Category: Fabulous Fabric of Life

Stories that don’t fit elsewhere and add to the rich fabric of life….

Marvelous Malva

~ Fiona ~ Leave a comment

I can’t remember the first time I ate this dessert.  It’s one of our favourites – when I “do” dessert.  I don’t often.  I don’t have a sweet tooth.  I am was not much of a baker.  My chef friend and market pal reckons mine are among the best she’s tasted.  I brimmed with pride when she said that.  

Confused

I do remember thinking that its name confused me.  I knew that malva(lekker) is a marshmallow (sweet) in Afrikaans.  In my head (and mouth), the dessert bore bears no resemblance to marshmallows.  

That’s just the beginning.  Because, of course, I am fascinated by words and need to know how things get their names.  

When I developed an interest in herbs – edible and medicinal – I discovered that Malva is a plant genus into which the mallow falls.  This includes the indigenous South African geranium – scented and otherwise.

The red geraniums one sees in Mediterranean window boxes, as I did in my trip to Mallorca in 1999, all originate not far from where I grew up.  I remember them from the regular trips between boarding school in East London and Grahamstown.  They grow wild through the cracks in the road cuttings on either side of the Great Fish River.  Some of the scented ones grow in our garden.  I use them for iced teas and garnish in summer, but that’s another story. 

All of that’s a long way of saying that nobody, least of all me, has any idea as to why this pudding is called “malva”.

Many roads lead to The Sandbag House

Of course, I’ve digressed.  I had wanted to tell the “proper” story behind this recipe last week – ahead of South Africa’s Heritage weekend and having already “done” some heritage food.  I was derailed by having to revisit this post to give the context I needed:  Sunday Suppers @ The Sandbag House and the smorgasbord of guests who sat around our tables. 

The note in the banner for this post is from guests from Germany.  They insisted on a photograph with me, and which they subsequently sent via WhatsApp:

Malva pudding was also on that evening’s menu, and as I recall, they also went home with a jar of my spicy plum jam. 

January 2020

Unexpectedly, last February, and before lockdown, I received a WhatsApp message.  It went along the lines of…

Hello, we so enjoyed our dinner.  The Malva pudding was the best we had in South Africa.  We are planning a dinner with a South African theme.  Would you be able to send me the recipe?

Well, I had to scrabble around a bit.  My recipe is not in any of my books.  I wasn’t sure if I’d ever typed it up.  It’s in my very tatty, dog-eared file.  Too tatty for a photo.  Typing it up had been on my ever-growing “to-dos” forever.  Now, I had to do it.  I did. 

It went, through cyberspace to Sweden.  

The thanks:

Thank you so much! I’m very grateful. I will make Boboti and Malvapudding for my guests. I will share photographs.

Then the pandemic was declared.  I don’t know whether they had their South African dinner.

Another back story

Our Sunday Suppers were a thing.  That delightful Swedish couple joined us for the penultimate supper at which we had guests:  January 26th, 2020.  There were two other diners.  A couple who live in America. She is South African and they are were annual visitors to South Africa to see her mother and family.  During the evening’s conversation, we learned that they’d tried to join us before Christmas, but we’d been full.  This time, they were determined and drove from another town. 

The menu and our Swedish guests’ note in our book, that evening.

The proof of the pudding

Malva pudding is, as I’ve already said, a baked dessert.  I have no idea why I offered this menu in mid-summer because all of those are winter dishes.  We must have been having an unseasonal cold snap.  

I don’t know where my recipe comes from, or who gave it to me.  For years, this was a dessert I didn’t do because a chef friend of ours in Cape Town is the Malva King.  It was often his contribution to one of our gatherings. 

Traditionally, it’s baked in a large square dish and served in squares with custard, cream or ice cream.  Personally, I prefer custard.

Perfect Practice

They say two things:  practise makes perfect and with practise comes the confidence to experiment.  This was case with much of Sunday Suppers, especially the desserts – and my graduating to individual desserts.  As I did with the Malva Pudding.

Mini Malva puddings: just out of the oven (left) and then ladled with the sweet, creamy syrup (right)

Fortunately this recipe serves ten, and I use the ten little enamel cups I bought a few years ago.  Much to The Husband’s confusion.  I used these often during the time of Sunday Suppers.  They, along with a few other bits and bobs have gathered much dust on shelves in this time of disuse. 

Enamel “crockery”

One finds enamel mugs and flatware in virtually every South African kitchen.  In my childhood, in middle class and white households they were reserved for the servants.  Perish the thought.

Before that, though, and now, they are the sensible utensils for camping and the fireside (braai).  I remember them in piles in the trading stores of my childhood and youth in the Eastern Cape. 

Using them to serve Malva pudding, a traditional Afrikaans dish, which probably harks back to the great trek, just makes sense to me.  Sometimes they sparked conversations.  Sometimes not.

Regardless, this traditional South African favourite is a hit every time.  Download the recipe here and if you do, please buy me a coffee. Or better yet, a glass of wine….?

Until next time, be well
Fiona
The Sandbag House
McGregor, South Africa

Photo: Selma

Post script
If this post might seem familiar, it’s because I’m doing two things:

  • re-vamping old recipes. As I do this, I am adding them in a file format that you can download and print. If you download recipes, buy me a coffee. Or better yet, a glass of wine….?
  • and “re-capturing” nearly two years’ worth of posts.

I blog to the Hive blockchain using a number of decentralised appplications.

    • From WordPress, I use the Exxp WordPress plugin. If this rocks your socks, click here or on on the image below to sign up.

    • Join Hive using this link and then join us in the Silver Bloggers’ community by clicking on the logo.
Original artwork: @artywink
    • I also share my occasional Instagram posts to the crypto blockchain, Hive, using the new, and really nifty phone app, Dapplr. On your phone, click here or on the icon, and give it a go.

Sunday Suppers: A season past?

~ Fiona ~ 2 Comments

Around May 2017, around the time, my regular blogs became increasingly sparse, as one chapter in my life ended, and others began.  One of these was Sunday Suppers @ The Sandbag House.

Two years later we were still doing it. Menus went out weekly to a WhatsApp group and via various social media and e-news channels in the village.  The menu for the second anniversary supper, was the same, except for the soup.  The third anniversary, courtesy of the pandemic, didn’t happen.  We haven’t done a Sunday Supper, or planned a menu in over a year.

At around the time that we marked the first anniversary of Sunday Suppers, we implemented a suggestion from regular diners, and started a book in which they could leave notes.  It’s also an interesting and easy way to keep track – mostly of the countries from which our village visitors came.  In the those years, we hosted folk from England, Ireland and Scotland;  Sweden, Denmark and Germany;  Spain, Italy and India.  We welcomed old friends – from far and near – and made new.  I was surprised by university friends, neither of whom I’d seen since those days, who came to McGregor – especially for Sunday Supper.  That was a trifle nerve racking, I confess.  Then they recommended to friends, Sunday Supper @ The Sandbag House.  And the friends came.

The lovely notes that folk leave are a delight and add to my general enjoyment of cooking and feeding people

Not long into the journey, friend and photographer, Selma decided that she wanted to document (her word), a Sunday Supper @ The Sandbag House.  Her photographs are infinitely better than I could have wished.  We did have great fun and, I have forgiven her:

I don’t want to be in front of the camera, I whined.

You won’t be, she assured me, batting her blue eyes at me, smiling broadly.

Well.

She lied


All photos in this collage and the header image: Selma

I learned

I a great deal from Suppers @ The Sandbag House.  Not least that we could do it, and I learned that I could/can do things I never thought I could.  Don’t get me wrong, I have most definitely not morphed from being a home cook into a chef, but there is truth in the old adage, practise makes perfect.

At the beginning, not only do I like doing pretty tables, but I figured that if the tables were pretty enough, people would forgive the food.

Bottom left and top right photos: Selma

Like wine and cheese do, I improved over time

Perfection has not been realised, but there was most certainly a significant improvement in things like desserts – never my forté – and how they are presented.  I discovered that I can bake and make mousse.

The other thing I learned, was how to better manage portions and plating.  I went from slopping things about (or over diners – which nearly happened when we had a group of 10!), and serving vegetables ( that don’t get eaten) in side dishes (and wasted), to plating entire courses.

And now

As I said, thanks to the pandemic, Sunday Suppers came to an abrupt halt.  Now, and ironically last Sunday morning, I had a WhatsApp message:

I know it’s late, but can I book supper for three….

Politely, I recommended another establishment.  Which brings me to the next point:  we started Sunday Suppers because there was no spot in the village where folk could get supper on Sunday evenings.  Now there is.  At least one spot.  And we cannot do walk-ins.  And with Covid, and even vaccinated, would we be putting ourselves and our guests at risk?

Finally

I originally wrote this two years into Sunday Suppers and the original post went the way of many others.  I was going to simply re-post as is was.  Then that Sunday morning message and a subsequent conversation made me think and wonder.  Whether we’ll do Sunday Suppers is a question we’re now also asking.  I guess, well have to answer the question.  Properly.  Right now, the answer is:

I don’t know.

