A Little Spice is Super Nice!

Coffee with my friend, Youngju, a new arrival from Korea here in South Africa, always produces at least a thousand laughs - ranging from glooooorious little giggles to giant guffaws! How perfectly universal is the shared blessing of the human laugh!

Amy Tan

Youngju's sister makes (and sells!) her own kimchi. While we were having coffee at the little deli down the road from Layla's school, she jumped up to catch the manager to find out whether her order of Chinese cabbages had arrived. And, the flabbergasted delight on her face when I asked if it was for kimchi -- because I actually knew about something belonging to her and her roots -- reminded me of just how universal, just as smiles are, that alienating, lonely, misunderstood state of being a foreigner. To clarify: not merely a foreigner travelling through another country on an adventure, but a foreigner who has moved into an alien land and is trying to send down roots, and settle into a happy sort of limbo between belonging within their new, adopted culture and retaining the sense of their cultural own roots and original identity that is cradled in their mother country. (I first learnt about kimchi from reading novels written by Korean authors -- most notably and affectionately, Amy Tan. Nicely appropriate for this particular post, her novels are set within the expat paradigm of the Korean living in America.)

Kimchi can loosely be likened to a fabulously spicy and exciting sort of sauerkraut. It is essentially pickled and brined cabbage - but spiced up to the nines with red chilli! Orangey-red in colour (no doubt from the red chilli?!) it is literally exploding with vitamins -- and fibre -- making it one of the world's healthiest foods!

Kimchi is made of various vegetables and contains a high concentration of dietary fiber, while being low in calories. One serving also provides over 50% of the daily recommended amount of vitamin C and carotene. Most types of kimchi contain onions, garlic, and chilli peppers, all of which are salutary. The vegetables being made into kimchi also contribute to the overall nutritional value. Kimchi is rich in vitamin A, thiamine (B1), riboflavin (B2), calcium, and iron,[13][14] and contains a number of lactic acid bacteria, among those the typical species Lactobacillus kimchii.[15][16][17] Health magazine named kimchi in its list of top five "World's Healthiest Foods" for being rich in vitamins, aiding digestion, and even possibly reducing cancer growth.[18]

Love the uber-South African tray
holding the plate of sushi (which
I VERY happily sampled at 10am this
morning!)

Youngju's sister and her mom were outside in the garden this morning, peeling a literal truckload of garlic (see pic.) (Reminding me of yet another expat experience ---- when my Indian friend, Navjot, cooked me up my own personal storm of curries in London where I was handed my very own rollertowel to mop up my tears and what(s)not!) I've asked Young to teach me how to make kimchi --- and upon her agreeing, I was told  it would take an entire day! Well, why the hell not?! When we can squeeze this day of slicing, dicing 'n spicing into our mommy-full days, I'll definitely be posting back here about it.

Butter Fingers!

AT LONG BLERRY LAST I am  back in the swing of things after two very painful, exhausting months (which I will not be writing about, so sigh with relief! Only calorie-rich joy will find its way into today's blog post!)

http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/

Layla (with a wee bit of help from moi) made her very first birthday cake yesterday: and discovered the chocolatey bliss of spatula and bowl-licking! Because of the endless curiosity of the Toddler Chef, I opted for Ina Paarman's chocolate cake mix to cut down on our frustration levels. Because? Ok. Picture this: Layla sitting on the kitchen counter within lightning-fast reach of a thousand different ingredients (eggs, milk, vanilla essence, sugar, flower, cocoa, oil, butter...) and being told: 'No, don't touch! No, don't spill it!' And for me and my hating-to-perpetually-say-no parenting approach, I thought: the less ingredients, the better!


