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Roots @ the Forum Homini, Johannesburg

by Jeanne Horak on January 24, 2010 12 Comments in South Africa, South Africa restaurants

RootsForumHomini

When I go home to South Africa, I always feel a little like I’m being pulled in ten different directions by all the places I want to go, people I need to see and things I want to do.  As my family are in Port Elizabeth, I always go there when I visit, but as for my point of entry, I tend to alternate my trips between flying into Johannesburg and Cape Town.  We often spend quite a while in Cape Town but I seldom spend more than a day or two in Johannesburg – which is just enough to see some good friends, shop up a storm… and have at least one swanky meal in a local restaurant.

On my most recent visit to Johannesburg last year, the restaurant in question turned out to be Roots @ the Forum Homini.  One of the best barometers of what’s hot in South African dining is the Eat Out magazine restaurant awards.  Almost every year, restaurants from Cape Town and surrounds completely dominate the top ten spots in these prestigious awards, so I was intrigued to see a Johannesburg restaurant on the list – restaurant choice made!

The Forum Homini boutique hotel is situated at the Cradle of Humankind, about 50km north of Johannesburg.  The area has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1999 and is home to the Sterkfontein Caves, a system of limestone caves where the 2.3 million year old Australopithecus Africanus fossil skull (nicknamed Mrs Ples) was found by Dr Robert Broom and John T Robinson in 1947.  Apart from innovative architecture, luxury accommodation, conference facilities and Roots restaurant, the other added bonus is that the Forum Homini is situated on Letamo private game reserve, so keep your eyes peeled for game as you approach the restaurant.

Roots restaurant has been garnering restaurant awards on a regular basis since 2007.  Chef patron Philippe Wagenfuhrer was born in Strasbourg, Alsace, and raised in West Africa.  He apprenticed at L’Arsenal in Strasbourg before attending catering school for seven years.  This was followed by 14 years in Scotland, working at Cameron House on Loch Lomond, Darroch Learg in Aberdeenshire, and The Sheridan in Edinburgh.  In search of warmer climes and new challenges, Philippe then worked in Antigua and Barbados for five years before settling in South Africa.  It was while working at The Michelangelo Hotel in Johannesburg that  he met Hendrik Marais, owner of Forum Homini – and the rest, as they say is history.

The fact that the restaurant is a 40 minute drive from Johannesburg only adds to the sense of occasion, and when you climb out of your car in to the starry, insect-filled African night it feels as if you are miles from civilisation.  The restaurant itself is an appealing space with clean lines and, modern decor and a view through a wall of glass over a lake and a deck where lunch is also served.  The menu uses top local ingredients transformed into dishes inspired by French, African and Asian influences.  There is a choice of of either a set four-course lunch or a six-course dinner menu (both of which change daily), with the option of adding a glass of matching wine to each course for an additional fee.

Service when we arrived was very friendly and soon we were seated, unfortunately (despite our booking fairly far in advance) right by the restaurant’s main door.  More on this later.  It took a further 30 seconds debate to decide that we would go for the matching wines per course, and then we waited for the show to begin. [Sadly, I cannot find the menu where I jotted down the individual wines we had – apologies!]

Roots1

After good bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, we were presented with our starter:  corn and vanilla soup and a mini corn fritter with fresh cilantro.  This looked beautiful (that little bowl was yearning to come home with me and feature in a Cooksister photoshoot…!) but I did not think that the flavours worked well at all.  The vanilla was not a clear enough flavour (random sweetness, rather than spicy vanilla) and the strangely grainy texture of the soup was not very appealing.  Besides, the sweet flavour of the corn needed something spicy as a contrast, not more sweetness, as the delicious little corn fritter with its cilantro leaf topping beautifully illustrated.   This was followed by a heavenly dish of seared tuna with Asian flavours – soy, sprouts, sesame and bok choi.  This was truly outstanding – simple, ultra-fresh ingredients, perfectly prepared with lovely clear flavours.  As good a piece of fish as I’ve had anywhere in the world.