Until next time, be well
Fiona
The Sandbag House
McGregor, South Africa

Photo: Selma

Post script
If this post might seem familiar, it’s because I’m doing two things:

  • re-vamping old recipes. As I do this, I am adding them in a file format that you can download and print. If you download recipes, buy me a coffee. Or better yet, a glass of wine….?
  • and “re-capturing” nearly two years’ worth of posts.

I blog to the Hive blockchain using a number of decentralised applications.

    • From WordPress, I use the Exxp WordPress plugin. If this rocks your socks, click here or on on the image below to sign up.

    • Join Hive using this link and then join us in the Silver Bloggers’ community by clicking on the logo.

Original artwork: @artywink

    • I also share my occasional Instagram posts to the crypto blockchain using the new, and really nifty phone app, Dapplr. On your phone, click here or on the icon, and give it a go.

When Cape Town Burned

~ Fiona ~ Leave a comment

Fire is devastating:  we had a fire in the mountains above our village in spring (September) 2014.  It burned for what seemed like a month and because, to start with, it was in inaccessible parts of the mountain, it could not be effectively fought.  So it spread and threatened prime agricultural land and vineyards.  So it was with the Cape Town fire which started on the 1st of March 2015.  Fire is devastating and scary.  As I learned two or so years ago.

Cape Town surrounds the iconic Table Mountain – a national park and wilderness area – something residents often forget and take for granted.  I know.  I lived there for nearly twenty years.

Courtesy of Hilka Birns

So when the mountain burns, as it must, effectively in the centre of a city, the events that unfold are beyond imagination.

Although the mountain must burn – as part of the most diverse floristic kingdom in the world – this fire was started through human negligence.  And, while the fire burned, and homes were threatened, people criticised the work of the various fire services, the authorities and the outpouring of support.

Learning from a crisis

A crisis teaches one about humanity and community.  The good and the bad.  So it is, I have learned in the virtual community in which bloggers “live”.  Fiona’s Favourites started on a whim, and I chose a platform.  Little did I know that it is not merely a platform;  I discovered that the blogosphere is a microcosm of any community with all the power dynamics and politics that characterise real life.

My journey into this new sphere was precipitated by a very simple motivation:  when I posted pictures of dishes that I cooked on social media, friends asked for recipes.  On the back of this, and years of “made-up” dishes that I often couldn’t replicate and The Husband unsuccessfully suggesting I write them down, Fiona’s Favourites was born.  If I am to be completely honest, the conception of Fiona’s Favourites also coincided with a time of very little work and few prospects.  Not a good place to be if one has been self-employed for more than twenty years and if one’s area of expertise is quite specialised.

What could I do to begin developing a body of writing that was quite the antithesis of my professional life?  Trawling the internet and freelance websites all seemed to suggest that a blog was a way.  I might, if I were to find the right “recipe”, even make some money out of it (that, is still a pipe dream and no longer a driving force).  More importantly, I was tired of the heavy, intense, argumentative type of writing that is my mostly “professional voice”.

Writing and stories

I have always enjoyed the writing process.  Writing, for me, has been both healing and cathartic at different times of my life.  Not that any of that writing was shared – with anyone.  The prospect of personal writing was one thing, but how to walk the fine line between personal and private was a huge challenge.  The Husband is intensely private and cyberspace, the great unknown, is potentially full of dragons and many-headed monsters.  He is also fiercely protective of what he sees as my intellectual property:  “You can’t just put your recipes on social media and the Internet – they’re yours!”

A “website” of my own seemed to be a potential compromise.

My first posts were tentative and quite sterile; I was aware that recipes are two-a-penny on the World Wide Web;  just typing up a recipe is, in a word, boring; reading recipes can be equally boring.  This, and actually having known the original intended readers, almost all my life, even if they are now scattered all over the country and the world, resulted in my, almost sub-consciously writing “around” the food.

Then I ran into a friend in the village.

“I really enjoy your blog,” she told me, “I love the stories!”

I was blown away.  I didn’t even know that she had been following the blog!

Knowing that people eat with their eyes, photographs of the food I cooked were important.

Pictures also tell stories and, in text, they play an important role in breaking up dense material.  I have also long “fiddled” with taking pictures and when we moved to McGregor, I began looking at things around me with new eyes.  I wanted to capture and share what I saw.  So, with that, the content began to go beyond what I had originally conceived.

Initially, I was nervous.  Would “my” readers like the change?  Well, again, I learned something – people began commenting and the stats told me what I needed to know:  they did.

What have I learned about blogging?

The blogosphere is a virtual village, filled with people and personalities, rule makers, rule-breakers, nice people and nasty people (trolls, I learned they’re called) – just like in any community. They scrap and bicker, live and laugh together (or not), just the same.  They live in my computer but came from all over the world to partake of the fare I shared.  We all have blogs;  not all of us enjoy writing;  we’re all motivated by different things and we certainly don’t always agree.  And that’s not just ok, that’s good.

At the core, I’ve learned that Fiona’s Favourites is all about my favourite things and that’s what my readers seem to enjoy – surprisingly, to me.  From this learning, and from advice from bloggers like Opinionated Man*, I have created a set of rules for myself:

Fiona’s blogging rules

I’m a wannabe fulltime blogger.  I do this because I enjoy it – when I no longer enjoy the process, or it becomes a burden, I’ll stop.  Which I did for a while in 2017 when my world seemed bleak.  My rules:

  • I only claim photographs as my own if they are.
  • If I’m not sure of my facts, I’ll check them and acknowledge the source.  If I discover that something I thought was true, is not, I’ll correct it.
  • The stats interest me;  they don’t drive me.  I’m delighted with every new follower and every comment is appreciated and acknowledged.
  • I follow blogs that interest me, make me think, laugh, or both!  I don’t get irritated if I don’t agree with the blogger’s view, or if a topic doesn’t interest me:  I just don’t read it.  No offence intended and I’m sure, none taken.  It’s not realistic to read every post from everyone one follows.
  • I comment if I want to, and I’ll share my thoughts.  I don’t get mean – there’s no need.  Life’s too short for all that negative energy.
  • I don’t blog about blogging – on Fiona’s Favourites – anymore.  My readers don’t care if that they’re reading my 75th post or the 175th.  Nor do they really care how many likes or views I’ve had.  Why would they?  I reserve that for opportunities like this*, and only fourteen months into it, was thrilled with my 200 “likes” and just over 4,200 views from 78 countries.

Life lessons and the blogosphere

I was quite shocked to learn about bullies and trolls.  Quite naïve of me, I suppose.  Still, I don’t get it that people have nothing better to do than to stalk others and to be mean for the sake of being mean.  That said, the blogosphere “real” people do look after their own, as we saw when the Opinionated Man was forced to take a sabbatical.  Caring people power prevailed and a phoenix rose from those ashes.

And so it was in Cape Town.  Hilka, who took these photographs, and whose home and family were threatened with destruction, posted this on Facebook:

At the height of the terror on Sunday night, I was wondering whether it was worth living here, considering that this has been the 2nd major mountain fire we have been lucky enough to have survived in the 18 years we have lived in Noordhoek. Any brief doubts I may have had have been wiped away by the amazing community spirit and response to the crisis. People have really pulled together and supported each other and the firefighting efforts! I love this place! Wouldn’t live anywhere else!

So it will be for the moonscape the fire left on the mountain.

Some final thoughts

Firstly –

* This article was originally published in 2015 on Jason Cushman’s A Good Blog is Hard to find, who blogs under the pen name, Opinionated Man.

The nom de plume perfectly describes Jason;  he is unapologetically so, and often deliberately provocative.  All of that said, he is a crusader for new bloggers and very generous with his time and his space.  This was abused by someone who decided to publish something s/he had plagiarised, on his blog, then called HarsH ReaLity – as a guest.  As a consequence, Jason has had to deal with the repercussions and has taken the regrettable decision to no longer offer space (and, of course, his time), to guest bloggers.

I don’t get all of Jason’s posts and yes, there have been times I know I would have been offended if I had read some of them, but this belies someone who has encouraged and supported hundreds of novice bloggers.

I remain, all these years later, appreciative of his time, his space, his tenacity and his sense of humour!

Secondly –

There has been some bullying and trolling happening on Steemit, and which has had a nasty impact on people I care about.  Simultaneously, there has been an interesting discussion on Narrative and where I shared a little about why I blog, earlier today.

Revisiting and sharing these thoughts seemed appropriate.

Until next time
Fiona
The Sandbag House
McGregor, South Africa


Photo: Selma

Acknowledgements:

Thank you to Hilka Birns for allowing me to use her photographs.  Follow her on Twitter @Hbirns
The photographs of the proteas are courtesy of Boesmanskloof Accommodation, McGregor

Post Script: First on my blog in 2014.  Sadly it remains relevant as cyberbullying and so-called keyboard warriors “gun” for folk with whose views they disagree.

Not killing mother

~ Fiona ~ 5 Comments

In December 1999, I spent my last Christmas with my father.  Three days earlier, we’d bade my mother a final farewell.  As I’ve probably said before, her death was a shock.  Six weeks prior, she’d had surgery.  By all accounts, it was successful although the procedure meant a protracted stay in hospital.  Cleared of nasties, she was doing well and then suddenly took a turn for the worse.  Back in ICU;  back into theatre, twice; organ failure and dialysis; in and out of a coma.

