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)

The Bothas

My gran, grandpa and my aunts- how glamorous does my granny look??

Huge pre-lunch debate around who will be hosting, whose turn it is to fetch the gran/great aunt/whoever is feeling under the weather but will never miss a family gathering, who will bring what, who has had a birthday recently that we have forgotten to get a present for, and what we are not allowed to discuss with my gran, as she is at that stage in life where apparently we can now start using her poor hearing to keep her ignorantly blissful. The lunch inevitably starts an hour later than planned, while everyone debates what kind of champagne should be opened first (as though this is the first time they are learning about each others’ preferences), where shall granny sit (close enough to hear, not directly in the sun or draught), shall we close/open this window (heat waves for the menopausal, cold for the elderly), returning of magazines loaned (my aunts have the magazine equivalent of a book club), quizzing of laptop/cellphone/car specs (there is one tech savvy aunt out of the five of them, who must be the assistant to all technology-related purchases), and then eventually the organising of the kitchen and drinks, and everyone is seated.

Hang on, I need to correct an earlier phrase; lunch does not start an hour late, everyone arrives an hour late. Once everyone is at the right place, lunch is usually served 2 hours later when everyone has consumed their fill of champagne. There is hardly ever wine or other beverages at these events, since apparently it’s okay to drink champagne at any hour of the day. I also think that my aunts all secretly pretend that they are all rather posh and stately, and that it is quite common practice to enjoy an afternoon glass of bubbly, and nothing less! JC Le Roux is the official sponsor of these events.

Once lunch is eaten, the next lot of faffing and debate begins: which of the men who have not attended (they never attend, except dad when he’s being paranoid and thinks us girls have run away and left him alone forever) will be lucky enough to have leftovers sent home for their lunch, then who else may be lucky enough to get takeaways (generally goes from eldest to youngest), the dance of the coffee and tea preparation, and finally everyone is generally seated again. Oh, and throughout the entire event you can expect constant noise, as Botha girls all talk at once, all the time. Seriously, it’s like the constant sound of distraught chickens.

Five hours after the event started, everyone has found their belongings, drivers have been matched to their passengers, granny has been tucked into the car, and paperwork/magazines/computer software has been swopped. We arrive home to my father who moans that he has been left to starve and why is his lunch arriving at 7pm??

The Minnies

A sample of the Minnies; thats me right in the front in the picture on the left! These two pictures make up about 30% of the family.

I'm going to make this very easy: there are 10 aunts and uncles, at least 30 first cousins, and 20 second cousins, a few third cousins, and possibly one or two fourth cousins (I think). I'm not going to mention names, you won’t remember them (I can’t and I'm related to them). These events start out really easy:

“Why don’t we invite [insert Aunt and Uncle’s name here], we haven’t seen them in so long!”

“Okay.”

The above mentioned aunt and uncle are phoned and invited for curry.

“Oh, [insert Aunt and Uncle’s name here] are down from [insert town/city/country here], why not invite them too?”

The above mentioned aunt and uncle are also phoned and invited for curry.

“We can’t invite [insert already invited relatives here] and not invite their kids. Why don’t you phone [insert cousins’ names here] and tell them to come along?”

The above mentioned cousins are also phoned and invited for curry.

“I forgot that [insert Aunt #1] is not talking to [insert Aunt #2].”

You consider uninviting either aunt, and instead invite several more to decrease tension. Cousin #8 has found out about the event and phones to ask why they haven’t been invited- you tell them you were just about to call them. They inform you that they will also be bringing your late Ouma’s late brother’s son. He will be bringing his wife and kids. Dinner for four has become dinner for 20. My father begin to stress about the curry. I am instructed to take the bakkie to the pub and fetch booze. My sister is ordered to make an appearance. The sister starts worrying because she can’t remember which relatives were invited to the wedding and which weren't. Panic attacks abound, everyone arrives, things calm down, and inevitably a wonderful evening is had by all. The feuding relatives get along or fake it, and only 60% of the time does the evening end with two new family members deciding that they are now fighting. Everyone eats, drinks and goes home happy, and my dad concludes: “Maybe next weekend we should have [insert Aunt and Uncle’s name] over...”

The Eglings

The future family in-law, if I haven't got my sister disowned after this.

It starts out pretty simple; four brothers, a sister, a mom, and two nephews. Then they discovered two half siblings. Then some step siblings. Then some illegitimate siblings. They all get along like they grew up in the same house for years. They all look scarily alike, no matter how distantly related. The one brother looks like my brother, and they’re definitely not related.

These events are marked by a room full of people that are at least one quarter Egling, people who are not related by blood but have/are marrying into the family, and TONS of food. Plus a lot of noise; most of the time you can’t make out if it is the antics of the 30 year old brothers, the teenage siblings, the 10 year old nephews, or the pets. It’s a sort of organised chaos (in other words, my control-freak sister runs around trying to minimize or contain damage/disaster). And then we eat, A LOT. I look forward to these events as the ones where no matter how late I am, there will always be food left, and no one will judge me for having eight roast potatoes and four servings of dessert.

(You may notice that this description is rather less detailed than the other two; note that I did say it was the soon-to-be family in-law, I don’t want to jeopardise anything just yet.)

The week that I arrived home, I found myself thrown right back into the usual routine; work Monday-Sunday and rushing to a family gathering on Sunday afternoon, before passing out on Sunday night in a post-eating-and-working coma. This first week back home was a Egling gathering (and a very lovely one at that), and I was designated dessert maker. I woke up at 6am on Sunday morning to tend to my chefing duties for the day; rugby snacks for work at the pub, and a dessert that would be served 30 minutes after my late arrival to the lunch.

In spirit of the telenovela-esque nature of the Egling family, and the fact that my bestest Becca is currently learning Spanish in Chile (and I miss her like crazy) and will be having a great big (and I mean big) family reunion of her own in a few months, I opted for a Spanish dessert for the event: Tres Leches. Basically, this translates to ‘three milks’ and is a vanilla sponge cake soaked in condense milk and evaporated milk, and covered in whipped cream- and it is every bit as good as it sounds, and then some! I LOVE milk, I LOVE cream, I LOVE vanilla sponge. (And I LOVE my Becca :) ) I’ll admit, my choice for dessert was a very selfish and stubborn one. To me, it sounded like heaven, and I couldn’t see how anyone couldn’t agree. So in my stubbornness I vowed to make it, and make everyone love it.

Here is the lesson I learnt: it pays to be stubborn. The cake was phenomenal! Seriously, everyone in the entire world should try this cake. Today. Right now. GO!

Tres Leches Recipe