“COOKING HAS ALWAYS BEEN

the joy of my life. It brings me calm, gets my creative juices flowing and satiates my sense of wonder and curiosity about the myriad gastronomic flavour combinations I’m yet to explore.

Imagine then how transformative cooking has been for me since I married my husband, Brian, and we had our brood of four. The joy I derive from cooking now is still infused with that fantastically frivolous feeling of play you get when you do something you love; and my young squad demands to create our home meals with me as part of their play time. This is one of the ways we bond and create precious memories.

But there’s also something more meaningful and gratifying about preparing a meal now; I’m nourishing my family and shaping young palates, so hopefully they will make tasty but smart food choices as adults, deepening my connection to them.

Now that I have my own children, I marvel at how the wheel has come full circle: from being in the kitchen with my own mom in Mdantsane in the Eastern Cape, to passing on the love of preparing nutritionally sound, delicious meals and treats for my own little ones.

My food philosophy is that I cook one meal for the whole family. No one is more pressed for time than us parents and guardians. I have leaned heavily on my background in Food and Consumer Sciences, having obtained a bachelor’s degree at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) in Cape Town in 2006. So, even my toddler eats the same meal as the rest of the family.