Fresh ingredients are flown from Johannesburg to Maun and arrive at the lodge every week. Dry ingredients come via road and are ordered a month in advance. Ordering is a challenge in itself, an exercise in expert logistics as the camps are remote, each one in an exquisite setting surrounded by delta and desert wilderness.
Although Botswana produces outstanding beef, fresh vegetables and fruit are extremely scarce and to grow any fresh produce would prove to be extremely challenging.
In the kitchen special attention is paid to basics as everything is prepared from scratch including stocks, sauces, dressings, breads, cakes and pastries.
Life stirs in the early hours in James's kitchens, making it possible for guests to be woken before the crack of dawn with hot flasks of boiling water for your filter coffee plunger and crisp oat biscuits to start the day.
James's next repast to prepare is the light pre-morning game drive breakfast. Choose from bowls of fresh fruit and cereals, and add flaked coconut, sunflower seeds, sprinkled walnuts and extra raisins to muesli. Delicious strawberry, mixed fruit and Bulgarian yoghurts are served with steaming hot coffee and muffins.
While everyone is on an exciting game drive, James and his team are orchestrating the brunch buffet, knowing that guests will return famished. There is an excellent choice from French toast, omelettes made to order filled with ham, tomato, onion, grated cheddar and crumbled feta, or add a little hot atchar to spice things up. Blueberry pancakes drizzled with cinnamon sugar and a squeeze of fresh lemon are scrumptious!
Fresh salads with a difference - avocado with sweet green melon and chives and tossed with a raspberry vinaigrette and sunflower seeds; or a cous cous salad with smoked beef, baby marrow, patty pans, jalapenos and red onion tossed with a poppyseed dressing.
Try warm Prego rolls with freshly baked sesame rolls filled with sirloin steak and barbecue sauce, or enjoy hearty beef sausages teamed with sweetcorn fritters served with a green salad sprinkled with feta and radishes.
The kitchen continues to hum well into the afternoon as Afternoon Tea and Sundowner Snacks for a bush drive or a mekoro ride to take palce later in the day, are prepared.
Afternoon Tea tempts with a marvelous spread - lemon meringue pie or rich chocolate cake, delicious savoury fillings topped on home-baked bread, toasted pita or potato rosti, and a generous bowl of chunky colourful fresh fruit salad; and jugs filled with iced tea and home-made lemonade.
Bush bites served on the evening game drive are creative inspirations. Sushi with a difference - cucumber, carrot and spring onions marinated in Soya and Hoisin sauces and combined with ginger syrup. James then wraps these in nori and sushi rice topped with sweet red and yellow peppers; bite sized marinated beef fillet strips served with dips of horseradish cream cheese, grain mustard and jalapeno chilli providing kick and colour; or rolled pancakes filled with cream cheese and smoked salmon and sliced thinly.
Candlelit dinners are under a blanket of stars in the main dining area or guests have the option to enjoy private dining in the Bird Hide at Khwai River Lodge, or a very romantic dinner at the Fish Eagle Bar at Eagle Island Camp. Guests at Savute Elephant Camp may have the opportunity to enjoy an indigenous Botswana dining experience in a traditional boma. If you prefer utter privacy and intimacy, guests may also choose to dine on the veranda of their tent.
The call to dinner is the sound of a drumbeat. Relax over a glass of wine and enjoy the starters of sweet potato and apple soup or on another evening try the blackened honey chicken with oriental sauce served with an intriguing salsa of tomato, crisp spring onions, pineapple, olive and mint. Glazed red onion marmalade is an interesting counter point to the dish.
Among the mains served on different nights of the week are fresh Okavango bream and Botswana beef, rated as among the best beef in the world. For those that prefer lamb, try lamb shank with rosemary jus, horseradish mash and roasted vegetables tossed with basil pesto; on other evenings enjoy a traditional bobotie or James’s venison potjie simmered in beer, tomato and garlic and served with hot puff pastry rounds sprinkled with sesame seeds.
James tour de force for vegetarians are the delicately wrapped timbales of cous cous tossed with red onion, garlic, chopped petit pans and sweetcorn all sautéed in a little butter. The cooked cous cous is then spooned into a timbale, which has been lined with thinly sliced grilled baby marrow and carrot strips, which have been flavoured in basil pesto and black pepper.
Desserts are delicious as James has a penchant for the sweet kitchen; among them divine passion fruit cheesecake, Amarula mousse and an outstanding Praline ice cream, creamy and crunchy with glaze nuts.
After dinner relax with coffee, cognacs and liqueurs under the African night sky around the roaring campfire, surrounded by the sounds of the wild nightlife, filled with wonder and awe, content, happy, satisfied.
Issued by Gaby Palmer, Public Relations Manager for Orient-Express Safaris,
e-mail: gpalmer@westcliff.co.za; ph: +27 11 481-6030 www.orient-express-safaris.com
