Our guest today: Tom Waits

I have to admit that it was hard to write this blog. At first I blamed it all on Tom Waits. Then I thought I was tired. Or even depressed. Maybe a bit lazy? After mulling things over, I think it was because this ostrich had her head plucked from the sand by The Fourth Wave.    

This one is for Tom Waits

The thing is that Tom Waits couldn't really join us.  Even though he was invited. He said yes. We paid for his ticket. We got ready. We listened to his music over and over again. We flooded instagram with his quotes and his looks and his wisdom. We plastered our pages with his pictures and we admired his offbeat spirit. We bowed to the way he tried to keep his personal life from the media. We remembered his voice on the farm once... The night sky was alive with stars. The silence was loud, and Tom Waits' voice was soft as it rang into the night. Begging himself not to fall in love with a beautiful woman in a bar. 

But then the world said no. Tom Waits could not fly out to us they said. Not to deepest and darkest Africa, they said. Thou shalt not go Tom Waits. South Africa is the epicentre of all evil. It is the festering pit of the new variant. And because Africa is just one big fat poverty stricken 'country' somewhere...(Where again?) we will make sure South Africa does not go unpunished. 

Evidence of South Africa's guilt in all this nonsense.... 

(For those of you new to this blog, don't panic. The part about Tom Waits  is all fantasy of course. The part about the world closing all doors to South Africa isn't unfortunately. See, we invite a guest to come and eat with us and then it is all pretend folks.  We are eight bat-shit crazy people, but this is our way of surviving the harsh reality of These Times.)

All Air travel closed like an oyster. Nobody could get in, and nobody could get out. A friend with a sick mother in Argentina could not go see her. Another's son couldn't fly out from London. A family member who has not had a real live job in 21 months could not fly to Abu Dhabi to manage a huge festival.  My sister and her family, on holiday here, (who live in the UK) got out on the last available flight and will now miss our family Christmas. My cousin from the States, who really wanted to be with her elderly mother, is still stuck in the snow. The list goes on. And then there is Tom Waits of course... could he be with us after all? 

When we arrived at Helen's house, we each got a Budweiser. The sun was shining. Helen was frying onion rings in the kitchen and the dogs went wild with excitement. 

This meal with Tom Waits saved us all from falling. And it started with a Budweiser . American, but made by our very own SAB. Giggles. 

We had our onion rings outside. Without plates. And the simplicity of it made me thankful for Tom's Closing Time album playing in the background. We will carry on. In the simplicity of all of this, we will pull through. 

The most delicious onion rings any diner could muster. 

This isn't a big blog. It's nothing like the Zafon Lunch or the Pekka Kuusisto dinner. The one where Pekka wears a red dress and plays a violin. This one is small. It's humble. It's one of those that remind us to treasure the miniscule. To be thankful that we have dogs, shoes to wear, an imagination that can make all of this possible. 

We had hamburgers and chips for lunch. The patties were hand made. The buns were baked in the gas oven. The chips were roasted with rosemary and made the house smell like hope.

Humbling Hamburgers....

Tom Waits sang about kissing a girl and then moving on. He sang about being lost at the bottom of the world. We rose our glasses to Zenobia, thankful that Kenya allowed her in. 

Fried potatoes with rosemary, coarse salt and olive oil

Emily and I made a New York baked cheesecake, cause Tom Waits sang about the big city in one of his songs. The cake was smooth and rich and covered in blueberries. It made us believe in Love. Simplicity. A Day. Any day. It made us believe that we will have another blog. And that not everything has to be huge and artsy and out of the box. Sometimes we just need to put 

one 

foot

in 

front

of 

the 

other.

And that is what we did. 

New York baked cheesecake took the house by storm

ps. 

Tom Waits sings "I hope I don't fall in love with you  here.