Pasop
From the Afrikaans phrase meaning "Watch Out!", this warning is used and heeded by all language groups. As in: "Your mother hasn't had her morning coffee yet Boet-so pasop and stay out of her way." Sometimes just the word "pasop!" is enough without further explanation. Everyone knows it sets out a line in the sand not to be crossed.

Skop, Skiet en donder
Literally "kick, shoot and thunder" in Afrikaans, this phrase is used by many English speakers to describe action movies or any activity which is lively and somewhat primitive. Clint Eastwood is always good for a skop, skiet en donder flick.

Vrot
Pronounced - "frot". A wonderful word which means "rotten" or "putrid" in Afrikaans, it is used by all language groups to describe anything they really don't like. Most commonly it describes fruit or vegetables whose shelf lives have long expired, but a pair of takkies (sneakers) worn a few times too often can be termed vrot by unfortunate folk in the same room as the wearer. Also a rugby player who misses important tackles can be said to have played a vrot game - but not to his face because he won't appreciate it. We once saw a movie review with this headline: "Slick Flick, Vrot Plot."

Graze
In a country with a strong agricultural tradition, it is not surprising that farming words crop up (pun intended) in general conversation. Thus to graze means to eat. If you are invited to a bioscope show, you may be asked: "Do you want to catch a graze now now?."

Catch a tan
This is what you do when you lie on the beach pretending to study for your matric exams. The Brits, who have their own odd phrases, say they are getting "bronzed". Nature has always been unkind to South African schoolchildren, providing beach and swimming pool weather just when they should be swotting for the mid-summer finals. If you spend too much time catching a tan at exam time, you could end up catching a sharp klap from your pa. In America, that is called child abuse. In South Africa, it is called promoting education.

Rock up
To rock up some place is to just sort of arrive. You don't make an appointment or tell anyone you are coming - you just rock up. Friends can do that but you have to be selective about it. You can't just rock up for a job interview or at a five-star restaurant. You give them a tinkle first - then you can rock up.

Scale
To scale something is to steal it. A person who is "scaly" is not nice, a scumbag, and should be left off the Christmas party invitation list.

Is anyone joining me at this crazy hour to watch the GP?

“Gee haar blomme!” onthou ek nog het die swartbord gelees voor die verafrikaansde Portugees se groentewinkel in Hatfield. Saterdae het ons die week se groente en vrugte by hom gaan koop want die pryse was goed en die vrugtes en groentes vars. Boonop het hy geweet van vrouens en blomme!

My liefde vir blomme het maar eers laterig begin, maar beelde van blomme kom sover as van Ouma se tyd; haar bottel Lavender reukwater op die spieëlkas, Oupa se liefde vir Tchaikovsky se blommewals en die oorvertel-droomverhale van hoe lief hulle was om te gaan dans…

Ma se liefde vir haar blomtuin was my grootword erfenis. Om deur haar tuin te stap is soos ‘n wandeling in die paradys; sag, natuurlik - spreek van liefdevolle versorging en gesonde gelukkige blomme wat wuif en dans in die musiek van die wind. Blomme word nie afgesny vir die huis nie, want dit neem hulle lewe weg, so glo sy.
So anders as die Engelse tannie by wie Jasper, ‘n universiteitsvriend loseer het. Soggens is die rose uit die tuin voor die huis gepluk om smaakvol iewers in die huis te pronk. Sy het ook nie geglo aan ou koek nie. Daar was elke dag vars gebakte koek in die huis. Sondaemiddae het ons tee gedrink uit die mooi servies, tee in ‘n pot en varsgebakte koek geëet in die sitkamer met die rose.

