Simple Abundance

Earlier this year I attended the Woordfees and attended two sessions that excited me. Both were food related.

First off was a conversation led by fellow Food Fairy, Shihaam Domingo, interviewing another Food Fairy and prolific cookbook author, Cariema Isaacs who was joined on stage by Mardia Hendricks and Shamilah Mollajee. These four food fundis talked about spices, family gatherings, how to start a samoosa empire, and of course the discipline of writing a book. It was so inspirational to listen to a spicy conversation at the Woordfees. It’s as authentic as they come.

The other was a session I booked for a me and my twinza, Lucretia Petersen, for a food demonstration followed by a lunch made by chef Bertus Basson and his team at his restaurant, Eike, in Stellenbosch.

We learned so much and were so inspired by a really simple way of preparing food with local, fresh ingredients that look spectacular on a plate and tastes even better that we immediately wanted to start hosting a group of friends. The big lesson over and over again in Bertus’ demonstration was to eat the things that are in season where you live, buy fresh produce, grow your own vegetables and herbs, and to keep spices to a minimum. Entertaining doesn’t have to be extravagant with twirls and curls and names you can’t pronounce, bokkoms are everything, make your own tartare sauce with home-made mayonnaise, go to fresh produce markets to buy your greens and fruit. And invest in good knives.

The importance of these two sessions was to keep things simple and concentrate on freshness.

That night we hosted a small dinner party at Lucretia’s house and it was so lekker to cook, lay the table, polish the glasses, string fairy lights to create the right mood, background music, and of course, the most important ingredients.... fun, laughter and great conversations.