Hope for Haiti – A Food Blogging Charity Raffle

Jeanne at Cooksister has put together a great raffle to raise funds for relief work in Haiti. Now you can donate money and have a chance of winning some great prizes at the same time. Just visit Cooksister and see if some of the prizes don’t tempt you into bidding for them. I’ve been having trouble deciding between several signed cook books and some delicious French baking goodies, but I’ve made a choice at last.

If you can afford a GBP6.50 (about $10 or R80) ticket then go and choose a prize to bid for now… the draw closes at midnight on Sunday 28th Feb and prizes can be shipped worldwide. Just remember to note the code for the prize you’ve chosen to enter it at the end of the donation process.

About the campaign:

H2Ope for Haiti is an online raffle that Cook Sister! has launched together with BloggerAid - Changing the Face of Famine (BA-CFF) to raise funds for Concern Worldwide's relief effort in Haiti. They've selected Concern Worldwide because of its long track record and quick response after the quake to provide clean drinking water and water purification tablets. This non-governmental international humanitarian organisation founded in 1968 works around the world to reduce suffering and work towards the ultimate elimination of extreme poverty in the world's poorest countries. Concern International has been working in Haiti since 1994 and had over 100 staff members on the ground when the earthquake struck. Despite losing several team members in the tragedy, they have been quick to act with distribution of supplies.

Concern Worldwide estimates that its initial response to the emergency will last at least six months. The money raised by this raffle will be paid directly into Concern Worldwide's account by Justgiving and will be used exclusively for the Haiti relief effort.

On Cook Sister! you will find the list of all the wonderful prizes from the generous donors - from personally autographed cookbooks to parcels of French baking goodies to original art - there is something for everyone. Unless stated otherwise, all prizes are available for worldwide shipping and tickets cost £6.50 (roughly $10) each. Once you have chosen the prize or prizes you want to buy tickets for, take a note of their prize codes (very important!) and click through to our Justgiving donations page where you will find complete instructions on how to buy your tickets and specify your chosen prizes. Please read and follow the instructions carefully and e-mail my friend Jeanne (emailcooksister AT googlemail DOT com) if you have any questions.

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Be My Guest – A Review

I love cooking for people, having friends round for supper or lunch, Sunday lunches for twelve people or one of our festivals with forty. I’m great at tastes and flavours, feeding everyone well, but presentation is not my forte. A le Creuset casserole is one of my favourite inventions, going straight from the oven on to the table. We always eat at a long table in the kitchen end of our main room, which can be extended with another table, and another when necessary. Candles will be there and usually flowers, paper napkins only if I remember and no elaborate place settings. It’s more family kitchen meal than dinner party, even when I am doing a dinner party. It’s not that I don’t like beautiful styling, it’s just that I’d rather focus on the food and it would drive me crazy doing both.

So when I was asked to review Fay Lewis’ Be My Guest, I was thrilled. A book about entertaining might give me a few tips to smarten up my table. The book duly arrived, a beautiful thick hardback with lots of glossy photography. I settled down for an evening’s read on the sofa. And my Virgoan critical facility started to niggle. At first glance it is all about styling. Various beautiful scenarios have been created, with the help of several stylists and we are invited to recreate them at home… without a stylist. The photos are beautiful but intimidating for a non-style orientated person, with a minimum of practical tips on how to create the effects, leaving me with the feeling that I’d have to go on a major shopping expedition at a hip home store to throw a dinner party ever again.

There are lots of delicious sounding menus proposed for various events: a pool party, a tea party, a cocktail party, a festive celebration and so on. The recipes look good, are well-researched and well photographed, but, here’s my Virgo niggle again, I like recipe books that write about the food with introductions that tell you how it tastes or evoke something of the crunch or gooey ooze… tactile writing. I like to read about what I’m going to cook and I’ve just realized that the words are just as important to me as photos in gauging how a recipe will taste. This is just a personal preference, but I’d like to see more writing in this book!

Having said all that, I think this book could be a great help in planning menus and finding achievable recipes, when you want to put on a special event and have everything just so. Just remember that the effects in the book were most likely achieved by several people working together and if you are cooking and styling it all yourself, it will probably take a couple of days’ solid work to achieve the same.

I’ll probably have another read through, pick out a few recipes to try and carry on throwing my food on the table with a scattering of candles and flowers and then have to use kitchen towel for napkins… but that’s just me!

If you want to have another opinion, Homemade Heaven enjoyed the book much more than I did!

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Heat, Hearts and Long Division

I opened the door just now to be greeted by a wall of heat that was almost solid to the touch. Greeted is the wrong word though. It was more like the welcome you might get from a bouncer at a happening club when you turn up in a dirndl skirt and a neat blouse. The best option would have been to retreat inside to the cool shadowy interior of our house, but determination to conclude my mission drove me on. The laundry must be hung out to dry.