Ek onthou ons Windhoekdae van tuisgemaakte potpourie met ou pienk rose uit die tuin, geparste blomme in die handgemaakte pres vir kaartjies, tuisgemaakte roosblaarkonfyt en Sus se bottel lavendar sugar vir ‘n lekker koppie tee. Trosse rooi en pers bouganvillia bars oor ‘n ou draadheining in die witsand woestyn van Oshakati, in die noorde van Ovamboland. Ons grawe klein woestynrosies uit die Namibduine by Swakopmund, iets soos uit ‘n oertyd se mooi, en dan die geur van Jasmyn…. ‘n Vriendin het ‘n tros Jasmyn uit haar tuin gepluk om ons seun se koms te vier in die hospitaal in Windhoek.

Die Oos-Kaap se blomherinneringe is wyd soos die stil vlaktes van Namakwaland waar die Here se saadsakkie geskeur het en die veld oopbars met blommeprag na die reën. Ou oom Jenniker se seun met die alkoholprobleem wat altyd ‘n bos varsgeplukte wit varkore uit die vlei te koop aanbied vir ‘n ekstra geldjie …Wes-Kaapse wynlande met ‘n roosboom aan die punt van elke ry – gee haar ‘n roos en goeie wyn!

Hier het tulpe ‘n spesiale plekkie in die album van blomme. In Amsterdam het ons as Afrika-studente dikwels met ‘n paar oorskiet Gulde in die hand, ‘n tulp of twee gekoop by die kraampie op die hoek. Ons was ryk en spesiaal. Keukenhof, Nederland se tulpeparadys, was ‘n moet maar ‘n gesonde-oordosis vir die sintuie.

Blue Bell tyd in die Sonnewoud in België herinner aan ‘n skilder wat sy blou verfkwas deur die bos getrek het. Lente is hier!

Maar die lekkerste nog?
Wanneer hy voor my staan met ‘n bos rose en tierlelies.

Congratulations to the following of TheTeam who have kept it secret

to mcamp and his wife on the birth of their son who was born weighing in at 12lbs tork:

Cheffie and Pookie who will be getting married

and to Pronkertjie who has made the decision to stay in South Africa

this is great news and worth sharing with everyone

:luck:

ForumAdmin

Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen. This is your captain welcoming you on board of Nigeria Airways.

We apologize for the four-day delay in taking off, it was due to bad weather and some overtime I had to put in at the bakery.

This is flight 126 to Lagos. Landing in Lagos is not guaranteed, but we will end up somewhere in the South. If luck is in our favour, we may even be landing on your village!

Nigeria Airways has an excellent safety-record. In fact our safety standards are so high that even terrorists are afraid to fly with us!

It is with pleasure, I announce that starting this year over 50% of our passengers have reached their destination.

If our engines are too noisy for you, on passenger request, we can arrange to turn them off!.

To make your free fall to earth pleasant and memorable, we serve complimentary Bongo tea and Okin biscuits!

For our not-so-religious passengers, we are the only airline who can help you find out if there really is a God!

We regret to inform you, that today's in-flight movie will not be shown as we forgot to record it from the television. But for our movie buffs, we will be flying right next to Air Barka, where their movie will be visible from the right side of the cabin window.

There is no smoking allowed in this airplane. Any smoke you see in the cabin is only the early warning system on the engines telling us to slow down!

In order to catch important landmarks, we try to fly as close as possible for the best view. If, however, we go a little too close, do let us know. Our enthusiastic co-pilot sometimes flies right through the landmark!

Kindly be seated, keep your seat in an upright position for take-off and fasten your set-belt. For those of you who can't find a seat-belt, kindly fasten your own belt to the arm of your seat ... and for those of you who can't find a seat, do not hesitate to get in touch with a stewardess who will explain how to fasten yourself to your suitcase.

ENJOY Nigeria Airways!

I think its time for all of us to again say :thx: to a great site, and especially with all the new smilies this week - they are all GREAT!!

:worthy:

Hi,

I am hoping that somebody taped the ODI between SA and Auz a few weeks ago when the world record was set.

Please if somebody did, kindly send me a PM.
Thanx in advance!

