My First Potjiekos

So, I firmly believe that food is the lifeblood and heart of a culture.  That's why I'm having such a fun time exploring South African food and showing it on this blog.  There is nothing like a family meal for passing down tradition and love, all in one bite.

And therefore, when I was invited to my first potjiekos (pronounced POYT-KEE) I was all a dither.  Along with the braai, potjiekos is the ultimate traditional South African meal and is essentially a special kind of a stew.

This past Sunday, to celebrate Father's Day, I went with Norman's family to Hout Bay, about 20 kilometers (a little over 10 miles) south of Cape Town.  There, we were hosted by Gill and Russell and their family -- and can I just say, I had the best day!

First of all, they and their whole family are the most lovely people.  I keep saying this, but I find South Africans to be some of the most friendly people I've ever met.  Russell's dad taught me how to play backgammon and Gill (who is a fellow lover of travel-adventure type books) lent me a whole armful of books and everyone was genuinely warm and welcoming.

And then, they just happen to live in paradise.

This is their backyard:

What?!  No, I mean, really.  Does it get more beautiful?  I'm pretty positive Frodo was hanging around just out of sight and I think I heard some Elves singing in the background ...

On top of it all, they have the most wonderful menagerie of animals.  I, as an animal lover who is deeply missing my three cats at home, was in heaven.

They have:

A peacock, bien sûr.

A beautiful pony named Dream.

And three dogs, including Storm, the world's most adorable Rotweiller.

They also have three cats -- but dang it, I forgot to get a picture!  I think I was too busy carrying them and cooing to them. 

And then finally, of course, there was the potjiekos!

Here is how it is cooked:

People, THAT right there is tradition.  The stew is cooked over an open flame on a 3-legged cast iron pot.  The pot is actually what gives the dish its name.  So a potjiekos is cooked in a potjiekos -- does that make sense?

Meat is marinated and put in the potjiekos first, then layers of vegetables added and cooked slowly, until it is all a glorious, mouth-watering meal.

Here are Russell and Gill doing their thing:

And here I am completely faking like I had anything to do with this fabulous meal:

 

Here it is, all done:

This potjiekos had beef, pumpkin, potatoes, sprouts, carrots, broccoli, peas and a thick, savory sauce.

They served it with barley and a tender onion-cheese bread:

My only sadness was that because of my recent stomach issues, I couldn't indulge like I would have liked.  I could only eat a little, but what little I had was oh-so-good.  I made sure to savor each bite.

What makes this meal special though, is not just the food.  It's about the hours that it takes, hours that are spent chatting by a fire, hours that wouldn't be dedicated to this task if there wasn't some love and care behind it.  That is ultimately what I love about food:  not just the deliciousness, but the fun and friendship created along the way.

Here is the whole gang having afternoon tea a few hours after the potjiekos.

All in all, a most fantastic day!

PS: Storm thinks he's a lap dog, even though he weighs 70 kilos (155 pounds):

PPS:  Guess who is well enough to go to Mossel Bay? (I leave soon, yey!)

and PPPS:  Speaking of love and family and tradition, I really miss my parents today.  I love you Mamita and ¡Feliz Día del Padre Papito!

Food: In Sickness and in Health

So, as yesterday I talked about my intestinal issues, what better topic to address today than food!

Hee!

Here are a bunch meals before the IBS, and a few after...

This was a lovely veggie soup made by Norman's wife, Dawn, along with a South African specialty, Vetkoek (it literally means "fat cakes"):

Vetkoek are light, fried biscuits -- yum!

Then 3 recipes from my Evita cookbook -- all really good!

Potato Feta Salad:

 Delicious and unique potato salad with new potatoes, feta cheese, capers, red pepper flakes, parsley and a simple vinaigrette dressing

Butternut Squash Pasta:

 Very unusual, but absolutely delicious, it's served with toasted pumpkin seeds and feta cheese on top.