What was extremely lekker about using Ina Paarman's mix, besides the minimalism of ingredients, was that I only used a whisk and one mixing bowl! The only additional ingredients were 3 eggs, oil and a cup of hot, black coffee. Lusciously easy! (Saying that, the Ina Paarman's chocolate icing mix was a little more elbow-greasy and messy. The mix comes in a triangular sachet (complete with handy little icing nozzle) --- and then, you need to empty icing powder into a bowl with the butter. I should never have been so lazy to haul the electric beater out... Combining the butter and icing with a wooden spoon --- naggingly impatient toddler asking, 'Is it ready yet, my mama?' at least once every 15 seconds --- did not make for an easy icing experience! Oh yes - and then, you need to spoon the mixture back into the triangular sachet, snip off the tip to the size you want your icing to come out, and then squeeeeeeeze!)
Perhaps the most trying part of it was explaining to Layla - over and over and over and over and over - that we had to wait for Grampa to get home from work before we could tuck into his birthday cake. (*sigh*)

http://www.spatula.co.za

Anyway - the cake was delicious and moist --- but not nearly as delicious and magnificent as watching Layla sitting on the counter next to Grampa's cake (resplendent in a thousand Smarties), candles aglow, singing 'Happy Birthday' to him!

Lazy Mama Pasta!

There's been very little culinary magic on my particular homefront thanks to an exhausting amount of editing, except for one special little lunch where I finally decided I needed more nutritional and gastronomic goodness than a slice of toast and the ubiquitous smear of Bovril.

{My Italian Mama alter-ego saves me from yet another slice of toast & Bovril!}

And so, one frazzled, overworked day at home, I created this little pasta-lunch which I call my 'Lazy Mama Pasta'!
I turned the stove on (one of this little mini stove/oven thingys - perched atop a very special oak cabinet) to boil up a small pot of water for my dubiously 'authentic' Italian fettucine. While the water took its usual age to heat to boiling to point, I reached for my culinary cure-all: garlic. And not just a sedate little clove or two, but 4 juicily fat ones! A fellow gastronaut-in-arms bought me an exquisite garlic chopper I have been unable to live without for the last 4 years ---- a half-an-apple sized clear pespex 'car' whose lid pops open to receive the peeled garlic cloves, and then - as you push the wheels along your worksurface, the blade inside the 'car' slices an' dices the garlic to chunky perfection. What I cherish about this, is how all the fullness and flavour is used, compared to that piddly garlic-crusher puree that's squished out into meek sauces, stews and soups!
Anyhow, onward ho! Frozen spinach whizzed till 'blanched' in the microwave (a pet-hate of my slow-loving nature, but sometimes unavoidable when juggling motherhood and working from home.) Feta out the fridge.

1. Ever so gently golden-up the garlic in olive oil. Scent with crushed black pepper, and salt according to taste.
2. Add the spinach, and allow the garlic-infused oil to work its magic on all that defrosted, supermarkety ordinariness.
3. Pasta ready, throw in the spinach/garlic - and crumble as much feta as you desire over the top, and - voila: easy luxury-on-the-cheap!

This'd work gorgeously if you replaced the spinach with either tomatoes&basil or peas&mint! But whatever you do ------ DON'T FORGET THE GARLIC!

Sublime, Sublime Simplicity

With my presence being chronically absent in my cosy l'il kitchen thanks to a 5-week long 'boomerange' flu hitting Layla and I repeatedly in the head, I've wrested back control and have designed my week's feasts. And though money is as chronically absent as my presence in the kitchen, there is a blessed return to mindfulness in the act of choosing ingredients, preparing them and, finally, savouring the simplicity of flavour and texture combinations. And so, the rustic little supper I've chosen that's brand new to my tirelessly experimental repertoire is Eggs in Tomatoes. Even the name doesn't tickle much of an exotic fancy, but again, the unfettered, uncontrivedness of the ingredients is refreshing! Perhaps the biggest culinary challenge in elevating this dish from boring to feasty is the freshness, ripeness and free-range/organic quality of the eggs and tomatoes.

(designed by lisarobertscarter)

Tomatoes, in general supermarkets, are pale, plastic versions of the plumply blood red tomatoes that must've been enjoyed before refrigeration and mass-production. They're awful, and make me sad. So, if you can hunt down the reddest, most voluptuous beef tomatoes in an organic market, this little dish will magically transport you to Tuscany: a languid, family-infused breakfast at the rough oak table beneath the trees on the family olive farm. (The same goes for the eggs. The violence of battery chickens is something my heart can't bear to even think about this morning as I write...)


