The Practical Prince

It is Prince and Princess fever over here. With the happy couple getting married on the 29th of April next year, the real life fantasy has begun. I mean, every girl dreams of marrying prince, right? Now here is some one actually doing it! But I guess, the term prince means different things to different types of girls and it also probably depends a lot on the age of the girl in question.

I mean, when you are a 4 year old little girl,your requirements are basic. Your prince:
1. Must own a horse, preferably one named Sparkles.
2. Must own a castle that should at least be covered in pink jewels.
3. Must have an above average aversion to evil stepmothers.

When you grown up, the criteria seems to change. He does not necessarily have to be a prince, a doctor or lawyer will do nicely. The horse becomes a Mercedes, the castle becomes a villa in Spain and the evil stepmother becomes, well, lets not go there. Anyway, you get the picture. Nothing wrong with that, but as I was putting the gezillionth load of washing into the machine and folding the umptieth pair of socks, I had a thought: Why do we not dream of the more practical type of "prince"? Let me explain: If you live in this country and your prince is a lawyer or a doctor or even a banker, laundry is still your baby. You can have the odd service to iron etc., but at the end of the day, does not matter how many degrees you have behind your name, at some point you are still going to fold somebodies underwear. Now my dear sister, as you know got married a few weeks ago, to a darling man. He is what I would describe as the perfect Practical Prince. Why you may ask. Well, I will tell you why: the man owns a LAUNDROMAT! Could you think of a more perfect? I mean, my sister will never ever have to wash a shirt in her life, let alone iron one! She also does not even have to drop the laundry off, she can give it to him to take to work in the morning. Now those are the kind of princes we need more of! Ladies, those of you who are not married yet, do not pull up your nose and the Indian Take Away owner or the Fish and Chip shop man. That's dinner covered. Do not look down on the Vacuum cleaner salesman, he can try out all his new models on your carpets,and the Window washer, do I even need to explain what a blessing he would be! To all my single friends out there, learn this lesson and learn it well. There is a lot to be said for these kind of blokes!
Now I am Katie will also never need to iron a shirt in her life, but if you are going to insist on going for that kind of Prince, it is going to be a long cold winter, cause lets face it, there ain't that many of them around. Well I suppose Harry is still on the loose, but lets be honest,  when he is looking to get hitched to a sugar mommy (cause yes, we are at the age where we can call ourselves sugar mommies!), it will be of the Demi Moore or Charelize Theron variety.

Well, sticking to the whole theme, I decided to keep it British this week. We are always cooking food from other countries, including our own, but never anything from the one we live in. So I made a meal fit for a Prince this past Saturday: Game Pie and Sticky Toffee Pudding. I envisaged a real regal pie. You know the dainty kind, the kind that when it is opened up, four and twenty black birds will start to sing all at the same time, but mine fell a bit flat. It is probably because I used a  game pie mix bought at Cobham market instead of the black birds. Yes, that must be it. To tell you the truth, I have no idea what was in the mix! I think it was pigeon and rabbit, but the third type of meat will remain a mystery. I am just glad that whatever it was, it did not burst into song when it was cut open. Probably a good thing, I don't know if a singing rabbit would have had the same affect.

The game pie still looking good

Oh dear. Yes well, atleast it tasted good.

 For afters (yes, that is what they call it here, not dessert, but afters) I made Sticky Toffee Pudding. I do not think that there is anything sweeter on earth than Sticky Toffee Pudding. I can't believe I am going to say this, but it was far too sweet for me. I had about a teaspoonful and that was enough to send me into a sugar shock for the next two days. Not my cup of tea darling, not my cuppa at all.

Sticky toffee pudding. As sweet as sweet can be.

..and then I made it worse by adding ice cream

Well I guess it is back to reality. Laundry and cooking and vacuuming here I come, but I do it all with love in my heart. I have a wonderful prince, he has been so good to me. I was just wondering, could I persuade my to open up a Laundromat as well? That would be awfully practical now wouldn't it?

Until next week.

The only thing we learn from history...

