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She’s a food writer and the content producer on the kykNET foodie programme Kokkedoor and its new sister, Koekedoor. Errieda du Toit may live in Cape Town but her heart is in Prince Albert.

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Errieda du Toit has a special bond with Prince Albert – and a yearning for its figs

Errieda says the names of her dogs,Tjoklit and Poerring,say all you need to know about her sweet tooth. Koekedoor will be broadcast on kykNET fromApril 2015.

After two sabbatical trips to the Karoo while we shot Kokkedoor, Prince Albert has become my spiritual home. Even though I’m no local, I feel an intense bond with the town – as if we’re connected by an umbilical cord.

For a foodie, Prince Albert is nirvana, a place that sets alight the senses and awakens nostalgia. There are the liver fritters, sold in a white paper bag at the café next to Pep on the main street. The new owners may have renamed Wimpels as Sommerso, but the recipe for the liver fritters remains unchanged.

I associate this world with homemade goodies, with traditions, with memories of a certain way of doing things, with Grandma’s cooking. You live with the seasons here – I don’t complain about the summer heat, because it forces you to slow down, to amble.

Prince Albert boasts cool leivore, small-town “farms” with veggie beds, fruit orchards and olive groves. The town is bordered by vineyards, onion fields and grazing cows.

And fig trees. Figs simply don’t explode with taste like this anywhere else. When I drive away, my boot is loaded with supplies for my urban existence: sweet Karoo dessert wine from Herman and Susan Perold, and large wheels of cheese from Gay’s Dairy.

Then, when I get home and bite into a fig, I want to weep with yearning for Prince Albert.

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