Soundtrack Recommendation: Cesaria Evora (They call her the Barefoot Diva, for all her philanthropic workfor her people. She broke my heart with her humble joy when my dad and I saw her performing at the Cape Town Jazz Festival a few years ago...)

The Ingredients

• beef tomatoes : as many as each person might be hungry for!
• eggs : the same number of tomatoes (make sure they won't overflow out of its tomato house)
• butter (or olive oil)
• salt : Himalayan rock salt crystals, Maldon flakes (or like moi at the mo: simple, plain ol' table-salt!)
• ground pepper

Modus Operandi

1. Turn up your oven's heat to 200degC.
2. Slice off the tops of the tomatoes, and scoop out the inner seeds&pulp.
3. Salt&Pepper the insides of the tomato, before breaking an egg into each one. 
4. Crown with a knob of butter, and season once more.
5. Bake for 20 - 25min, or until eggs are as soft, medium or hard as you desire!

Serve on a bed of rocket, or baby spinach anointed in olive oil and : either, balsamic vinegar / Worcestershire sauce / a freshly squeezed squirt or two from a sun-ripened lemon.

Other variations: blanched asparagus to dip into the sunshiney yolk. Or perhaps even wrap the asparagus in a decadent slice of parma ham? Or dust the tops of the eggs with fresh, grated parmesan or slivers of pecorino.

And - if you've got any more variations on this farmy little brunch, add your deliciousness in the Comments box below. (And if I publish this as a *gorgeously glossy* recipe book one day, I'll whisk you and your ideas along with me on my skyrocket to gastronomic fame, waving adios to Nigella behind us!)

Yawning, Gaping, Cavernous Fridge o' Mine

New concoctions and foodie gloriousness have not been a feature in my life the last few weeks. When times are lean, the pantry yawns hungrily. Add to that, a caring husband whose idea of deliciousness results in his shopping for the following fridge-fillers: dry, tough chicken schnitzels, the cheapest cheddar cheese, one type of fruit for the entire week, peanut butter, tin cans of plasticky tomato soup. You get the picture (*sigh*). The poor man leaps at the chance to do the weekly shop - and when I'm exhausted from being a one-woman toddler jungle-gym/slide/restaurant/cuddle-centre, it is so much easier to smile in a relieved 'thank you'. And yet, 3 severe drawbacks: my widening waist, rising cholesterol and - my pathetically bored and neglected inner-chef!
Anyway - booooooring! Below are two links to my previously documented recipes that indicate my long-hankered-after dream to write a glossy, gorgeously visual recipe book overflowing with magical, decadent recipes!

My Impromptu Dinner-Jol Ice-Cream Experiment: Jacky D Ice-Cream

The (Embarrassingly!) First Fish Dish I Ever Attempted (and LOVED!) : Sexy Smoked Salmon Pasta

OPRAH'S STROKE OF GENIUS

Oprah, dear Oprah. Though the Oprah Show is not very high on my list of television priorities, and TV is something I avoid anyway, but when Craig comes home from work, he can only zone out in front of the tube: Oprah, Isidingo, Fear Factor, any corny-as-hell horror - and always, religiously, the news & weather.

(Looks likes my current crochet project!)

The Oprah show I happened to half-watch a week ago scared me to death. Literally. Her topics: cholesterol, high blood pressure and strokes. Not so nice for someone who has lived in denial about her high cholesterol levels for the last decadently deadly decade. When you're in your 20s, you're immortal, immune and... immature. In your 30s, you begin to see how finite and fragile life really is as middle-age looms, a great black shadow of wrinkly, saggy, diseased doom. Well - that's if you are afraid of ageing. And I wasn't, until Oprah's in-house doctor violently bashed in a scabby plaque of yellow cholesterol on the wall of the giant artery he'd built to so effectively shock the living sh*ts out of us!