Skipping the long version

If you aren’t inclined to reading, scroll down to the short version.

Things in common but not friends

Let me be clear.  I loved my mother, but she and I were not friends.  It was, to say the least, an uneasy relationship.  We had little to say to each other and although we would have had things in common, now, I doubt they would have been enough to have transformed our relationship.  Some of my profound enjoyment of traditional crafts – knitting and crochet – I get from her. And cooking.  She was a good cook.  My parents’ dinner parties were legend.  The celebration for my 21st birthday was a garden party which, except for the cake, she catered.

Mum and me at different times in our respective lives.

This collage, is of photos of Mum and I.  At different times in our lives. The first time I came across the one of her in the centre, it was like looking at myself.  I’ve never forgotten that weird feeling.  The bottom right photo is one of me, at about the same age.

Opposites in magnets (and in life), attract, but the like poles repel.  Perhaps that was my mother and I:  too alike. It took fifty-odd years to acknowledge that – even after she had died and I found that photograph.  More than twenty years ago.

No conversation – then

Having little in common, there wasn’t much to talk about. I don’t remember any profound or really adult conversation with her.  Only once, that I can remember, did I ask for advice about cooking.  When I cooked my first Christmas turkey nearly thirty years ago.  Next time I wanted to ask her advice about something – also cooking related – some eight years later, I couldn’t.  Although it made me momentarily sad, it did make me remember her kitchen ritual for the sauce I had wanted to make.  Also for a Christmas meal:  traditional British bread sauce which is traditionally served with roast chicken or turkey.

Not a baker

After she died, my sister wasn’t interested in our mother’s personal recipe book – to which I refer, pretty frequently.  My now famous chicken liver paté, and which I sell at the market is hers, and in that book. She also had two different editions of the Good Housekeeping Cookery Book.  I got one, my sister, the other.  I still use it and it taught me how to make marmalade and it’s my go-to for certain basics.

While my mother was an excellent cook, she always said she couldn’t bake.  One vivid memory of such an effort was a birthday cake.  My sister had commanded pink.  Pink. Very. Pink,  it was.  And hacked sculpted to turn it into a cake shaped cake.  For years and for some reason, I believed that I, too, could not bake.  That I have become a relatively accomplished baker of certain desserts, shortbread, biscuits and now, sourdough bread is, to say the least, ironic.

A selection of baked desserts that I used to serve at our regular Sunday Suppers

The absence of conversation, however has changed.  Over the last year or so, I’ve had more conversations with “mother” than I had with my real Mum in the thirty six years I knew her.

Blame it on Lockdown

Last year (2020 in case you’ve forgotten), and when we were in hard lockdown a chef friend in the village started a Facebook group – what’s for supper? It started, among other things, my now ritual photographing of our supper, stretching the imagination (and the budget) as far as it (would) will go.  The other starter was, literally a starter:  a mother or natural yeast for making bread.

Having been scared of yeast, I resisted baking bread.  Also, it’s not something one can do on impulse.  Until then I had tried baking bread a couple of times and had long wanted to literally do it from scratch.  That included my own “mother”.  With no other distractions, let alone plans, and with encouragement from Pixie who, at that stage, had her own, well established jar of glop, I started my journey.

Uncle Ritchie and Auntie Doris

The first “rule” of making one’s own mother, I’m led to believe, is giving her a name.  Of course, being who I am, I was not going to give her a conventional name.  Not female.  I chose “Uncle Ritchie” because he was the only baker to trade I’ve ever known.  I remember the bakery next door to his and Auntie Doris’s (she of my birthday cake) house. And the big ovens…  Nearly forty years ago, it was demolished to make way for a block of flats (apartments).  I digress.

So, in late March, my sourdough journey began.  I mixed equal parts of flour and water in a jar, religiously closing the top, feeding Uncle Ritchie every day.  On day two, I think, there were a couple of bubbles.  Then, a few days later.  Nothing. Dead.  Like baker Uncle Ritchie has been for the last thirty something years.

I killed suffocated him. I’d closed the lid too tight. He couldn’t breathe.

Rinse and repeat

I don’t do well being challenged thwarted.  I was determined to try again;  if Uncle Ritchie wouldn’t oblige, I was sure Auntie Doris would.  She’d come through for me before.  So again, I mixed equal parts of flour and water in a jar, religiously closing the top – not too tightly, but tightly enough to keep the fruit flies out.  I  fed Auntie Doris every day.  On day two, there were a couple of bubbles.  Then more. But I noticed a layer of water forming at the bottom of the jar. A few days or so later the water had risen to the top.

I had drowned Auntie Doris!

Third time lucky

I was not going to accept defeat.  Not from a fungus.

The universe was sending me a message.  I’d resisted, right from the beginning, the obvious choice – my own mother’s name.  Her given name was Ursula, but she was always known as Ula (pronounced Yoo-la).  “Ursula” has significance for another reason:  it’s the name of a former teacher who became a mentor and good friend.  I tried again.

By the end of April, Ursula was a bubbling jar of glop with a veracious appetite and which needed to be used.

It had taken just over a month, bit with hindsight, seemed longer.  As everything did when we were in that hard lockdown.

The short version

For detailed instructions on making your own natural yeast, download them here.

The first sourdough bake off

Having consulted GoG*, I found that although Ursula was growing out of her jar, I didn’t really have enough for anything worth while, and I found recipes for “discard”. As it’s called, and for when mother grows out of her dress jar.  My first effort was scones (or as my American friends call them, biscuits).  I chose those because I wasn’t confident of my kneading skills and, and, and….

For a patch, I made those quite frequently.  I took a batch along or our first skelm social engagement when lockdown restrictions eased a little.  They were a hit.  The recipe’s here.

If you download recipes, buy me a coffee. Or better yet, a glass of wine….?

Graduation

Then I graduated to rolls and bread.

Early efforts at sourdough bread loaves and rolls

I’ll save stories of those journeys (and how they ended up on my market stall) for another episode time.

*Good old Google

Until next time, be well
Fiona
The Sandbag House
McGregor, South Africa

Photo: Selma

Post Script

  • In search of English writing, research and editing services, look no further:  I will help you with –  emails and reports, academic and white papers, formal grammar, spelling and punctuation
    more information here
  • If this post might seem familiar, it’s because I’m doing two things:
    • re-vamping old recipes. As I do this, I plan to add them in a file format that you can download and print. If you download recipes, buy me a coffee. Or better yet, a glass of wine….?
    • and “re-capturing” nearly two years’ worth of posts.
  • I blog to the Hive blockchain using a number of decentralised appplications.  From WordPress, I use the Exxp WordPress plugin.  If this rocks your socks, click on the image below to sign up –

Image: @traciyork

  • I also share my occasional instagram posts to the crypto blockchain using the new, and really nifty phone app, Dapplr. On your phone, click the icon below, and give it a go.

I changed my mind. I got the jab

~ Fiona ~ 4 Comments

Foreword

Health is a personal matter until it’s a matter of public health. Like when the world is in the grips of a pandemic as it is now. I would not normally (I don’t think) share the sordid details of my illnesses. I qualify that because I suffer, happily, from rude health. The rationale for what I’m about to share is also not to change anyone’s mind, but rather to share why I did. Your choice remains your choice; your beliefs, are yours, too. I respect both.

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing

When talk of the vaccine started, last year, I was anxious and skeptical. Through the work that I’ve done over the years, and again last year, I’ve learned the lengths (and time) it takes to get medicines from development to market. Partly because of this, and also living in South Africa, where we have the highest infection rate in the world, I’ve tracked the thirty-plus year journey to develop a vaccine against the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Again, through my work, I’ve been exposed to had to work with the data.

Not enough information

I am not a scientist, but understanding the processes was enough to make me skeptical and scared that things – developing a vaccine – were being done in a rush. Mostly, I kept my own counsel. The Husband and I, both, at some point, said to ourselves each other:

Nope. I won’t get vaccinated, I’ll take my chances.

Like so many, that was before we knew, or knew of, people who had been afflicted, survived and/or worse still, died. That was also before there were known variants. A development that only surprised us in the rapidity with which changes are happening; all viruses mutate. That shocked us, as did the fact that with each mutation, this virus seems to get more vicious.

Besides anything, it was becoming increasingly evident that dying from, or living with, the long term effects of Covid disease didn’t bear thinking about. Two people in our local friendship circle, that we know of, have had the Delta variant, one after her first jab; both were very ill. The daughter of an acquaintance, remains fatigued. None of them wishes the disease on their worst enemies.

Paying attention to the news – some of it good

Like most people, I’ve paid more than passing attention to numbers and, as I mentioned, the vaccine “race”. More than that, though, are the stories reports of the extent to which this pandemic has stretched countries’ health systems: in South Africa, particularly in poor and under-resourced areas, as well as in other parts of the world.

