Designer Labels

Ever since I gave my husband a hard time for cutting garlic on my fruit chopping board, he has had a plan to label the boards and avoid any confusion for the uninitiated into my complex system of wooden boards.

Finally on Saturday he put the kids to work burning names into the wood. I'd envisaged lethal red hot pokers being needed, with major danger to life and limb.

All it actually took was some sunshine and a magnifying glass each and it took only a few minutes. Now they are looking for more wooden objects to practise their new-found skills on.

And I'm the proud owner of some designer labelled chopping boards. There is also one called Meat and another named Cheese.

Baked Pasta Cravings

I’ve been craving proper Italian pasta al forno for ages. There’s just one hitch. My kids aren’t really into creamy/mixed sauces… in fact sauces are a bit problematic altogether. The only pasta our son likes is Dad’s aglio olio with bits of bacon in, as it leaves the pasta practically bare, so it doesn’t activate the sauce detector alarm.

When you’re cooking pasta al forno, you need to have an army to feed to make it worth the effort of making meat sauce, making béchamel and then baking it all together with the cooked pasta, so I put off satisfying my craving. And then yesterday I did have an army to feed. The four German students, who have come over with two of their teachers to help at our school for a few weeks, all stayed the night with us so that they could all leave early to drive up to Addo Elephant Park today.

It was nearly a week since I’d shopped. But the teacher we are hosting had cooked spaghetti bolognese for us a couple of nights before and had drastically over-estimated the quantities need to feed a family of five with sauce-averse kids. So there was a ton of meat sauce and loads of parmesan just begging to be used up. I seized my opportunity and it tasted great! So good that we finished up the leftovers cold for lunch today.

Cold pasta al forno, doesn't look as delicious as when it is hot from the oven, but it still tastes great!

Our son declined to even taste it last night, but luckily I’d second-guessed him and shoved some potatoes in to bake alongside the pasta. And I’d thrown together a second pot of pasta for the vegan student with fresh tomatoes, rosemary and chickpeas sizzled in hot garlic oil. And the students made a salad. And I’d baked yet more bread. So it was a feast of carbohydrates that even defeated the three seventeen-year old boys at the table, to produce yet more leftovers.

You don’t have to use a meat sauce for this baked pasta dish. Any sauce with a good strong flavour would work well: roasted vegetables, tomato and basil, porcini mushrooms, whatever you feel like adding to it. It makes sense to make a double batch of sauce, use it to sauce normal pasta one night and keep the rest to make this a couple of nights later, then you don’t have nearly so much work to do for your pasta al forno. The béchamel sauce is quite light and subtly flavoured with nutmeg and only a little parmesan, so it needs a contrasting sauce with a bit of oomph to bring the baked pasta to life.

Recipe for Rigatoni or Penne al Forno

Bolognese sauce made with approx 450g / 1lb meat
Or about 4 cups of pasta sauce of your choice
500g / 1lb penne rigate or rigatoni
750ml / 3 cups milk
90g / 3oz butter
4 ½ tablespoons flour
40g / 1 ½ oz freshly grated parmesan
¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg
4 tablespoons millk
30g / 1oz butter

Preheat the oven to 200C / 400F.

Make your béchamel first. Melt 90g butter in a heavy based pan. Stir in the flour and keep stirring for about a minute so it cooks, but don’t let it turn dark. Add the milk a little at a time, giving it a chance to warm on the base of the pan and then stirring it in well, before adding the next lot.

Most recipes tell you to heat the milk separately before adding it, which is sensible, but I learned from a friend that if you give it a chance to warm on the base of the béchamel pan before you stir it in it works just as well.

Keep adding milk and stirring it in until it is all incorporated, then carry on stirring until the béchamel thickens to a thick pouring cream consistency. Season with pepper, salt and nutmeg then stir in half the parmesan. Taste to check the seasoning.

Cook the pasta till it is al dente. Take care not to over-cook it, or it will collapse to a dense solid indigestible mass when baked. You want the shapes to hold up and trap the sauces nicely. Toss the pasta with the warmed meat sauce and then with about two thirds of the béchamel.

