BOOK Southern Africa

André Louw Reviews Sumptuous by Marlene van der Westhuizen

by Jani on 17 Mar 2010   |   

Verdict: carrot

SUMPTUOUS is exactly that from whichever angle you view it. A beautifully produced cookery book by Marlene van der Westhuizen with stunning photographs by Gerda Genis.

Van der Westhuizen shares her year between a small village in France, Charrox, and a studio in Cape Town. In both she teaches cookery.

• Complete review at the Dispatch Online

Book Details

• Sumptuous: Food from the heart of France to the Cape by Marlene van der Westhuizen
  EAN: 9781920075910
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Evita Talks to Hilary Biller About Boys, Bobotie and Books

by Amanda on 17 Mar 2010   |   

Evita Bezuidenhout recently took time out of her busy schedule to chat to Hillary Biller about her new cook book Evita’s Kossie Sikelela and her cooking secrets. It’s to die for doll!

I did not know that a tannie with such long, perfectly manicured nails could cook – or would even get her hands dirty.

I love getting my hands covered in flour and shiny with olive oil, cluttered with bits of parsley and even something delicious under my nails. Someone once said: “A clean cook is a boring chef.” I make a hell of a mess and the staff clean up after me. So it involves job-creation as well.

• Read the complete article in the Sunday Times

Book details

• Evita se Kossie Sikelela deur Evita Bezuidenhout, Linda Vicquery
  EAN: 9781415200919
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

• Evita’s Kossie Sikelela by Evita Bezuidenhout, Pieter-Dirk Uys, illustrated by Linda Vicquery
  EAN: 9781415200902
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

St Patrick's Day: Hillary Biller Has the Answer to a Reader's Irish Dilemma

by Amanda on 16 Mar 2010   |   

Hilary Biller, author of Great Meals Fast, has taken to answering reader’s food questions on her Sunday Times page. With St Patrick’s Day on the 17th of March, Biller helps one woman out of a pickle with her alternative to an Irish stew. If you too need to cook something Irish the recipe below will certainly come in handy.

Q: I’ve been asked to prepare a main course for a St Patrick’s Day celebration. One of the party is making an Irish stew and wondered if you could suggest something else? – Margaret, Johannesburg

A: For all things Irish, I turn to Irish food writer and owner of the Ballymaloe Cookery School in County Cork, Darina Allen. I was lucky enough to visit the school a couple of years ago, where I shared a delicious lunch with Allen of the finest organic spring lamb, raised on the farm, which the students had roasted.

• Read the complete article and find Biller’s recipe for Corned beef and cabbage

Book details

• Great Meals Fast by Hilary Biller
  EAN: 9781770077669
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

• Lekker Vinnige Etes by Hilary Biller
  EAN: 9781770077676
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Image courtesy MarkDroberts

Foodie Hillary Biller Interviews Jane Griffiths, Author of Jane's Delicious Garden

by Ceri on 16 Mar 2010   |   

Food fundi Hillary Biller talks to three green ladies about their gardens and gardening secrets: Jane Griffiths, author of Jane’s Delicious Garden; Pat Featherstone, author of Grow to Live; and Emilia le Roux, author of A Farm in My Heart. Here’s the Griffin portion of the article:

“Having a vegetable garden has really made me feel more connected to the world. It centres me, grounds me. When I'm away I really miss my garden. If I get back late at night I take a torch and go and look at it,” says Jane rubbing a couple of gem squash between her fingers. “It's about a sense of discovery, which is constantly changing.”

“Before I’d grown gem squash myself I never knew that they are covered with minute prickly hairs. Did you?” asks Jane passing me one.

• Read the complete article in the Sunday Times

Book details

• Jane’s Delicious Garden: An organic guide to growing your own food by Jane Griffiths
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9781920289003
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Scribd.com book preview:

Jane’s Delicious Garden

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Evita se Kossie Sikelela Launched at New Cape Town Indie Book Store, the Bay Bookshop

by Amanda on 15 Mar 2010   |   

The launch of Evita’s Kossie Sikelela by Evita Bezuidenhout and Linda Vicquery at the city’s newest independent book shop, the Bay Bookshop in the Cape Quarter, was a sumptuous affair. Proprietor Pierre Engel said the book was a credit to South African cookery. He welcomed the country’s most famous white woman, helping her up to the podium. There she celebrated the virtual cutting of the shop’s virtual ribbon – the real one having inconveniently been forgotten in the excitement of the new event.

She said, “I am very happy to cut the ribbon. It doesn’t have to be a real ribbon. After all, when we say, ‘Viva democracy!’ it doesn’t have to be a real democracy.”