And last of the Evita recipes, Chicken Patties:

Scrumptious, and a really good way to make a little bit of leftover chicken stretch to make a whole meal.

Then, feeling a bit homesick, I made Sopa de Frijoles con Chilmol:

Salvadoran Bean Soup (eaten with rice) and topped with Salvadoran fresh salsa (Chilmol.)

Arepa topped with homemade Guacamole:

A very simple rice salad with cucumbers, tomatoes and mixed olives:

A quick and delicious lunch!

And my absolutely favorite thing I've made lately, Sticky-Spicy Chicken:

 
We went to a restaurant called Africa Cafe, and they had this amazing chicken dish -- this was my attempt to recreate it.  It wasn't exactly like theirs, but still so, so, soooooooo good -- I'll post the recipe if I can decipher my scribbled notes.

And then, post IBS ...

TOAST, TOAST, AND MORE TOAST!

 I've had toast in every way you can imagine, and thankfully, my tummy is happy to also digest avocado, so this is avocado mashed with a little salt and spread over whole wheat toast ... with tea, a perfect breakfast!

Thankfully all fruits seem to be OK with my tummy, so I've been indulging in these gorgeous, pink-fleshed South African oranges:

Not as sweet as typical American ones, but I love their slightly acerbic taste and they are so juicy!  I sprinkle just a touch of salt on them -- that's a very Salvadoran thing -- salt on fruit.

Pasta is also OK for me to eat, so this is just a nice, simple linguine with a quick sauce made of fresh tomatoes and leeks:

A little Parmesan would have been great here ... but oh well ...

So that's it ... where ever you may be, ¡buen provecho!

A Change of Plans

OR:  POO:  A Tale of Intestinal Woe

Fair warning, this is a TMI-kind of a post.  Cease and desist if you are too delicate of nature.

So, by now, I was supposed to have been gleefully digging in the dirt at an archeological dig near Mossel Bay.

But, as they say, "you plan and the goddess laughs."  (Anyway, I say that.)

As I mentioned previously, I caught some sort of nasty bug a few weeks ago.  And it's been a pain -- literally -- ever since as I battle with an wicked foe:  IBS.

According to my mom, I've always had a fussy stomach. But it wasn't until 2001 that this particular tale of woe begins.  I went, early that year, to the mountains of Chiapas, Mexico.  It was an amazing trip, learning first-hand what Zapatista country is like.  However, the bout of intestical disarray I endured while there was ... well, let's just say it was too traumatic to recount here ...

Anyhoo, ever since then, I've had an even more fussy stomach.  I went to doctors -- had tests, allergy tests, etc., and they never found anything conclusive.  And although sometimes annoying, it was something I could deal with OK.

But whatever it is that I got a few weeks ago here in fair Cape Town was apparently the straw that broke my wimpy stomach's back and plummeted me straight into full blown IBS.  The first week was hell, with cramps & pains as I had never experienced in my life.  And at the end of that week was precisely when we were supposed to go to Mossel Bay. In desperation, I tried taking some antibiotics, and although they helped a bit,  a physically demanding archeological dig was just a bad idea at that point.  So off Aaron went (he was expected and really couldn't back out of it, besides, the hope was that I could go a few days later ...)

But recovery has been slow as I try to get my digestion back to normal -- or as normal as it ever is.  I'm taking monster doses of protobiotics and brewing up some homemade kefir, which in the past has been remarkably helpful for my digestion.  Oh, and why am I bothering to make it at home and not just buy it -- if such is my need?  Because kefir apparently has never been heard of here in Cape Town -- not even in health food stores.  Thank goodness that I brought dried kefir starter with me from Minnesota.  (I'm like a friggin' Girl Scout -- always prepared!)  My first batch isn't ready yet though ...

So, for the moment, I have to be really, really careful about what I eat.  A bite of cheese (or any dairy of any kind for that matter) and I'm back to laying in bed moaning.  And while at the archeological site, I have to eat what everyone else eats and can't be requesting plain white rice and steamed veggies, please. 