Roots2

Up next was pan-fried salmon trout on kedgeree with sauce vierge.  Again, this dish worked beautifully – the fish was cooked to crisp-skinned but moist-fleshed perfection and the saffron-laced kedgeree provided a creamy, salty counterpoint.  I also think the was topped with herb butter.  The first of the meat courses, and the one to which I had been lookign forward the most, arrived next:  confit duck leg on puree potatoes with foie gras. This was OK – tasty but not something I could get excited about, compared to the outstanding examples I have had in France.  The duck leg was tiny (which is probably not a bad thing, given that it was part of a larger menu) but looked a little ungenerous, and was not as fall-apart tender as some confit duck that I have had.  The puree potatoes were… well, mashed potatoes.  But the biggest disappointment for me and Nick was the foie gras.  Can you spot it?  Yup, it’s those two beige-coloured blobs on top of the leg, plus maybe another blob hiding behind the diced zucchini (yes, the blobs were smaller than diced zucchini bits…).  When, halfway through the meal, the chef himself came round to the tables to chat to diners, we did ask about this particularly stingy portion – his reply was that because it is a controversial ingredient, he does not want to use too much of it in the dish.  But surely if this is his reason, he should not be using the ingredient at all?  Are people who object to foie gras going to be appeased because you use only a little bit?  Hmmm, I doubt it.  (He did say, though, that next time I could call ahead and request a larger portion, but I’m not sure this is the way forward either!)

Roots3

The final savoury dish was pork belly braised in cider on egg noodles with butternut squash.  This was another pleasant but unspectacular dish.  The noodles were excellent, the pork was tasty and well-matched by the butternut squash cubes.  But I still believe that the way to enjoy pork belly is roasted to fall-apart tendernes and crackly perfection, rather than braised.  Still, a tasty dish.  Another success story was the dessert:  mini cheesecake with cranberry jellies and a red wine reduction. This was a perfect portion size for me – just a taste of something sweet and creamy, kept from cloying sweetness by the zingy and jewel-like cranberry jelly cubes.  I thought the red wine reduction was a little strident in comparison to the other flavours in the dish, but overall I liked this dish and its pretty presentation.

I seem to recall that coffee and petit four were included in the price, but by then we had lost all patience with the service and left without having coffee. I have left this all for a separate paragraph so as not to detract from the food, which was generally very good, but as with other high-end restaurants in South Africa, in my experience it is more oftern than not the untrained and unsupervised service that lets the entire experience down.  So here go the gripes.

We had decided to push the boat out and have the matching wines with each course of our meal.  Instead of printing the matching wines and a short description on the menu, the restaurant has chosen to have a sommelier come to your table with each flight of wines and tell you about the wines, which sounded like a nice touch.  When the first wines were brought, he introduced himself, told us all about the wine, and that was great.  By the time the second wine arrived, we were in mid-conversation when he arrived.  Instead of hovering a bit until we were quiet, he stood at the head of the table and theatrically cleared his throat to hush us, like the father of the bride preparing to speak at a wedding.  I think we were all stunned into silence, and so he proceeded to recite his speech for the next wine.  When the third wine came, he tried the same tactic again, so my husband said “do you mind, I was just in the middle of a sentence”.  In response, the sommelier wagged a finger at him and said “I can see you were a troublemaker at school” and launched straight into his description of the next wine.  Although this may be seen as charming or amusing in another context, in a restaurant billing itself as one of the country’s top fine dining establishments where I am paying nearly R400 for my meal, this is totally inappropriate – and more than a little rude.

As I said, we were seated by the main restaurant door – and when I say by the door, I mean I could touch door if I twisted around a little in my seat.  We would not have minded if the door were kept fully open, or fully closed, but most of the time it was left open an inch or two, creating a concentrated blast of cold Highveld air directly onto our table and our food.  Trying to gobble down your food before it gets cold is not the way I want to spend a rare evening out with friends, so we asked staff repeatedly to either keep the door closed, or open – all the tables were full so we could not be moved.  Despite numerous trips to the door by our table to try and wedge it in the open position, no doorstop could be found and people (i.e. every smoker in the restaurant, plus the staff) passing in and out seemed determined to try and close the door.  Sadly, the door also could not latch, so inevitably it would pop open an inch or two and the draft would start again.  After initially trying to address our concerns, in the end the staff simply gave up and ignored us as being the “difficult table”.  There had been a maitre d’ when we arrived, but he had quietly disappeared during the course of the evening.  When one of our furious companions had finally had enough of the door fiasco, she stormed off to the kichen to find him – but when she peeked through the kitchen porthole, the matire d’ was inside having an ice-cube fight with one of the waitresses.  Needless to say, my friend did not think it was worthwhile pursuing that avenue. When we asked for the bill, nobody even bothered to ask why we were leaving without coffee, and our waitress who had started the evening all smiles was as sullen as a grounded teenager.