Tip the sauced pasta into a roasting tin buttered with the remaining butter. Level it off. Pour the milk over, then pour the rest of the béchamel on top. Sprinkle with the remaining parmesan. Bake for 20-30 minutes until golden and bubbling. Let it rest for at least five minutes before serving.

Perfect for those in need of a carbohydrate fix!

Bedtime

“Are you ready for a story?” I enquire, walking into the kids’ bedroom to see figures balancing precariously on their beds still in their day clothes, flying a small toy figure around in the pull cord of the electric ceiling fan.

“Yes!” they chorus.

I point out the lack of pyjamas.

"You can read to us while we get into pjs," they say, continuing to play.

I decline to start down that slippery slope of insubordination and shake my head in a stern motherly manner.

“I command you,” declaims Youngest, dramatically throwing out an arm in a grand gesture.

“I’m the queen around here,” I reply and exit strategically before we get into an argument that will go nowhere.

From my computer next door I hear fierce whispers, as they exhort each other to get undressed.
“SHE won’t read to us unless we do,” Youngest hisses across the room at her older siblings.

In a matter of minutes I am recalled.

“We’re ready!” and I return to see Youngest just pulling her pyjama top over her head and slipping into bed.

Long may the pull of a good story work as a failsafe bedtime carrot.

Red Lentil Dhal Recipe

I love it when I stumble on a new recipe that’s easy and is an immediate hit with at least one member of the family. I found this dhal recipe when I was desperately looking for inspiration for making packed lunches for a vegan student, who is visiting our school.

We have a group of four students and two teachers from our sister school in Germany visiting at the moment. They’ve raised funds and have come to build a woodwork room for the school in the three weeks they’re here. I volunteered for making sandwiches for their lunch every day and so have been baking bread every day and madly slicing, buttering and throwing together mountains of sandwiches every morning before school.

But how do you provide variety in vegan sandwiches? Hummus two days running and then what? So the idea of making a thick dhal came to mind and I found this recipe on the net, adapted it to fit with what I had available in the cupboard and I now have a new recipe to turn to when my husband yearns for spicy food. He was over the moon when I produced it to go with the baked potatoes last night and we had it spread on bread for lunch today too. I really love the hint of fragrant cardomom among the other spices. The original recipe asks you to roast and grind your own whole spices, which I suspect would be even better, but this version was good enough already.

Recipe for Red Lentil Dhal

1 onion
2 cm root ginger peeled and grated
3 cloves garlic finely chopped
1 cup red lentils
½ teaspoon sea salt
1 cup / 250ml chopped tomatoes
2 red chillis de-seeded and chopped fine
4 cups water or stock
lemon or lime juice

2 teaspoons mustard seeds
4 cardomom pods
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

Chop the onion finely. Saute it in the oil over a medium heat for 5 minutes. Add ginger and garlic and continue to cook for 5 more minutes. Add mustard seeds and seeds from cardamom pod and stir for 1 more minute, then add ground spices and salt.
Stir in red lentils, then add tomatoes. Cook for a minute, then add water. Bring to a boil then cook at a simmer for 30-35 minutes until lentils are tender. Add a squeeze of lemon or lime. Add more water if it is too thick.

Hopefully this will have made a change from the soya sausages that his host family have rustled up for him so far. It's good for me to have a culinary challenge now and again too, otherwise it's easy to get into a rut and just cook the same old things day after day. Anyone got any great ideas for easy vegan meals that will fit in to the packed lunch category?

Birthday on a School Day

A birthday falling on a school day leaves you out of breath and gasping from the onslaught of cake, presents and wishes, even when it’s not your birthday. Youngest was seven the other day. She was a bit fed up that she had to go to school on her birthday. After all, it’s too tantalizing opening up pressies over breakfast and then having to go off and leave them in a pristine, untouched state on the table. The one consolation was that we had promised to pick her up as soon as she finished, instead of her going into aftercare until the older ones came out of class, as she usually does on a Monday.

She was over the moon with all her presents, especially the horse themed ones. Middle Daughter had had the idea of making her a stable out of wood for her toy horses; she designed it herself and enlisted Dad’s co-operation for the woodwork, spending most of Sunday out in the garage supervising and then painting her creation. This stood proudly on the breakfast table enveloped in a sarong to be unveiled the moment the cereal had been dispatched.


