the royal show

So last week was the annual Royal Agricultural Show in Pietermaritzburg.  I wish I could say I thoroughly enjoyed it, but honestly, The Show can never quite measure up to the glory days of When I Was A Kid.  Poor Manfriend was subjected to me saying the entire day: “when I was kid, the rides were much better, the animals were much cooler, there were toffee apple stands on every corner…” Et cetra, et cetra.  All the poor guy wanted to do was see some chickens.  Oh, and some alpacas.  Chickens: tick; alpacas: not so much, to his utter dismay.  Also, we went on Schoolkid Day (I don’t know if it’s actually called this, but locals will know what I’m talking about.  Schoolkid Day is the day when every school in the greater municipality allows their incompetent teachers to take their bratty kids to The Show for the day. I’d love to say that this was an educational outing for said schoolkids, but sadly I only saw one group receiveing an energy-saving talk at one of the stands;  the rest were all running amok, donning cheap sunglasses, making as much noise as possible, losing their teachers and pissing off stand-owners).  All in all, The Show was not quite as pleasant as usual.  But we did see some pretty cool things, like this cute mommy goat and her kid:

And this awesome bearded Silkie.  What a cool chicken.  It’s like Lulu but with two legs and a beak.

And we discovered this absolute mastery of gastronimal creation:

Sicilian Dipping from Romesco.  Maaaaaaan.  I would dip my children in this stuff and eat them.  It is that good.  Trust me, you gotsta get some.  You can visit the Romesco shop in Howick (they also do all sorts of yummy olives and pestos) or order some online here.