Recipes for a happy life
While he's known for his food, his restaurants, his associations with spices and for having shaken up Mzansi's culinary landscape, in our interview with him he shares his perspective on finding a new outlook on life in his 50th year. Riffel doesn't get bored because he is constantly reimagining flavours, textures and recipes. He is also guring out how to do more with less, to simplify, and to share his love of food with others. It helps that he is constantly searching for ways to fill his cup, add to his knowledge base and continue growing and learning, no matter how much experience and knowledge he already has. In this issue, we not only get a measure of Riffel's calm, measured approach to life in the fast lane, but we also take a look at ways of lling your leisure time productively, including some fresh ideas about how to transform your outdoors spaces into green oases by planting up a storm (page 16). In our travel section (page 6), we set sail, not only on the seven seas, but also on that most vaunted of waterways, the Nile.
We also look at a few ways cruising is evolving as some ships get larger and others turn to niche destinations for adventure seekers. We're cognisant, too, of anxieties around wealth and the value of money in uncertain times. In our reader-friendly nance section (page 10), we focus on offshore investing as an opportunity to spread those nest eggs around a bit. We also take a slightly tongue-in-cheek look at estate living (page 14), specically the outlandish promises of estate agents and their advertisers, to discover what's worth investigating before laying down a deposit. Red wine is on the rise, again, and on page 19 we look at why in this year of a major Pinotage anniversary, such compelling experiments in blending are adding depth to the local wine industry. And, finally, on page 20 we have a few tips about how to dip into the fun, but sometimes tense world of art auctions, without freaking out and dropping cash on work nobody actually wants.
Happy reading – and remember to try to keep trying out new recipes and to never stop experimenting with unfamiliar ingredients.
Editor. Keith Bain
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The Herald
a day ago
- The Herald
The Hippo cure for Garden Route Outeniqua rust
It's a known fact that living on the Garden Route for any length of time can cause a condition called Outeniqua rust, a colloquial term for what is a lazy and or super-relaxed attitude. It's said that one interpretation of the George number plate CAW is an acronym for 'call and wait', referring to any kind of service in this area which doesn't happen at breakneck speed. This deadly Outeniqua rust disease is apparently brought on by being so entranced by the Outeniqua mountains and the beauty of this area that you slow right down without even realising it. And along with this newfound bliss and lethargy, motivation and productivity go right out the window. I didn't know I was almost unconscious, that I needed a visit to a proper self-respecting city, until I recently visited Cape Town and discovered that I was actually still alive and kicking though the insidious rust had clearly rendered me just short of comatose. I have lived on the Garden Route for about 10 years now and have only made flying visits to the Cape area, not the centre of town though. A trip to Cape Town's Hippo Boutique hotel right in the heart of the city was just what the doctor prescribed for my rust malaise. Nothing rural about this location I am happy to say, no cows on the pavement like we get in Knysna, and no guinea fowl sounds, definitely no troops of marauding monkeys trying to break into the kitchen. We arrived in the later afternoon, in time to just drop our bags and then hit the pavement before dark. Almost immediately I could feel lifeblood coursing into me rather like an intravenous drip I would think. Hippo is located in Park Road around the corner from Kloof and Long Street, in the centre of town near the trendy suburbs of Gardens. There are people, lots of them, out and about, from dog-walkers to tourists and everywhere I look there is something happening. Even the sight of the dustbin truck is exciting because we don't always see one where we come from. And joy to the world, there are buses regularly checking into central town headed for the respective suburbs. I had completely forgotten that such a magnificent service exists in a real city. I am like a kid in a toy shop because there are stores everywhere and they are open even though it is now after 6pm and getting dark. Hippo couldn't be more perfectly located from shops and eateries ... just around the corner is a dedicated Woolies Food which stays open until late, there is more than one supermarket to choose from and hallelujah, one stays open 24-7 — even if you aren't going to shop at 4am, it's the principle that counts. There are lots of restaurants and bars to choose from and there's even dim sum in Kloof Street. There's a fancy ice-cream shop and Wine Concepts, at Lifestyle on Kloof shopping centre, which does a walk-in tasting of bespoke South African wines. There are nightclubs like Tiger's Milk. Bottom line is there are so many choices. Hippo Boutique Hotel pulls a clever move for breakfast. There are so many options in town and people like exploring, so the hotel gives guests breakfast vouchers for