Tannie Evita looked stunning in navy and white polka dots and pearls. She said she was amazed to be there at all, considering that she’d just dropped in to the kitchen at Parliament where she was overseeing the preparations for tomorrow’s lunch. “Lots of people are fighting each other in Parliament; the ANC Youth League is fighting the ANC who’s fighting COSATU who’s fighting the Communists and whatnot! They wanted the country, I say let them sort it out! Alle wêreld, we are so relieved not to be involved any more.”

As soon as she was done in the kitchen somebody asked her to look in on the new Zuma children, “Two little babies, they’re called Z-43 and Z-49, and of course ek is nou vol sjokolade. I am full of little fingerprints of little Zumettes. Any mothers or grandmothers here in the audience will know that we do like to suffer under the fingerprints of our beloved grandchildren, and then one of them grabbed my hair and started to pull and I said, ‘My kind, my kind, oppas, dis nie Zoeloe hare nie.’”

Then there was the traffic to overcome. “As you know we’re getting ready for the World Cup and if 16 cars can’t pass in an hour, how are 60 000 people going to pass in a minute?”

Breathless but glamorous she kept the audience enraptured with her behind-the-scenes gossip. The book came from a box full of recipes torn out of Huisgenoot and De Kat, “even though one can never understand what’s written there”. It was prompted and compiled by the expert chef and illustrator from Provence, France, Linda Vicquery as Mrs Bezuidenhout felt she was too busy running the country.

“Buy the cookery book but don’t think I’m standing behind you,” she advised. “When you go into that recipe you’re going to be cooking for your own mouth! Not mine. You must say, ‘Nee wat, Tannie Evita, there’s too much butter.’ This is a good thing to say. It won’t taste as good, but your heart will keep beating without the butter.”

Evita pointed out the joys of Halaal and Kosher cooking were included in the book – although not on the same page. “When your Halaal guests come You must never panic. You must just find out. You have to wash your hands. You mustn’t touch certain things. The dog and the cat can’t be in the room. You must find out.”

She urged the chefs in the audience to experiment. “There’s no such thing as a flop. A flop becomes a new recipe. Take malva pudding for example. That’s not a flop. Who’d ever have thought of something so effective to shut up Winnie Mandela? Every time she talks we give it to her and her teeth stick fast.”

What a wild time! Congratulations to the Bay Bookshop on the official opening of their Cape Quarter doors.

Facebook gallery

Book details

• Evita’s Kossie Sikelela by Evita Bezuidenhout, Pieter-Dirk Uys, Linda Vicquery
  EAN: 9781415200902
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

• Evita se Kossie Sikelela deur Evita Bezuidenhout, Linda Vicquery
  EAN: 9781415200919
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Dirk Nagtegaal maak maermenskos met heerlike resepte

by Vera on 10 Mar 2010   |   

Dirk Nagtegaal, die outeur van Kok en skinker, is ‘n man wat lief is vir die soet goed, die ryk, romerige, vetmaak goed in die lewe. Díe dat hy toe effe swaarmoedig raak toe die dieëtkundige hom laat diet. Gelukkig red ‘n vriendin hom met fantastiese, gesonde, resepte vir bouillabaisse, lae GI-brood en vars perskes in wyn vir poeding. Smul lekker saam met Dirk.

Soos dit ’n vetvreter betaam, hou ek van sagte kos verpulp in botter, room, Brie de Meaux, camembert en caciocavallo. Sjokolademousse. Ek hou van biltong met ’n dik, deurskynende vet rand om die vleis te olie op sy pad binne toe. En bros­gebraaide spek saam met my eiers. Ek gebruik graag heldergeel, romerige botter op my brood, tandemerk dik, asseblief, en vars room in alle sop en souse. Ek kan nie slaap voordat ek my nagtelike rytjie Belgiese sjokolade met toe oë gesuig het nie.

En die dieetvrou klap met haar pen op haar boekie en sy lyk vir my presies soos ’n kosspietkop.

“Dis nie die einde van die wêreld nie,” sê sy. “Van vet alleen kan geen mens leef nie. Ons gaan jou ontgif met vars vrugte en groente en water. Daarna stoom ons vis; jy sal ná ’n paar dae lief raak vir die smaak daarvan. Bly vir minstens ’n paar weke van rooivleis en vette af weg,” sê sy.