More telling, though, is the fact that among the cohort of health workers who received the JnJ vaccine, and where there were breakthrough infections, only point zero five percent (0.05%) resulted in severe illness and death. The results are similar for those of us who have received the mandatory two doses of the Pfizer vaccine.

The work started donkeys years ago

For at least the last twenty years, there have been public service announcements exhorting the population, particularly over a particular age, and with co-morbities (now we all know what those are…) to get the flu jab. Influenza is also a member of the corona virus family. All the research that has gone into the vaccines for Covid-19 is built on this solid foundation. And then some. The research into messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) is not new, or confined to Covid.

People developing the vaccine

In this country, we are privileged and proud – well I am – to be home to some of the world’s leading public health academics. They are doing important work on the pandemic. One, Glenda Gray, whose name I remember from the early 1990s and early (and ongoing) work in HIV has not only helped to secure vaccines for South Africa’s health workers, but is a leading researcher in the JnJ trial. Another, and who, until recently, played a significant role in advising the South African government, is now a member of the World Health Organisation’s Science Council.

Their calm, reasoned discourse has had a profound impact. That and constantly adding to my little bit of knowledge:

I began to change my mind. I did.

Then the vaccine roll-out

Here, as in most countries, the vaccination programme was rolled out in a triaged way, beginning with anyone over 60. The initial timeframe, saw me getting vaccinated sometime in 2022. I, like so many South Africans were disheartened, especially those not a “special” group like mine workers, teachers, or…. However, that has changed and just in the last two weeks, anyone 18 years old and up can get vaccinated.

Putting my phobia behind me

I am both needle phobic and have a terror of most things medical. Thanks to a bad experience in childhood and a three-week hospital stint after a car accident in my early 20s. In early July, just a day or two ahead of The Husband’s scheduled appointment for his jab in Robertson, the window opened for the over fifties. We decided that I should go along for the ride.

The near empty Callie de Wet Sports Centre converted to a vaccination site. Virtually empty early in July 2021.

With so few people turning out, it was a quick and easy in and out. Despite my phobia, I got my first jab. My Instagram “report” is here.

Six weeks later, as even more vaccination sites had opened up, I was due for my second dose and was designated to go to the local clinic. We both went.


The McGregor Public Clinic overflowing (in a socially distanced way) with folk getting their second jabs. The queue for the “first jabbers” was outside in the sun.

With many more people, it took a little longer, but it was still a relatively speaking quick, easy and mostly painless experience. That IG report is here.

Side effects

Neither of us has had a reaction. Other than tenderness on the injection site and for me, the first time round, a pretty sore arm. My sister-in-law, a health worker, experienced fever and headache after the JnJ jab. Another friend, fatigue after her first Pfizer jab. Yet another had, what the doctors suspect was a minor stroke, on two occasions, and each time, about three weeks after each jab; happily, she’s now recovered. We, and they, all say, rather that than severe Covid or death.

A reprise

In less than ten months last year, between March and November, I wrote eleven pieces that had either this virus, the pandemic and the associated fallout as the central theme. There’s a full list of them here. By and large, my views, other than on vaccination, have not changed and the fallout continues. And will for some time to come.

Part of an experiment

I acknowledge that we are all part of a global experiment learning: scientifically and socially. We can rail against it, but unless one has real power, there’s not a lot we can do about it. That said, there is some logic and sensibility to many of the restrictions. So, we (have to) obey the curfews and stick with the non-pharmaceutical interventions, stay safe and go with a sensible flow.

Getting the jab does not mean life has gone, or will go back to normal, or that we can drop the masks and consort with strangers. We are still in the throes of a third wave. There’s talk of the fourth – potentially in December. Again, for hospitality and tourism, the timing could not be worse.

We are fortunate in our little bubble to have been somewhat insulated from the pandemic but, as we have learned, first hand, breakthrough infections do happen. What the jab does, is prevent one from getting really, really sick, needing hospitalisation to be sedated and intubated or dying. Equally significantly, if I do get Covid disease, I am less likely to spread it to those around me, near and dear (especially) and not so dear. The vaccination means that I will have a lower viral load so I will not transmit the virus as easily.

I would still rather not – get the virus, be ill or spread it.

Looking forward

I want the village – and the world – to resume its normal traditional activities; to dance in the street again and wave the old year good bye. Hell knows, we’ve all had some bad ones.


The annual village tradition of dancing in the streets on New Year’s Eve. It has not happened since 2019.

I want the economy to recover. I need to work again. I want young people to be able to live and let live. I want to be able to celebrate milestones and inconsequential birthdays. I want to do more than share virtual meals. I want to want to put up the Christmas tree. We want to be able, and have the inclination to, invite folk around to break bread or for a gathering in the garden. Just because. We. Can. Again.

Herd immunity

The people who know, tell us that 70% of the world’s population must be vaccinated before this virus will be conquered. This COVID-19 Vaccine 101 Card and which you are welcome to download and share, helped to firm up my decision about getting vaccinated. It’s easy to understand and includes references and sources of more, and current constantly updated, information.

Looking back through my old photographs of times that were happier and more carefree, I realise more than ever that I want that – happy and carefree – for all our futures, again.

Getting vaccinated takes me (and us) one step closer.

Final word

This is just my opinion based on my reading, listening and learning. I made an informed choice and have shared some of the links to the information that made me realise that just a little bit of knowledge was dangerous.

For even more information –

In South Africa, visit the Department of Health’s Covid portal and/or the National Institute for Communicable Diseases. For readers from other parts of the world, the Center for Disease Control and Johns Hopkins are useful starting points.

Until next time, be well
Fiona
The Sandbag House
McGregor, South Africa

Photo: Selma

Post script
If this post might seem familiar, it’s because I’m doing two things:

  • re-vamping old recipes. As I do this, I am adding them in a file format that you can download and print. If you download recipes, buy me a coffee. Or better yet, a glass of wine….?
  • and “re-capturing” nearly two years’ worth of posts.

I blog to the Hive blockchain using a number of decentralised appplications.

    • From WordPress, I use the Exxp WordPress plugin. If this rocks your socks, click here or on on the image below to sign up.

    • Join Hive using this link and then join us in the Silver Bloggers’ community by clicking on the logo.

Original artwork: @artywink

    • I also share my occasional Instagram posts to the crypto blockchain using the new, and really nifty phone app, Dapplr. On your phone, click here or on the icon, and give it a go.

Grandparents, guides and mentors

~ Fiona ~ Leave a comment

I only ever knew one grandparent. It’s a partly a function of the era in which I grew up and partly because we literally lived continents apart.

John and Mary Cameron, late 1950s or early 1960s

These are my Scottish grandparents. My father’s father, John Cameron, died before I was born. How long before? I haven’t a clue. Were my parents married at the time? I don’t know. Wee Granny, as we called her, because, I am told, she was a little lady, I met as an infant. I was baptised out of her home in Glasgow. I remember being told that she visited us in Bridlington in Yorkshire, after my sister was born.

Glasgow calling

I don’t remember a letter or Christmas card from her, but there will have been. I do have a vague memory of the telephone ringing – because in those days they did ring, and loudly, in an echoe-y hallway – in the wee hours of the night, and voices. It would have been around 1972. Midnight telephone calls – actually, calls after 8pm – were never good news.

At breakfast the following morning, Mum said, and before Dad got to the table – he always joined last – “Wee Granny died yesterday.”

“It” was never discussed although Wee Granny did get mentioned in conversation and reminiscences from time to time often.

The one I remember

Big Granny, on the other hand, so nicknamed because she was tall, I do remember.  As a six year old, I remember an elegant and regal woman who smelled of talcum powder. She smoked cigarettes using a long, black holder.

Delia Stockford (nee Carrol), 1920-something

Big Granny was born in 1900, so we always knew her age.

Grandpa Stockford and his four daughters circa 1933.

Grandpa Stockford was killed in a shooting incident in a shooting range before the Second World War.  Not long after that, all four children went down with Diphtheria.  The youngest did not survive.

Big Granny, 1937

Big Granny came to South Africa once. For three months, I think. It was from late 1969 and into 1970. My clearest memories of that time is of Mum taking her a daily breakfast tray of black tea and toast. Which she only ever ate with butter.  Plain toast and butter always make me think of her.  Granny used to write me the odd letter when I was at boarding school. One I distinctly remember:  she wrote to me about a beech tree in Kew, and which my father talked about, which had split down the middle and died. There was a drought in England.

I have also never forgotten the beech leaf pendant – a real leaf, dipped in gold, I think – which she always wore. Every day. I often wonder what happened to it. I thought  It was beautiful.

After another midnight telephone phone call, Mum went to England in late 1979 because the end was nigh. It was the first time mother and daughter would see each other since that visit nine years before.  It was also the first time Granny and her remaining daughters were under the same roof since the 1950s. And the last. She died in early 1980. She was 79 and I, just shy of 17.

Four more Grannies and Grandpas

Because my parents had emigrated, we had no extended family in Grahamstown where they eventually settled; let alone in South Africa.  With two children under 18, there were two couples in their friendship circle who became surrogate grannies and grandpas.  We were happily adopted and I have fond memories of Uncle Richie baking bread (my first memory of bread baking – he was a baker), and Auntie Dot baking the most amazing Madeira cake.  The baker didn’t approve of all his wife’s baking methods, and it was often a source of much mirth.

