Durban - A passion for cooking, a compulsion to write and a joyous love of travel is the perfect recipe for a cookbook and Marlene van der Westhuizen has served up something quite delicious in her new offering Secrets of a French Cooking Class.
At the Oyster Box in uMhlanga recently to launch the book and give readers a glimpse of what makes her food and her life so delectable, Marlene spoke of the beauty and bounty of French village life and of the cooking courses she holds in her home in Charroux four times a year. The book takes the reader into her 50th cooking class.
“Students spend six days with me, from about 8am until well into the evening,” she says. “We cook, we shop, we look at clothes and antiques and we might even go to the Vichy Opera House in France. I want them to experience what it is like to live in the medieval village of Charroux.”
Although course participants stay in surrounding guest houses, they spend the day and evening at Marlene’s home, as part of her family.
“We water the garden, plan our menus and do everything we would if we were cooking at home, even wheeling a rubbish bin through the narrow cobbled streets.”
The course is all about wonderful food, prepared with passion, that can be served as a meal for one, a family supper or a feast for a gathering of friends around the table. From a tomato and mozzarella tart and red peppers with ricotta, to oxtail a la Beatrix and osso buco with young red wine, it is all there – with the secrets that go into making it special.
Don’t think that you will pile on the kilos in this kitchen that delights in cream, butter and the finest cheeses – Marlene says many guests lose weight as they are eating “real” meals, not snacking and are active.
In her foreword she writes: “Start simply and easily. Allow the space where you prepare your food to be beautiful. Before you begin, remove all the pre-packaged ingredients from their containers and wraps and arrange them on lovely wooden boards or platters, as if you are planning to photograph them. Pop a rose in a milk jug, get some solid jazz going and pour yourself a glass of good red.”
Secrets of a French Cooking Class is illustrated with evocative pictures by Cape Town photographer Johan Wilke, most of which have been shot in France using natural light. Those shot in Cape Town have a subtle difference in lighting, Marlene points out.
So, how did the wife of a Cape Town plastic surgeon become a chef at the age of 34, go on to hold cooking courses in a village in France and write seven cookbooks, some of which have been translated into Afrikaans?
She is the product of a childhood that nurtured a love of food, writing and culture, she says.
“My mother is a brilliant, self-taught, cordon bleu cook and my father edited the Sasolnews magazine in Sasolburg. As a little girl, I would, on occasion, help him photoshop pictures, so I suppose I developed an eye for a good picture. I also attended a school where I was exposed to culture and classical music, which stood me in good stead for life in France.”
She wanted to study “something exotic like hotel management” but enrolled for a BA degree. She didn’t complete it and took on a variety of writing jobs. She also met her husband, Deon, who was studying to be a plastic surgeon.
He was a student for 16 years, during which time their son Renier was born.
But the pull of working with food was great and, at 34, she announced that she was going to become a chef. She joined acclaimed chef John Jackson in his restaurant in the Peninsula Hotel in Cape Town, learning from scratch, doing cleaning duties and eventually working at the grill.
It proved to be a springboard for a dream career. She launched wines for Cape wine estates, doing the food and wine pairings for media for many years. She also had the The Food Studio demonstration and Long Table kitchen in Cape Town until three years ago.
Her first book Delectable was published in 2006 and she says the smell of printers’ ink became a small, but serious, addiction. More followed: Sumptuous, Delightful Desserts, Soetgoed, Lazy Lunches, Kuierkos Vir Die Middag, Decadent Dinners, Kuierkos Vir Die Aand, Abundance, Oorvloed and Secrets of a French Cooking Class at the same time as Geheime van ’n Franse Kookklass.
While giving cooking classes, she met a Cape Town couple who had bought a home in France and suggested she run cooking classes at their chateau. She took her first tour in 2002.
She fell in love with the region and 11 years ago, she and Deon bought a holiday home in Charroux, from which she has now run 50 cook’s tours.
“What an immense privilege to be able to combine a passion for food and cooking with travel,” she says.
* Secrets of a French Cooking Class is published by Bookstorm.
Recipe: Peppers with ricotta
When I serve a main course on a platter, I like to use vegetables on a bed of greens to garnish the platter around the meat or chicken dish. These peppers can be halved and used to beautiful effect. It is a good idea to drizzle the peppers with a generous amount of excellent olive oil just before serving. This will help create an abundant, decadent look to the dish.
4 large red peppers
500g fresh ricotta
4 large eggs, beaten
1 T parsley, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 chilli, chopped
freshly ground nutmeg to taste
white pepper to taste
salt to taste
Preheat the oven to 160ºC.
Boil some salted water and quickly blanch the peppers for about 3 minutes. Cool the peppers slightly, remove the tops and seeds.
Combine the ricotta, eggs, parsley, garlic, chilli and nutmeg, and mix together thoroughly with a fork. Taste and season with salt and white pepper.
Spoon the mixture into the peppers then bake, standing the peppers up in a lightly oiled baking dish for about 20 minutes. The filling needs to be beautifully set.
Serves 8.
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