So, here I am, stuck in Cape Town, and very much bummed.  I'm used to being left behind whilst Aaron goes on digs, but this time I was supposed to join him!  And dang it, it's unbelievably frustrating!  It's also lonely!!!  At least at home I would have my friends and family with whom to kvetch ...

But oh well, the good news is that I AM feeling much better.  And the range of things I can eat is growing ... And hopefully I might still make it out to the site ... even just to visit ... we'll see ... In the meantime, send my tummy good vibes!

Meet Bubbles, my baby kefir (water kefir by the way, not milk, as I'm very lactose intolerant right now.)  Water kefir is something like kombucha.  Anyhoo, here's Bubbles, fermenting away ... I had to wrap her up to ward off the Cape Town winter chill.  She needs a nice warm environment in order to do her thing ...

Spiderman!

So, last time, I talked about the loveliness of the people of South Africa, and how they shine a lot brighter than the country's problems.

Really, people here are so incredibly friendly.  Given my recent ... uhhh ... digestive issues, the lady at the pharmacy has taken to calling me "dear."

And speaking of dear, here is someone who has become very dear to Aaron and I.

I present to you, the real Spiderman!:

This is Norman Larsen.  He and his family have quickly become our adopted family here in South Africa.  He is an Associate Arachnologist at the Museum where Aaron works (Iziko, South African Natural History).  His wife works in the Entomology department at Iziko Natural History and their daughter works at another of the Iziko Museums (the Slave Lodge.)

They are the ones who took us to the Cape of Good Hope, Table Mountain National Park, Kirstenbosch and numerous other places.  They've also lent us their TV, fed us in their kitchen and have generally helped us acclimate to a whole new life.

Oh, and they cured whatever fears we might have ever had about spiders:

 

That's Rosie, a Chilean Rose Tarantula.  She was surprisingly soft and very docile.

Norman is a passionate naturalist, an author, oh, and he's got terrific fashion sense and sense of humor:

Cheers to him and his wonderfully kind and generous family for making us feel at home!

There is No Light Without a Dark: Ugly Cape Town

So far, I think I've done a pretty good job of extolling the virtues of Cape Town, and rightly so; it really is one of the most interesting and beautiful cities I've ever experienced.  (There I go again.  I swear I don't work for the Cape Town Tourist Bureau.)

And today, I was all set to write another such post -- about the wind, of all things.  The wind here blows like no place I've ever been and it's exhilarating and wild and gorgeous ... but well, I think that it's a topic best left for poetry.  So let me tackle something else --  something I've been meaning to get to for a while -- the other side of things -- the darker side of things here.

The little slice of Cape Town life that I can show you in this blog is not how most people in Cape Town -- and certainly not in South Africa -- live.

South Africa faces serious issues (click on the links for sources):  An unemployment rate of 24%;  insane amounts of corruption; a nearly 18% adult HIV infection rate; the sexual violence rates are disgusting and scary; and the bitter social and cultural afteraffects of apartheid, to name just a few.

Things are better here in this area of the country (The Western Cape), but still, the problems are real and daunting.

So every time I write about how lovely this place is, there is part of me that feels uneasy -- like I am living this cozy, cosseted life and showing you only part of what it's really like here.

For example, I posted a bunch of pictures of Company Gardens, but I didn't show you all the homeless people that live there.  Not least of all because it seems such an ugly thing to do, to stick cameras in the faces of people who need compassion, not gawking.

And I showed you a bit of Long Street, but I didn't talk about the beggars who panhandle and harrass you and sometimes follow you as you walk along.  And how you feel like such a first-class and first-world jerk when you don't give them money or have to tell them to leave you alone.

And I haven't told you about how every single person I've talked to has admonished me to NOT GO OUT ALONE AT NIGHT.  NO MATTER WHAT.  I'm an independent kind of a gal, and it sucks, I gotta say, to feel like a prisoner at night, unable to go anywhere unless Aaron is with me. 