Uncle Richie wasn’t around for my 21st birthday celebration, but Auntie Doris was.  My cake was a Madeira.  Her gift to me.  At my request.

Auntie Doris, Mum and I at my 21st garden party

Also at my 21st birthday party was the couple who, had something happened to my parents before I reached that milestone, would have been my legal guardians.  They were fellow Scots and my father and Uncle Jock had much in common.  I remember Auntie Ella as the gentlest, sweetest soul I have ever met.  She had wonderful rings which I constantly admired.  With hindsight, I think she had always wanted a daughter.  They had had only one child – a son.  Auntie Ella, thanks to rheumatic fever, had a bad heart so one child was a miracle.

Auntie Ella and Uncle Jock at my 21st birthday garden party. That’s my dad lurking behind my right shoulder.

She allowed me to play with her hair.  Something my mother never permitted.  Ella’s hair was naturally wavy, and when I started playing with her hair, was developing a white wing above the widow’s peak on her forehead.  When she died, in 1991, she left me the garnet gypsy ring I had admired most.  The Husband who, sadly met neither of them, chose it as his wedding ring.  Our home has a number of special things that came from their home and which help them to stay in my head and heart.

Party people

All four of those people loved a party.  They loved dancing.  Ella couldn’t but she played a mean piano and Jock drummed – on a cake tin with knitting needles if there wasn’t a drum available.  They shamed my parents on to the dance floor for years.  Both Auntie Ella and Auntie Doris gave this pre-teen more than one dancing lesson.  They taught me the twist and the jive – pointing one’s toe, and wiggling the hips…  Somewhere, there is was a photograph of this eleven year old dancing with Uncle Jock at a wedding.  It’s still in my mind’s eye, my lemon yellow, large polka dot, long frock and my hair in pigtails and ribbons…

The mentors and friends

There are two people who shaped my thinking and, at different times, offered guidance, support and friendship that had a profound effect on my life.  One, a former teacher who, like my mother, was called Ursula.  She was my Standard 8 (year 10 teacher), and it was she who instilled in me my love of geography.  When I returned, reluctantly, to do teaching practice at my old school, she took me under her wing.  That I went on to get a distinction for one of those practical observations and a project in which I re-engineered the apartheid human geography school curriculum, is in large part, her “fault”.

Standard 8, Clarendon High School with Ursula van Harmelen. I am sitting third from the right. It was 1978.

I moved on and learned that she had turned to teaching teachers at my almer mater.  We reconnected when my mother died:  I’d literally run to the sanctuary of Ursula’s down to earth and irreverent and comforting home and person.  I became a regular visitor when I had occasion to be at Rhodes University for work.  I got to know her sister and now that Ursula is no longer with us, Mary and I (and I know some of Urs’s other former pupils) stay in touch. Yes, the Mary of the flatbreads.

Then there was Bill.  Larger than life and who supported and mentored me as I became involved in community work and consulting.  After he died, I paid tribute to him here.  I could not do him justice here.

Last word: This was in part inspired by this contest.  I suspect that because, as usual, I’ve deviated from the rules, this is not an eligible entry.  That said, and as I always say, I don’t participate to win but rather because the topic makes me think.  This one did.  Thank you @galenkp.

Until next time, be well
Fiona
The Sandbag House
McGregor, South Africa


Photo: Selma

Post script
If this post might seem familiar, it’s because I’m doing two things:

  • re-vamping old recipes. As I do this, I am adding them in a file format that you can download and print. If you download recipes, buy me a coffee. Or better yet, a glass of wine….?
  • and “re-capturing” nearly two years’ worth of posts.

I blog to the Hive blockchain using a number of decentralised appplications.

  • From WordPress, I use the Exxp WordPress plugin. If this rocks your socks, click here or on on the image below to sign up.

 

  • Join Hive using this link and then join us in the Silver Bloggers’ community by clicking on the logo.


Original artwork: @artywink

  • I also share my occasional Instagram posts to the crypto blockchain using the new, and really nifty phone app, Dapplr. On your phone, click here or on the icon, and give it a go.

It’s no bull…

~ Fiona ~ Leave a comment

It’s a funny old world we live in.  As I write, we are in day 501 of South Africa’s National State of Emergency (aka lockdown), and thanks to the vagaries of the Interweb and erstwhile hosts, this is the second iteration of a post with this recipe.  The original post was three years ago.

How things have changed since then.

Back in the day

It’s strange looking back.  Those days seem, in so many ways, so carefree.  We invited strangers into our home.  Weekly.

As you know, I have, for the past eight or so years had a food stall at the local pop-up market, and for those who are not familiar with where we live:  McGregor is a village in the heart of the winelands and with about 650 households, dependent on tourism and agriculture.   It’s somewhat off the beaten track (you can read a bit more about it here). Four or so years ago, there was no eating establishment open on a Sunday evening, so I suggested to The Husband that we host simple (ha!) Sunday Suppers in our home.  A service to the community.

The groups would have to be small – the house is small and we’d have to re-arrange things to make it work as a pop-up restaurant.  Also, we are not fans of being forced to sit with strangers, so we were not going to do a long table.  That also presented certain challenges.  Especially in winter when we couldn’t possibly have people spilling on to the veranda and into the garden.

Well, you know, there are two old sayings:

You’ll never know until you try it

and

Be careful what you wish for

Sunday Suppers @ The Sandbag House

Then using yet another idiom, be careful of words spoken in jest:  Sunday Suppers, for a while, became a regular and expected thing in the village.  But I run ahead of myself.

Camera shy

About a week into this new adventure, good friend and fabulous photographer, Selma sent me a message.

“I’d love to document one of your Sunday Suppers.  Can I?”

“WHAT?  Are you out of your mind?  It’s complete and utter chaos.  I don’t think I want all that sin exposed.  Besides, I’m camera shy and most certainly won’t be dressed for success.”

“No, man,” says she, “It’ll be of your hands and the food, the table, and, of course, the cats.  Mostly the cats.  We do weddings, you know.  You cannot imagine the mess that goes on there, hahaha!”

That last bit is, of course, the most believable part of the statement.  So I discovered. After I was convinced.

“I’m going to be in the village because…, blah, blah, fish paste….”

I was persuaded.  Anyhow, she arrived in the village and said, “I’ll see you on Sunday.  What time do you start prepping?”

“Well, actually, I’m going to be doing quite a lot on Friday so that things are a bit more manageable on Sunday.”

“I’m on my way!”

So began my first (and only) ever experience of being in front of the camera and I do admit that I had fun.  Mostly because Selma loves what she does, is more than good at it, particularly persuading reluctant subjects to conform to her whims.  The results of the two days’ shoot are here and also appear in this and many of my other posts where they are duly acknowledged. She has given me a gazillion fabulous photographs to use.  And I did (and do):  virtually every time I put together the weekly menu which was posted in the local online newsletter and in the social media.

All photos: Selma’s and of that Sunday Supper earlier in July 2017.

Then, the food

Putting out the menus also meant that I got requests for recipes – from a Swedish guest (more of that another time), and from friends, as happened here:

So think about it I did, and here’s what I sent:

Slow cooker Oxtail

(serves 4 with mash)

1 oxtail (probably about 800g to 1kg)
4 – 8 carrots (peeled (or not) but left whole) – makes for prettier presentation (and they don’t turn to mush)
1 onion finely chopped
1 or 2 cloves garlic
vegetable oil
1 cup beef stock (250ml)
1 glass red wine (125 – 175ml)
1 bay leaf
Fresh / dried herbs of choice:  thyme, rosemary/McGregor Herbes de Provence
2 tablespoons seasoned flour (+ extra to thicken towards the end of cooking)
Salt & pepper

What to do

Roll the oxtail pieces in the seasoned flour to cover and then brown in a large frying pan or skillet, with a little oil.  Place in the slow cooker.  top with the carrots.  In the pan, add a little more oil if necessary and sauté the onion until glossy and transparent.

Add the herbs of choice and sauté for a little longer.  Then add the stock to de-glaze the pan.  Then add all the liquids to the slow cooker.  If the oxtail isn’t just about covered, add a little more water.

Cover and cook on high for about 5 hours. If you have more time (like 7 hours), set the cooker to on auto or low, and let it be.

About an hour before serving, check the consistency of the gravy.  If not to your liking, remove a little of the liquid and add it slowly to a dessertspoon (or more) of flour until you have a smooth paste.  Gradually add this to the stew and leave for an hour.  If you are using commercial stock (cubes), only add salt at this stage,  but if you add the potatoes, wait until just before serving because potatoes tend to absorb the salt.

Serve with mashed potatoes, the whole carrots and a green vegetable like beans or broccoli.

Download the recipe

A while ago, I decided (for my own convenience and yours, to create downloadable versions of the recipes I dream up.  The Slow Cooked Oxtail recipe’s available for downloading here.