Therapy which is located at the entrance or for the Egghead Diner down the road. The voucher was more than generous and both places offered a change from the predictable breakfast suspects. I had a breakfast burger at Therapy and it was memorable while Mark had the full-Monty which came with surprising extras like a generous mushroom sauce. When it comes to things to do in the centre of Cape Town, there are a myriad of choices. Take a stroll through The Company's Garden which is a large public park situated in the Cape Town CBD — the main commercial district. It is the oldest garden in SA, and a national heritage site which was originally created in the 1650s by the region's first European settlers who also grew fresh produce here to replenish ships rounding the Cape. It's just lovely to see people peacefully taking their lunch breaks on benches in the gardens. Don't get too friendly with the squirrels because one actually ran up my leg. The South African Museum, founded in 1825 and situated in the historic Company's Gardens, is not boring. It offers a vast historical collection ranging from fossils to ancient insects and historical tools. They have an impressive section dedicated to Charles Darwin. No visit to the centre of Cape Town would be complete without a stroll around Bo-Kaap, which is a vibrant and historic neighbourhood known for its brightly coloured houses and cobblestone streets. It was formerly known as the Malay Quarter and is considered the historical centre of Cape Malay culture in the city. The area is famous for its distinctive architecture and rich cultural heritage, attracting tourists and locals alike. I find a Turkish shop and am in my element because they have the real McCoy products like tea. The Cape Town V&A Waterfront is also nearby and it's just one of those things people always do when they visit this city. There are art galleries in town and if you have your own transport, it's well worth going to Constantia Glen or one of the wine farms in Constantia. You could spend days happily exploring the Cape Town area. Quite apart from the joy of being at the heartbeat of the city, staying at The Hippo Boutique Hotel is a treat because this place goes over and beyond when it comes to making guests feel welcome. The décor and vibe here is fresh, funky and fab. For starters, all the rooms have views, giant windows, of Table Mountain or Signal Hill or the bustling city street. At night I am so enthralled with city lights that I don't even want to put the blinds down. Maybe it was living in Hong Kong for so long, but I get a complete buzz from looking at night lights in the city. It reminds me I am alive, surrounded by other humans. Knocks spots off stargazing in the Klein Karoo. We get treated to one of the apartment suites and from the moment you walk in, it's a wow. Our suite has a Mini theme, so pictures and ornaments depict the iconic car. Wallpaper is back in fashion and so the checked walls of the apartment and the polka dots in the bathroom give the space panache. I suffer from some sort of obsessive compulsive counting-thing so I have lots of things to tally. It would be impossible to not fall in love with the kitchen space. Just for starters there is an air-fryer that puts mine to shame because it's one of the latest models with two compartments. Then there's the red kettle plump and shiny and an induction stove top — a contemporary way of cooking that uses electromagnetism to heat cookware and don't ask me why or how it works because it doesn't seem to get hot, but it does cook. Of course, there is a red Smeg toaster happily parked next to a red bread-bin and ooh la la, there are two fridges in the same colour, all very sexy. The coffee station is just about as sophisticated as they get these days and the newfangled appliance (very expensive) requires a degree to drive it. I may have gone without my morning brew, but Mark knows where to insert the pods and what buttons to push to get a really good coffee. It goes without saying that if you choose to eat in, this is a perfectly easy self-catering unit with cutlery, crockery and every appliance I can think of. The hotel features spacious en suite standard and deluxe rooms plus five double-volume executive apartments — of which three, being fully fitted-out like our one, provides a self-catering option. Of course, all rooms have the mod-cons like tea and coffee stations, minibars and huge flat-screen tellies. For added convenience and security the hotel provides ground-floor and basement-level parking and a lift servicing all four floors. I take the lift for the hell of it because it reminds me of another life long ago. There's a swimming pool and 24-hour reception desk to organise anything from airport transfers to in-room spa treatments. The four-star Hippo belongs to Cape Country Routes (CCR), which is a leading group of owner-operated and managed accommodation and activity establishments — more than 20 privately owned hotels, lodges and guest houses — located on the scenic and historic routes in the Western and Eastern Cape. They are all carefully selected for their character, charm and romance, they offer top-notch accommodation and activity options to suit every taste and budget. I am glad CCR introduced me to Hippo Boutique Hotel. When I feel that Outeniqua rust might be growing over me again, I will sprint back to this very spot!