I visited the restaurant about nine months ago – maybe service has improved since we were there.  Or maybe we just struck a bad night (although at this level of dining, a restaurant should not be having bad nights at all!).  Either way, I am going to say what I have said many times before – why do so many South African restaurants run a great kitchen and serve good food and pay a designer to create a beautiful space… but then skimp on staff training and a professional, attentive maitre d’?  Service is the single biggest factor that stands out in international fine dining restaurants, and one that top-end South African restaurants are going to have to pay more attention to if they want to compete on a world stage.

That said, I would go back to Roots.  Philippe’s food was generally of a very high standard, the wine matches were good, the price (R395 or about £33) very reasonable by international standards, and the setting truly gorgeous.  As were driving out of the restaurant at around midnight, we rounded a corner and came across a large antelope in the middle of the dirt road.  It contemplated us for a moment, just as its ancestors must have contemplated ours here thousands of years ago, and then lumbered off towards the waterhole.  Welcome to Africa.

Roots
Forum Homini Hotel
Letamo Game Estate
Bartlet Road
Kromdraai
Mogale City
South Africa
Tel.  +27 (0)11 668 7000
Fax. +27 (0)11 668 7010
Website:
http://www.forumhomini.com/

This post is part of a new series for 2010 called Sundays in South Africa.  As the entire football-conscious world knows by now, the FIFA World Cup 2010 will be taking place for the first time ever on African soil – in my home country of South Africa!  I can’t tell you how proud this makes me, or how good it is to see that all the stadiums that the naysayers said would never be built on time standing tall and proud and beautiful.  The country is, of course, anticipating a huge surge in visitors and I know that many people will see the cup as a reason to visit a country they have long been meaning to visit, and use the tournament as a jumping-off point for visiting other, non-football South African destinations. With this in mind, as well as my backlog of posts about my South African trips, I will be trying to post a review of somewhere South African, or a South African recipe, every Sunday in the run-up to the tournament.  I can’t pretend it is going to be a comprehensive guide to South Africa – but it will certainly be enough to give you some ideas! 

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  1. Sarah, Maison Cupcake says

    January 25, 2010 at 10:50 am

    I love how these dishes were presented, especially the dessert with that shard of chocolate!

    Reply
  2. nina says

    January 25, 2010 at 11:47 am

    It is shocking that our restaurants just don’t get the bigger picture. I often wonder what Gordon Ramsay did about staff training at his restaurant here in CT. Did he source for the SA work force or did he import. Based on this review, I don’t know if I will go to Roots!!

    Reply
  3. bellini valli says

    January 25, 2010 at 1:44 pm

    I have mixed feelings about this post as someone who workedas a hostess when in highschool and college, at least the food would take you back there..the setting alone would do it for me.

    Reply
  4. Manggy says

    January 25, 2010 at 3:09 pm

    Uh, what the heck?! I’m not usually a the-customer-is-always-right kind of person but the service there is delusional as to their role and authority in your dinner. Wagging a finger? I’ll snap it right off!

    Reply
  5. Kitchen Butterfly says

    January 25, 2010 at 7:57 pm

    🙂 I’m so afraid to go home to Nigeria because of ALL the visiting we’ll have to do. So far, so good, I’ve managed to avoid it. I love the mini cheesecake with cranberry jellies! Looks stunning! Don’t quite know what to say about the bad service….forgive me :-0

    Reply
  6. Jamie says

    January 26, 2010 at 12:32 pm

    I think that atmosphere and service are part of the pricetag as well as part of the experience in a place of this standing and it’s a shame that your experience of these aspects of your meal took away from the food. I’m not sure that I would go back. The food all did look beautiful but the rest, in my humble opinion, is respect (or lack thereof) for the client who is paying.