If you download recipes, please follow the link buy me a virtual coffee. Or better yet, a glass of wine….?

Of course, one could serve this with polenta or rice.  My friend served hers with rice (one of the children doesn’t like potatoes).  If you serve with mashed potatoes, give them a zing, and which I did last time I served oxtail for Sunday Supper, by adding about a tablespoon of wholegrain mustard to the mash.

So it was

For nearly three years, we opened our home to anyone, at least once a week and it’s no bull that, for a while, Sunday Suppers became a village fixture.

In the kitchen ahead of “Selma’s Sunday Supper” and in front of her camera that July 2017.

By the time guests arrived, the sin is mostly dealt with and guests were greeted with a warm fire (in winter) and pretty tables.

Just one of Selma’s awesome shots from that shoot.

A last word –

We still get asked if we do Sunday Suppers.  We haven’t since February 2020 because we’ve wanted to preserve our (mercifully Covid-free) bubble.  For the moment, our stock answer is that we might.  That said, the village now has Sunday dining offerings, so there’s no real need. For those who really, really want a Sunday Supper experience, we’ll make a plan:  with the proviso that there must be between four and ten to make it viable.

Until next time, be well
Fiona
The Sandbag House
McGregor, South Africa

Photo: Selma

Post script
If this post might seem familiar, it’s because I’m doing two things:

  • re-vamping old recipes. As I do this, I am adding them in a file format that you can download and print. If you download recipes, buy me a coffee. Or better yet, a glass of wine….?
  • and “re-capturing” nearly two years’ worth of posts.

I blog to the Hive blockchain using a number of decentralised appplications.

    • From WordPress, I use the Exxp WordPress plugin. If this rocks your socks, click here or on on the image below to sign up.

    • Join Hive using this link and then join us in the Silver Bloggers’ community by clicking on the logo.

Original artwork: @artywink

    • I also share my occasional Instagram posts to the crypto blockchain using the new, and really nifty phone app, Dapplr. On your phone, click here or on the icon, and give it a go.

What’s in a name?

~ Fiona ~ Leave a comment

What’s in a name? You may well ask.

My parents rarely, if ever actually called me “Fiona”, even though it was the name they chose for me.  My father only ever used my given name if he was getting serious about something.

For years I loathed it.

Why?

Thank you for asking. But first:

They chose the name because it was not common – or so they thought. At the time, nearly sixty years ago, in England, it wasn’t. Common.  Little did they know that some twelve to fifteen years later, in South Africa, I would be one of five Fionas.  In the same class at school.  Although they wanted to be different, they also tried to give me a family name:  Mary. After both my grandmothers. They were thwarted. The registrar of births, some how, just left it off my birth certificate.

When I was baptised, and the minister was doing the, “I Christen thee…”, thing, he also forgot.  For years, I lamented not having a middle name.  It presented quite a challenge when I had to fill in a million forms when I applied for a visa for a trip to the United States. Not only that, online forms generally don’t like double-barreled last names (a comparatively more recent acquisition), so the solution was to use half of my last name as my middle name. That said, do not ever call me Mrs Brown. But that’s another story.

Plain

I remain plain old “Fiona” with a double-barreled last name, who, until I was five and a bit, only ever answered to “Fi”. It was a bit of a shock, going to “big” school and having to learn to answer to “Fiona”. I did and I have embraced it.  Although didn’t realise how much until I discovered (only in the last year or so) that I resent it when someone I’ve just met, whether professionally or socially, instantly presumes to call me “Fi”.  The dissuasion, depending on whom and how, ranges between gently diplomatic to acid and a direct, “You can call me Fiona.”

Which brings me to its real meaning.

For years, and I was under the impression that Fiona was the Scottish Gaelic equivalent of Flora which does actually mean flower.  I’ll come back to this.

The photo below, of the plaque on our fridge, was a gift from my sister-in-law when she returned from a visit to Scotland.

Needless to say, my illusion of being a flower was shattered. “Fair”, though, I’ll take.  As I approach the last part of my sixth decade, I hope I live up to it. I could do worse.

But that’s not all:

Source

Back to Flora

Flora was the Roman goddess of flowers and in Scotland, the Anglicised version of the Gaelic “Fionn”. So, there is a tangential connection, but not quite as my childhood memories led me to believe.  Perhaps it’s because the Flora we grew up with was a wonderful, madcap, legend of a woman.  She drove an ancient Ford Anglia until well into her seventies, smoked like a chimney, was always in court shoes and lipstick.  She constantly regaled with stories of how, with her double-jointed wrists, she delighted in upsetting first, her teachers and all through her life, people who irritated her.  She’d fold her hands back so that it looked like she had no hands…

Flora was this twelve-year old’s heroine.

Favourites

Regular readers will know that I have a penchant for alliteration.  That, only tangentially, has to do with the name I chose for this blog and the handle I use on various social media platforms.  Its genesis dates back some nearly 30 years and to a time when I had no work, when I needed to find a way to both keep myself busy and earn.  At least something. About the only confectionary I could then bake with any confidence was biscuits.  So I made a million biscuits (cookies) for a little café in a village in the Eastern Cape.  They were my favourites.  Which is why I had developed the skill for baking them.

Fiona’s Favourites was born.

It was logical then, that when I started blogging – about food and recipes – also favourites – well, I just joined the dots.

It’s stuck and I’m in the process of adapting the label for my preserves by dropping the “s” so that it now reads “Fiona’s Favourite…” and it adorns all the preserves I sell, and my stall at the market.

Silver Flower

Recently, I’ve joined and play an active role in a crypto blogging community for folk who’re considered, like good cheese, best mature.  None of us embraces the “old” or “elderly” appellations.  I suspect none of us feels a day over 25.  Blogpal, @lizelle, who started the group, and who incidentally also runs a BnB, coined the name “Silver Bloggers”.  I rather like that:  silver has a multitude of connotations.

One of the features of the platform on which the community lives, is that its members can choose another handle.  Mine, you guessed it, is Silver Flower.  It harks back to both what I originally believed Fiona to mean, my love of flowers and my Scottish roots.

The Husband and I, nearly 19 years ago, and when got a middle double-barreled last name

Both our Scottish roots and my love of flowers are evident here.  The Husband and I on our wedding day:  he in the kilt and the flowers in this buttonhole, the South African equivalent of Scottish heather, and which are also in my bouquet of indigenous blushing bride.  I have loved blushing brides since I first saw a picture of them when I was about nine.  When I met them in the flesh, so to speak, I wasn’t disappointed.  That bouquet weighed about a hundred tons. I now realise that every bloom was probably grown at the top of the mountain above the village where we now live.  High in the Sondereinde Mountains behind McGregor is one of the few places they’re cultivated and home to one of the biggest exporters of these flowers.  At the time, it was also a conscious decision to marry (ha!) our heritage with our South African roots.

A last word

I do like it that in some cultures children are named for their parents, hopes and dreams for them.  Or for the auspicious days on which they’re born.  I know that each time I’ve named an animal feline child – after all, I am the Cats’ Mother – I’ve had my reasons for choosing their names.  Those, possibly, are stories for another time – along with a few others.

There is so much in a name:  love, loss, hopes, dreams and a life of being.

Until next time, be well
Fiona
The Sandbag House
McGregor, South Africa

Photo: Selma

Post script
If this post might seem familiar, it’s because I’m doing two things:

  • re-vamping old recipes. As I do this, I am adding them in a file format that you can download and print. If you download recipes, buy me a coffee. Or better yet, a glass of wine….?
  • and “re-capturing” nearly two years’ worth of posts.

I blog to the Hive blockchain using a number of decentralised appplications.

    • From WordPress, I use the Exxp WordPress plugin. If this rocks your socks, click here or on on the image below to sign up.

    • Join Hive using this link and then join us in the Silver Bloggers’ community by clicking on the logo.

Image: @artywink

    • I also share my occasional Instagram posts to the crypto blockchain using the new, and really nifty phone app, Dapplr. On your phone, click here or on the icon, and give it a go.

Embracing Silver, Gold and Onyx

~ Fiona ~ Leave a comment

I have been blogging since February 2014. That’s more than seven years, I now realise. It’s been an interesting journey that began, just focusing on food and recipes. Because of a chance remark on Facebook. It was not without trepidation that I registered on WordPress; it was at least a week, if not more, before my first post. Like with most first attempts, that’s a post best not revisited.

Learning

I have learned much, including about writing and taking pictures. That writing, when I’m into it, comes easily. I enjoy it and it can also be cathartic. I always knew the latter, but never felt confident enough to share it. That’s changing….

On the pictures, I’ve learned some techniques developed a lens. I’ve learned how to neaten and, to some extent, pretty up my photographs. I’ve learned that nothing is not a subject.

Something that, incidentally, applies to writing, too.

Grills on a window. Bespoke and beautiful.

Virtual communities

The pandemic, and the now ubiquitous existence, for many, of a life largely online, means that the concept of a virtual community is not entirely new. Anymore. I learned, back in 2014 that the blogosphere (as I learned to call it) is a microcosm of the world. It was a shock: I discovered trolls and bullies and which lead me to write my first piece about things other than food and fluff. I naively believed that all bloggers were nice people and had the interests of their peers at heart. That baptism of fire, if you will, and my own real life experience of bullying (about which I may still write), shaped my approach to the virtual world. It still does.