A wise man once said, the only thing we ever learn from history, is that we never learn anything from history. Nope, we, the top of the food chain with our over developed ideas and rationalisations, never seem to learn. It's not that we are stupid, or at least I hope it is that we are not stupid, it is just that we think that this time things will turn out better. It is like the Jerry Seinfeld bee in Bee Movie who tries over and over to get out of the window by flying straight into the glass, repeating the phrase "maybe this time, maybe this time..."

Well, maybe this time a royal marriage will last. Maybe this time the groom will not leave his gorgeous bride for one who reeks of cigarette smoke, grinning like an over brushed pony while reciting Hail Marys with the Pope. I find it ironic however, that the British media today insisted on comparing the engagement of Katie Middleton and her Prince William to that of his parents. Have they not read their own articles of the past 20 years?? Why on earth would you purposefully poke fate in the eye? Kate might have more luck by breaking her compact mirror while walking underneath a ladder towards Will in her wedding gown the day before they get married! I mean give the poor girl a break! It is bad enough that she has to wear her dead mother-in-laws engagement ring. I am so glad I got to choose my own and was not presented with a ring that signifies such an unhappy, broken marriage. The poor, poor girl. Lets hope she has the stomach for the job, for I sense round 2 of the paparazzi tunnel chasing madness may be upon us. And please, can all the new owners of Harrods please keep their sons safely tucked away in Qatar. It's bad enough that fate has a sore eye, we do not want to dangle a carrot in front of it as well.

Kate and Diana

compared in the Daily Mail today.

Photos from the Daily Mail

website: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/

I'm back...

 It is weird living in another country. You seem to forget where your actual home is. When you leave, you are all excited about going "home" and then when you are "home" you miss "home". Man it is confusing. I have no clue where home is anymore, all I know is that it is stressful going there, and it is stressful coming back. I wish I could go into more detail, but I guess the things that happended are too personal and I have to find a way of dealing with them myself. So I've decided to focus this blog on the lighter side of the events of the past few weeks when Fat Saturdays went  to Crawley and global, or rather African.

Fat Sat Part 1: Mia's Birthday

 

I am a mother ridden with guilt. My mother gave me the best birthday parties any child could ever imagine. I have the most wonderful memories of our "Shopping Party", " Maypole Party" etc etc. Every birthday I could request whatever cake I wanted. My poor mother! She made a cake that looked like a nurse when I was 5 and just came out of hospital, I had a kitten cake, I remember a Bennie Boekwurm cake and loads more. Before I had children I promised myself that I was going to do the same for them, a little too confidently I might add. So once again, this year, I asked my little girl what cake she would like for her fourth birthday party. The answer came as no surprise, a pink castle cake with all the trimmings. Well, little did I appreciate what my poor mother went through. There I was at 2 o'clock on a Friday evening, covered in pink icing and feeling very tired and upset that I took on such a mammoth task without having the proper equipment. At some point during the night, I felt like taking the pink pile of goo and dumping it all in the bin, but as my late nights at Archi school taught me, leave it till morning and decide then. Well, the person that had to be impressed, was and Stefan and I trekked this massive pink edible mountain through Crawley County Mall to the venue where Mia had her party. She was happy and I was happy that I could give my little girl the same thrill I had when my mother unveiled my cakes, although it cost me a lovely white shirt and a pair of trousers. I don't think I'll ever get the pink stains out of them...

My wonky pink castle cake

My mother did once again not disappoint. When we arrived in South Africa for Mia's actual birthday, guess what was waiting for her? The cake that tops any birthday cake I could ever make, a Barbie Princess cake! Who can beat that? I know it took a lot of work, but thanks Granny! What more could a four year old girl ask for, she got the castle and the princess living in it. WOW!