    Reply
  7. Juliana says

    January 26, 2010 at 6:09 pm

    Wow, everything look absolutely delicious…never been to South Africa, but it is in our list of ” Places to visit” 🙂 By the way, great pictures!

    Reply
  8. Maryon says

    January 26, 2010 at 6:53 pm

    I could not agree more on the staffing/service issue in SA restaurants – We have just got back from SA 3 weeks ago (I am a proud South African living in the UK) but on this occasion came over via Australia where we were holidaying for 3 weeks. What a contrast – efficiant, well regulated and organised Australia (fabulous food – everywhere!) was compared with smiley, friendly (at least we got smiles!)SA style “service” where nothing quite worked! Incorrect orders, wine at the wrong time and on more than one occasion no food at all until my husband threw a wobbly. With the World Cup everyone was trying very hard but it seemed too little and too late! What a pity – another good opportunity missed.

    Reply
  9. tasteofbeirut says

    January 27, 2010 at 10:19 am

    Looks like you ate very well; I liked the dessert the most, but then I am a dessert person! As far as the service goes, I am surprised that with a French chef service would not have perfect; sounds like the kind of obnoxious service we get here in the States, with waiter always waiting to barge in on you when you either have your mouth full or are in the middle of intense conversation!

    Reply
  10. diva says

    January 28, 2010 at 1:30 pm

    u make wanna go traipsing about the globe right now with nothin but a fork and spoon and a backpack full of clothes and some ladies stuff. WAAHAH. check out that cheesecake. It’s magnificent. I wanna visit Cape Town and definitely this restaurant. There’s so many places I wanna go when I can afford it, after reading your blog, i think i’ve just about added somethin to my list! 🙂 x

    Reply
  11. Kajal - Aapplemint says

    January 28, 2010 at 2:23 pm

    All that food looks so fantastic. Still to visit SA, but i know where to eat when i do now 🙂 Nice review.

    Reply
  12. Michelle @ Greedy Gourmet says

    April 12, 2010 at 11:13 am

    Hmmmm, it’s nice to see South African restaurants trying to compete on an international level but somewhere along the line this one seems to have missed the point. The food looked almost good enough but the staff must be in those self-absorbed status obsessed haze feeling important. Land van die een oog koning. 😉

    Reply
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"Spring fever, my heart's beating fast. Get up, ge "Spring fever, my heart's beating fast. Get up, get out, Spring is everywhere" - Elvis Presley

What better way to celebrate the day when the clocks go forward to British Summer Time than with  a glorious photo of St Paul's Cathedral shyly peeping out from a cloud of pink cherry blossoms against a perfect blue sky! 🌸🌞

London is awash in glorious blossoms at the moment, from Greenwich Park in the east to Kew Gardens in the west, and the fun part is trying to catch each type of tree just when the blossoms are at their best.

The cherry plums have been exploding into clouds of small white blossoms and sweet fragrance for a few weeks already; and the early flowering cherry trees, camellias and magnolias are coming into their own right now. Plus we still have the late-flowering cherries, rhododendrons and wisteria to look forward to!

Do you have a favourite Spring tree or park for blossoms in London? Let me know in the comments 🌺

And please remember to share, save or like my posts if you want to see more of me in your feed 🙏
"The essence of being human is that one does not s "The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection" 

I wonder what the author if those words would have made of the age of Instagram? We are fed an endless stream of perfect images of perfect bodies and perfect lives. In the back of our minds we KNOW this is not reality, but still the subconscious yearning for this imaginary world of perfection persists. Humans are funny that way.

But so often in life, things fall short of the perfection we imagined - seemingly perfect relationships fail, cakes look nothing like the picture in the book, clothes that looked good on the internet look ridiculous on our bodies, the wrong turn we took meant we never got to our planned destination.

Falling short of perfection is part of life. The big question is how you deal with it. Do you throw your hands up in despair and berate yourself for failure? Or do you find the positives in the imperfect outcomes of your plans? 