And then more presents enticingly swathed in pink crepe paper with ribbon and roses arrived with her aunt, to reveal a riding academy set with horses and jumps, fences and mucking out equipment. How can a girl possibly go to school when all these treasures await investigation. But she did, without too much complaint, clutching a big chocolate cake with Smarties on that she’d decorated the night before.

I’d planned to get some work done and then kick in to party planning mode. One lot of visitors were leaving and two more arriving on the same day, but I thought I could scribble a short recipe article or two before baking the cake… until our domestic help called in sick. I looked around the house, in its usually post-weekend chaos and gave up the idea of work… changed beds, swept floors, baked cake, as my husband washed dishes and put the playroom to rights. It was of course raining. The treasure hunt was still to plan, though I’d got ahead of myself and put the treasure bags together the night before.

By the time Youngest returned from school the treasure hunt clues were distributed and I’d got the story thought up: about a Princess whose job was to take care of the royal unicorns, only to have Bad Baron Bolligrew kidnap one of the foals, when she refused to sell him one. We had to track him down and rescue the baby unicorn, following the magic notes she’d been able to leave for us.

The dogs were fascinated with my putting round of clues, especially Amy the Jack Russell; I’d planned to use the pet carry box to put Youngest’s toy unicorn in with the treasure. Amy still reckons that box is hers. She arrived at our house in it, as her previous owner used it for her to travel in. Now, as soon as I opened the door to put in the treasure, in she shot and lay down next to the stuffed unicorn, refusing to come out. This was obviously some new game just for her, one that she was more than willing to play. Eventually I got her out, replaced her with the treasure and whizzed around the rest of the route tying clues to trees and fences with silver ribbon.

Youngest nibbled a bit of bread for lunch and then disappeared off to play with her horses. I’d naively thought that she’d enjoy helping make cheese biscuits with me for tea. Usually the girls love doing that as part of the party preparations, but time was at a premium; horses were more important that any old cheese biscuits. Plus there were phone calls to receive from overseas aunt and Granny.

I made the cheese biscuit dough myself quickly, whipped cream and sliced strawberries and put the cake together before zooming off to collect the rest of the party invitees from school. She’d spent ages deliberating over who to invite and in the end luckily decided on just a few friends, so the car held them all.

The rest of the afternoon went by in a blur.
Sandwiches made, with starving kids hoovering up the crusts the minute I sliced them off.
A shower of rain descending just as we set off on the treasure hunt, necessitating a return for rain jackets, but damping no-one’s enthusiasm for clue-seeking.
Two more sets of visitors duly arriving.
Sandwiches, cheese biscuits and strawberry cake consumed and Happy Birthday sung.
Beads to be threaded to make necklaces, beads all over floor, visiting toddler retrieved from vicinity of beads.
Youngest torn between playing with her friends and wanting to get out the horses again, in the end being drawn into a game of block block.
The last child guest leaving, signalling time to cook supper for the adult guests.
Youngest happy but tired, wishing there was more time to play with her presents, but bed-time had been reached already.
A chapter of Noel Streatfeild’s A Painted Garden read and then lights out.

School day birthdays really are a rush… maybe it’s time to move the party to the weekend, but it has always been so much part of the birthday itself for our kids, that a birthday without a party just seems rather dull.

The next morning Youngest got out of bed and dressed in record time, before I’d even got out of bed. By the time I came through from my shower she’d got her own breakfast and was playing happily with her horses.

When Spring Turns To Summer

Signs that spring is surging on towards summer:

Last week the yellow daisies swathed the sand in thick blankets. A few days of warm sunny weather have dried them out and the golden carpets have faded away to dry stalks that rattle as you brush past.

Balmy evenings with glowing pink sunsets tempt you outside, just when it is time to cook supper.

The first braai of the season happened last night, instead of last week when it was National Braai Day. The master of the braai is almost completely recovered from an unidentified virus that laid him low for two whole weeks, and was able to resume his duties and do a fine job of cooking the chicken wings, chops and boerewors.

The watsonis are tall and stately and coming into full bloom to replace the fading daisies, as a last splash of colour before summer bleaches us to pale straw once more.

