Montebello and the food of Dinosaurs.

We had a leisurely lunch at Montebello yesterday. Wraps filled with cinnamony butternut and goats cheese. Pomegranate and aloe juice. The city feeling evaporated and I forgot about traffic and first-of-the-month bills and contrary people. We spoke about traveling and music and pangs of the heart. 

At Montebello there is no direct light, everything is dappled. It's like being in a forest.

J. is an old friend. A wise man. A music producer. After lunch we sat in his studio and listened to some songs. A welcoming blue couch, equipment with hundreds of dials and tiny glimmering lights.

J. shared two projects very close to his heart. Larry Rhode is a musician currently in the Douglas Prison. In the calm of his own storm. Things I'll never forget: when Larry walks every day in the dusty prison yard, he can see the tops of two trees in the distance. From his cell window at night he can see seven stars. When he got to prison, he knew the music notes in his head, but not their names. "I want to know all the notes on the guitar's neck."

Louisa Steenkamp is very, very old and blind. She lives in Calvinia, near Van Rhynsdorp in the Karoo. Her songs are laments about her life. Accompanied by a borrowed guitar and her grandson on the tin violin. "My ma se woorde soos naalde deur my hart." (My mother's words like needles through my heart.)

T. and I wandered through the nursery, not saying much.

My first encounter with a Gunnera. River Pumpkin. Leaves bigger than a golf umbrella. A herb that's been around for the last 95 million years. Salad for dinosaurs. Unfurling new leaves like spiky hands.

According to ancient lore, J. told us, babies are born knowing everything there is to know. An angel passes by and touches each one lightly on the frenulum (that tender slute joining the top of your lip to your nose). In that instant, we forget everything. We spend the rest of our life remembering.

❤

Things that take us back.

These are lights!

Something in the world feels right when you wake up after dreaming of the water lilies in the Okavango Delta. On top of that, it's the first really, really hot day of Summer and there's left-over apple crumble for breakfast, with Greek yoghurt. My friend Madame Fi recently went to Botswana and Zambia and her pictures came to life in my dreams. Also read what she said upon return.

I've only been there in my dream, but I feel nostalgia for that place.

"A sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations."

As I watered the garden this morning, an old Mercedes drove by and the sound of it threw me back to my childhood and thoughts of my father. A true gentleman he was. This Summer I will make his Pimms no.1 Cup and sip it with my feet dangling in the pool.

I bought six of these plates at the boot sale yesterday. They remind me of my Grandmother's kitchen. Then, in the afternoon, T. brought me a bunch of sweet peas from her mother's garden. One sniff of their wonderful scent and I was back in Ouma and Great Aunt Lil's garden in the Eastern Cape.

It's a glorious and searing thing, this squeezing of the heart.

❤

Parties and Wedding Bells.

The weekend passed in a swirl. MORE sushi at Minato. It was that good.
 

TWO birthday parties on one night. Mixed Doubles: fun to see who matched who. Ah... so the girl with the furry ears in the ladies room belongs to the guy at the bar, ditto furry ears. Behaving like naughty children in the parking lot. Dancing till 3h30 in the morning at the Kimberley Hotel.

Awoke on Saturday morn to fat plopping raindrops on the pool, but nary a cloud in the sky. Jakkals trou met Wolf se vrou. (The Afrikaans equivalent of a Monkey's Wedding - Jackal marries wife of Wolf.) And then off I zipped to the sleepy hamlet of Stanford, for the union of two lovely, gentle souls.

Where everything grows in lush abundance.
 

The Bride was what all brides should be. Angelic, ethereal, calm and graceful.
 

After the service, there was a procession across the green fields to the place of the party.

Many faces from long, long ago. Champagne and tiny gruyere tarts on the stoep, spilling onto the street. Then rooms leading into rooms, filled with beautiful things and chatter and laughter. Sweet potato and roast lamb with salsa verde. Chocolate cake. Conversations about typography and obscure music. Somewhere, hidden by clouds, a huge orange Harvest Moon. Rain on the tin roof.
 

Later on, my bed was high enough to warrant a step. A feather quilt and an almost dreamless sleep. A walk impeded by mud and breakfast with a favourite family. Home again, home again. Back to week days and crowds and traffic and of course, the morning visitor.
 

The Trans-Continental Bake-Off.

Or: Die dinge waarmee jy my in 'n wip kan vang.

Every now and then I come across a recipe that I just know in my bones will be delicious. If it contains baked apples and brown butter and ground almonds and cardamom... it is added by default to the list of things you can catch me in a trap with.

So I was nattering away on Skype to The Man with the Generous Heart aka Our Agent in Berlin and we decided to make this together:

Brown Butter Spiced Crisp
 

  Granny Smith apples, unpeeled. Sultanas and lemon rind. Also added: a dash of cloudy apple juice to 'get it going'.

It's always advantageous to have a partner to share a crumble with. (A sneaky dish this - before you know it, you've eaten the whole thing on your own.)

I had sparkly company in the form of The Fantabulous T, who is visiting from Blighty. She is quite the expert - the crumb was analysed and pronounced most satisfactory.
 

 And this just in from Berlin: 
 

 Lilt, ek het die fotos met my cellphone gemaak. Ek stuur die nou ook vd foon, want ons het mos huisgaste. En hulle woon waar my computer is.
Ook nie asof ek eintlik tyd gehad het vir enigiets nie.  Vandat ek begin het om die koek te bak, met I., was dit meer soos damage control. And I mean that in the nicest possible way.
 

 In die middle vd beurre noisette kom die gaste aan. Reg vir aandete.
Stuur hulle op hul eie boontoe, terwyl ek wag vir die botter om 'n hoër pitch te sing. Terwyl ek water kook en knoffel skil.
Exchange pleasantries terwyl ek die botter inroer, met I. wat insist: ek wil, ek wil.  Alles klaar, in die oond.  Skink wyn in vir die grootmense, klein potjie op die plaat met hot chocolate vir die kinders.  Die pasta sousie begin solank simmer, die water kook al amper.
Net toe kom C. met 'n week se groceries wat in die yskas moet kom, blomme wat gesny en in 'n vase moet kom, die tafel word weggeskuif vd muur en gedek vir 7.
People and sauce can wait, pasta cannot.
Dit was die eerste halfuur van ons drie-dae-besoek.
 

 Uiteindelik, apple crisp vir nagereg.  Voordat ek nog 'n foto kan maak, is driekwart weg.  Ek dink dis 'n goeie teken.

Makes me feel like sitting on the lawn with my Pimm's no.1

 

 Thanks again Miss T, for the fabric shopping trip to Liberty's. I'm saving the purple satin ribbon.

My dear Dad's recipe for Pimm's no.1 Cup:

One and a half tots Pimm's

Half tot Grenadine

Dash of Bitters

Cucumber Peel (one in glass &; one for decoration)

1 Slice of orange

1 Slice of lemon

1 Maraschino cherry on a stalk

Shake and top up with lemonade and ice.

How I miss him.