post - and for the sake of those who are single - did you know that in South Korea there's a tradition that on Black Day (14 April) single people get together for a meal of noodles with black bean sauce? That sounds like an awesome idea! Just imagine, a room full of single people... a room full of possibility. :)
This is the greenhouse at the Montebello Design Centre (have a look at yesterday's post to see the signpost that points visitors here). It's apparently one of the oldest greenhouses in South Africa, and is now home to a nursery.
Do click on the photo to enlarge it so that you can see all the tiny treasures filling the greenhouse.
The blurry sign that you see in this photo reminds clients of this shopping centre to pay for their parking before exiting to the boom-gates. I still remain unconvinced that shopping centres aren't ripping us off by forcing us to pay for parking. Certain centres provide free open-air parking and paid undercover parking, leaving customers to decide whether or not they are prepared to pay for some shade from the African sun. This particular centre has no free parking.
I find paying to spend money at a shopping centre much like being charged to walk into a restaurant and look at the menu. I guess the shopping centre wins though - I still shop there regardless.
While visiting Australia a few years back we discovered that Woolworths in South Africa is quite unlike Woolworths in other parts of the world. The South African Woolworths started off as a upmarket clothing store - not like the Woolworths food shop that non-South Africans know. Slowly over the years it's become more affordable, and today caters for middle to high income groups.
I mentioned that the store started off as a clothing store; they then later branched out into homeware. A number of years ago the company introduced a food department supplying carefully graded, high-quality foods. These days we even have petrol stations (service stations) with small on-site Woolworths convenience stores that are open 24 hours a day. They're awesome - and a great step up from the often-dodgy convenience stores found at many other petrol stations.