The first swim of the season officially took place on Friday, when the girls took the plunge after a warm day had taken the edge off the chill of the water. They had to be dragged out protesting, because we were being eaten alive by the miggies (midges). Their brother deigned to join them the next day once they'd checked it out.

The lawn has been mown for the first time this spring, but this intrepid self-sown gazania was spared.

The last term of the school year starts on Tuesday, but we're looking forward to a summer of braais and swimming, even though today a cool wind and misty morning made a Sunday roast more than welcome and had us reaching for our fleeces again.

Pony Show

I learned to ride as a child. Living in the country it was what girls did and riding was an afternoon activity once a week at school. All the girls rode, so I did too. I was OK at it, but never in the prize winning league. My memories include: being unable to convince ‘my’ pony to go over any jumps ever; being left hanging from a low branch by another pony determined to find the shortest way home on a cross country ride; and losing a toenail when a dozy horse accidentally lent on my foot when I was holding him the stableyard. I’m sure there were good bits too, trotting along country lanes, spending time grooming and catching ponies instead of having to play football on riding afternoons, but of course it is always the dramatic incidents that burn themselves in Technicolor on the brain.

I left riding behind as I moved into my teens and my only subsequent close encounter with a horse years later in Italy left me with a broken rib, when I fell off it rather gracefully as it shied at a pheasant and bolted for home.

Our son was fascinated with horses as a toddler, but when he had the chance of a pony ride at the age of four or five, refused even to get on one. His sister followed suit and, as he turned out to be allergic to horses, learning to ride was never on the agenda, even though we live in the country with a dozen studs and horse farms around us.

It was Youngest who seemed to have been born with the intention to ride. This year after a couple of years of wistful reminders, I finally got it together and organized riding lessons for her. Middle Daughter took two weeks of watching to decide that she wanted to learn too. Son had one lesson and no more, due to lack of any real interest, although he was actually pretty good.

So this last year I have had to rediscover ponies almost from scratch. I started off fairly tentatively, holding the ponies while the girls mounted, and being dragged off to whichever succulent patch of vegetation attracted their interest. Last week I finally found that I’d made a massive leap of confidence around them. I took the two girls to their second pony show at their riding school on my own, as a pressing engagement with a rugby match kept the boys at home. Youngest had opted to enter the best walk and trot off the lead class, but Middle daughter, less confident, went for the on the leading rein classes. Both wanted to do the pole on the ground class, where they go round a jumping course on the lead rein, but with all the jumps at ground level.

It was one of the few gorgeous sunny days, we’ve had this spring. Even at eight thirty in the morning it was warm in the sun, but still chilly in the shade of the pines along the side of the show ring. Ponies accumulated, riders searched out riding hats and numbers and consulted the list to see who they were riding. Parents got out folding chairs and picnic boxes and bagged a spot in the shade.

First off Middle Daughter was on Rane, a little grey pony. It was my duty to lead him round the ring and eventually persuade him into a trot. It felt more like being a tow truck as he started off resisting all efforts to do more than walk fast with his neck sticking out horizontally, while I tried to run in the deep sand. Eventually he obliged for a short stretch, just long enough for her to show off her rising trot and for me to reacquaint myself with my running muscles.


Later on, the pole on the ground event made me realize just how unfit I am. Persuading Rane to trot over a course of ten jumps in soft sand had my lungs protesting at this unaccustomed demand for their services. We got around without any mishap, though I’d wondered if I would make the last jump… Youngest was supposed to go on next, but the riding teacher took one look at me and sent someone else out. As I tried to look cool and unpuffed, I was given away by a tickly cough from the recesses of those poor abused lungs. Luckily my husband had arrived by then, jubilant after a triumphant finale to the Tri-nations rugby series. I handed over the reins without any more ado and it was him who led Youngest and Ginger round the course, her confidently telling him which way to go, as he hadn’t had a chance to walk the course.


The girls were thrilled with their rosettes, a first place for Youngest and second for Middle Daughter in the walk, and fourth place for both in the trot. I reckoned all the mothers (not many Dads there due to the rugby match) deserved rosettes too for their clear rounds over the poles. I’m going to have to get in training before the next show.. pony boot camp anyone?

Fighting Chance

Traditional weapons aren't much use when the cowboys come to town. But if you're lucky they'll give you a sporting chance and fight fair. Duelling swords at dawn....

