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…
Tag: culture
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.
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 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
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…
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…
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…
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…
Step by Step-Easy Dolmades Recipe (just like your Yiayia’s)
In less than a month, I’ll be back in Greece buying white peaches from my Yiayia’s (grandmother) neighbourhood laiki (produce market) and learning how to make feta cheese from the thea’s (Aunties) in the horio (village). But lately I’ve been channeling my ancestors by consuming far too many olives and craving those cultural food comforts…
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…
Mopani or mopane worms (caterpillars) taste like dried leaves
“They taste like a bit like biltong or chicken, I love them!” she explained. “Actually, they taste more like leaves.” A bag of Mopani worms are sitting dried in my cupboard waiting for my “how to cook this” experimentation session. My seastar, Nokulinda, bought them from a Sangoma down the road from her work in…
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…
Prickly Cactus Pear Smoothie
The best thing about when friends house sit is the magic of new groceries that end up in your kitchen. One Sunday afternoon, I discovered prickly pear syrup (turksvy stroop) in my fridge and it sat there, waiting for me to make crepes or pour it on yoghurt. Instead, it ended up in my fruit…
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…
Dim Sum in New York City’s China Town
In countries that celebrate the Chinese New Year, more food is consumed during the New Year celebrations than any other time of the year. Which reminds me of my time in China Town, New York City. We weren’t eating traditional New Year foods but celebrated Chinese cuisine with the most delectable dim sum.With my…
Guacamole on Toast
Fresh vital goodness on toast, for breakfast, for a snack, appetizer, or just because it’s avocado season-Guacamole toast has been born. Or is it the lazy way of getting all the pungent delicious flavours into one bite without cleaning a food processor or pestle and mortar? Well if you have a cutting board and a…
Rooibos Rice with Smoked Paprika Mussels (Quick Paella-wanna-be)
I thought to myself, ‘How can I make a rice dish a little more interesting?’ So I started with the idea of color and decided to use all ‘red’ coloured ingredients in my kitchen. So first off, I made rooibos (redbush) tea-flavoured water to steam my brown rice. I also took flavours commonly found in…
How to Make a Fresh Fruit Smoothie (Batida)
An apple a day plus some other amazing ingredients will definitely keep el doctor away. I am self-medicating with an abundance of fruits in season. In my own kitchen I took the fruits in season in South Africa with some inspiration from the beloved country, Brazil, and I blended the fruit together to make…
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…
Vegetarian Bobotie
This layered oven-baked dish is a reflection of the histories, cultures, and cuisines that flavour the peninsula of Cape Town. The roots of the spices used in traditional recipes come from Cape Malay cuisine but is easy to make your own Bobotie-inspired dish with the flavours and ingredients in your own kitchen, celebrating…
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 