This photo taken almost exactly 4 years ago was meant to be a "perfect" Instagram shot of me in my signature pose, on a perfect sunny day on snowy ski slopes. Instead, as @explorista snapped the photo, our ski instructor decided to throw handfuls of snow at me - but as it turns out, this "imperfect" shot turned out to be my favourite of the day 😍

Do you find joy in life's imperfections?
What's your favourite way to eat cauliflower? Up What's your favourite way to eat cauliflower? 

Up until about a week ago I would have said cauliflower cheese... but all that changed when I made this low-carb cauliflower steak Welsh rarebit... I first made cauliflower steaks years ago, before cauliflower started enjoying its 15 minutes of fame, as a main course for vegetarian friends. But it wasn't till last week when I wanted to make Welsh rarebit for St David's day and discovered I had no bread that it struck me that cauli steaks would make the perfect base for Welsh rarebit! It's totally indulgent - like pouring a beery cheese fondue over your cauliflower - and totally addictive. You can find the full recipe in the link in my profile,  or SAVE this post for basic instructions! Remember to tag me if you try it -I'd love to see 😊

* Slice two 1cm steaks vertically from the middle of a large cauliflower, season and fry in  butter and oil till browning slightly.

* Oven bake for 10 mins at 200C while you mix grated cheddar, melted butter, Worcestershire sauce, mustard and beer. (The Duvel Belgian ale works a charm, BTW!).

* Spread the cheese mix generously over the 2 steaks and pop under a medium grill until golden and bubbly

You're welcome 🤩
Dyed Gwyl Dewi Hapus - or happy St David's Day if Dyed Gwyl Dewi Hapus - or happy St David's Day if you don't speak Welsh 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

March 1 is the day on which the Welsh people celebrate their patron saint, St David, and one of their traditions is to wear a daffodil, the national flower of Wales. Here are five daffodil facts to impress your Welsh friends:

🌼 There's no difference between a daffodil and a narcissus. Daffodil (or jonquil) is simply the common name for members of the Narcissus genus, so all daffodils are narcissi.

🌼 There is only one species if daffodil that is native to the UK - Narcissus Pseudonarcissus, or wild daffodils. You can spot them by the fact that their outer 6 petals are a paler yellow than the central trumpet, and they are usually smaller than the showy, giant yellow commercially grown daffs. 

🌼 It's not entirely certain how the daffodil came to be the national flower of Wales - one theory is that they are one of the few flowers in bloom on 1 March. Another is that the daffodil is less... antisocial to wear than the other Welsh national symbol, the leek 🤣

🌼 Daffodils are the official 10th wedding anniversary flower.

🌼 Daffodils contain a poisonous sap - keep away from pets and if mixing daffodils in a vase with other flowers, let them stand in water separately for 24 hours first I case they affect the other flowers. 

Are daffodils your favourite Spring flower? Or do you prefer something else?
As a girl who lived more than half her life in the As a girl who lived more than half her life in the African sun, February and March are the hardest months for me to bear in the UK. All the excitement of Christmas and New Year has faded; the credit card bill has arrived; the sun is still setting before I finish work; and the snow that we all hoped for at Christmas finally arrives and disrupts everything. This is why, every year in Feb/March since I moved to the UK (other than the year I broke my femur a week before I was due to fly!), I decamp to South Africa for 2 weeks to visit my family and get my fix of vitamin D (and vitamin Sea!).

This week I should have been here - the Beacon Island hotel in Plettenberg Bay, which I have been visiting since I was about six years old. It is where I go to lift my spirits and clear my head. But for the last 2 years, Covid has meant that I have not been able to go home - or see my family. 

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Where will YOU head to first once we are able to travel again,  and why?
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Are you making a special dinner for your sweetheart tonight? This potted hot-smoked salmon with a pretty pink apple and red onion pickle is easy to prep and oh-so-delicious! It's also gluten-free if you serve it with GF crackers. Full recipe now on the blog - tap the live link on my bio to view. 

Are you doing anything special to celebrate today? Let me know in the comments! 💖
Ready for a wine tasting? 🍷 [Press trip] Back Ready for a wine tasting? 🍷

[Press trip] Back before Covid put our lives on hold, I spent a few days in the Languedoc-Rousillon wine region of France learning about (and tasting!) Pays d'Oc IGP wines. 

