Cape Town - After five years of writing these columns, I find myself looking around me as I sit in a cafe in Gardens, wondering. What would I do if, one day, I sat down to write a column, hours from deadline, and I just could not think of a theme? What would I do? Would I panic? Would I wail and ululate? Would I go into a severe depression wondering what will become of me?
Five years. That’s 275-plus columns, one a week, four (sometimes five) a month, 55 a year if you don’t count Christmas, the only week when the paper doesn’t publish. At an average of 950 words a column, that’s 261 250 words, or one pretty fat novel. Each one with its own theme, thoughts, no recipes repeated, cheek, wit, and please God some wisdom here and there along the way. In each, the simple intentions: to entertain and amuse as well as offer some useful information to the home cook.
And I’m looking around me and there’s an oke with a yellow cellphone (Really? Yellow?) Moving on. Next to him is an oke who is peeved that the previous occupants’ teapot and cup haven’t been cleared. I know how he feels. There isn’t much, really, for a waitron to do – how I detest that word – apart from dart around bringing people what they’ve ordered. Clearing a table promptly is a basic of running a restaurant. If it’s not done on the turn, there are only two possible reasons – they’re understaffed, or they don’t care. And that’s never a good idea. For all you know, sitting nearby could be some guy writing his column on deadline and trying to think of something to write.
Moving on. Those two over there sound like Americans. Oops, look away, one of them just caught me staring. They’re immersed in files and laptops. Maybe they’re spies. If they are, their attire is certainly a damn good disguise. No gabardine suits, no monocles, no briefcase that could really be a camera. Just denim shorts and strappy tops.
Oh hell, the quiet woman to my right has been joined by a friend and there is now a great gabbing going on. This place is set out like the French like to pack their restaurants, with barely elbow room between the tables. Or those Wagamama restaurants in London where they make you queue, herd you in and herd you out, with barely time to breathe let alone enjoy the experience of eating. It’s not just about getting the food down you, it’s about a greater convivial experience, a little slice of a life in the middle of a day or an evening; a getting together to connect minds and catch up on your mutual lives. You can’t do that while being herded and hurried. Or just gabbing incessantly about nothing in particular. He said, she said, I said, they said. Shaddup. Okay I didn’t actually say that. I just thought it. That would not have gone down well.
And what is this mashing up of English and Afrikaans lately? The waitronperson has just said to the couple next to me, “Dis surprisingly baie nice. Dis a nice balance, dis baie popular.” Is it just me or is that really, really annoying? Aren’t there proper Afrikaans words for nice and surprising? Shouldn’t that be lekker and verbasend?
Maybe I should just stand up, clear my throat noisily, ask everybody for their attention and read this column so far to them. That would either clear the room or get me lynched. Or both. Maybe the oke with the yellow cellphone would clobber me with it. The oke next to him, the one peeved about the non-clearing of his table, could well turn out to be an ally, and might help me fend off the rest of them. We would quickly ascertain whether or not the American girls are spies, and threaten to reveal their identies if they did not switch allegiance to us from whatever dastardly espionage they were plotting.
The management would learn a quick, free lesson in why it’s important to clear tables on the turn, and would separate the tables out a bit more so that their customers no longer had to listen to mangled Englikaans, and I’d be able to finish this column by giving you all a recipe for a lovely summery way with lamb. Yes, lamb.
This week I had a great craving for lamb, having not had it for ages – okay, two weeks – but because it was hot we wanted a relatively light supper. So, obviously, I bought a leg of lamb. I asked the butcher to debone it, not because I don’t know how to debone it myself but because I didn’t feel like it.
I marinated it in the juice of 1 lemon, 2 fat cloves garlic, obliterated, and loads of bruised rosemary needles. I let it marinate for a couple of hours. I browned it on the stove top in melted butter, for about 10 minutes, turning frequently and basting. I removed it to a preheated 220ºC oven and roasted it for between 30 and 40 minutes (it depends on how rare you want it). I turned the oven off and allowed it to rest for 20 minutes.
I served it with a salad of fennel bulb, sugar snap peas, baby tomatoes, yellow capsicum, tenderstem broccoli, and cucumber ribbons.
Cut the fennel into thin strips. Pull the string off each pea pod. Trim the stems of the broccoli. Slice the capsicum into thin strips. Bring water to the boil and throw in the fennel, peas, broccoli and capsicum. Boil at a moderate pace for a minute. Drain and run ice cold water through it, and allow to drain thoroughly. Peel the cucumber and slice into ribbons.
Put 2 Tbs white wine vinegar, 1 Tbs dijon mustard, 1 Tbs olive oil and 1 Tbs fynbos honey in a stainless steel saucepan and simmer gently for a minute, stirring. Season with salt and pepper. Allow to return to room temperature. Toss the salad ingredients in the dressing and serve with slices of lamb.
Stop writing and look up. Look around you and you suddenly realise, whoah, you’ve written a column. The woman to your right is having “persoonlike issues” but thankfully her husband is “nie meer in denial nie”. Go home.
Weekend Argus