Build it and they will come. That is the birth story of Ferdinando’s and their quest to sell 10,000 pizzas. Our friends, Kimon and Diego have been opening their doors to family and friends for countless fun, vibrant foodie celebrations. Whether it was a birthday or post-4am Long Street search for food, we always were…
Category: Travel & Food Discoveries
8 of the Tastiest Locally-Made Foods That Will Make Your Day | Cape Town, South Africa
Keeping the love alive. These 8 food creators in Cape Town, South Africa win my heart. Yes, the list can go on and will. But this is what comes to mind for now. Guide yourself down this golden road of food happiness that will make your day and please share with me your favourites to…
How to make South African beer – uMqombhothi from Maize Meal
uMqombhoti is a beer recipe to inspire you to learn various food traditions from all over the world while bringing your own kitchen alchemy and culinary linguistics to the table.
The history of your Favorite Foods: Pizza, Ice cream . . .
So how do we track back in time to find the origins, the stories of how our favorite foods began? Who put fortunes in cookies and tomato sauce on spaghetti? Food pairings and cultural dishes have a long history. From spice trades, to climate regions, culinary history continues to evolve. Natural food traditions complement…
Film Food – Documentary Stories of Cocoa, Life in Chocolate.
First taste of chocolate. Do you remember? Remember the joy of opening a chocolate bar? A journalist recently visited Cocoa farmers to film their first taste of chocolate. Their reaction reminded me of the stories revealed by young child worker’s on cocoa farms in Ivory Coast in the Documentary: Semi-Sweet. Re-post of a film review…
How to Eat and Think about Bug Grub: A Taste of Entomophagy
Would you ever say, “I’m a Entomo-tarian and love crickets roasted and tossed in sea salt and cayenne pepper and covered in chocolate?” Considering bugs as grub gives way for the future of Pestaurants, cricket flour protein bars and stinkbug snacks being served in city centres across the globe. With two other curious minds, adventurous taste buds…
How to identify and pick wild edible mushrooms in Cape Town, South Africa
“Is there rain and gale force winds on your side?” “No.” “Okay, then we’ll meet you at the forest gate at 7:15” In Cape Town, winter brings sloshy puddles and leaf layers on the forest floor. Mushrooms, like stars fallen from the galaxy, pop out of the ground in diverse shapes, forms, colours and size. This…
Educational Food Topics: Mind-Fuel Learning with young South African students
Our future is bright! When I got the opportunity to help design and facilitate environmental education lessons around various food topics with students around the Western Cape-I was amazed by what these fresh young minds are thinking. Two different workshops hosted by the City of Cape Town’s Youth Environmental Programme YES and Leaders of the Future…
How to Harvest Seaweed: Superfood Nutrition from our Ocean
Edible Sea Vegetable: SeaWeed I confess, my kitchen turns into edible science experiments almost every day. Seaweed is my new ingredient in the kitchen lab. Once you get to know the nutritional facts and the familiar taste of popcorn it has when nori (a type of seaweed) is roasted on the fire, then you’ll definitely give…
CONNECT BACK TO NATURE: Urban Food Foraging
The more time we spend using whole food ingredients, the more curious we become of their source and qualities. We may begin to ask questions such as – “How do eggplants grow?” “Can I eat the green tops of carrots?” “What can grape leaves be used for?” “Are those mulberries?” Our curiosity for nature and…
Inspiring Food Projects: Eco-Innovations
The more we think about innovative projects, the more we have to learn from nature. These food projects use what our planet already has to offer and supports inspiring and positive thinking for world. Cardboard to Caviar Project (the ABLE project) Sahara Forest Project Veta La Palma Incredible Edible Todmorden Cardboard to Caviar After watching…
Baklava Recipe of Hellenic Cuisine Cook book – Detroit, MI
Follow my blog with Bloglovin It started with an urgent recipe book search, followed by a Whatsapp message to my mom, “Hey, I’m making baklava and was thinking about yiayia’s recipe book. Did you give me a copy?” My Yiayia Christina was a legendary cook. It’s a family fact that Yiayia and Thea Toula (her…
Real Food Foraging in our Urban edible landscapes.
Real food foraging is taking Freetarian tactics to a whole other edible landscape. It’s not about rummaging through the grocery store’s dump site or scrapping bubblegum off the concrete. Real food foraging is a learned art: It bridges culinary knowledge, environmental awareness and plant/fungus identification to your own edible advantage. Growing up with a Greek…
How to Cure your Own Olives in Brine: Greek Yiayia Style
Follow my blog with Bloglovin How to make your own olives edible. Mom would say, “Only eat 8 olives a day, honey.” But it was too easy to devour the salty Grecian delights by the dozen. With crusty brown sourdough bread and green virgin olive oil on a flat side plate, nothing satisfied me more…
Photo Essay: A Food Tour of Detroit’s Eastern Market
Detroit Eastern Market 2934 Russell St., Detroit, Mich. 48207; 313-833-9300 detroiteasternmarket.com Detroit Eastern Market 2934 Russell St., Detroit, Mich. 48207; 313-833-9300 http://www.detroiteasternmarket.com
Top Ten South African Foods to Try While Visiting South Africa
What do people eat in South Africa? I came to study in South Africa, Education, Sociolinguistics and Ethnographic Research. After I got accepted into the program, my google searches involved, surfing South Africa, capoeira South Africa and food South Africa. I didn’t know much about the food in South Africa when I arrived but I…
Eating Kale:Yuppie-Guilt or Social Tool for change?
