Editor’s letter
AND THEN IT WAS JUNE.
By now, we may have gone down a level in lockdown, but we’re still living in strange, unpredictable times.
One of the many, many tragic sideeffects of The Virus has been the shuttering of restaurants all over the world. Perhaps it’s because it’s such a tough industry at the best of times, or perhaps because we are food nerds who work with and know so many chefs personally, but it feels particularly heartbreaking. For the first three weeks of lockdown, our friends Arno and Liezl of Janse & Co. in Cape Town announced they would take over and run the kitchen at Ladles of Love. Two months later, they are still providing thousands of meals for the homeless every day. Visit ladlesoflove.
org.za to donate.
Our colleagues at Eat Out launched the Restaurant Relief Fund with seed money from Media24, and are helping SA’s chefs to keep cooking and feed the hungry. If, like us, you were privileged enough to be able to eat out often before the virus, donating to the fund means supporting an industry we love as well as saving the lives, quite literally, of those who are most at risk. Donate at help.
eatout.co.za.
Woolworths has partnered with Gift of the Givers to roll out food care parcels nationally and, at head office, they have opened their canteen kitchen to cook meals for those in need. For details on how to donate to both of these initiatives, see page 30.
The virus may have made us a nation of home cooks, stress-bakers and amateur brewers, but I’ll confess that as soon as I heard El Burro, Cape Town’s muchloved Mexican restaurant, was doing deliveries, my order for a taco box was in.
Don’t get me wrong, I have a long list of recipes I still intend to master – and I got to hand-pick a lot of them for this issue (the perks of being an editor): noyeast pizza, Abi’s oxtail vindaloo, Sophia Lindop’s za’atar chicken, Hannah’s eggs with crispy rice, the kung pao cauliflower from Meera Sodha’s incredible book East, Keletso’s stuffed chocolate brownies, I could go on … I might even go back to the banana bread of level 5 to try out Abi’s genius tip (p 47), because we will always have bananas.
But, there is something to be said for sitting down to a meal that someone else has cooked, with love and thoughtfulness, as well as skill.
Last week, The Cherub turned three. It was a low-key celebration, and I lowkey quite liked that, as the Gen Z stepson would say. I made cupcakes from a Hummingbird Bakery recipe that TASTE’s account director, Kelly, my work partner and the kindest person I know, shared with me via WhatsApp.
I wished I could have taken her one.
They were that good. I made Woolies’ box icing and put out bowls of sweets for decorating, which is all a three-year-old really wants in the end. As well as a doll’s house, new ballet shoes and a wooden push bike like Jack and Leo’s obviously.
A few days later, Bertus Basson’s wife, Mareli, whose son was born a week after The Cherub, sent us an Overture at Home box. While I ate yellowtail ceviche, confit duck, chocolate torte and granadilla profiteroles, I was reminded, again, why we had our wedding at Overture. It was a clever menu, made with precision, but also with love. I could taste it.
So, while we’ll all have to keep eating at home for now, there’s no reason not to eat well and support others while doing it. From the lockdown classics we perfected for this issue to the chefs’ boxes popping up every day, you have everything you need. And remember, we are the lucky ones. So please give what you can.
The virus may have made us a nation of home cooks, stress-bakers and amateur brewers”