A fork* in the road

About four years ago, I joined a social blockchain and started crypto blogging.

*Yes, for my die hard blockchain readers, that pun was most definitely intended…

A social blockchain? Crypto blogging? What?

I’m so glad you asked!

It took me a while – like about a year – to work out what it is. I joined and fled for a while. Partly because I wasn’t in the “headspace” to make new friends, especially a new and foreign virtual space, let alone learning how to do basic mark down (coding). I was not in writing mode, either. Yes, writer’s block is a thing. Even if there is an endless supply of material.

Firstly, the social blockchain on which I play, is Hive. Secondly, because it’s a blockchain, you never lose your content, so you stake your claim to your intellectual property in perpetuity. It also means one thinks before one posts. Or should.

Thirdly, it has an underlying currency or token that can be bought, sold and, in my case, earned; hold it on the blockchain, cash it out or do a combination of all of these. I don’t even pretend to understand more than the principles, so you’ll find a more authoritative explanation here. For someone who doesn’t have any spare money lying around to invest in what many suggest is a dodgy world, I had nothing to lose, continuing to blog on this type of platform.

Hive, some in this new world space, suggest, is innovative and a disrupter.

Another driver behind my blogging

There’s another reason why I broadened my blogging purveiw. In addition to sharing recipes, and along with discovering that I enjoyed writing, it made sense to “monetise” it and potentially extend my capacity to earn. That is actually a very difficult thing to do. One needs to have both (a) voice(s) and a portfolio; one has to sell one’s self. Hard. Best of all, is finding one’s self in the right place at the right time. That last doesn’t happen often, so given the opportunity to build a portfolio, earn from writing what I like, without too much of the “sell”, and build a little nest egg was a no-brainer.

So how can one earn on a crypto social blockchain?

This is my still lay understanding of how things work.

The first thing to remember is that every action on the blockchain is a transaction that costs. One is allocated a certain number of (resource) credits that one “spends” on activities. Some of these activities, like blogging, commenting and voting, generate rewards. Saving the rewards from those activities builds one’s stash (wallet) and one’s status (power) on the blockchain. This is a summary from an old post (on the first iteration of this blockchain) of how to earn:

Create content (posts) and/or you curate by voting and commenting on posts.

  • These transactions come at a cost and with a return:
  • one earns and is rewarded in different proportions in three ways.

The first two are liquid and can be traded on and off the blockchain via exchanges:

  • Hive token
  • Hive Based Dollars (SBD) – these two can be used to buy
  • Hive tokens
    Hive tokens left in the blockchain, are known as Hive Power which is also generated in the process. To “power Hive (and draw it) down, is in itself a process and subject to delays – rather like a call account. Part of the reasoning behind this is to build the big asset using little people investors like me.

And then there’s more –


I don’t have a cherry to put on top, so homemade Malva Pudding will have to do.

The more Hive one has, the greater the value of one’s votes (likes), and to add to the complication, that, one gets rewarded for voting, sharing (re-blogging) posts on the blockchain, and by commenting on other people’s posts.

Silver Bloggers: “my” virtual community

I mentioned communities. The name, Hive, is apt. The activity on the blockchain and between people is analogous of those most social of insects, bees. Like a beehive, it also includes chambers or (sub)communities.

Communities began emerging, well, it doesn’t really matter when, but for me, I found them a challenge.

I don’t like to be boxed and pegged. I don’t relish being told what I may or may not think. I will agree to differ and respect different views.  I am happy to be persuaded into a new way of thinking.  With my eclectic range of interests and my penchant to warble on, I had difficulty finding a niche. I dabble, dip my toes and generally blunder about. I’ve made virtual friends (real ones) and developed a following (who would have thought?).  There was no community in which I really felt “at home”.

It’s only in the last while, and since fellow South African, Lizelle, started a community that I’ve begun to feel more comfortable. Part of this is because of the interesting, international and eclectic bunch of people who subscribe. We are all over 40 (and most with a lot of tax, too), so we’ve been round a block (or five). It seems to be a kinder and more embracing space than some that I have encountered. I think it’s because life has knocked us all around a bit. The rough edges are softer – mostly. I speak for myself.

Embracing change, innovation and the inevitable

The folk in the Silver Bloggers community, like most of the world, are encountering change all the time. Many of us are at the cusp of significant life changes and approaching what some like to refer to as our autumn years. Whether we accept that or not, is neither here nor there, it’s often foisted upon us.

We’re not digital natives.

I like to think that our capacity for embracing crypto blogging on a social blockchain shows that those of us who grew up with actual telephones and lived (and mostly still do) without smart technology, prove that age is merely a number; silver hair is just genetics – or like blonde often is – from a bottle.

Speaking for myself

My future does not include retirement, not being busy and not earning.  Besides the fact that not earning, right now, is not a choice, I enjoy what I do.  Mostly.  How I long, with thirty years’ life experience to “do” the twenty-somethings again.  My head and my heart are willing.  The rest, including the twenty-somethings, not so much.

So

The silver (gold and onyx) I embrace, are less about the changing colour of my hair than of the felines that rule our home.  Starting with silver: Gandalf the Grey who likes to think he owns me.


Gandalf has a shoe fetish

Gandalf regularly embraces me and his foot and shoe fetish.  Ahem…


Rambo the golden ginger

The golden ginger:  I have yet to physically cuddle Rambo, the ranging and still sort-of-feral tom cat that six months later, is embracing domesticity with aplomb. He’s not ventured on to a lap or a bed. Yet. We suspect it’s a matter of time.


Princess Pearli – collared in 2014

Princess Pearli, the onyx and black pearl arrived in 2014. Her arrival coincides with the beginning of my blogging journey, including an early foray into humorous writing, and brings me to why I’ve warbled on.

A last few words

I admit that I have more than a passing involvement in the Silver Bloggers community:  Lizelle invited me to join the leadership team. I accepted and it is a role I am relishing and in which I continue to learn. Every two weeks we announce a topic around which we encourage folk to create content. Anything goes – even tangential. I wanted to make that point and to mention two things –

  • I tend to keep Hive business on Hive, but there comes a time that the two connect, like now, so the second thing:
  • the crypto blogging social platform is no different from other parts of the blogosphere in terms of how people engage.  I tend to think of it as a combination of WordPress (or any other blogging platform) and Facebook on steroids, without ads and a better return.

And

  • Depending on the crypto market, one earns something and/or builds an asset (that’s not financial advice, it’s merely part of my lived experience).
  • One gets more eyes – I have nearly a thousand followers on Hive, but fewer than 350 on WordPress – with the connected “other” social media.
  • One’s work never disappears into the ether – even if your web host does. I learned that the hard way and which is why my series about Pearli’s Pickles and other posts are no longer here.
    As an aside: I am thinking about turning those (that are on the blockchain) into a “proper” series of stories…
  • If you think you’re too old to learn coding or markdown: you’re not. I have learned a lot – by osmosis. But now, four years down the line, you don’t have to because there are other interfaces with the blockchain that make it unnecessary.

I am learning that even if others think I’m ancient, I am most definitely not too old to be part of the innovative and constantly developing world of blockchain and crypto.

Until next time, be well
Fiona
The Sandbag House
McGregor, South Africa

Photo: Selma

Post script

  • If this post might seem familiar, it’s because I’m doing two things:
    • re-vamping old recipes. As I do this, I plan to add them in a file format that you can download and print. If you download recipes, buy me a coffee. Or better yet, a glass of wine….?
    • and “re-capturing” nearly two years’ worth of posts.
  • I blog to the Hive blockchain using a number of decentralised appplications. From WordPress, I use the Exxp WordPress plugin. If this rocks your socks, click here or on on the image below to sign up.

Image: @traciyork
  • Join Hive using this link and then join us in the Silver Bloggers’ community by clicking on the logo.

Original artwork: @artywink

  • I also share my occasional instagram posts to the crypto blockchain using the new, and really nifty phone app, Dapplr. On your phone, click here or on the icon, and give it a go.

Heritage food – my take

~ Fiona ~ 1 Comment

Foreword

This post, in its original iteration appeared in 2018. On another platform. I have, for a number of reasons, been trying to systematically restore “missing” bits. It’s a mixed blessing: some I choose not to restore. Others, like this, make me realise how much our lives have changed in the last year and now, more.

This was the story of one of our Sunday Suppers. We hosted them for three years. We’ve not hosted one since January 2020. We’re still asked if we “do” them.

I do miss them, but honestly, until we understand Covid better, it’s kind of scary allowing strangers into one’s home and private space. I hate admitting that I (we) have developed a serious dose of stranger danger. I do, paradoxically, admit that we are a little lax in our village bubble. That said, I don’t miss the obligatory hugging and kissing that characterised so many social encounters – especially with acquaintances and people one has only just met and with whom one has, at best, a tenuous emotional connection.

