Sunday May 30th saw a cloud covered sky over the Emmarentia Sailing Club. Not a good day for sailing but a pretty good day for making fires and bringing out the old potjkiekos pots. That is exactly what seven entrants did for fundraising at the "First Annual Potjkiekos Competition" hosted by the Freinds of The Johannesburg Botanical Gardens committee. John Cartwright lit the fire at 10:30 and began to dig the holes for the pots. He entered three delectable poitjies and took second and fifth prize. His most unique one was the whole pumpkin (lid and all) filled to the brim with a large assortments of vegetables. Councillor Pat Richards, Michael Thompson and Chris Atkins had the culinary pleasure of judging the potjikies. It was an extremely close call but in the end Jono Hall , ( who was cooking his very first a potjkie) won the first prize of two tickets to the Spain and Honduras FIFA game, kindly donated by Emmarentia resident, Alex Eliott. Fiona Lee and Anne Askew also took home prizes.
Thanks are due to City Parks for donating winter jackets and to the Buck and Hog for donating meal vouchers.
Over thirty-five bowls of rice were bought and all took great pleasure in sampling each pot. Betina Cartwright said " What a better way to spend a cool Autumn day, than to sit next to the Emmarentia Dam, keeping warm around the fires, sipping wine and making new friends". Ryan Metcalf and his friends had such a great time, they promised to enter again and next time bring lots more potjkiekos connoisseurs with them.
The monies raised will go towards erecting permanent braais next to the dam along Louw Geldenhuys. This will help to put some kind of control to people braaing and burning the grass as well as burning down trees.
