No 14, 1st Avenue.

The timeline on these events are a bit skewed in my recollection, but that is not important.

My relationship with food has not always been joyful. For many years it was Maggi instant noodles and double cheese sandwiches. This unfortunately led me to looking like a very effeminate porcelain doll for most of high school, which was unfortunate but definitely character building. I often got mistaken for a girl by the men at my mom’s catering jobs. This was not her calling, and as I would discover years later, not mine either.

Anyway, these men, military vets by association, would always compliment my mother on her cooking. A testimony to the powerful impact a packet of 12mg tar cigarettes can have on the palate. They would often include how nice it was that her daughter, me, was helping her.
This did not bother me, but it definitely did not help me either. Sort of like life science in school, provided you started school with a sense of self preservation and a working knowledge of mitosis.

My mother was not the greatest cook in the world, which seems to be necessary for anyone writing these sorts of introductions. How lucky am I to have been given a backstory before I even knew I could use it.
My mother was however good at feeding us. There is not a soul on this planet that could stretch a manager’s markdown steak and kidney pie into a meal like she could. She taught me early on that mayonnaise was one of the mother sauces, and that mixing All Gold into it was on par with any hollandaise you could find in the frigid streets of Europe.

My father had a different relationship with food. He seemed to enjoy it. The entire process of it, from owning nice pots to understanding how a salamander worked. He taught me the absolute joy of fresh herbs and eventually encouraged all my culinary attempts. I was in awe. Eating at the dinner table when he cooked rivaled restaurant experiences. And many restaurant experiences are only enjoyable because they are expensive and because it is cool as heck to have a lunch or dinner appointment. It was the food he made, but it was also seeing someone respect food, and wanting to share that.

This combination, food as survival “yes we can absolutely serve those tinned oysters because expiration dates are for rich people” I hear my mother saying. And the flip side, which showed me that food, even something as simple as sheba, can be beautiful, has shaped me into a slightly round but happy person.

It only took fifteen years and a lot of patience from a lot of people to get here. Oh, and also dropping out of culinary school. And at some point telling my father that my ambition was to be a living statue in Ficksburg in the Free State. He suggested I pursue a TEFL, and I have been happily tutoring for close to thirteen years now. Thanks Dad.

My dream career, long before food, was to be a jewelry designer. The signs have been so clear all these years. I would sit legs up on an old pink leather recliner and bend wire with a pair of pliers around the most mismatched beads you could gather, and proudly force everyone in the room to compliment me on these. I am glad I found out that to be a jeweler you need more knowledge of maths and chemistry than I was comfortable with.

Then I wanted to be an artist. The living statue was the last breath of that dream. And after that I wanted to be left alone.
But instead, I went to film school. Which naturally led to me making tons of movies and money and retiring early in the mountains with my BAFTAs.

No.

As with all art degrees, it led me to the classroom.
But I digress.

The film school years were spent in the most beautiful house in Johannesburg. This is not such a great achievement at the moment, but for the sake of nostalgia, imagine creaky yellowwood floors, big windows and a lush garden. I spent so much time in that kitchen. I even met my neighbors as a result. I got a taste for community led Facebook groups and quickly realized you could ask for anything on there and someone would say “come get.” And I usually did. I never paid for an avo, and I made a lot of avo mousse.
I started catering for the student productions we shot. I could stretch a block of cheese and soy mince into three meals for twenty people on a student budget. Thanks Mom. And I could make it taste good, so they kept asking me to do it. Thanks Dad. (Fresh coriander really can save most things) Thanks Carreira Centre in Randburg.

When I graduated and promptly collapsed in on myself, I was gently guided towards leaving the country by those around me. I headed to Korea to teach. At this point I had been tutoring for years, so I felt fairly confident, but I had no real interest in Korea. Shockingly.
I loved it.

But then the worst thing that has ever happened to anyone in the whole world happened. COVID. I was living in a 고시원 (goshiwon), a tiny dorm style studio in Korea. I spent two months not earning a won nor randela in that one room. My bed was within arm’s reach of my fridge and my kitchen counter. A disastrous combination for someone who has demonstrated clearly in their youth that the part of the brain that dictates when enough was enough, had not formed successfully.
I was also obviously not enjoying the isolation. And as soon as we could get a flight, my friend, who was in a different city and might as well have been in a different country, and I took the flight home. I dislocated my knee the night before we flew. Shakespearean foreshadowing for how the next two to three years would turn out.

On our return, we thought, as all twenty somethings with Instagram access do at some point, that we were about to reshape the online thrifting world and would succeed through sheer desire, turn this passion into an empire, and retire modestly by the age of thirty.
In reality, we went to the same two thrift shops that smelled of cat piss and just posted pictures of the T-shirts we found next to the ivy on the garden wall, hoping the algorithm would help us. It was a true modern day religious experience, including the results.

It did not take off.

But we did have some savings, and we ate our way through that so fast, it was like we did not understand money. Because we didn’t.
I started culinary school a little later, and initially loved it. The rigid structure never bothered me. Contrary to popular belief. But the absolute lack of creativity, the lack of ability, and working restaurant shifts for free for months, sometimes being expected to pay the places for parking, was just not it. More on that later.

It also did not help that my life seemed to have no direction at the time. Entirely my fault. I thank my family for all the versions of love and toughness they handed to me during this time. I was fully untethered, but still eating. Somehow. I cooked the most elaborate meals in kitchens I would never see again. Because it was something to do. It was a connection. It was stasis.

And then I left again. Everything sold. Everyone moved. I lived on couches and in spare rooms and eventually in my own apartment again. Back in Korea. Where everything slowly fell into place and the last fifteen years blended into what they were. My fault, but also my lessons.
And then I pulled out the pink wok I promised myself I would buy in 2020 when I saw it in HomePlus, and made a shakshuka. It only took me three years to get it. And two immigration attempts. Totally worth it, the wok rocks.

So much has changed since then. Like instead of tomato paste I now use banana ketchup in my shakshuka, and I have learned to make adobo in a rice cooker. Thanks to falling in love and as a result getting to visit the Philippines a lot. This has been probably the greatest achievement of the last few years. Who would have thought I would end up being the OFW. But here we are, and if life has taught me anything its that you need to have savings, you need to have parmesan and you should definitely buy vegetables with dirt on them.

Oh, and you should make the decisions that work for you, but then you also have to accept any fallout.

And you can fall in love. Even when you were sure you were so bad at it. Maybe you just haven’t found the person who was gonna call you out, and then still be nice after.
Most importantly, I have learned that you do not have to have everything figured out. But you also cannot blame the people around you for that one. And when you aren’t sure what to do, focus on lunch.

Also, do not make fish if you live in a 고시원. Especially not Paksiw na Isda

Welcome. I hope you enjoy the recipes here. I won’t be putting these longer stories on the recipe blog, thats exhausting. But I wanted to give you a clear idea of what I was, where I came from, and why food somehow happened to me. I’m glad it did. And if you want, you can find the longer pieces right here, on the Quiet Journal.