Up The Cloudy Mountain

Going up Table Mountain in the cable car is an annual treat. A treat because it’s expensive to ride in the cable car. You can walk up the mountain for free, but riding the cable car is priced for tourists and taking the whole family up is a major financial investment.

Revolving 360 degrees slowly over the 5 minute trip in the car, you dangle over precipitous heights and see the city shrink in size as you whiz up the cable towards vertical cliffs at the top. The ocean spreads out before you and the coast stretches away into the distance, our line of three hills identifiable in a misty haze of blue outlines halfway along the map.

It’s a gamble planning a day up the mountain especially in spring. Children go free in winter, so we always try to plan for a trip up then, but it has to be a last minute decision. Weather forecasts get it wrong, fickle winds blow up a tablecloth of cloud onto our mountain, when all around is clear. Rain can sweep in and wash a stream of tourists back into the cable car in a miserable huddle.

The children determined on Granny’s visit as the best time for our trip up the mountain. Ambitious plans for walking up for the first time ever this year were shelved after the flu broke out and the kids all took a long time to recover. The soft option it would be, once the weather obliged. The middle week of Granny’s visit was submerged by rain and trumped by our son’s turn at having flu. The last week started off wet too, but looked set to clear up. She would be leaving on Friday. Thursday it would have to be, if at all possible.

We packed the kids off to school in an optimistic mood. Cool, still and clear, the morning would be bound to warm up. The top of Table Mountain was a clean outline against the horizon as we drove back from school later. We downed our lunch hurriedly and set off, armed with fleeces and jackets too. A thermos of hot chocolate nestled in a rucksack to succour us up aloft.

Patches of cloud wafted over us as we drove towards Cape Town, the mountain always in sight. We kept a close eye on it to make sure that it wouldn’t change its mind and sulk, shrugging a blanket of cloud around its shoulders and turning its back on the world. We got closer and closer, our fingers aching with being crossed, but still the sun showed a firm line of flat mountain top ahead.

Lugging a panoply of jackets, we hardly had to queue any time for tickets, even though there were plenty of tour buses parked. A slight setback, when we found that they’d changed the rules and children are now only free on weekends and public holidays in winter, was eased by using our Wild card which gave us a discount on all the tickets. Surrounded by a group of Japanese tourists we climbed into the cable car and swept grandly and gloriously up the side of the mountain… into wisps of cloud. In those few minutes while we paid for our tickets the notorious tablecloth had swept up the back of the mountain and swirled over the top, draping elegantly over the edge just a little all round.


We emerged into a chill dampness and piled on all our jackets, feeling slightly smug as we watched T-shirted tourists shivering as they strode bravely around the paths.


Tantalizing glimpses of Cape Town in bright sunshine were visible over the edge of the precipice, bright blue ocean contrasted with the grey all around and above. The kids started off happily enough, climbing on rocks and peering over the edge, but eventually the fun of that was muted by being cold. So we found a rock to shelter us from the chilly wind that seemed to come from all directions at once and drank hot chocolate with special cookies from Inge’s deli, bought by my Mum and sister-in-law on a foray to Kalk Bay the day before.

The best packaging I've ever seen on hand-made cookies and great tasting too ... in fact I ate most of these ones!

Luckily Youngest had brought a glove puppet up with her. Perfect to warm Granny's hands...


Every now and again the light would brighten and sun would attempt to burn through the thin layer of cloud that enveloped us. We’d cheer it and encourage it, trying with the force of our minds to transform it into a sunny afternoon, but we weren’t quite strong enough a match for the wind and cloud.


They re-asserted themselves and after a brisk walk around the marked paths and a clamber over some tempting rocks, we called it a day.



We’ve been up the mountain for this year and at least we’ll always remember this one. It can’t be a bad thing for kids to experience what it’s like on a mountain in cold and fog and get an idea of what real winter is like in colder climes than ours!

The next day dawned warm and bright and, as I drove my mother to the airport, Table Mountain taunted us with its crisp, cloud-free profile, looking as if butter wouldn’t melt.

This post from two years ago has pictures of what it should ideally be like up on Table Mountain in the sunshine!

