Missive from Marijke

[An African snowman]


"Pfffttttt! [I think that means she's tired]I've just returned from the Hex river Traverse - a 3.5 day 'hike' in the most amazingly beautiful and rugged area between Worcester and Waaihoek. Lots of snow and craggy, rocky stony, vertigenous peaks and canyons.
I came to within an inch of my life - slipped on snow at the top of a steep gully and fell 50m until I slammed into some rocks - luckily feet first, and absolutely no damage except for snow burn on my arms. Can't believe my luck.

[damn, Marijke...you must have got a huge skrik. I'm very glad you're still here]

Anyway we had excellent weather, lots of fun and the others had snow fights and made a snow man.

Day Two - if you look at the extreme right of the pic there are two peaks (shaped like boobs[36C?]) - I fell in the snowy line near the top of the cleavage. Actually it's called Mount Brodie.



Day Three - if you check the frosted peak on the left - we walked all along those grey montains to where I was standing in 6 hours.

Fonteintjiesberg - named after these little seeps - aren't they beautiful?

Feel free to post these pics - I'm so proud of the amazing beauty we have here and that we made it through!"

More Food. I cracked.

OK, self-imposed one week ban on food is OVER. Friday's single shrimp does not count...Momofuku (The Peach), on 1st Ave and 10th Street. Noodle bar. The broth for the ramen is incredible. You sit at a bamboo bar in front of the kitchen, so you see everything, so it's perfect for people, like me, with voyeuristic tendencies. Actually, that's nonsense. I prefer being in on the action, not the sidelines! And here you are.

Shredded slow roast pork belly, ramen, fresh peas, kombu, bok choy. Chris says the peas are very hard to eat with chopsticks...uh: spoon???

Octopoossies...soy, ginger, seaweed. Shame, they were very sweet. I felt a bit bad about murdering them. The white stuff is unfiltered sake, not milk!

And food porn. Braised pork again, on steamed buns with pickled cucumber.

Here and There, and There

Jetstreams, crossing.




How many places can one's head be at the same time? Looking out at our cool NY weather today I found some interesting clouds, and wondered whether they had anything to do with Hurricane Dean right now on top of Jamaica, about which I'm thinking because the Caymans lie beyond it and next in the hitline, and lately I've taken to thinking about them too.


And then I found in my Inbox some updated surveillance pictures from the cul-de-sac in Constantia, Cape Town.


Where, the spy wondered, were they going in the chariot? To lunch, certainly but where?




Answer! Harbour House in Kalk Bay. Plus an English/Zambian couple, the English part of whom my dad worked with in Lesotho. And they drank three bottles of wine! And they saw whales in False Bay, from the windows of the restaurant. I love that place. By far my favourite in Cape Town...Delicious fish. One of the loveliest views in the world. I wish I'd been there.



I lifted this off their website. Which is bad. The website, I mean. How, with this location, can one manage to have such BAD photos??? Odd.

Ah... I had no idea. Welcome to South Africa. Herr Goebbels, points out the spy, has upped his security, it seems. Dude, all they'd need is wire cutters, man. I maintain that the houses with zero walls are the safest. T-t-t.

The spy couldn't help itself. It spied on its own view of the sunrise over the greenbelt's mist. Hmmm.

A small suggestion for the spy. A spyblog.

Le Weekend

Vivian and Chris, from work, and I had our weekly power lunch (hahahaha) at Schiller's on Friday. It's a very good opportunity for bitching, bonding and blowing off steam. Sometimes we even solve problems. See how possessively Chris is holding his Stella. Someone may take it away...


A martini in the middle of the workday you ask (actually, it depends who you are. Some of you - like one of the six people who read this blog [an elite group, though, yes?]! - may ask, what, only one?). Yes, I wanted a martini. It was happy, celebratory martini. It's a nice word, which is why I repeat it...It was a very, very good martini, shaken by the cute bartender with the dreads. He said it was shaken with love... yeah, right. Grey Goose, no vermouth, and the olives. It was shaken so that not too much ice got into the drink. Really, it was one of the best I've had. I can't do gin martinis anymore. They burn my mouth and they smell a little like my Chanel No. 19, which is disconcerting. My father still does the gin version, very proper and old-school. For a man who drinks very little, he has been known to order a couple at The Cellars for Sunday lunch. It is a beautiful, evocative, romance-laden drink, a throwback from another time.



The sizzling shrimp. It's a very small cast iron dish that is put in front of you, bubbling furiously, and dangerously hot. In it are medium size shrimp, molten olive oil, thinly sliced garlic, hot chile flakes and lemon. It's fantastic. With some bread, it's perfect. I have favourite things to eat everywhere: the lemon chicken on fennel salad at my favourite, best-loved restaurant, Al di La; the chicken liver and foie gras mousse with bitter frisee at Balthazar; the Croque Madame at Robin des Bois; the burger at Prune; the rabbit and noodles at Lucien...I better stop. And this shrimp. It's so simple.



And on to Saturday morning and a late breakfast on the terrace under a blessing of cool blue sky. I've just started Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell for the second time, after reading it in 2004. I'm looking forward to getting into it again: magic, secret pathways, old England, the Raven King. It's very well written. I took it out because I was going to lend it to Mimi, but then I made the mistake of opening it, so maybe I'll have to buy one for her.

And this for Vince:

My free-seeded grass and the purple basil. Signs of the season. What will it look like in a month? In a month...I have always wanted to look forward to September. From the inside, I mean, not just because of feeling the relief of the outside: lovely weather and clear edges. It is the month of remembering, and wanting, and thinking you hear voices and music but not sure whose or where. Possibly from dreams. The one who lives there and occasionally shows himself, but isn't recognized in any of the ones in the waking world.

Setting the Record Straight

My mom says Home in Africa (previous posts) "really does look like Africa." Me, I don't think that is bad thing 'cos, well, it IS Africa!!! But. The point is, usually the house and garden look very beautiful. So here follows a short tribute to La Mama and proof that this corner of Africa has beautiful gardens as well as major earthworks...and earthworms. But I digress. OK - above - I think this was the night the Louws came over from next door and we sat chairs in the driveway and drank wine together and laughed immoderately. Then Peter Klatzow came by and delivered some crayfish he'd just caught. And was a little taken aback and a small bit jealous that we were all in the driveway drinking wine instead of behind locked doors and barbed wire under a state of siege. My parents' home is the only one of the cul de sac that is open like this, and it just seemed to me that we should use our stoep/porch for what it was intended. Sitting and looking at things and talking to the neighbours. This was last January.

This hedge no longer exists, but it was lovely. Helichrysum. An everlasting-like flower with the pungent scent of, to me, honey and a little mustard, on the other side of the house, at the bottom of the garden.

Slightly washed out picture of the patio, with loooots of roses, the greenbelt's poplars beyond, and the eastern face of Table Mountain.

View of the mountain with Icebergs in a pot. They bloom all season. It's ironic that I have them on my terrace, too, in this vastly different climate, on a northern and western continent.

Here is Andre Khamel (named after a French attorney on an opposing team in one of my father's cases), sitting watching the birdfeeder. Just out of academic interest.

And a harvest: potatoes! They were grown in pots, as an experiment, and were delicious.

Hmmm...

Now the lawn is missing...

Home in Africa

It's nice to have neighbours who read blogs and who sneak out in the evening to take pictures of the parental stomping ground, recording, for instance, the disappearance of four olive trees. I know copper wire disappears overnight, but olive trees? In the process showing up Google Earth's dated satellite image of the place...you can also see that the next day is Trash Day..the wheelie bin is waiting for the Dirty Boys.