Home Made Magic

Sometimes in life you get the privilege of choosing your own family where the connection feels magical. I was blessed enough to be able to choose my own brother (from another mother). We shared a house for more than a year and he now stays one town away and I miss him and having him around terribly.

He came to my town for a day and we spent it at a friend’s mother’s coffee shop. Living in a place like South Africa with our economy on a constant downward spiral, one needs to get creative! This brother of mine has always had a very unique mind and been very creative, don’t ask me how he got the idea in his head but he decided to make home-made crème liquor.

I am always very skeptical of my brother’s hair brained ideas and even asked the owner of the coffee shop is she trusted what the boys were doing.

It started with making our own ideal milk (one again South Africa’s economy made us decide to make our own). How does one make ideal milk, you might ask? Well I did at least. The answer = you boil milk!!! Okay, it is slightly more complicated than just leaving a pot of milk on the stove for an hour- that would just be a disaster!

So you start off by measuring the amount of milk you would like to use, and add half of it to a thick-based sauce pan. You then take a sosatie stick (kebab skewer) place it in the milk and mark where the milk is against the sosatie stick. You add the rest of the milk and slowly bring to a boil.

There is one annoying thing about making ideal milk yourself and that would be constantly removing and discarding the layer of skin that forms on top of the milk. Once the amount of milk once again reaches the level it was when it was marked on the sosatie stick, you have ideal milk, also known as evaporated milk. The process can take quite a while though as you don’t want to have the sauce pan become too hot and burn the milk.

So while the boys were making ideal milk and getting to business on the liquor, I got roped into helping cover chocolate coated truffles in chocolate. One would think that it’s an easy task…nope! I think with a lot of practice and some skill you could manage to always have them come out perfect. However on a first try my hands and feet- yes my feet too- were covered in chocolate and my truffles were definitely not all perfectly covered in chocolate. Luckily they were to be saved by having white chocolate drizzled over them the following day.

I have a new respect for bakers- tasks that appear to be seemingly easy take a lot more time, effort and skill than we realise! I won’t be complaining about the price of a treat any time soon!

So back to the boys and what seemed like their Dexter’s Laboratory experiment… Once the milk had boiled down to half of what it was (500 ml), they added a tin of condensed milk (sadly I don’t know how to make this at home yet) and three tablespoons of coffee. They then waited for this mixture to cool down, and according to them it already tasted sublime!

Once the mixture was at about room temperature, they added the alcohol, 300 ml of Brandy. They mixed it well and gave each of us a taste (in improvised shot glasses of course)! Indeed their creative flair and mad scientist ideas paid off and they had accomplished making a magical cost effective crème coffee liquor!

There is a magic about spending time with those who are like family to you, and to create something together in that time just melts it into your memory! My brother has inspired me to try many more home made things, first up being homemade feta cheese (goat’s cheese). You’ll have to wait for my next post to see whether I succeed and if I’ll be making tuna & feta puffs or just tuna puffs!

Love Jo xo

Jo’s 3 Take Aways:

Creativity is key
Respect your baker
Find people who love like family

A Proudly South African Saturday (Part 2)

I rushed off to the store to get some meat for the braai (yes I am aware I had just eaten a large meal, don’t judge me- I’m proudly South African and we can eat!) Finally I found a nice T-bone steak for a decent price and get absolute excited to eat this gorgeous cut of meat in an hour or two.

Food is just a pretence under which we get together, but not necessarily eat. This is what makes a South African braai better than an American barbeque, or any other country’s version. For example, one couple only brought their meat for show- by the time I left, the lady was stuffed on side dished and dessert, and her fiancé had consumed some alcohol and was so engaged in conversation that they both forgot the existence of their meat.

At a typical South African braai, there would usually be alcohol involved. The men would be at the fire making sure there are enough coals and wood so they have more time to drink and catch up. The women find another spot usually far enough away for the smoke not to burn their eyes yet close enough to hear if they happen to be misrepresented in a tale by their other half.

Sometimes, (and honestly preferably) there would be some snacks like chips and peanuts to snack on while we wait for the illusion of the meat being cooked.

There would be side dishes like the most amazing potato dish someone made for the night.

