Red

The remains, when I paused to photograph them, of a tropical fruit salad: mango, pineapple, prickly pear and pomegranate...southern Asia, South America, the Middle East and North America all in me bowl from the bazaar in Istanbul... Ain't globalization something?

Prickly pears (Opuntia ficus-indica)...3/$1 at Mr Lee's on Atlantic...I was picking the fruit up gingerly, fingers at the ends to avoid the tiny prickles when a lady asked me, Vhat do zey tasde lighe? Hm, I thought. Like long ago....except the ones we ate in South Africa were usually green and sweeter. I remember buying a bucketful, literally, from an old peasant woman on the side of the road - she was dusty and as dry as the landscape around her, and very poor, and had plastic containers filled with prickly pears, I think it cost something crazy like R2 then, 1990...in the Eastern Cape. We gave her R5 and felt embarrassed. The fruit we peeled with sticks right there, and it was warm and dribbling sweet juice. Someone taught us as children to peel them: an incision lengthways through the thick skin, after having chopped each end off. Hold down with a fork (or stick) and push one side of the cut skin down with a knife, and it unwraps like magic. No prickles in the paws.

But these reds are, despite their remove from the drylands, a close second, once they've been chilled. A cold prickly pear seems an ultimate luxury.

The 89c California pomegranates...very small, like apples and very sweet...I peel them while watching The Avengers, and eat them for dessert. The tannin in the skin stains the cuticles; big drawback, but whatever. Then I eat them with a spoon.

More Bee Porn

Part of the herb garden on the roof - thyme, catnip and sage. They come back every year despite looking completely dessicated and dead in the winter. I want to add winter savoury - lovely tough little herb I'd all but forgotten about...thinking of using it as part of a greenroof, too.

Africana* from the Southern Tip

The Rugby World Cup, now WON by the Springboks, gave, er...rise..to some interesting images.

The act above could be described as a Boknaai.

...and a friend of a friend...our own calender girl, posing before the match...



Africana: materials, such as books, documents, or art objects, relating to the history or culture of African peoples

Flight of...

...the bumblebees bees were going at it in the zinnias this morning...

Delicious Shitakes!

A bit of olive oil, 2 garlic cloves thinly sliced, sliced shitakes, one lime's juice, handful chopped parsley, three thyme sprigs and...creeeeeeam.

Saute garlic slightly in olive oil, add shitakes, put a lid on to let them sweat some liquid out, take it off again after a few minutes, let the liquid cook off, add lime or lemon juice, add parsley, thyme and pour in about a quarter cup cream, season with lots of salt and pepper. Just so delicious. Very good tossed with orzo (what I did, with a bit of sweetbutter) or just a crispy baguette and, of course, the obligatory glass of cold white wine.

Le Weekend

A rainy day in NYC and the start of the weekend. Because I pigged out last night on delicious lamb meatballs in the manner of Breakfasts at Bevan's circa the mid 90's (think Napier Street, Greenpoint, Cape Town, the apartment above Anatoli), many waiters, a couple of maitre d's, me in scrubbed Sunday casuals, congregating around Bevan and Mustafa's large round table upon which are: platters, and platters. Of food. Lamb meatballs studded with goat cheese, pine nuts and dill; phyllo triangles sizzling from the oven with feta; ekmek steaming; blocks of cold butter and dishes of preserves; coffee percolating in the laboratory-bizarre glass contraption; gin, vodka and tomato juice flowing ceaselessly from antique glass jugs, and carafes of wine waiting for later. The most strange and incredibly civilized meal...

Wow, I digress. I even took pictures of the lamb-balls last night, but they Disappeared. Bevan sent a multipage missive about his latest trip through Anatolia, hence the desire for things Turkish. or things Bevan-ish: his missive reports that all is not well with Turkish cooking.

So tonight's dinner was still in the vein of the Middle East but penance for meatballs - oh, and lapin noodles at lunch...

Below, still life, Brooklyn style. It's fall. I'm allowed to buy too-much-stuff.

Cactus pears (OK prickly pears for those in the old country) far left, back row; why? I like 'em. Arugula, yes, I've got over my temporary aversion and defection to Boston lettuce; an acorn squash beneath - to satisfy all the Fall propaganda; the...yams; red onion; broccoli...back to left front: garlic; shitake mushrooms and their big portobello cousins (will stuff the one with the other, tomorrow night)...

Hm. This may be more at home with Miss H at New York Shitty ...Look: I'm not exactly an instant food fan. But this stuff (Sahadi's house falafel) is just too good and too cheap to be sniffed at... $2.40 for a whole box??? This is like....35 cents' worth...

A glass of my faithful Oyster Bay, a bowl of terrace parsley and baby tomatoes, Greek yogurt with terrace mint and garlic chopped into it, plus a little tahini, and red onion wilting in some lime juice and salt...

Ta-raaaa. Really, it was pretty delicious.

Stewed quince for dessert with some cream. Hmmmm.

Pictures from the Other Life

Table Bay as the mist lifts in the morning...

These are old, but I was looking for pictures to show Vince, to brace him for the beauty that will assail him when he sees Cape Town (sure, there's a flipside, but not now, not here - he will drive through the flipside, though, on his way from the airport. Nothing like the Third World for contradiction). A couple of years ago I took these pictures on a trip out of Cape Town Harbour round to Clifton, on my brother Anton's boat, acting as support for my niece Gabriella's open sea ski race.


Mon frere: the bigger, male version of me...well, sort of.

The view of Lion's Head in the foreground, with Table Mountain nice and flat behind. Paragliders float like raptors in the air currents above Lion's Head...

Not Cape Town, but the stomping ground of my childhood. The view from Leisure Island, small island in the Knysna lagoon, on the south coast. My mother's parents lived there when my grandfather retired. He fished in this lagoon from his little boat - I must find and scan the pictures I have of my mom line fishing here in the very tidal water...

The Heads, as they are known, beyond which the Atlantic. When he was young my father swam across The Heads, nearly depriving me of any knowledge of him...The roads on Leisure Island are still very quiet, there are still old people who live gentle lives, and small children who paddle in the flopping waves that scared me silly at night as a child, lying on the second floor of the house we rented, and that we called Pinky, even though she was painted white. Uncle Reg, my cousin Andy's dad, used to play Sand Lions with me (involving a lot of crawling and digging and squealing and some roaring). I think we were offered Pinky, at a price that now resembles a song, but that then, in the 70's, seemed too dear, and my dad turned it down.

One now pays for the privilege of Leisure Island, and sometimes it seems worth it.

What price memory rendered intact?