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…

Easy Spicy Zesty Sweet Chickpea Salad Recipe

What happens when you juice pineapples, carrots and fresh green serrano chiles? A spunky zesty salad with sweet and spicy flavours can be created to fuel you through the day.   Last week, we bought lots of great farm produce from the City Bowl Market. Back at home, I put pineapple and carrots and threw…

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…

Recipe: How to Make Spring Roll-Nori Wraps

This Nori (seaweed) wrap recipe is an alternative to spring rolls.  It’s perfect for getting a balance of essential vitamins into your diet.  It’s also delicious and beautiful to share at picnics and parties.  It pleases: vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, and my dad who likes to live on garlic and lamb chops will even chow these…

Pickling Green Bean Recipe for St. Patrick’s Day

There’s not much that happens on St. Patricks day in Cape Town.  You could go down to The Dubliner Pub on Long Street or wonder if wearing your “Kiss Me I’m Irish Tshirt” from college could get you a smooch.  Growing up in Chicago, I remember the river turned green (or was it always? :0),…

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…

Keep it Fresh with Juice and Beets

When my amiga, talented singer/songwriter, Ernestine Deane, was preparing to migrate to Germany, she generously gave her juicer a new home, which is now my new favourite kitchen instrument.  Up until Ernestine’s last week in Cape Town, the Le Dou MagiMix spun out delicious alchemy for her family, most importantly fresh orange juice to keep the…

It’s not Rabbit Food, It’s Rainbow Raw Salsa Salad.

Call it rabbit food, but it is damn delicious and surprisingly filling too.  Inspired by Raw-vember, I made a spicy salad that is bright and tangy in flavour and festive on the eye. This is a super quick, easy and yummy crunch salad that has major nutrients because it is a whole bunch of raw…

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…