New Year notes

Wining & Dining
Fair’s fair!As I recently wrote about enjoying what I thought probably the best buffet served at Meikles Hotel in at least a decade (in the Mirabelle at the DStv Press Christmas lunch) I feel obliged to say I wasn’t over-impressed with the New Year’s Eve buffet in the Stewart Rooms.

Don’t get me wrong: it was a lovely night. Table décor was like something out of a glossy, life-and-style magazine and service was superb. I enjoyed several styles of music delivered to a packed house.

I love Scottish pipe bands and the youngsters of St John’s College, Rolf Valley, were nigh note perfect in their Highland hunting tartan regalia.

Brian Sidwell, lead disc jockey in the father-and-son team MIB (Men in Black), is as good as a cabaret floor show as he gets carried away by his own music of the 60s-80s …perhaps even more so when it’s the lad’s turn to play what I’ve always regarded contemptuously as “Headbanger” music (the rave, hip-hop, rap and…sadly…undiluted crap of more recent vintage!)

Company was good. As a major attraction was the hotel’s iconic, trademark New Year’s Eve fireworks, on the roof garden by Zimbabwe’s maestro of pyrotechnics, Alan Russell, I’d invited my friend Charmaine to bring along her 11-year-old daughter, Michaela.

And Michaela couldn’t wait — even the few minutes’ interregnum between being seated and the dinner gong being metaphorically sounded — to hit the buffet. Having found a couple of Chispite school chums she then danced away the night in swirling pretty party frock. Sparkling eyes were the size of saucers when the first Roman Candle went up.

She’d been on tenterhooks as, if it rains heavily, the fireworks can’t take place. It had teemed it down the night before, drizzled all dreary Zesa-less (in my case) day and bucketed it down again when we were on starters.

But God was good: the downpour totally halted; it remained dry for the spectacular 20-minute or so show. I think my problem with the buffet (and I QUITE enjoyed the starters and puddings) was that I wasn’t exactly ravenous …and hunger is definitely the world’s finest sauce!

I was also a bit miffed in hunting for the “crusted seafood”, shown on the menu, to have my attention rather brusquely drawn to tilapia fillets, which aren’t seafood, were crumbed, not crusted …and unpleasantly cold at that.

It fell my way on New Year’s Day to recite Robbie Burns’ Address to the Haggis, in my version of a Lowlands Scots burr, dramatically stabbing the little beast at the crescendo of:

“My knife, see rustic labour dight,An cut you up with ready slightTrenching your gushing entails brightLike onie dicht!And then, O, what a glorious sight:Warm, reekin’ rich!”

I’ve no idea what onie dicht means now. ..or did in the 18th century, but the splendid haggises (haggi?) supplied by Jock Beattie of Chegutu, through Oxmark in Lobengula Street were certainly warm, reekin’ (steaming) and very rich!

The occasion was the annual fun (and fun-filled) boozy bowls tournament Scotland v The Rest of The World, played at City Bowling Club, Harare Gardens, since time immemorial.

Again the Almighty was kind. Rain was torrential all night and until breakfast, when it suddenly stopped and a fierce sun came out for the duration of the competition, causing high humidity (starting again almost as soon as the matches ended.)

We adapted the ritual for a Burns Supper, with Mavis the Cook (looking very edgy) carrying in one of the haggises on a silver platter at the head of a parade comprising the recently resurrected Churchill School Pipe Band.

They’ve rehearsed in late afternoons on the former “D” Green at CBC for about four months, improving tremendously. Churchill School old boy, talented musician Arnold Mkupe (33), returned from working in the Disunited Kingdom to find the band with which he played for years in total disarray, some instruments damaged, broken or missing.

He was instrumental in getting new instruments (pardon the pun) from well-wishers and more are promised from the friendly rival band at St John’s.

Congratulations to Jock Beattie on producing haggis as good as you’d find in any Scottish butchery. (I think they’ve slightly changed the recipe?) The Beattie Clan had a torrid time in the past few years with almost endless invasions of their once lovely farms by so-called war vets and, sadly, I hear Tommy Beattie is unwell.

Mavis and Beebee cooked it as if they’d served their time in a crumbling Ross and Cromarty castle. Their haggis was actually better than some I ate recently at the Standing Order, a Wetherspoon pub off famous Rose Street, Edinburgh.

There, the Lithuanian (I assume) barman taking the order asked did I want “extra gravy”; I declined. What he meant was: did I want gravy…it’s 50p extra.

As the meal was as dry as a bone on arrival, I did, indeed need gravy, but by the time it arrived, haggis, neeps (turnips or swede) and mashed tatties were near cold!

CBC served haggis with roast spuds and mixed veg (different!)In a wee speech after the haggis stabbing, I also suggested the resurrected Churchill Pipe Band was now good enough to play at Edinburgh Castle.

I meant it –then! Having heard a second set, when they were obviously beaten hollow by high notes in the rousing Flower of Scotland (the Jocks’ unofficial national anthem) I’d revise that to read “a bit more work needed!”

Lang may yer lum reek!

 

Dusty Miller

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