Michelin-star Master Class Durban-style
When Alsace chef, Michel Husser, joined Alliance Française’s Sarah M’bodji in Durban, it was to share know-how gleaned from his 90-year Michelin-star roots with trainee culinary students. The city’s flavour profile hit a new high, writes Wanda Hennig.
Retreating to flavour and mindfulness
The Buddhist Retreat Center a couple of hours by car from Durban in rural South Africa is a haven of tranquility and beauty where mindfulness and kitchen magic connect in a vast, poverty-stricken, harshly beautiful landscape.
Loretta’s Coffee ‘Xpressos’ Victoria Falls
Aromatic Zimbabwean coffee, elephants, buffalo, hippos, warthogs and the legendary Victoria Falls flavour Loretta Gomwe’s coffee success story. Imagine. You park your vehicle along the […]
Wakkerstroom: dorpie of surprises and delights
A French Canadian lured by a Canada Dry sign, a cheesemaker taught by a priest, a one-time diplomat with a bistro that hit the Top […]
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Bee Nice: here’s the buzz
Did you know that one-third of the fruit and veggies we eat are pollinated by bees? Honeybees and non-honey producers. And they are in jeopardy.
Why Vanessa’s birds take the plate
Field to table, nose to tail. We journey to the middle of nowhere to meet the ebullient, down-to-earth, hands-on farmer who produces her poultry, from […]
Bunny chow love, Durban’s gift to the world
There’s no debate. Durban is the ancestral home of the bunny chow, writes Wanda Hennig. And a bunny is a bunny, not a kota. So […]
Out of Ethiopia, onto your plate
Eating, at it’s best, is a sensory experience. When we’re eating right, we’re seeing the food, smelling it, tasting it, touching it, feeling it in […]
World travel. Thailand and Laos.
Plus: New Zealand, Europe, the US, the UK, Canada. Upward and onward…
When in Durban
Round and about this Indian Ocean city
NSRI: Be Safe and Found
Safe and Sound: Safe and Found. The nautical play on words that greeted our UKZN alumnus group at the Durban chapter of the NSRI, one of the most inspiring non-profit volunteer organisations in South Africa.
Sunsets, mermaids and Durbanism in Umhlanga
If you were to count them, I’d wager that the number of eateries at Umhlanga — inside the malls, along the streets, strips and terraces, […]
Our Insider’s Guide: South Africa’s Durban
Durban, South Africa’s subtropical Indian Ocean port and resort city, is eccentric. Unexpected and curious. And weirdly wondrous. It’s a city that can thwack the […]
Memoir and Mindfulness
What happens when you say yes to life and writing about it …
From Lanckorona with love
I think of myself as a city girl. Drop me, alone, into Warsawa, San Francisco, Paris and I feel curious, happy and alive. So what was it about Lanckorona, a country hamlet with angels high on a hill near Krakow in Poland, that instantly grabbed me?
Freewheeling in Malawi: a bike, my daughter and me
Bicycles, backpacks, a back-up van and a 14-year-old. What to do when you’re the mom and you’ve never ridden a bicycle except into a bush? You bite the bullet. Knowing that for kids, an adventure in an unfamiliar place is an education. It gives a vision of different traditions, cultures and lifestyle. It also teaches obvious lessons in history and geography. Not to mention resilience. Yours as well and theirs.
Corporate Cutbacks — Victim or Victor?
I became a labor statistic the first time* at lunchtime one muggy Friday, just six weeks after beginning what had been “sold” to me as (drum roll here) “the most stimulating and challenging work opportunity likely to come your way in a decade.”
Love — it don’t come easy
In South African in the early 70s we had women’s lib, people’s lib, gay lib. But few role models to reflect the times. Many of us wed and then we fled. Products of our time?
Departments
Books
SAfm Otherwise: Shado Twala speaks to Wanda Hennig about Cravings (Podcast)
Shado’s interviews are more of a conversation than a straight Q&A. How ‘Cravings…’ came about and what it deals with. Depression, social phobia, meditation, celibacy… I was blown away that ‘Otherwise’ host Shado Twala had read my book, liked it — and ”got it”— knowing it will speak to some people, not to others. Hopfully to “the right people” in an affirming, empowering way…
Spotlight on Poland
Gdynia. sopot. warsaw. krakow. roots travel. culinary travel.
Nose to tail, beak to claw: all about offal
If you don’t like a particular item of food – for argument’s sake brains or liver, tripe or tongue, cow cheeks or bull testicles – it’s most likely because you haven’t been served them prepared the right way. Offal delicacies are being served at upscale dining establishments far and wide. We speak to a Polish and a South African chef and talk about world trends.
Culinary Poland in the time of Chopin
Chopin a chocoholic? Yes, so long as it was hot. This is just one of the many food-related snippets revealed in a delightful book on […]
Assignation with An Assassination
Read Assignation with An Assassination on Perceptive Travel: Given the excesses of our foray into Jan Baran’s fresh, local, creative, contemporary take on the culinary […]
Africa Travel
All around africa
Mbano Manor at Victoria Falls awes in Africa
Welcome to Victoria Falls. Mosi-Oa-Tunya — the smoke that thunders — as it was called (still is by some locals) before Scottish missionary and explorer […]
Creative. Culinary. Cultural.
Slow and sensual: Romancing the pizza
Pizza. Fast food? How about when you have a Hilton-based pizzaiolo — Mark Mattinson — who spends 72 hours prepping each batch of dough? When […]
Spicy sisterhood stirs gourmet halaal in Durbs
Creativity, passion and their Muslim faith inspire chef sisters Zainab and Faatimah Paruk. Their success is flavoured by Durban’s diversity.
The Chairman in Durban: South Africa’s best jazz bar?
Some Durban businesses rev up after dark and even after midnight. Meet Ndabo Langa, architect, entrepreneur, Renaissance man and founding owner of The Chairman, a […]
Chef Jackie: A legend creating a legacy
Remarkable. Difficult to think of a more appropriate word to describe Jackie Cameron. Award-winning chef. Food sorcerer. Founder-principal of the Jackie Cameron School of Food […]