• Lees die volledige artikel in Rapport

Boekbesonderhede

• Kok en Skinker deur Dirk Nagtegaal
  Boektuisblad
  EAN: 9780980275407
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Foto te dank aan Rapport

Kerneels Breytenbach gesels met Tannie Evita oor Kossie Sikelela en ou vriende

by Amanda on 09 Mar 2010   |   

Evita Bezuidenhout is deesdae ‘n besige dame met die bekendstelling van haar nuwe boek Evita se Kossie Sikelela. Die boek is propvol smulresepte en skreeusnaakse stories. Kerneels Breytenbach het names Rapport sy stoute skoene aangetrek en met die “grande dame” gaan gesels oor die boek, resepte en van Evita se vrinne en ervaringe.

Moenie verder soek vir ’n portret van ons tyd – en aptyt – nie.

Evita Bezuidenhout staan trots, guitig en stralend op haar omslag. En dis reg só. Sy’t rede. Met een slag wend sy haar volle glorie aan om ’n uitlokkende, leesbare resepteboek te skep.

Van die vindingryke omslag (wat dadelik van die boek ’n versamelstuk maak) tot by die register agterin is Kossie Sikelelaanders. Daar’s baie wat jou laat lag, en nog meer wat jou kombuis toe stuur. Boonop met ’n woord vooraf deur Sophia Loren, die enigste vrou wat ta’ Evita in die skadu stel aangaande volrondheid!

• Lees die volledige artikel in Rapport

Boekbesonderhede

• Evita se Kossie Sikelela deur Evita Bezuidenhout, Linda Vicquery
  EAN: 9781415200919
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

• Evita’s Kossie Sikelela by Evita Bezuidenhout, illustrated by Linda Vicquery
  EAN: 9781415200902
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Evita se Perron Launch for Evita's Kossie Sikelela

by Amanda on 03 Mar 2010   |   

You are invited to a launch of the South African cookbook that only Tannie Evita could have produced – at her home, Evita se Perron!

The launch will be followed by Evita’s current show, “A Koeksister for Zuma”, at 2pm. To book, please phone Beryl on 022 492-3930.

To attend the launch, RSVPing is essential:

Event Details

• Date: Saturday, 06 March 2010
• Time: 10:30 AM for 11:00 AM
• Venue: Evita se Perron, Arcadia St
  Darling | Map
• RSVP: Book League, 022 492 2667

See you there!

A few pics from “A Koeksister for Zuma” taken at this week’s Woordfees in Stellenbosch:

Book Details

• Evita’s Kossie Sikelela by Evita Bezuidenhout, Pieter-Dirk Uys, illustrated by Linda Vicquery
  EAN: 9781415200902
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

• Evita se Kossie Sikelela deur Evita Bezuidenhout, Linda Vicquery
  EAN: 9781415200919
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Video and Photos: Evita's Kossie Sikelela on Cape Talk!

by Amanda on 02 Mar 2010   |   

If the road to reconciliation runs through a country’s belly, Tannie Evita Bezuidenhout’s new cookbook, Evita’s Kossie Sikelela, is a recipe for peace. In Evita’s Kossie Sikelela, Evita invites the world to her table where everybody can feast on her delectable dishes!

Tannie Evita was a guest on Soli Philander’s Cape Talk show yesterday – and if you didn’t tune in, you missed out! What a hilarious conversation, those two can really wind each other up.

Fortunately for those who missed the show, Evita recorded a special message about her book at the Cape Talk studios:

• Not loading? Watch on Cape Talk

Meanwhile, here’s a clip of the last time that Tannie Evita visited Soli:

• Not loading? Watch on PMB Digital

Don’t miss these terrific photos from the Kossie Sikelela event!

Facebook gallery

Book details

• Evita’s Kossie Sikelela by Evita Bezuidenhout, Pieter-Dirk Uys, illustrated by Linda Vicquery
  EAN: 9781415200902
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

• Evita se Kossie Sikelela deur Evita Bezuidenhout, Linda Vicquery
  EAN: 9781415200919
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Hilary Biller Answers Your Foodie Questions: Macadamia Nut Cake

by Jani on 26 Feb 2010   |   

Local foodie Hilary Biller knows a lot about food and has some pretty great recipes up her sleeve. You can get your hands on at least some of these in her latest book, Great Meals Fast. Biller has also been answering food questions from Sunday Times readers; in this column she provides the recipe for an incredible macadamia nut cake made with mealie meal – yum.

Q: In the Sunday Times of January 31, there was an article about local chefs preparing the food for a soiree at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Do you have the recipe for the macadamia nut cake made with mealie meal, which featured on the menu? It sounded interesting. – Jean

A: I was lucky to get the recipe that was used at Davos – and it's delicious, as voted by my colleagues.

• Read the complete article (and get the recipe!)

Book details

• Great Meals Fast by Hilary Biller
  EAN: 9781770077669
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Image courtesy Times Live