love+making peace

 THERE is an enemy in our midst. Its name is Kitchen and its soldiers are pots and pans and dough that won’t prove. I’ve made a flopped beer bread, a flopped batch of cookies, an okay plate of pasta and a cake – where the icing split irreparably and no amount of quick chill or re-mix could save it. On top of this mess I managed to decorate it like a five-year-old. I hang my head in shame. Or would-be shame if I didn’t have the pleasure of cool beers and company while cooking.

Two tins of soon-to-be-flopped cake mix... I left out the coffee, I think. After that nothing really happens, which is the problem - a bit 'Waiting for Godot' really...

The sauce, a rich cream infused with black pepper, garlic and mushrooms simply did not reduce properly. A missed opportunity really, because it still looks workable here.

In my paltry defence I did conjure an amazing oxtail stew, served with couscous. I did this by mustering the very last of my soul’s resources in one lacklustre effort… goodness knows what I put in there but it was great. Either that or poor starved Tristan and poor starved me were so hungry for home-cooked food that we thought it was delicious – our stomachs elaborately tricking our tongues into sustaining our bodies.

Of course, Tristan “loves” everything I make. Bless him, even if he is a terrible liar.

Cooking provides a certain sort of balm for the soul – even when it flops. The rituals and traditions, the whole process has the effect of drawing you closer to yourself. I recently read a line from a novel by an Afrikaans authoress that read “by looking down to the ground I know where my strength will come from”. How true, eating connects us to the earth and cooking is the way in which we achieve this connection.

I think I am waxing lyrical again, so I’ll get to the point:  I blame Fancy Apron for my cooking failures. All that lovely fabric and wonderfully bright turquoise and brown loops. It gives you a feeling of ‘all gear no skill’. Damn you Fancy Apron that brings to mind hundreds of proper Afrikaans ladies in the kitchen from 4pm each day, wearing fancy aprons and cooking meat and two veg with instant pudding every single day for their litters of kids, husband, relatives etc. You know the sort of women I mean! The sort who only bake on special occasions and when they do they use lard and a cookbook that the National Party commissioned in the 40s – thanksverymuch. The sort who only ever sip sherry at New Year’s and who are so resourceful, so avidly frugal that they never buy clothes… only ever patterns and reams of material that will never match, but convincingly mimic what they have seen in a magazine. In other words, the sort of women who raised me. 

I have an ancient copy of this treasure, first published in 1951 and penned by the Domestic Goddess and Duchess of Frugal SJA De Villiers. Warning: must enjoy cooking with lard.

 For the long weekend my friend is coming to visit us on the farm, and I’ll be cooking something fierce. In my way then, I have made peace with the kitchen and will spend my weekend trying to prove that good triumphs over evil cooking flops. I shall also be wearing Fancy Apron, even if it conspires against me.

On a side note, I am busy reading a lovely novel, cosy in bed – and the question arises ‘what shall we eat tonight?’…

 Aren’t we incredibly lucky people?