Mail & Guardian
2 days ago
- Mail & Guardian
Springsteen crosses over into Mexico
Graphic: John McCann/M&G) In May, Donald Trump took a break from attacking South Africa on X to lash out at Bruce Springsteen, calling him 'highly overrated', 'dumb as a rock', 'a dried out 'prune' of a rocker' and 'a pushy, obnoxious JERK'. He followed the tirade with a crude video showing himself, in a Make America Great Again cap, hitting a golf ball that hurtles off a fairway and knocks Springsteen down on stage. Although younger artists such as Jason Isbell and Sam Fender — both influenced by Springsteen — continue to make compelling rock music, it's been a long time since rock held the kind of cultural power it once had in the United States. But Springsteen's vision of a generous, inclusive America, an America in which 'the losers' are given deeply empathetic attention, still carries enough moral weight to threaten Trump's narcissism — as fragile as it is massive. The four great records Springsteen released between 1975 and 1982 — Born to Run, Darkness on the Edge of Town, The River, and Nebraska — chart an arc from youthful passion and rebellion, a longing for escape, preferably driving into the night in a Mustang, to a gritty and often mournful reckoning with lives sinking into crisis. This sequence comes to a head in the stripped-down sonic palette of Nebraska, an elegiac rendering of the underside of Reagan's America. The record reaches deep into economic desperation, unemployment, violence, moral ambiguity and the quiet ruin of domestic life through intimate portraits of people pushed to the edge. It is a desolate, haunting work, its emotional tenor distilled into the eerie, elemental howl at the end of State Trooper. There was strong work after the huge popular success of Born in the USA (1984) propelled seven singles into the Top Ten and turned Springsteen into a figure of national devotion. Tunnel of Love (1987) offered an emotionally complex portrait of a crumbling marriage; We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions (2006) was a rambunctious return to the radical current in American folk music; Wrecking Ball (2012) was a blistering, politically charged reckoning with the social costs of the financial crisis; and Western Stars (2019) an often gorgeous and cinematic meditation on ageing and solitude, imbued with a quiet, hard-earned sense of grace. The great album in Springsteen's later work that takes its place with the canonical four is The Ghost of Tom Joad. It is also the record most starkly at odds with Trump's idea of America, and the brutality he first unleashed through rhetoric and then through ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). Released in 1995, its acoustic minimalism recalls the starkness of Nebraska, but it is a very different record — more polished, more spacious and directly political. Nebraska marked a turn from the deindustrialising rust belt of the Northeast to the rural Midwest. Joad moves outward again, into the borderlands of California. It tells stories of people crossing deserts, sleeping under bridges, drifting through motel towns and prison gates — lives lived at the sharpest edges of America. There are echoes of Joad in Devils & Dust (2005), which includes several great songs. Matamoros Banks reaches back to Across the Border, a sublime track on Joad. Both explore the longing for life across the border — in the former, the narrator is dead, his body floating in the Rio Grande. In the latter, the narrator is on the eve of his passage across the river, imagined as a passage into hope. But Devils doesn't have the same thematic coherence or concentrated, elemental power as Joad. The wells from which a growing understanding of Springsteen's work is drawn have always been more numerous than his studio albums. His often extraordinary live performances, and a vast ecosystem of bootlegs, radio recordings and outtakes, have long enriched our sense of his work. In 1998, Tracks brought together 66 previously unreleased songs. Since then a treasure trove of outtakes from the Darkness and River recording sessions have been released, along with an avalanche of officially issued live recordings. Tracks 2: The Lost Albums was released at the end of last month. It compiles 83 songs, including six previously unreleased albums recorded between 1983 and 2012, along with a seventh record collecting