And so, Oprah and your dishy doc, you will be mighty proud to note the massive nutritional changes in my life, and hopefully in my arteries too!

Here's a link to Dr Oz's video: Cholesterol 101

Putu 'bout the Pap!

As so often seems to be the case when you're a mother to a fantastically (it's always a matter of perspective!) busy toddler, time vanishes into thin air along with any plans you had diarised with hope bordering on desperation! And so, my cooking date with Eunie the Samp Queen was thrown in like the proverbial wet towel and replaced with fingerpainting my mom's pool room's sliding doors, depicting - apparently - a scubadiver! (Layla (25 months old) has some rather unusual fixations: robots, a passion for tiny little toys, Ben10 (urrrggghhhh), ballerinas and tutus and... scubadivers!)
Anyway, in lieu of my broken samp & beans promise, I'll jot down the recipe for mielie pap, which we ate the other night in Grabouw in an unintionally patriotic celebration of my and Melanie's at-long-last reunion on South African soil! Her mom made 'pap en sous' with perfectly braaied, juicy wors. What's interested about pap, is that you can really take your time cooking it - or it can be done chop-chop on the stove. (I think it's actually available in an instant, microwaveable version now - but I always prefer the authentic process of cooking over an instantaneous nuking in the microwave!)

Pap is traditionally cooked in one of those cast-iron pots called a 'potjie'. It is an Afrikaans word, pronounded "poi-ki" - and I'm struggling to find the Xhosa/Sotho/Zulu etc word for it... I've always known potjiekos to be an originally Afrikaans phenomenon, but from the looks of the photos I pulled up in Google, it seems to be a cross-cultural thing! What's lekker about pap is that it is real, South African soul food. Dense, with the almost imperceptible sweetness of manna and with an inherent simplicity about it that is found in so many other staple starches around the world: the sticky, glutinous rice of the Japanese, North African cous-cous, Italian pastas... (Besides being incredibly satisfying and sustaining in terms of energy, the hips also adore it, clinging onto those calories with great affection!)

Quirkily, there is apparently a restaurant in Joburg that has replaced the rice in sushi with pap! And, I think that instead of the traditional raw salmon and tuna, they use carpaccio (though this is merely another wild assumption of mine! Googled the 'pap johannesburg restaurant sushi' but found nada - so if you know the name of the restaurant, please jot it down in the 'Comments' box below! *wink*)

Here follows an infallible recipe for pap: serves 4 hungry tums!

• 2½ cups boiling water
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2½ cups maize meal ... And, a naughty dollop of butter!


1. Pour boiling water (plus ) salt into your potjie or a heavy-based pan. Bring to a rapid boil.
2. Add the maize meal.
3. Put the lid on the pot - and do NOT stir!
4. Reduce the heat and simmer for 5 or so minutes.
5. Remove the lid, stirring well (with a wooden spoon).
6. Close the lid again, reducing the heat so the pap can steam for 30min. (It can easily burn at this stage, so keep a close eye on the heat level!! You can check it's not burning when you 'fluff' the mixture with a fork every now and again.)

Melanie's mom mixed in a tin of creamed sweetcorn - and then served a dish of cooked onions and tomatoes alongside it. If you are camping, savour simplicity or you're merely a little lazy in the kitchen department: you can get it in canned format at the shops! I however, garlic addict that I am, would:

a) coarsely slice and dice an onion : saute in happy lashings of the most virgin of olive oils.

b) ditto for 2 x ripe tomatoes per person and gooi in with the onions.

c) sprinkle in some dried basil at this point (or fresh basil just before serving!) And salt and pepper! Maybe even a dash of paprika - and if you're brave: a dash of cayenne pepper!

d) last but definitely not least: as much garlic as you'd like to indulge in!

(If you're running out of time, tumble all the above ingredients together (sommer in a lasagne dish: 220deg in the oven, tumbling around every now and again.)

And, voila! Gourmet pap en sous, ek sê!

{ PS. Just discovered the Xhosa word for pap is 'putu pap'. Afrikaners call is 'krummelpap' : i.e. 'crumble' pap. }