Ouma se Barbie koek

Fat Saturday Part 2: Madeleine

I have this friend called Madeleine. She is tall, has long black hair and wears contact lenses. She dresses in colourful clothes and sings while she plays the piano. She loves music and reading, hates racists and bigots and once you've tasted her cooking, you'd never want to eat any one else's. She is funny, she is bright and she is the most laid back person you'd ever meet. But what I love most about her, is that she will always take my side. I can tell her anything. She is always there for me, although she lives a gezillion miles away. She is my bestest friend in the whole wide world and I love her more that words can describe. We have been through so much together and we survived. Sometimes I cannot believe that we made it through that horrible night, but here we are, almost 15 years later, still friends and still alive. What a blessing.

I was so looking forward to spending a Fat Saturday with her and we did it in style. She invited friends around for dinner to her beautiful flat in Pinelands and we were going to do it like South Africans with "Kerrievis" for startes and "Vetkoek and mince" for mains.

We started off the day ingredients hunting at the Stellenbosch Slow Food Market. (I am so glad that I did not take alot of money with me. This is a place that you can get seriously fat with a capital F.) It is held every Saturday morning at the Oude Libertas Theatre in Stellenbosch. The food..the flavours..the wine. Too much to describe, best go try it out for yourself when next you are in the "bosch". I can however recommend the Moroccan pizza we had, which was somewhere between a pizza and a clazone. There is no better way to spend R50!

At the Slow food market

After this it was home time, and vertkoek making time. Now we are two pure bread South African girls. Can you believe that neither of us had ever made "Vetkoek" before! This was an injustice that had to be rectified and Madeleine jumped into the phone to dial her mother, the walking "Kook en Geniet". When Madeleine phones her mother at unexpected times, her mothers response is usually: "Watse resep soek jy?" (What recipe do you want?") before she even says "Hello". Armed with her "Vetrkoek" recipe, we started the lenghty, but well worth process. Mads, although you were not that impressed with your creation, the rest of us thought it was wonderful. Thank you to Pierre, Willemien, Nicky and Madeleine for the wonderful evening.

Fat Saturday Part 3: The Wedding

Weddings are emotional and stressful. I have just returned from such an emotional roller coaster. It was my little sisters wedding and she was beautiful. Probably the most beautiful bride I have ever seen. It was an absolute pleasure baking 260 heart shaped cookies, making 137 place cards, 26 menus, a table planner and decorating 12 tables. It was an absolute pleasure to see her so happy and it was an absolute pleasure meeting her new husband. One of the drawbacks of living on a different continent is that you are not always familiar with the people your siblings are betrothed to, but I think they both made a  good choice. I am so glad that I could be a part of their beautiful day.



My heart shaped cookies



I cannot however, restrain myself from offering little free advise to the owners of  LaPineta in Stellenbosch.Although your food was gorgeous and your venue stunning,  it is usually frowned upon when:

1. You make the bride cry the night before her wedding by referring to her as an unprofessional bride. As far as I know my sister had not made it her profession to be a bride. In fact I did not know that one could become a professional bride. No, wait a minute, I guess there are a few of them about. I am sure the likes of Angelina Jolie is selling seats to her weddings by now. She probably has a team ready to "wedding" her at any given moment. They are probably on 24 hour standby, armed with the latest Vera Wang gown and a truck load of confetti. You never know, you never know.

2. When you shout at some of the guests to "Gee Pad!" (Get out!) of the dining hall when they are examining the table plan. I think there is a more polite manner of asking people to exit the establishment, but that is just me.

3. When you ask the person setting the tables for 137 guests,  to start at 12:00am on the day of the wedding (and the wedding starts at 5pm). The person in question had to attend a family breakfast, help the bride get dressed, help the flower girl get dressed and also get herself dressed. People (meaning me) do careful planning before such an event and it is not always possible just to hand things over. Oi vey. What a headache.

But considering all the above, it was a wonderful wedding and everything looked great, if I must say so myself.

My heart shaped cookies in action

This Saturday coming up I going to opt for take aways, I do not want to see a cookery book or recipe near me. Time to sleep and recover, if the kids will let me. Ok, maybe not, maybe I will conjure up something for the hubby and I. I have missed him since I've been gone. We'll see...we'll see...

Untill next week...