The summer has at last asserted itself with a vengeance, having had a half-hearted flirtation with autumn most unlike February, who usually doesn’t allow the faintest wisp of morning fog and chill nights to intrude on her dominion of heat. Two nights ago I went to bed with a hot water bottle and winter pyjamas. Today it is heading for 40 degrees and an afternoon spent by the swimming pool.

Middle Daughter made a batch of iced heart biscuits for her grandmother’s 88th birthday today. She also baked them for Valentines Day with a cluster of heart-shaped cookie cutters that were a Christmas present, and lovingly iced each one.


We had trouble getting the icing to the right consistency to pipe but she persevered, making one for each member of the extended family, with their initial on as well as silver balls and sprinkles. Unfortunately they didn’t all get delivered to their intended recipients. By Wednesday there was still a fair selection in the box. I was attacked by the munchies and consumed one or two that had somebody else’s initial on… I have been forgiven and this second batch should make sure that everyone gets a heart cookie baked with love. We used Nigella’s recipe for birthday cookies from Feast and they taste great.


And the good news is that I have finally got long division sussed. For some reason I never picked up how to do long division with remainders at school and it has been a mystery to me ever since. Middle Daughter missed two weeks of school with mumps and tonsillitis and, when she went back, her class were in the throes of long division. She came back with a homework sheet, saying she had no idea what to do. I got her to show me what they had been doing in class and was finally able to figure out the whole process they were supposed to use stepping down the page from each number. I have become an expert on it now and she proudly came back the other day saying that she had got 10/10, so I guess she has got her confidence going again too.

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Pizza and Cape Town Food Bloggers Conference

I found another delicious use for our profusion of bite-size tomatoes yesterday. With the weather getting close to a true February scorching summer's day on Valentine’s Day, I deemed it way too hot for a Sunday roast and decided to make pizza instead. Youngest feels hard done by if we don’t have a proper lunch on a Sunday, and pizza is one of the few acceptable substitutes for roast chicken and roast potatoes.

On one of the pizzas I drizzled olive oil and then scattered halved cherry tomatoes, diced mozzarella and a little chopped garlic. When it came sizzling from the oven I scattered some fresh basil over it. It was so delicious that it almost disappeared while my back was turned rolling out the next pizzas and I only managed to grab one piece. Next time I’m making more!

Now that I’m blogging about food again, rather than mumps, I am really excited to discover that there is going to be Cape Town’s first ever food bloggers conference next month on the 21st March. I have been envying from afar all the blogger get togethers that happen in London and elsewhere, so it is wonderful to have the chance to be part of one. Jeanne from Cooksister will be speaking as well as several other experienced food bloggers.

Here is the link to the conference site if you are interested in attending.

RSVP: Please can you let Colleen know as soon as possible if you are planning to attend by contacting her on collywolly@24.com or collywolly50@yahoo.co.uk and leaving her your details so that she can get back to you.

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Accidental Harvests

In between all the sicknesses afflicting our household, it has been a time of abundance here on our farm. A lull between the tonsillitis and the mumps had the whole family out harvesting almonds from two of our trees, resulting in a huge basket sitting on the table to be de-husked and often munched straight away, as some of the shells are soft enough to open with your fingers,


a deft twist and a tender milky fresh almond is revealed to be crunched up immediately leaving you wanting more. Even after all this we have a large bowl spilling over with almonds to keep us going on the snack front for a month or two.

We’re heading out to harvest the next two trees with a different variety later today, so more almond indulgence is on the cards.

The fig tree has also been generous this year. For the first time we have as many fresh green figs as we can eat and we have been sharing with the birds too, who leave the skins hollowed out on the tree for us to find if we have been slow to pick the ripening figs.

The tomatoes in the veggie garden have been prolific but my best accidental harvest has been the self seeded tomatoes that we discovered last week, all tangled into a wild profusion at the end of the drainage trench that takes the grey water from our showers, washing machine and basins. Some seeds must have washed down from the kitchen sink and there are three different varieties of tomato, bursting with ripeness and flavour and scattering themselves on the ground when they can no longer cling to the vines. We harvested two big bowls full last week and the small ones were like sweeties to pop into your mouth and let the sweetness burst into it.


I had great thoughts of canning and preserving them, but we managed to polish off that bowl quite easily, what with tomato and basil salads, pasta with fresh tomatoes and herbs, tomato sandwiches for school (Youngest’s favourite) and then this wonderful roasted tomato recipe… well not even a recipe really.

Roasted Tomatoes Not A Recipe
Whenever I’m baking bread I toss some small tomatoes in olive oil, sprinkle them with sea salt and put them to bake alongside the bread. Then we eat them hot or cold squished onto bread or as a filling in tortillas or any other way you can think of. I think they’d work well cooked like this to freeze in small batches. They’d also make a great pasta sauce with some fresh basil thrown in, but we ate them too quickly to find out.


So my canning experiments never happened but we have been enjoying sun-ripe tomatoes without tiring of them all week. Now we are just wondering how we can get them to seed themselves again next year, as we are planning to level the area where they are growing now and make a grassy play area.

