Our guest today: Aysa Safal

Today we had lunch with Aysa Safal. The person who changed our lives. The woman who made all of this possible. Many moons ago she made Mauritz walk into the ocean and willed him out of the west coast waters with a lobster in one hand. Our honeymoon. She also made him pack  a whisk, an egg and a small bottle of olive oil in the camping gear. She was the one that spurred us on till we had that perfect mayonnaise.  And she must have watched and winced at our lack of decent clothing. 

Today we wanted to remember her smells, her influence, her love. We wanted to celebrate the huge impact she had on Mauritz's tastebuds. She is the one that made sure that I stay out of the kitchen. Also that both our children show a keen interest in being curious about food. 

Our family wanted to give thanks to her open hands, her life, her dedication to food and her kindness. And the only way to do this, was to have a kind of wedding. A big celebratory Cape Malay wedding under the trees. 

Starter table (and this cloth used to be curtain once!) 

The table was set with roses and Mukwha, the music played, and the guests arrived. My mother joined us. We played YoungstaCPT&Ganja Beatz. The sun shone. We played Brasse van die Kaap. Hannes used Fatima Sydow's recipe to make the best Samoosas in town.  We dipped them into blood red chilli sauce. Taste exploded. Helen made chicken pastries and half mooned cheddar and chilli bites, plated with fresh berries, cucumber and naartjie. Banana rolled in coconut. Every bite tasted of festival. We cheered! To Aysa! But the others still didn't really know anything about Aysa. Was she a rock star? Chef? Writer?

Hannes and Helen's starter feast...

Mauritz was still quiet. So we had wine, begging Aysa to keep her eyes closed.  He brought out the Pickled Fish and the smell followed him like an obedient dog. How I wished to be able to record smells today. Zenobia told stories around pickled fish and easter, fish and hot cross buns, her mother's recipe and how it triggered memory.

Pickled fish made with coriander seed, turmeric, onion and apricot jam

We cleaned the table and set it afresh for Mauritz's mutton biryani. And to him it tasted like his Aysa. To the rest of us it tasted like wedding and feast and being together. And Mauritz's eyes lit up, ready to tell us. 

Mutton Biryani 

It started like this: Mauritz’s father had a shoe shop at the bottom of the dorp. Aysa was dad's side kick and his right hand woman. And Mauritz, also known as The Chef these days, used to spend hours here. Watching. He was an observer as a child. Aysa’s kopdoek, covered in bright yellow butterflies. Her hand held out to him, within the perfect pastry; covered in poppyseed: a gift. He bit into it and imagined how the butterflies flew off her headscarf  and circled the two of them as taste exploded like gooseflesh over him.  And he knew she had something that he wanted too.

The man of the moment: then and now... 

Another day: Aysa’s selling school shoes to Big Bill Brown in his class. Mauritz stayed in the shadows. He didn’t like this boy. He watched how Bill’s mother pulled up her nose as Aysa slipped the shoe into the boy’s foot. So gently. Aysa did not flinch when the mother snorted. Aysa smiled. Her headscarf was orange that day, like the sun, so bright, she pulled at it, closed her eyes as if saying a prayer. And then Big Bill Brown’s mother bought the shoes and rushed out, her lips thin. Aysa said nothing when she took Mauritz by the hand, and led him out to the alley, where they could have lunch. She had packed three plates. On each she packed roti, dhai,  tomato sambal and veggie rice.  

"Run along, give this one to your dad, then you come listen to a story...” 

Mauritz copied her way of eating. He had never tasted masala before. Or fresh coriander. Not roti and definitely no chilli. (We are in the deep 80’s folks. In a dorp in Apartheid South Africa) He smiled as he ate, too shy to ask Aysa anything. 

Aysa opened a world to The Chef. A world he never knew existed. Aysa didn't leave any recipes, but she left a curiosity. One that he continues to explore. She left an open heart, without any fear. And this made Mauritz fearless when it came to food. (Most dishes today were cooked from the delightful Kaap Kerrie and Koesisters instead.) 

The book we cooked from...

The days continued. Sometimes Aysa didn’t eat for forty days. Mauritz would tick these days off on the secret calendar he held in his room. When it was time for Eid, Aysa brought a big kastrol of breyani to work. Mauritz had macaroni and cheese for lunch, but he ate the breyani in the shoe shop as if he hadn’t seen food for a week. This dish made him hug Aysa, and he wouldn’t let go. He held her, and in his mouth he could feel comfort, he could feel how she had cooked wonder into his own curiosity. He could feel her labour, and her love. He looked up into her brown eyes, and he knew that he wanted this. He wanted to cook. He wanted to cook all of this into his food too. 

Much later Zenobia sprinkled rose petals on the boeber, and brought it out with custard biscuits and tamarind sweets. 

Zenobia's boeber and custard biscuits...

The boeber was warm and comforting, like a huge hand knitted blanket in winter. The tamarind sweets had a perfect brown pip in the middle, and sweet, sour and tangy stayed on our tongues for the rest of the afternoon. 

We smiled as we thought of Aysa over coffee. Aysa was just Aysa. We bowed to her. We said thanks for this idea of marriage. A modern marriage between yourself and someone who lights your fire and then enables you to keep doing what you are doing.

Translation of a few words:

Kopdoek - Head scarf

Big Bill Brown - Dr Suess uses this name for the class bully in I wish that I had duck feet

Kastrol - pot

Dorp - Rural Town

For some extra spice:

Most of the recipes today are from Kaap, Kerrie & Koesisters by Fatima and Gadija Sydow Noordien. They have a TV show too. Watch a preview here

Zenobia is reading this book. We are all waiting in line to read it too. Go buy your copy!  Khamr: The making of a Waterslams by Jamil F Khan

And go buy this laugh a minute book too, written by Yusuf Daniels: Living Coloured (because black and white were already taken)

This song plays regularly in our household: Weskaap by YoungstaCPT and the Ganja Beats

And an old one, but a good one: Brasse van die Kaap: Sit jou hande op