Birthday Spoils

Some birthdays are painful reminders of the years passing, hurtling you onwards into incipient middle age. But they can be opportunities for three days of pampering and indulgence, the equivalent of a spring makeover, courtesy of the family pulling out all the stops to spoil you rotten!

That is what I got this year and I feel like a new woman, the wrinkles of age banished by a new haircut, a deep tissue massage to sort out the computer-knotted back and a shopping session with my mother to get some flattering new clothes to replace my baggy old winter uniform of fading jeans and cotton rib Gap pullover from twelve years ago. Not to forget my new film star sunglasses discovered in a sale next door to the hairdresser and secured as a pressie by a hurried sms to my husband.


Thus fortified I took the rest of the day off work and drifted around in a leisurely fashion, stopping by the sofa now and then to throw pills and remedies down our flu-struck son, read my book, planted out the lobelia and pansies that the children bought me to replace my unfortunate nasturtiums and had a photo session with a professional photographer (whose services I acquired for life by marrying him), to capture the glamorous new look, before the careful hairdresser blow-dry was lost forever.

The evening saw a flurry of activity in the kitchen as my two sisters-in-law and mother cooked dinner for all the grown-ups and my husband rustled up sausage and mash for the two healthy children. I was surplus to requirements and so took the unusual luxury of a late-afternoon shower to get the compost from under my fingernails and then went and watched Willow with the children while the others finished getting dinner ready. It was delicious too – tender oxtail stew and chicken and mushrooms with an abundance of fresh organic vegetables brought that afternoon from Spier.

And then a whole weekend to recover from being so spoilt and gradually resume my usual household duties, before Monday demanded the juggling act of work, children and cooking once more.

I hesitated to post this, as it sounded like a birthday gloat when I re-read it, but I want to make sure everyone knows how much my birthday spoiling is appreciated, and now reality is back in place again I want to remind myself of how good it felt too!

Our son is almost recovered from the flu now and starting to boss us all around again, which is a sign of return to normal.

Muffins and Marmalade

I meant to write a post today, but I made marmalade instead.

It was going to be a thought-provoking discussion about real food made with real ingredients, as opposed to shop bought fluffy cakes that fade to nothing in your mouth… but I hadn’t made marmalade yet this winter and spring is knocking on the door. Oranges will only hang around so long and the thought of going through a year without a stash of home-made marmalade is enough to induce panic.

So it is now potted up, six jars cooling in the kitchen. Not enough. I’ll have to make another batch next weekend.

I also threw together a batch of bran flake muffins, in an attempt to use up the reject crumbs at the bottom of the bran flake packet, that my husband can’t bring himself to eat in the morning. We now have the crumbs from about three packets, adding up to about half a packet of flakes. Frugal mode is in place and, as those flake crumbs are about R15 worth of nutrition going to waste, I hunted down a recipe for bran flake muffins that sounded OK, added a mashed banana and tentatively introduced them to my family. Standard bran muffins are not considered edible by my kids and I really wanted them to get along with these ones, which would solve the problem of finishing off bran flakes packets forever.

The kids were outside on the trampoline as I took the tray out of the oven. Bouncing around with trousers descended to their ankles and throwing tennis balls at each other to hysterical laughter. I tried out a muffin in advance trying to decide if it would suit their taste buds. Reckoned it might. I finished the muffin with my tea. Eventually they came in, hot and cheerful, and spotted the muffins cooling on the rack.
“What’s in them?”
“Oh, banana, cinnamon, the usual, just a different recipe” I replied airily.

They tried them, and liked them, even though they had spotted the bran flakes packet on the counter and deduced my attempted deception.
Hurray! Now I can bake off those bran flake packet reject crumbs every now and then and I have another muffin recipe to add to my list.

Bran Flake Muffins Recipe

1 cup plain flour
½ cup wholewheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/3 cup sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoons cinnamon
1 mashed banana
2 cups bran flakes (Kelloggs in our case)
1 ¼ cups millk
1 egg
¼ cup sunflower oil

Soak the bran flakes in milk for 5 minutes. Mix in egg, mashed banana and oil.
Combine flours, baking powder, sugar, salt and cinnamon.
Stir the flour mix into the bran flake mix until just combined.
Spoon into greased 12 cup muffin tin.
Bake at 200C/400F for 18-20 minutes until lightly browned.

