Recipes for a happy life

SowetanLIVE

07-07-2025

Professional chefs, like Reuben Riffel who is on our cover, spend their entire lives figuring out how to coax new - flavours from familiar ingredients. Imagine cooking every single day, often in high-stress environments and with paying guests on the receiving end of your labours: either you innovate or you get bored.
Never mind where his ability to cook up a storm comes from, Riffel has been astonishing South African diners for a few decades now, and he's still happy – and at peace – in the kitchen.
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 figuring 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 filling 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), specifically 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