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…
Tag: celebration
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…
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…
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…
Communal Meals and Charcuterie at Glen Oakes Guest Farm
Have you ever stayed in a stone cottage with pigs and sheep as your next acre neighbour? In Hemel an Aarde Valley, there is a pig farm. Eight of us spent an electricity-free weekend on a farm greeting free-ranging piglets and making communal breakfast from the farm’s fresh eggs (and guess where the bacon came…
Raise your Glass to Gugulethu Wine Festival
Just like food and wine pairing flavours highlight salt, sweet, sour, bitter or umami (lekker or ‘scrumptious’), the Gugulethu Wine Festival proved to be a super umami event experience pairing all the right festival flavours. On the same weekend of the Good Food and Wine Festival, Gugulethu hosted a vibrant well-attended wine tasting event founded…
Pomegranates for Breakfast
If theres one thing I like about winter its the fact that pomegranates are readily available to my tastebud’s needs. If I had to make up a fast or some sort of ‘cleanse detox’ sort of regime it would be to eat pomegranates for breakfast lunch and dinner and in this ‘detox,’ we would have…
Diego’s Fish Festival Birthday in De Waterkant
When you meet Kimon and Diego, you’ll understand that when they throw a birthday party it becomes a street feast festival of seafood, love, family and friends. On Sunday afternoon, there were four generations of family and friends, sharing steamed paprika-cream mussels out of the pot and apricot-butter fish fresh off the BBQ under…
The Search for Cape Town’s Best Gatsby Sandwich
Once upon a time there was the Gatsby Sandwich. Related to its American cousin, Hoagie. Gatsby is South African, from the Cape Flats, and is the ultimate meal you can carry like a newborn baby, it’s as heavy as one too, crammed with a variety of ingredients and most commonly accompanied with chips stuffed inside. The Gatsby…
Homemade Chocolate in a Jar
Breakfast on Valentine’s day involved me, a spoon and my Love Source jar. This chocolate is goddessa concoction of coconut oil, cacao, agave syrup and vanilla pod with niblets of an orange essence. It’s from the ladies of I Heart Life Outside The Box where poetry and chocolate unite just in time for Valentine’s…
World Nutella Day
Feb. 5th is World Nutella Day and it’s a surprise that I missed it. I had a love affair with Nutella in 2003 and it lasted til 2005. During that time I was the main author of “How to incorporate Nutella into 3 meals a day” the sub-title should have been “how to gain…
The Rotating Lamb Spit at Up the Creek
We floated on the Brede River for 8 hours, jammed to great South African music collaborations and ate delicious festival food at Up the Creek. There was one food tent where Ma and Pa came up the creek and cooked for their whole festival family. From a military tent, the food army family catering…
Coconut Milk Borscht with Drunken Rice Noodles
Quite possibly the most delicious comfort soup on the planet. If soup is as old as the history of cooking, then this one surely makes history. Why? Cause we’re marrying Thai and Eastern European flavors into one incredibly colorful noodle dish, this ain’t your everyday ramen, folks. Rice noodles and beets get dunked and drunk…
The Perfect Soft-Boiled Egg
Is the perfect boiled egg done in 3, minutes, 4 minutes, 4 and a half? What if the egg is extra-large, or has been refrigerated? The beauty of the perfect boiled egg is that you develop your own quirky habits of ‘knowing’ when it is ready to the consistency you enjoy dunking freshly…
Food Language Speaks Up!
Food and communication is a necessity for all of us and this blog is a celebration of variety, sharing of ideas, cultures and the language of food which ultimately connects us all. The food that will be and has been created in my kitchen and friend’s kitchens will be spoken about in this blog, as…
The Culinary Linguist 