songs from 1994 to 2011. The first, LA Garage Sessions '83, was recorded between Nebraska and Born in the USA, and, as Springsteen has noted, is a lo-fi bridge between the two. Richfield Whistle, a prison song, leans closer to Nebraska, while The Klansman, though lyrically in that same terrain, feels sonically like a step toward Born in the USA, evoking something of the mood of Downbound Train. The Streets of Philadelphia Sessions, recorded in the early 1990s, continues the tone and texture of the 1993 Oscar-winning single, extending its drum machine and synth-driven sound across a fuller range of material. Faithless, recorded in 2005-06, was written as a soundtrack to a never-made 'spiritual Western' — rumoured to have been a Martin Scorsese project — and includes several instrumentals and gospel-tinged ballads. Somewhere North of Nashville, laid down in tandem with the Joad recordings, has a number of very strong songs, some leaning into pedal steel, honky-tonk and rockabilly. Silver Mountain has already been proposed as a new entry into the Springsteen canon, and Blue Highway, with its echoes of Hank Williams, is just as good. Few critics have resisted the phrase 'lush orchestration' when describing Twilight Hours, recorded during the Western Stars sessions. There are some beautiful songs here and High Sierra is transcendent. Perfect World gathers unreleased songs from 1994 to 2011. It lacks the cohesion of an album, but includes moments of startling power. Rain in the River, which would have slotted seamlessly into Wrecking Ball, would be a great full-throttle E Street Band song performed live. But it is Inyo, the fifth album in the collection, that will take its place as one of Springsteen's great records. It's been known for some years that he shared Inyo with close family and friends, and that he values it highly. He has explained that it was mostly written in hotel rooms during the Ghost of Tom Joad tour, which ran from 1995 to 1997. But three of the songs contain moments — in lyrics or melody — that echo material on the Joad album, suggesting that perhaps they were composed earlier. Inyo is a quiet record. While it shares Joad's intimacy and restraint, its sound is warmer, more layered, and often strikingly beautiful. The arrangements feature violin, trumpet, accordion, acoustic guitar and gently luminous inflections of Mexican folk music. The Lost Charro stretches Springsteen's range with a sensitive mariachi-backed arrangement. He sings with an uncharacteristic softness, at times moving into falsetto. Springsteen has always worked to expand the vista opened by Walt Whitman, to widen the promise of America. This album goes further. While Joad was largely set on the American side of the border, Inyo crosses into Mexico. It directly confronts the devastation visited on Indigenous people in the making of America — of the making of that promise for some as the cost of devastation for others. Aztec Dance, a conversation between a mother and daughter, evokes the horrors of colonial conquest: Montezuma and Cuauhtémoc are in their graves/ And our people of the valley of Mexico … were enslaved — and brings its accumulation of pain into the present: 'Ma, they call us 'greaser', they call us 'wetback'/ Here in this land that once was ours.' Adelita, an exquisite song, honours the soldaderas, the women fighters of the Mexican Revolution. The singer is a grieving husband: Adelita, my love, Adelita, my wife Adelita, my comrade, my life They'll remember your name when freedom fills the Sierranea. Ciudad Juarez is the story of a father in the agonies of grief. His daughter has disappeared in a city where the sun regularly rises over women's bodies dumped in the desert. She vanished into the streets of the city of death the city of my lost heart Ciudad Juarez Springsteen is clear about the circuits of exchange driving the violence: The drugs flow north across the river the guns flow south the blood flows here from the devil's mouth Trump gives us a video that could have been made by Beavis and Butt-Head. Springsteen gives us Inyo, a record suffused with beauty, grace and deep empathy for lives lived on both sides of the border. Richard Pithouse is distinguished research fellow at the Global Centre for Advanced Studies, an international research scholar at the University of Connecticut and professor at large at the University of the Western Cape.