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Holiday Sick

Last week I wrote a post on soup and happened to mention, perhaps rather too smugly, that I have a freezer stashed full of stock, including turkey stock to fight winter colds and flu. Now the little voice that tells me trite things like ‘pride comes before a fall’, and ‘don’t tempt fate’, is telling me triumphantly ‘I told you so!’

On Monday morning Middle Daughter woke up not feeling well, Youngest had a bit of a sore throat but went to school anyway. As the morning went on my throat started to feel scratchy and my husband was also suffering. The school called me to fetch Youngest early, as she was now feeling sick. In no time I had two sick girls installed on the sofa, one husband in bed and a son who was entirely unaffected by the lurgy still needing to go to school and be fed normal meals.

So my freezer full of stock has been slightly depleted. Vegetable soup with turkey stock for the girls, clear broth with garlic and herbs and a bit of rice for husband whose throat was too sore even for bits of vegetables, lentil soup made with ham stock later on to ring the changes, have been the diet this week. The girls have occupied the sofa for the entire week, sore throats and temperatures and sore eyes and headaches. My throat turned into a head cold, so I did the minimum of work to keep my regular clients happy and spent the rest of the time reading them stories.

My husband developed acute tonsillitis and so is on antibiotics which always make him feel rotten, so he’s mostly stayed in bed. I took the girls to our homeopath, when their fevers still weren’t down on Thursday. They were in better spirits by then and eating well, but I thought they might need something to boost them over the last of it. Middle Daughter turned out to have tonsillitis too, even though her throat only felt a bit sore. Youngest just has a throat infection.

The other day as I was doing my round of the sick beds and sofas with jelly and ice-cream for a snack, Middle Daughter looked up at me and commented,
“It’s like you’re our servant.”
I was momentarily lost for words, but then hurriedly corrected this unflattering image with,
“No, I’m your nurse.”
All I lack is a cap and uniform. The temperature chart is there for all three of them; the thermometer in a little cup of sterilizing stuff. Tissue salts and homeopathic drops to be doled out hourly and two hourly and regularly meals delivered, balanced for nutrition and ease of eating.

Mind you, as our domestic help has been off sick this week, having caught mumps from Youngest, the servant cap feels like it fits too… except that I haven’t done that job very well at all, confining myself to ensuring a supply of clean dishes and clean clothes and ignoring the dust balls and dog hair strewing the floors.

So instead of regaling you with glorious photos of our holidays, swimming in rivers and mountain pools, sunshine and braais, you can picture for yourselves a dusty interior, gloomy with blankets over the windows to keep the bright summer sun from glaring in feverish eyes, the hum of the washing machine and occasional giggles from the girls, who at least have had each other as companions all week on the sofa and have been able to chat away and play games when feeling well enough.

I need another holiday now!

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Happy New Year!

A blue moon shining down on us on New Year’s Eve, blue moon with a partial eclipse, it has to have powerful mojo, extra special energy to bring in the New Year. Auspicious in every way.

We all made little banners to take out to the circle before supper, banners to flutter in the wind and carry the energy of our New Year’s intention from old year into the new.

Some of us wrote single words, others wrote a whole screed of intentions, resolutions, inscribed, decorated and from the heart.


Mine were single word intentions, words that I want to grow with me through the next year:

Expand – to grow from internal thinking towards outward action, to expand horizons and think bigger.
Balance – to keep balanced between family and work, myself and others, an even keel.
Joy – to remember to enjoy life as it unfurls, allow joy to come into every day and let go of the anxiety that clouds it.


Our banners fluttered in the wind around the sticks of our circle, surrounded by the flags and windmills left from our Summer festival, as we left the sand pit to go and tend to the roast lamb and roast potatoes, the whole family joining us for a late supper.

A perfect leg of lamb and two big bowls of roast potatoes, buttered leeks from the garden, baked butternut and broccoli, a feast indeed; but the moon rose with a resounding glow and had us all rushing outside to admire it amid the last pink glow on the horizon, leaving hardly touched plates of food on the table. The food pulled us back inside to the table but after that we kept a careful eye on the moon through the window to spot the eclipse: a mere nibble from the side of it in the end but enough to see with the naked eye.


The kids had their pudding first and then were despatched to bed, so that we could sit over ours and try to stretch the meal as late as possible. With coffee, chocolate and nuts we made it to 10.30, but then the others retired home to their beds, while my mother, my husband and I stalwartly kept going, with the help of our books, till midnight to welcome in the New Year.

I confess to nodding off with the sparkle of Christmas tree lights and tinsel blurring together as my eyes closed, but a firework roused me and we rushed out to admire our neighbour’s fireworks (illegal in our dry climate but pretty anyway). The dogs rushed in to hide away from the noise and after a last salute to the moon we went to bed too.

New Year's Day was spent by the pool with full on summer weather at last.

Wishing you all a wonderful 2010 full of joy and positive energy!

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