I recently came across a blog post that said “20-things-everyone-thinks-about-the-food-world-but-nobody-will-say.” If you’re a kale-loving, politically correct “foodie” interested in CSAs, molecular gastronomy, and not getting your bubble burst, run away now—shit’s about to get real. It went on to say some pretty funny, real and ridiculous shit and brought up statements like: Locavorism has become the…
South Africa’s West Coast Pomegranate and Peppercorn Salad
Soul smiles and surf-sore shoulders leave me mindful and replete. A montage of new faces smiling in the heat. Moon memories and salted dreams sail me through the Monday office beat. Yes, let’s strike out into the open, where wild places await. Let’s turn off the cell phones, leave our city behind. Let’s forget the…
Urban foraging and making Mulberry Tart
Growing up, we used to pick wild mulberries. The dark mulberries ripened to their juicy capacity and fell on the pavement, painting the sidewalks purple. This was nature’s graffiti and we were young urban foragers. Just below Chicago’s purple EL line, we thought the forest preserve was our Jungle Book fantasy and we ate from…
Scream for Ice Cream at Breakfast: Banana. Strawberry & Pecan Recipe-Egg and Dairy-free
Who said you can’t eat ice cream for breakfast? I don’t have a Vitamix. I don’t have an Oscar. But I can still make easy raw food creations with what I have. I’m using the trusty MegaMix Juicer. During the days tofu was all the hype, Mom would add frozen bananas to our morning tofu…
Share. Cook. Love: The Cook Book
Our story began 2005, Feb 14th. Durban, South Africa. A Surfer met a Gypsy at Capoeira class. It was a Monday, after the first day of our third year at University. 7 years later, in the province where it all began, we told everyone we loved to join us for a festival of families, a…
Semi-Sweet Film Food Documentary: Life in Chocolate
It’s 37 degrees in Paris while Patrick Roger’s chocolatier workshop is busy transporting his sculpture of a Orangutan made of chocolate. Chocolate melts at 37 degrees, the same as our body’s temperature. Roger explains: “Chocolate acts the way we do . . . It’s a love story.” Roger’s story amongst others features in the food…
What to Eat when Visiting Greece’s villages: Nourishing Food Traditions
Summertime and road tripping lead to some of my favorite food adventure memories. In Greece, you can drive on national highways and come across Greek village tavernas that serve greek horiatiki salads under grapevines. Roadside stalls are piled with local fresh, dried, and preserved food that have been made and celebrated for centuries. Tradition, food…
A Durban Curry Bunny Chow Heat Feast in Cape Town
Climate change and Durban curry? What do they have in common? It’s the only meal that will cool you down when a sub-tropical heatwave rolls through Cape Town. A humid blanket covered the the whole city. To survive the heat, we consumed the heat. We invited our friends and a self-proclaimed Durban curry chef to…
To Cook or Dehydrate: Raw Food Recipes and Creativity
I just learned how to harvest Aloe Ferox from the ‘cook’ book Rawlicious-Recipes for Radiant Health. It’s a recipe book that encourages you to make colourful and vibrant food by encouraging you to put aloe in your smoothies, have sprouts as a kitchen staple, and make edible flower salads that look like birthday confetti. Who…
The Perfect Beach Snack: Nutella Loukoumades (Donuts) in Parga, Greece
You can’t get more indulgent than pouring Nutella over fried dough. Well I wouldn’t mind adding fresh strawberries or crushed almonds into the mix. Regardless, everyone around the world loves fried dough. North Americans call it doughnuts, South Africans call it vetkoek, Greeks call it loukoumades. But not everyone pours Nutella over it. My friend…
Greek Glory: The Kebab Pita at Thanasis
I had a layover in Athens back in 2008. The first stop I made when I got out the airport was at Thanasi’s Greek kefta kebab pita joint. I sat in the middle of Monastiraki square and savoured each bite. The pita kebab filled my tastebuds with the celebrated spices that have influenced Greek cuisine…
Spinach and Agushi: Ghanaian Flavour at the Portobello Market
As I’m writing this my mouth is watering again. We went to London to celebrate my Pop’s “Bones” 70th birthday year. We travelled 9623 km from Cape Town and hopped around the 940 metres of Portobello Market in London. There were hundreds of stalls to choose from for our varied market food palettes. I came…
Love and Local Produce on the Umtamvuna River Bank
We found it, one part wild, one part green, two parts water and three parts love. The place we plan to get married and celebrate the love adventure and journey up ahead. And it has been ever evolving into a beautiful recipe with such variations and discoveries, the metaphor for love found in the chemistry…
Celebrating Vetkoek, Beats and Madiba at the the Ubuntu Festival in Cape Town
Tata Mandela celebrates his 93rd birthday today. His life and dedication to the public’s well being has been a symbol for us to trust that we have the capacity to make changes in our life that leads to freedom and positive transformation. Giving life to metaphors. On Sunday, July 17th, the city of Cape Town…
The Culinary Linguist 