What I Ate Today

Home-made salted caramel macarons :) watch this space, recipe and story coming soon!

What I Ate Today

A chai latte at Vovo Telo, Richmond Hill. Awesome coffee, cakes, and pastries but what a pity about the service :( friendly staff, but actual service and organisation was really disappointing...

Welcome Home! Meet the family

Me, age 4, enjoying chops off the braai like any proper South African meisie!

For me, nothing says home like a family braai or Sunday lunch. There are usually three options:

Lunch or tea with the Bothas (my mom’s family)

A braai or curry night with the Minnies (my dad’s family)

Sunday lunch or a steak braai with the Eglings (my sister’s soon-to-be family in-law)

Tres Leches

The name means ‘three milks’, and no, not full cream, semi, and skinned. It makes use of the yummiest of dairy: condensed milk, evaporated milk, full cream milk, and thick luscious cream all soaked up by a vanilla sponge, topped with more deliciously high-fat cream. It’s nowhere near as sweet as it sounds; it has the comfort of milk, but with a hidden layering of flavours from the vanilla and combination of dairies, none of which ever leave you with that sickeningly sweet feeling you associate with condensed milk.

What I Ate Today

September 27th 2011: Dreaming of Milo milkshakes from the Red Cafe in Grahamstown, a home-made version will have to do for now, with extra crunchy bits on top :) 

Farewell Part 2- Death by chocolate

Farewell Part 1

Food has always been a big part of my life (and for those who have seen the photos, the use of ‘big’ is pretty literal) In the beginning there was the Food War I, where I hated anything remotely nutritious. Then I suddenly realised that fruits and veggies were yummy, and food became a more interesting and less angst-ridden aspect to the day. So the food part of my life became bigger, and so did I- cue the Food War II. Since then I have found (well attempting to find) that balance of big appetite and reasonable waistline, and like any normal person, most big events in my life are paired with something edible. My months spent in London were probably my most exciting gastronomically; I learnt so much in the few shifts I had in a pub kitchen, and in summer the new tastes and flavours and combinations and ideas were constantly inspiring me. So it seemed only fitting that my farewell dinner for the London housemates was a significant one.

French cooking has always been this sort of ridiculously daunting task; it made me feel the way you do when you’re going somewhere far posh-er than you’re accustomed to, and you’re not sure how to behave or what to wear. Every time I opened a French cookbook I could hear some French chef screaming at me, “Don’t baztardize zee muzzer of zee culinary artz!” I could feel the gorgeous Provençal pots and pans hitting my head because I ruined the beurre blanc, I could smell my pompous toque chef’s hat being set on fire.