Want to learn more about the region's wines? Read on, swipe through the images (remember to  bookmark this post to refer back to later) - and click the live link in my bio for the full blog post! 

🍷 The Languedoc-Rousillon region is the largest wine producing region in the world, and produces about a third of all French wine. Pays d'Oc IGP is a classification region within Languedoc-Rousillon, with vineyards that take up over half the total vineyard area in the Languedoc-Rousillon region. Pays d'OC IGP wines account for about 20% of the total of all French wine produced.

🍷IGP stands for Indication Geographique Protegée, meaning it is a protected indication of origin and wines must be made only from approved grape varieties that must be grown entirely within the region's geographic boundaries.

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🍷 Producers that you should look out for include Gerard Bertrand, Domaine Gayda, Les Jamelles, Les Yeuses, Paul Mas and Domaine Aigues Belles.

First 📸: @everyglassmatters
New year's resolutions: waste of time or the way f New year's resolutions: waste of time or the way forward?

I have mentioned before that I don't really make new year's resolutions. There is always so much pressure to make them BIG lofty goals and this is essentially what dooms them to failure. Instead, for the past few years I have made a list of... affirmations? Mantras? I have yet come up with a word that does not make my toes curl 🤣

These are essentially reminders rather than goals - presets, if you like, for the year ahead. I keep them in a handwritten list next to my computer and when I don't know how to react to something or how to shake a mood, I read them and there is usually an answer in there somewhere. 

Given the bruising year last year was, and how 2021 has so far proven itself to be not much better, I really wanted to add something practical to this year's list to lift my spirits on days when I am down. And for that I borrowed shamelessly from the wonderful @gretchenrubin:

🌈  ACT THE WAY YOU WANT TO FEEL 🌈

And this photo is a reminder of how I want to feel on so, so many levels: hanging out with friends; dancing in the sunshine; wearing my favourite red dress; travelling (this was in Carouge, Switzerland); and surrounded by a rainbow of colour. I can't travel and I can't see friends, but I can dance in my kitchen, singing at the top of my voice wearing my brightest clothes. 

What strategies do you use to lift your spirits? I'd love to hear! 

📸 by @tasteofsavoie
If you, like me, are mssing your Pret-a- Manger Bi If you, like me, are mssing your Pret-a- Manger Bircher muesli during lockdown, you will want to bookmark this post right now! 🔖

I have learnt a few things during lockdown. I have learnt that I am more comfortable spending long periods alone than I had ever imagined; that I suffer a lot more from FOMO (fear of missing out!) than I would like to admit; and that pre-Covid I spent rude sums of money on commuting and barista coffee...! 

I also learnt that although I miss travel and social events and meals out, it is often the smaller things that you miss most acutely - the freedom to call up a friend you haven't seen in a while and inviting them over. Hugging (or even seeing) my family. And grabbing a macchiato and a Pret Bircher muesli on the way to work. Don't ask me why, but it became a small obsession of mine to create a fakeaway Pret Bircher during lockdown - and I think I have succeeded! Here's how:

For 2 servings you will need:
100g rolled oats
200ml milk or water
1 Tbsp sunflower seeds
1 Tbsp pumpkin seeds 
1 Tbsp shelled pistachio nuts
1 Tbsp dried cranberries 
2 small apples
175g plain yoghurt
Honey
Pomegranate rails

Mix the oats, seeds, nuts and cranberries together then add the milk/water and a pinch of salt. Mix well, cover and refrigerate overnight. 

When ready to serve, grate the apples and mix them in with the oats and yoghurt (add a little extra milk to loosen if needed). Stir in honey to taste and serve topped with pomegranate arils and pistachios. Full recipe and more photos are available now on the blog - click the live link in my profile.

Did you try any fakeaway recipes over lockdown? Please let me know in the comments - I would love to hear about it!
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Jeanne Horak is a freelance food and travel writer; recipe developer and photographer. South African by birth and Londoner by choice, Jeanne has been writing about food and travel on Cooksister since 2004. She is a popular speaker on food photography and writing has also contributed articles, recipes and photos to a number of online and print publications. Jeanne has also worked with a number of destination marketers to promote their city or region. Please get in touch to work with her Read More…

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