Today’s adventure, before tonight’s attempt to escape Cape Town, was to take a cooking class, Cooking With Love. We went back to Bo-Kaap, which we visited a few days ago. This wonderful woman named Faldela brings you into one of those colorful buildings, her family home. The three of us met a family of three and we got a lovely mid-day experience full of jokes and recipes, the medical remedies of turmeric and we made some amazing dishes. The best, lightest naan you’ve ever experienced is the stuff you made at the direction of a master chef.
We also had a curry, some samosas and a few other things. Ginger, fennel, tamarind and the sights and smells that come with them made for a wonderful lunch. All of it coming from the local fusion of Cape Malay cuisine. In this place African traditions have blended for centuries with the foods that Malaysian, Indonesian, and Indian slaves.
I have, for years, tried to figure out the exact words to flesh out my idea, but I would love to take part in classes or restaurant concepts which give you both food and the menu’s foodways, which is to say how the food and its cultural and traditional and historical origins come to us. This wasn’t that, but it was close enough to make me want to look harder for more experiences like that. Also, it was outrageously delicious.
Faldela cracked jokes on all of us — I became Kenny Rogers for the afternoon, and resisted the urge to sing any of his songs — and told us about her family and got everyone to talk about ours. The other people were a mother visiting with her two young adult children. One was in college and the other in graduate school, if I understood them right. Faldela brought out a stack of books, and these, she said, were her gifts to her children, her legacy. These were the names and messages of all of the people she has brought into her home to share the secrets of these delicious meals, and would you like to sign them.
Would I like to sign them. Would I like to fill up a page or two on my own?
She emailed us the recipes. I hope we make some of these things soon. Even if we get something wrong, we’ll just have to keep trying.
And that’s what we’re doing with a plane tonight. For the third time, we’ll catch a ride over to the airport, take part in the pre-flight process, maybe get on a plane, and maybe fly back to the United States. Is the third time the charm?
