What we really ate a lot of in SA was beef. It is one of the few countries in the world that hang their beef long enough to make it so tender you could actually eat it with a butter knife. Jessica and Grant, South African friends of ours in France, are going to hang beef in France for something like 60 days – tell us when you’re ready Jess!

I adore spicy food and when I worked as a rep in the restaurant industry a hundred years ago, I used to have ½ a extra hot peri peri chicken for breakfast on Thursdays when I visited Nandos in Sea Point. It's the perfect way to start the day if you ask me.

(Today's recipe: How to cook a really big steak)

We met two amazing couples in Portugal and spent a wonderful week together eating, drinking, chatting and forming a bond for life. We met up near Olhao in the Algarves where we were parked right on the banks of the Rio Formosa. They harvest salt there and we harvested wild asparagus and almonds too.

Today’s recipe: Marinade for meat or chicken.

A braai is similar to a barbeque in that bit involves cooking meat over flames outside. But that is where the similarity ends. A PROPER South African braai involves real wood, no charcoal or (heaven forbid) (gasp) gas. We want flames and carcinogenic black bits on our meat. The word can be difficult for foreigners to pronounce and it has been referred to as a Brie, which is just plain wrong!!! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braai

Today’s recipe: Joerg’s Cypriot grilled meat / Pork Kebab

When people are hard at work, they need to be well fed so we have been pulling out all the stops this past week to keep our work force in good spirits. And we all love braaing (barbecuing) so yesterday we got out the grill we brought back from Cyprus last year and made a special Pork Kebab and drank German wheat beer (Hefeweizen).