About Eat Drink Cape Town
Welcome to EatDrinkCapeTown!
This blog was born from a genuine desire to share my happy experiences in and around this great city I get to call home – Cape Town. I also post easy everyday recipes from time to time; just click on the EAT category at the top lefthand corner of the home page and scroll down to RECIPES to be taken to all my recipes. There, you’ll also find EAT OUT and COOKBOOK REVIEWS.
From the Cabano Kitchen
As devout foodies, my brother and I draped the ceremonial apron over our shoulders. We got to work in the kitchen from as early as 7 and 6 years old, respectively.
The kitchen basics were not as we were told by our friends, to cook béchamel sauces or vichyssoise from scratch. On the contrary, we learnt how to make fairy bread and chicken-mayo sarmies in succession to these intricate dishes.
Boiling an egg perfectly was only a trick we learnt after baking stiff meringues (the perfect boiled egg is medium soft, do not dispute the science!).
From the Cabano Kids
Alas, having such delicate palates and taste extended not only to eating. We appreciated fine art and décor at young ages after learning about food styling, feng-shui, and colour composition. We hosted our own science experiments with milk, food dye, and dishwashing soap in our kitchen only to end up using splatter painting techniques in our courtyard years later.
We travelled to petting zoos. We visited beach restaurants, we glamped in Barrydale, we even trod in the Free State with Croc-clad feet. There is no corner or crevice that my parents did not introduce to us from early curious ages. They have inspired us, which translates into our curiosity for adventure today still.
If you as a reader have any landscapes to travel to or edible efforts for us to cover, we will gladly do so! We want to continue the community. We want you to be just as involved in the decisions of where we go to next. After all, without YOU, we would not still be here.
I hope to be able to deliver to the bar my mother set. Being such a diligent cook with fervour in her steps complemented by her sharp wit, my challenge is to remain true to her.
And that is why I am continuing.
It’s for her.
And while you're here.
There was this absolutely brilliant snippet of wisdom that my mother shared on Facebook, many a yonderyear ago (relax, it was only 2015).
I found it again the other day - and it truly stuck out to me. It's about how long we wait, what we wait for, whom we are waiting on; and I think if you are waiting for the other shoe to drop in your life for anything, then you should read this.
While I am waiting for the handymen to arrive, who just called to say that they are running late and have lost their way - once again - I started thinking about waiting. I have spent enormous, huge amounts of my life waiting. In queues, at airports, on photo shoots. Hours and hours and hours on end.
Other places, too. Waiting to grow up. Waiting for the rain. Waiting for the holidays to come...
Waiting for the money to be paid into my account. Ja - that's one of the longest waits ever.
Waiting to make a home where I can be just... me. Waiting to feel safe in a turbulent world. Waiting to meet Mr Prince Perfect who will kiss everything better and somehow make me more real than I am. That's a long wait, too.
Waiting for my babies to be born. Waiting for them to grow up into independent, self-determined human beings.
That's a damn long wait sister.
Learning to wait with no expectation of outcome is a skill.
You learn to listen, to look deeper, to dive down and find the pearl...
The pearl is: patience. The most difficult skill I have ever had to master.
Maybe that's why I loved cooking professionally so much.
Because the waiting was always rewarded with immediate results. You order, you wait, something is delivered. You like it, or you don't. Either way, in a restaurant, you get results, gratification.
Life is not a restaurant.
It's more like a cafeteria, really.
This is on your plate, dish of the day, deal with it and now move on.