Of course these are beyond trivial concerns in the light of all the statistics above, but they are real and I wouldn't be honest if I didn't admit to them.

(And speaking of trivial-in-light-of-greater-concerns, I have to say that the drivers here are frigging insane and that South African bureaucracy rivals Salvadoran bureaucracy and THAT, my friends, is saying something.)

If I'm going to be honest in this blog, I can't pretend to be living some other kind of life.  And though it certainly is not extravagant (it certainly isn't by U.S. standards!), in light of what I see every day, I am well aware of how privileged a life I am living.  As I said from the beginning, I KNOW how lucky I am. 

I'm not going to ignore the negative, the difficult or the ugly, but I'm also not going to focus on it if that's not what I'm moved to do.  What I focus on day-to-day will be what strikes me most strongly -- and so far, what has struck me most (and which I think is pretty evident in the blog so far) is how lovely and amazing this place and her people are -- despite of, right alongside with, and inexorably linked to all the darkness. 

This beautiful mural sits, like so many of the stunning aspects of this city, right next to a really ugly car park that at night is filled with some very shady and scary characters and is painted on the back of a crumbling building ... that's life in South Africa.

Roasted Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic and Oven Roasted Potatoes

Hiya folks!

Here's the recipe we made for our anniversary.  I checked out lots of different recipes but finally settled on one from the now finished (sad!) "Almost Bourdain" blog from Australia.  Here's the original recipe, and below is mine with the modifications I made:

Ingredients:

3 bulbs garlic
1 Tblsp (15 g) butter, softened
3.3 - 3.4 lb (1.5 kg) whole chicken
3/4 - 1 tsp salt (Medium Coarse Salt, like Kosher Salt)
3/4 - 1 tsp cracked black pepper
1 cup (250 ml) white wine
A few sprigs of fresh thyme

Oven Roasted Potatoes:
1 pound (500g) baby/new potatoes
2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 400F (200C).
2. Separate cloves from garlic bulb, but LEAVE PEELS ON.
3. Rub butter over outside of chicken and inside cavity; press combined salt and pepper onto skin and inside cavity.
4. Place 1/4 to 1/3 of the garlic inside cavity as well as the sprigs of thyme; tie legs together with kitchen string.
5. Place remaining garlic cloves, in single layer, in medium baking dish; place chicken on garlic.
6. Pour the wine into dish; roast, uncovered, about 1 hour 20 minutes or until browned and cooked through.
7. Meanwhile, make oven roasted potatoes: Microwave potatoes 5 minutes.  Then place potatoes, in single layer, in baking dish, drizzle with olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. Roast alongside chicken for the last 30 minutes of its cooking time or until potatoes are tender.
8. Let chicken rest, covered with foil, 15 minutes before serving with roasted garlic and potatoes. 
9. Serve with a nice salad; squeeze out the roasted garlic from the peels and spread on crunchy bread or the potatoes -- delicious!

Little Bits of Home

Continuing on yesterday's theme here are a few things I brought from Minnesota to make this place feel like home.  All these things are tiny, fit in the crevices of my 2 suitcases, & make this really OURS.  Because yes, we are the kind of people who appreciate things like ...

A teeny plastic pirate, of course!

A little dish my mother-in-law got for me in Provence where I keep jewelry, spare change, etc.

 

This devilish rubber ducky watches us sternly as we work at the desk ...

A couple of my favorite fridge magnets, that caricature one was made by yours truly, plus one of my favorite pictures from our wedding and a watercolor rendition of our three cats at home (it started as a joke, but then I kinda loved it), again, made by yours truly.

A Bon Voyage card from my cousin and his little art students.

And of course, Lord and Master of it all as he guards our home from on-high (a.k.a the top of the TV), Mr. Red Plastic Buddha. 

Namaste y'all!  And as they say, be it ever so humble, or cheesy, or plastic-pirate-filled, there's no place like home.