Daily Maverick
2 days ago
- Daily Maverick
Braaivleis, rugby, sunny skies and the boys on the TV
An unforgettable day down at the Golf Club pub with Blokkies Joubert, our ou vriend daar agter die bar, and Siya Kolisi and the boys on the TV. Here's a reminiscence from 2019 to get you into the spirit for tomorrow's match between South Africa and Italy at Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium. I wasn't with the manne innie Royal Hotel nie, last Saturday morning at 11am, ordering an orange juice from my ou vriend daar agter die bar, because if I drink during the day I feel woozy all afternoon and the day is lost. I was in fact in the bar at the golf club just outside my home town, on a hot, sunny Cradock day that nobody would ever forget. I had, though, been in a Royal Hotel when David Kramer first released his famous song, circa 1981 as I recall, in an inn of that name somewhere in Cape Town's Southern Suburbs. A music promoter and producer, Paddy Lee Thorpe, had invited the city's arts media with some excitement to the launch of the new single by the Boland Troubadour who had been playing venues for some time and had built up quite a following. His second album was out. But this was something else, Paddy suggested, and with hindsight we were all there to witness a key cornerstone of the man's extraordinary story. A launch of his single, Royal Hotel, in the only Royal Hotel they could find in the area. You just had to imagine the part where you were somewhere in a dusty Karoo town, with leery reps ogling the waitress after a long day on the road selling their wares, and parking the old green Valiant in front of the hotel for the night. Listen while you read on… Life, history and stories are funny that way. If we're lucky, one day we can look back and know that we were there, in the room, a part of the story, even if only on the sidelines. And that song, Royal Hotel, and that launch, came to mind last Saturday morning when we were all gathered, a bunch of locals at Cradock's golf club pub, because that was where you knew the TV would be switched on to the Rugby World Cup, and some of your mates would be there, there'd be geselligheid, and at the end of it you'd have someone with whom you could either celebrate or drown your sorrows. Hier sit die manne … only there were women and kids too. Everyone, many of them clad in Springbok jerseys, from mom and dad to the kids themselves, had a vriend daar agter die bar to keep voices lubricated as they became hoarser from the rising tide of excitement and screaming at the boys on the TV. Mostly of shouted encouragement, and an occasional 'ag nee man!'. But not much of that, in this instance. And it was clear that these okes couldn't have cared less what colour the skin of the hands on the ball was. They were South African hands, and these were our manne, every one of them. There'd been something in the air that morning, and my wife will vouch for it, because as I'd picked up the car keys to leave the house, earlier, I'd said this, verbatim: 'They're going to win. I'll tell you how much by when I get home.' Kramer's Royal Hotel had come off the same album as another equally massive hit, Hak Hom Blokkies, from the album Die Verhaal van Blokkies Joubert, and the song found its way into my head last Saturday while watching the game. Hak hom, hak hom Blokkies, Blokkies hak daai bol… en ons sê druk hulle, druk hulle …. Who else but David Kramer could pen a rhyme like this: Lig julle knieë, druk julle drieë, agter die doellyn nou (For any soutpiele reading this, that means 'lift your knees, score your tries, behind the try line now'. But it works much better in Afrikaans. You'll have to ask a friend about the other word back there.) It's for the rugby writers to give a blow by blow account of the match, not for the likes of me, but suffice to say that once the first of the two tries had been scored, everyone was on their feet and screaming with their very lives, such was the excitement, and when the second try landed soon afterwards, we all felt like we were all there, in the stadium in Yokohama, and that the boys could hear us and we were part of what was happening, there in our little golf club pub in the Eastern Cape Midlands. That, maybe, Siya could sense that our motley crew and others like us were sardine-packed into pubs throughout the Eastern Cape, in township shebeens and in hotel bars, rooting for him, for our homeboy in the throes of making good, of winning a triumph of triumphs. And came a moment near the end when my mate Ludi and I looked at each other and said the same thing: We've won… we've won, there's no room for them t0 come back now, it's done… and tears came into the eyes of this motley group of farmers and white-bakkie-driving townie types, and if anyone present had once been against transformation in rugby it would be hard to believe they were now, because when Siya Kolisi finally lifted the golden trophy it was palpably clear that every last man, woman and child present knew: he's lifting that for us, for every one of us. And everyone went home