Up the West Coast to Piketberg

The West Coast of South Africa is our favourite place, probably on the planet earth, although I might have to rethink that as we haven’t been everywhere on the planet earth. Yet. I just need a bit more time…

My deevine sister and brother-in-law and one of my deevine nieces took The Husband and I out for dinner to Thalis on my birthday – thank you soooooo much! It was a deevine evening…okay, enough deevine’s, but it really was dee…

(Tuna Recipe at end)
We met Annie and Mark and their amazing children, Ashleigh and Murray, in France 16 years ago, and we’ve been friends ever since. Or they can’t seem to get rid of us could be the other way of putting it. Moving from Johannesburg (where we visited them) to Cape Town (where we visited them) in the middle of a cold and dark night, also didn’t help them…

This is a low-carb banana bread recipe that has no bananas in it. Huh? What are you saying there, crazy woman! It does have banana essence (see it’s all becoming clear now right), but tastes somehow banany even without it…

Yes, I know it’s been a while, but what can I say, life got in the way yet again. Let’s hope I’m back to stay! We have just been fortunate enough to spend 6 weeks in South Africa – I have to say sorry to all the friends we didn’t get round to seeing, but even 6 weeks is just tooooooo short!

My very good friend, Nynke, asked me for this recipe about, ooh, a month and a half ago…sorry Nynke! I’ve been meaning to write about it for years as it is truly deelicious and easy to boot, and I still haven’t managed to do it, sigh. But today is the day! Hopefully Nynke hasn’t given up on me just yet! I have no photos of the lamb, but of the lovely Nynke and her cat!

The first time I saw an octopus being prepared was in Greece and I was amazed at how much physical work was required to prepare dinner. The poor creature (which was already dead of course) was bashed against the rocks for a good hour. Talking about earning your dinner.

Well, I‘ve been lucky enough to spend time in Spain, France, England and Germany in the last 2 months. One of the great pleasures with this is not only do I get to spend time with people that I like, but I also get to eat all types of great food.

Now this is what I call a proper bottle holder. None of this „I‘m too posh for my own good“ type of a bottle holder, but a real woman type of a bottle holder. Now my stilettos have a new lease on life ahead of them seeing as I am pretty sure I won‘t be wearing them anymore. Especially not after finishing the bottle!

This is another recipe from our lovely friend Anja ( www.reisenundspeisen.com ) and she made it for her wonderful hubby, Micha, for his 60th birthday. Chila (or Gila) is Portuguese for fig-leaf gourd/pumpkin and gets used a lot in Portuguese desserts and jams.