Proof of merry poet in pudding

Karoostew

ACHIM von Arnim is a big man who sucks the liquor out of life and savours every drop before allowing it to course through his veins and find his heart, where great passion lies. He once exhorted me to find the poet within. And then he tied my shoelaces.

In those days Franschhoek was only the embryo of the food capital it grew up to be. Circa early 1990s, Le Quartier Francais was known as one of the best restaurants in South Africa, and in charge of the kitchen was John Huxter, who invited a bunch of us to his chef ’s table.

I had met Von Arnim once, in the 1980s when he was still at Boschendal. That had also been at a lunch, and I had been a tad overwhelmed by his massively largerthan-life character.

Huxter’s lunch progressed merrily, Achim our cheerleader. He’d call for bottle after bottle and exhort each of us to spout poetry, to sing to the Gods, to drink deep of life’s sumptuous larder.

Something in me was bursting to respond, but he failed to bring forth the poet who quailed somewhere in a cage within me, dying to be released. The big man kindly but loudly tried to exorcise the timid Bard who would not be pried loose from self-imposed banishment.

When I knew I had to leave if I wasn’t to turn into a gibbering drunken wreck cowering in a corner of Huxter’s kitchen, I made my excuses and headed for the door, only to find Von Arnim at my heel.

“Tony, Tony, wait.” I turned, a tad wobbly. He pointed “your shoelace is undone my friend,” then bent down and tied it. He was sorry, he said, and felt he had been overbearing. I have felt a great, lasting affection for him since.

He continued the

Haute Cabriere tradition of fine wines. Franschoek continued transforming into a world food capital. I continued writing.

Some years later, when I brought out a book about hangover cures, I asked him to speak at the launch on the bank of the river at Spier, near Stellenbosch. He told the story of the timid guy who went out with a bunch of mates and drank and drank. As the wine went down, and probably some potstill brandy too, the timid man came out of himself, said erudite things, spouted poetry, bewitched all with rich and ribald tales. He was on top of the world. Then he went to sleep and awoke with a killer hangover. He had never felt worse. There was only one possible conclusion: the sleep did it. Then life took us to other places. A few weeks ago, to welcome an English friend, I had to do Cape Town as a tourist to show him around.

We ended up at Cabriere’s winetasting cellar, and tasted many wines including Ratafia, Von Arnim’s wonderful chardonnay dessert wine (or aperitif) fortified with Fine de Jourdan potstill brandy, and I took one home. And with it I made a dessert of figs and Cape gooseberries.

Tucking in, I thought: I have a book about to go into production, so many years later. And that I would need a person wise and funny to speak at the launch and, that I should ask a certain shoelace-tying man to save the date.