Potatoes cooked with once again brown onion soup and butter, partially sliced open with sliced onion in the slits! Definitely a treat worth a try. Of course, there was also some sweet bread- dough covered in cream and brown sugar baked in the oven! It was my first time trying both these dishes and I was astounded at how divine they were! I did find the sweet bread a tad sweet and ended up swirling it in the brown onion soup on my plate. I think these dishes saved the young lady whose fiancé had forgotten about their meat.

What I really love about braais is that you chose what you eat, you bring your meat with you and most ladies have their male counter parts cook their meat for them. Or if you’re like me, get a friend’s male counterpart to cook it! After a few braais and try’s you figure out who braais the best- make sure to always ask them because you don’t want the steak you’ve been looking forward to for the past two hours to be overcooked. Thankfully mine wasn’t, or at least I don’t think it was as I could only get two bites in after being so stuffed on the side dishes and potjie. However there is always room for dessert!

I finally understand why we usually don’t have desserts at braais because man, did we suffer, scoffing down every delicious bite of granadilla fridge tart but hoping with all our hearts our faces wouldn’t turn green for sheer over indulgence. Worth it though!

The one thing about the way too much food filled day that really brought it home for me was that food brings us together, whether we eat way too much or don’t even eat what we brought to the table. It gives us a platform to express love and kindness to one another, a moment to sit and catch up, and enables us to fulfil a basic human need- connection with others!

So in conclusion, if you want to experience two proudly South African culinary extravaganzas within a few hours of each other, make sure to stop eating at least two days prior to prevent a food overload coma and, for the love of pineapples, have an antacid ready!! Also have a heart that’s ready to receive the love of those who will become your unofficial family.

Jo’s take away

1. Don’t eat a full dinner less than two hours prior

2. If you are on a budget getting beef short rib to braai is an absolute life saver!

3. Braai broodjies are a must! Grab 2 slices of bread, butter the outsides, add some tomato, cheese and sliced onion. Spice with some salt and pepper and grill over the fire! No braai is complete without this treat!

A proudly South African Saturday (Part 1)

When one is moderately young and not specifically into spending every weekend clubbing, there are really only two respectable things to do (in South Africa, at least): braai and potjie (fondly called a pot). This weekend, I did both.

A braai would be similar to a barbeque in the American culture, and a potjie similar to a stew.

Every nationalist will claim that their country’s take on a traditional or famous meal would be the best. However, as a proudly South African woman who has never been overseas, I can assure you that our take on the so-called barbeque and stew is definitely the best!

When I was younger and everything still seemed right with the world, we use to make potjie for family gatherings. Everyone would get together from the near by towns. My favorite part would always be the dumplings with condensed milk at the end.

Perhaps I try to recreate these picture perfect family moments that I treasure from my childhood with the friends who are like family to me now and possibly that’s why I enjoy these kinds of gatherings so much.

We’ll start off with the potjie- you can read part two of this article to find out more about our traditional South African braai.

There’s something so serene about spending a Saturday afternoon with friends and their kids, helping prep food, enjoying great conversation and watching the cast iron pot cook over the fire, resembling a witch’s brew we have all pictured from the fairy tales we read and watched when we were kids.

I think the anticipation involved in making a potjie makes it so much more satisfying in the end- you smell every ingredient as it goes into the pot and change the smell of the steam coming out from the pot oh so subtly.

My friend’s husband was our chef and did an amazing job with a lamb pot!

First he sauteed the onions in some spice, then added some potatoes and later the lamb meat to the pot. He added brown onion soup mix and some frozen mix veg and fresh mushroom. The pot was only about half full with liquid and was left to steam, with an occasional stir.

The wife of the chef made some rice upon which the lamb pot was to be served and the whole meal came together, but more than that, it brought 3 generations together. We played and colored with the kids outside while patiently waiting for the meal to be cooked, which created a perfect light hearted atmosphere.

While still at the potjie, I received a text from a friend inviting me to her surprise birthday braai that same evening.

I initially wanted to decline but as both our busy schedules wouldn’t allow for us to celebrate her birthday together any other time soon, my first hosts very graciously excused me.

It really was a great start to a way too much food filled day, and it was only going to get better!

Jo’s take away:

1. Bring crisps to a potjie, it takes a while!

2. If you’re planning on drinking take something light otherwise you won’t make it till food.

3. Maybe add some dumplings and condensed milk, one of my favorite things with potjie!