eventually, and when the afternoon had been spent some hours later, braai fires were lit and chops, wors and ribs were braaied and beers cracked and Klippies and Cokes downed, on farms and in back yards, under the late afternoon Cradock sun. There'd be prayers of gratitude before the braaied meat and salads and the potatoes baked in the coals in foil were eaten, hands clasped for the prayer of thanks for the food and the hope of rain, because that's what happens here, and you fall into the local ways once you have become a part of their community; for it is theirs with me in it, and I cannot and would not presume to impose my ways on them. It would not be my place. And the prayers of gratitude would have been for Siya Kolisi and Cheslin Kolbe and Duane Vermeulen and Rassie Erasmus and Beast Mtawarira, and the now hoarse voices would have prayed for rain too; for this day had been a kind of rain, a blessed relief from the rugby drought of so very long; and now we need the wet rain to pour upon us and upon our lands, to drench the soil and bring forth the shoots that there might be verdant life abundant and the sheep and cattle can eat off the land and not from the troughs filled with man-made pellets, which for so many of these farmers is the only way they've been able to keep their flocks alive for five consecutive long summer seasons of either no rain or too little rain, and too late. And having been accepted into their community as a longhair Ingelsman, you find yourself listening more than speaking, for they have more to teach you than you them, and so you learn about their lives and their ways and their problems, and you wonder what it could be like if all of us could just shut up with all the race-baiting rhetoric and the mutual distrust and listen to the other and try to understand them; and maybe we'd find that, hey, these are good people, no, these are wonderful people; and the conceptions about them that so many have may very well be misconceptions. How the hell will he get to know you if you don't take the trouble to know him? And I got to thinking, if we all could do that, slot into the other's ways, see things through their eyes, we'd find more common ground than we knew there was. So I've learnt to cook the chops on hot flame, side down at first to cook all that delicious fat, to braai wors on cooler coals, steak on the hottest, and to put the skilpadjies right on the sides of the grid to cook slowly, otherwise they'll fall apart. I've been shown how to braai ribs sideways-on, on the side of the braai, after first scoring the fat in a diamond pattern and then rubbing in salt and Worcestershire sauce. To then put it in a hinged grid and balance it, or even hang it, to one side of the braai for as long as you can, with the bone side facing the flames and coals, before finishing it off fat-side down on the coals once the other meat has been cooked. Ludi even gets out the stepladder, climbs up to roof height with the grid, and puts it right on top of the chimney to cook ever so slowly and become beautifully smoked. Now there's something a verdomde Ingelsman would never have thought of. I've learnt that some of these dudes cook right in the flames on occasion. I don't mean just a flicker of flame here and there. I watched in utter astonishment last December as a young man made a massive fire in a very large indoor braai and, when the flames were at their most vigorous and hottest, shove a load of marinated steaks right in there so that you couldn't even see the steaks for fire. To cook them insanely quickly in hellfire itself, and come out – perfect. Charred, sure, but many of us like our steak that way. And what an old-fashioned charred-steak taste that was, like a steakhouse steak used to taste, before everyone got all coy about charring for fear that we'd all be dead from cancer by Monday morning. More about that in this column I wrote earlier in the year. Hak hom Blokkies is a great song, a touching story of a past-it rugby player reminiscing about his glory decades, now an old man, and here was a roomful of people who, especially the kids, will one day remember where they were when Siya Kolisi steered his team of Springboks to rugby glory, and recall every stage, every penalty kicked by Handré Pollard, and watch over and over in their mind's eyes as Makazole Mapimpi scored the first try of the game and then Cheslin Kolbe set down the second. They may have felt just a little responsible for that last try in the dying minutes. Yells of ' nog ene! ', 'one more try!' and ' nog 'n piep! ' had punctuated the room in those breathless, lump-in-throat moments, and down the ball went again behind the posts as the roof all but lifted off the little golf clubhouse in Cradock. To be toasted – what else? – in beer, Klippies, prayer and braaied lamb and wors later on that unforgettable day. Coda I didn't stay with teetotal orange juice for the entire game. As the excitement of the game built up I got my ou vriend daar agter die bar to add a vodka to it after a while, and then another, and another. For luck, you understand. DM