The kids are now all in bed, and very excited that Granny is arriving tomorrow. We'll all be getting up early to go to the airport. She should be getting on the flight about now, leaving the English late summer to come to our chilly early spring. But the sun is supposed to be shining tomorrow and the daisies will be in full flood, carpeting the field by our gate and sprinkled lavishly, like a heat haze quivering in the sunlight around the house.

Bring on the Garden Gnomes

What is the opposite of green-fingered? I had some flourishing nasturtiums growing in pots outside our door. They'd just got to the abundant flowering stage and were looking really bright and cheerful, when I noticed they were covered in blackfly, which were killing off all the new buds. My sister-in-law suggested spraying with soapy water.

I think I overdid it. Or else dishwashing liquid is the wrong sort of soapy water. Instead of green but bug-ridden flowering plants, I now have dessicated looking leaves that are ghosts of their former selves and poor faded looking blooms.

The silver lining is that the bulbs in the pots with them might now have a chance of enough air and sunshine to flower. They were completely drowned in a sea of saucer- sized nasturtium leaves before. I’m afraid I haven’t inherited my grandmother’s gardening gene after all!

I'm not going to show you a picture of what they look like now... it's too depressing!

Chocolate Tart

Good chocolate, dark chocolate, seriously bitter chocolate… how dark can you go? Do you stop at 60% or can you take the almost no sweetness of 85% cocoa solids that stays on your tongue with no holds barred, chocoholic, I’m-in-need-of-a-fix madness.

Looking for a chocolate tart recipe for a grown-up dinner party, I was thinking really bitter chocolate in a light pastry case: dark chocolate flavour and richness to complement an orange sorbet and the guava parfait that I’d just discovered. Chocolate with no distractions, was the mission and I finally found a recipe that worked perfectly.

It was a chocolate tart to end all chocolate tarts, as dark and rich and grown up as they come. Served with a scoop of guava parfait and one of orange sorbet it was the perfect ending to a meal. The orange offset the bitterness of the dark chocolate I’d used and the guava added an extra flavour dimension and creamy texture.

Chocolate tart before baking

Chocolate, cream and eggs fill a blind baked pastry case and then bake to a rich and solid, extremely chocolatey filling, where the pastry serves just as a container, a plain foil to its filling. Mine didn’t have the smooth and sleek looks of the official recipe photograph, but it tasted like chocoholic heaven!

I used my own sweet pastry recipe and bought really good chocolate – one bar of Lindt 85% and one of Lindt 65%, which combined perfectly to make it bitter but not so bitter as to shock the palate. I think their 75% would work just as well, but the shop was out of it.

Just out of the oven

At dinner the dessert faded the conversation to silence. Everyone was too busy savouring the flavour combinations and getting exactly the right amount of orange sorbet with a nibble of chocolate tart. I served thin slices, so the tart easily went round the eleven of us, with plenty to spare for those tempted to embark on seconds. I wish I’d photographed a slice of tart plated up with the scoop of orange sorbet and one of guava ice cream. It looked stunning, even though my presentation isn’t quite as neat as it could be. When can we have another dinner party? I can't wait to bake this again!


(Edited to add: This is the chocolate tart recipe I used.)

Spring Blooms

I was toiling unenthusiastically at the computer this afternoon, when Middle Daughter sidled over tentatively and said she wanted to show me something. It took me no more than a second to abandon my screen in favour of distraction. She took me outside into the breezy spring day and opened my eyes to the new flowers that have bloomed overnight. Several of these pink pypies are blooming among the restios.

These bobbejaantjies ( pronounced bubiankies) have a delicate and elusive scent outside. The girls picked just one of them and put it in water on our kitchen table. Its fragrance mingled with the scent of guavas and I was suddenly transported to an exclusive Parisian perfumery that creates subtle and exotic signature notes for the rich and famous. If I could bottle it, I'd market it as the scent of spring in South Africa, a heady yet subtle blend of fruit and flowers.

Refreshed I returned to the computer, but not to my work. The flowers just had to be posted to blow away the remnants of stuffy flu from our house with a fresh spring breeze.

(Youngest is better now, but the weekend was a story of sunny days spent chained to the sofa and mopping fevered brows.)