I digress, of course…

Heritage, my adopted country and food

In South Africa, in September, we celebrate our combined heritage. Like so many countries, we are a bit of a melting pot but in South Africa, heritage is also the site of much contestation. However, I won’t go into that, except to say that Heritage Day precipitates two things. One, a public holiday and the other, South Africa’s shared love of gathering around a fire on which a meal is cooked. Yes, the barbecue. In South Africa, though, it’s the braaivleis or shisa nyama that is virtually universally traditional. Needless to say, when this particular commemoration spawned a public holiday on a Monday, the Sunday Supper menu reflected that. So it was, in 2018, when I had already been thinking about the menu, but had not come up with anything, I get this direct message on Instagram:

“Are you by any chance doing lunch/dinner on Sunday 23 September. Can you recommend a place to overnight in McGregor! Thought we would come and test your kitchen and catch up??”

Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather. Ms Jolly Hockey Sticks, Dr Groundwater and I had all been – yes, you guessed it – at university together. All of us in the Geography department and she and I in the same residence. Other than bumping into her at a local market more than 20 years ago, and hearing Dr Groundwater elucidate about the drought and his speciality on a local radio station, I had seen neither of them since those days; other than her following my Instagram account, we are not in touch.

In addition to their advance booking for Sunday Supper, dear friends, Mr & Mrs Gummi, from Cape Town, were to booked into our Little Room and yes, especially so that they could be here for Sunday Supper.

Boot on the other foot

Now, there is something you should know about Mr Gummi. Not only are he and The Husband dedicated carnivores and bosom buddies who hail from the same part of the world, but Mr Gummi is a former restauranteur and chef. We met him – and them – in his restaurant. It’s one thing having a casual braai or a dinner around the table in one’s home, and quite another when, so to speak, the boot is on the other foot: there is just a little pressure.

South Africa and Scotland

Back to the menu. Of course, it needed a heritage theme. In my wisdom, I decided it should reflect both South Africa and Scotland. I am a naturalised South African; the Scottish connection is both about The Husband’s and my heritage and the village whose Scottish heritage is reflected in its name, McGregor. With my kitchen constraints, it was neither practical to do a “common or garden” braai nor given that Sunday Suppers had developed a set format of starter, main and sweet. Two things that had been part our first heritage menu in 2017, featured: the starter of a paté made with local, smoked fish, and the sweet.

The final menu

The starter was two pâtés served with crostini. Followed by a braaied Springbok fillet and Fiona’s Scottish Milktart. None of the diners was vegetarian. I cannot remember what that option was…

The two patés: I cannot give you specific recipes for either, except to explain what they consist of, and how I make them.

Two pâtés

Angel fish pâté

This is a pâté usually made with a smoked fish (snoek) which is a rather coarsely textured, very bony, oily fish. I prefer to make it with angel fish – the flavour is more delicate than the heavy, salted smoked flavour of the snoek. Either way, both fish are readily available if one has access to fresh fish or the sea.

I make the pâté with fish that’s is left over from a main meal – usually done on the braai – cooked over hot coals, on the skin, not turned. It’s basted with a mixture of olive oil, butter, parsley, garlic and lemon juice. The Husband reckons he only knows how long to braai the fish for because I make just the right quantity of the libation. I’m not so sure, but I’ll take it!

The cold fish is separated from the skin and flaked into a bowl into whichI add a spritz of dry white wine, followed by a dollop of cottage cheese, salt and pepper to taste, and finally, in this instance, wild garlic leaves and either chives or green onion tops.

Combine these ingredients until the correct consistency is achieved – without mashing or puréeing – adjusting the quantities and the seasoning as you go along. If you are in South Africa and using wild garlic (Tulbaghia), be judicious with the quantities. It is very (the actual word begins with an “f”) strong and it develops over time, especially when combined with dairy.

Stash the pâté the fridge until you are ready to use it – either in a single receptacle or in individual dishes – depending on what you’re planning to use it for.

Homemade maaskaas (cottage cheese) pâté with wild herbs

Making cottage cheese is easier than you think. In South Africa, you can buy cultured soured milk. I have, when I could get really, proper (how’s that for English) full cream milk, soured it and made cottage cheese from that. Full fat milk is getting harder and harder to come by, so at the suggestion of a friend, I cheated and bought the maas. I haven’t looked back and I make it regularly, treat it exactly the same way:

Put a colander into a large bowl to catch the whey and then line the colander with muslin. Dump in the maas and tie up the muslin. The whey will drain out and you will need to pour that away if it fills quickly (on to your pot plants or into the compost because it’s actually full of goodness). It will need to hang for at least 24 hours, but better for 48 and you will have cottage cheese of the most fabulous creamy consistency to which you can add the flavourings you want.

For this supper, I added wild garlic and suurings or wild sorrel to the cottage cheese. I grew up eating these sour little leaves and flowers – in the Eastern Cape they are mauve and where I live, in the Western Cape they are yellow and flower in abundance in spring – especially if it’s been an especially wet winter.

A bit like the angel fish pâté, adding the seasoning and flavourings is a matter of personal taste, remembering the caveat about the wild garlic leaves, and which applies just as much to conventional garlic. When you’re happy, either serve immediately – the flavour is better at room temperature – or store until you’re ready to use.

Springbok loin on the braai

The second course was Springbok loin rubbed with a mixture of my homemade spicy plum jam, Worcestershire sauce and olive oil to which I added a teaspoon of crushed coriander seed, a crushed clove of garlic and about a dessertspoon of fresh, grated ginger. Having marinated for about four or so hours, the loins were braaied (grilled) over hot coals until they were medium rare, and then removed and allowed to rest.

Some will say that this is too rare but remember two things: venison is not just well matured but has no fat marbling which makes it dry and easy to overcook. Secondly, as I had to keep it warm and avoid overcooking while waiting for diners to be ready for their main courses, I always elect to take the meat off when it was under-done and allow it to rest.

In terms of quantities: Springbok is a small animal and one loin serves about two people.

A diner’s plate of springbok fillet medallions, jus and vegetables with herb butter.

Fiona’s Scottish Milk Tart

The dessert, when I served it for the first time last year, was an instant hit and has become a regular feature of Sunday Supper menus.

It consists of the filling of a traditional South African melktert (milk tart) served with a side of Scottish shortbread in either a lovely little glass or, more prettily in my mother’s Royal Albert coffee cups.

By all accounts, it was a menu and a meal that was a success!

* direct translation is “grilled meat” and usually shortened to braai pronounced “bry” – like “fry”

** shisa, according to an online dictionary, means to heat or to burn

*** nyama in many of the Nguni languages, including isiZulu and the one I am most familiar with, isiXhosa, is meat

In closing – it could take a while…

Blockchain

That I have been able to recapture much of this blogpost, albeit updated and edited, is thanks in no small measure to blockchain technology. What is on a blockchain can’t be deleted – even if your website disappears. The folk from @exxp, @fredrikaa and Martin Lees (@howo), the programmer behind the WordPress plugin have set up a front end that enables one to download – in text – everything one has posted from WP to the blockchain. So, although the image links were lost in the original post, the text was not. Fortunately, the file names were saved and I could find and reload the images.

Not just for Gen Z and Milennials

People of my vintage tend to glaze over when I mention that I blog to a blockchain. I’m not going to pretend that I understand much if any of the details. The social blockchain community of which I am part, includes folk of all generations.  From all over the world.

Recently, fellow S’Affrican, contemporary and blogpal @lizelle started an online community that is home for the more hesitant less geekish and technically inclined. I don’t like being pigeonholed or boxed, so the eclectic focus of this community and the multi-generational (40 – 100 year) span of Hive Silver Bloggers is a space in which my equally eclectic interests fit. It’s recently been noticed by some of the blockchain big cheeses whales which means @lizelle is doing something right. I know that. She and the community deserve support.

Sunday Suppers

We do miss them. Not necessarily the not having a weekend and the sometimes bone-aching exhaustion after a busy (and successful) Sunday. We have met some interesting and fascinating people. We (I, perhaps more than The Husband) had fun. I miss the cooking and the sense of occasion that I had the privilege of creating for our guests. We will, possibly “do” them again. If. There is a need, we feel safe, and/or, as we have always said, people (there must be between four and ten) ask us to “do” a Supper @ The Sandbag House experience.

Until next time, be well
Fiona
The Sandbag House
McGregor, South Africa

Photo: Selma

Post Script

  • If this post might seem familiar, it’s because I’m doing two things:
    • re-vamping old recipes. As I do this, I plan to add them in a file format that you can download and print. If you download recipes, buy me a coffee. Or better yet, a glass of wine….?
    • and “re-capturing” nearly two years’ worth of posts.
  • I blog to the Hive blockchain using a number of decentralised appplications. From WordPress, I use the Exxp WordPress plugin. If this rocks your socks, click on the image below to sign up –

Image: @traciyork

  • Join Hive using this link and then join us in the Silver Bloggers’ community by clicking on the logo below:

    Original artwork: @artywink
  • I also share my occasional instagram posts to the crypto blockchain using the new, and really nifty phone app, Dapplr. On your phone, click the icon below, and give it a go.