Bean

As careers go, certain elements tend to get neglected if you don't pay enough attention to them and one day you realise that there is a 'certain something missing'.

For the past year or so I've increasingly found my pastry skills sadly lacking. I guess this is due to a combination of factors:
a. My brother being a pastry Chef - I assume one day that we will open a restaurant together and so have concentrated on the other parts of the kitchen.
b. The time and patience needed for pastry work - to cut it short, recipes are needed for everything and measurements, cooking times etc are all mandatory. Failure to adhere to certain steps will result in the dessert not being perfect. I have very little patience and have viewed pastry work as something monotonous.
c. The hot kitchen has always excited me with the clash of pans, the heat, the passion etc. The pastry section seems rather subdued in this regard.

Bringing you back to the present journey, I happened to meet a pastry Chef on one of my evening 'meet and greet' at the restaurant. Little did I know at the time that she was regarded as Britain's top pastry Chef, along with being Chairperson of the Pastry Chefs Association.

As time went by I got to know her on a personal level, rather than a professional level and it was her that invited me to cook with her and a host of Master Chefs at the Rugby Football Union farewell for the England Team prior to their departure for their World Cup victory down under in Australia. Claire had asked a few months before the event whether I'd be interested in joining her on a function for 5000 people at Twickenham.

I had no idea what the event was for and agreed in principle - providing I could get my day off changed to suit the midweek function. Lo and behold the day arrived and on the way to Twickenham I was told that it had been reduced to only 2500 people and it was the farewell for the England Team. Claire was in charge of the dessert for the day and had spent many hours on her chocolate work.

Great fun to be there amongst all these stars, the Master Chefs and heroes of food, as we have come to know it in Britain today. And an experience I shall treasure for a lifetime.

Shortly after the event she was asked to become executive pastry Chef at one of London's newest openings, The Wolesly, next to the Ritz hotel in Mayfair. It was here that she intended to make her mark once again with Chef Chris Galvin. She had a pastry brigade of 9 people - We had a sum total of 6 people employed in our kitchen!

Granted this beautiful restaurant with antique silverware, smooth service and exceptionally good food was surprisingly voted as one of the TOP 50 RESTAURANTS worldwide after being open for only 6 months.

I had known Claire for over a year and yet never really experienced her in a professional sense. Time to pull the strings and do a short 'busman's holiday' working with her and seeing pastry work at its finest.

To begin, I was extremely nervous, palpably so, as my pastry skills were nowhere near what they ought to be and here I was pestering her for a 'stage' under her tutelage.

As most people who know me, I'm far from being a 'morning person' and to awake at 5am, commute into London and be ready to start the day at 7am was something I couldn't imagine doing.

They're the first in the kitchen in the morning; the last out the kitchen at night and their pressure is something totally different to what is experienced in the hot kitchen.
These guys are nuts!

Being relatively inexperienced and not wishing to cost the business any money, it was a slow start - measuring off, portioning etc. Service itself was rather sublime - mayhem was happening in the hot kitchen, yet in the pastry section it was calm!
How weird!

Separated completely from the hot kitchen, in a climate-controlled atmosphere, the pastry Chefs are left to 'get on with it'. There is a huge amount of Mise-en-Place to do and it seems insurmountable when you arrive first thing in the morning. Slowly but surely the workload gets ticked off as the hours fly by and before you know it, evening service is upon you.

Claire herself is both a fantastic tutor with oodles of patience pouring from her and a friend who is both knowledgeable and wise in the art of pastry.

Learning and working with the best - hopefully something will rub off and the experience will leave me slightly more fulfilled and on my way to a better and more successful future.

Our trips home in the early hours of the morning were insightful, informative and sometimes eye opening. The subjects ranged from the 'curse' of celebrity Chefs to the continuing demise of the catering profession. One thing that came through in all these chats is the amount of experience that she has and is willing to share IF only there were more willing students.

In years gone by, the choice of a career as that of a Chef was deemed 'last resort' by the guidance counsellors that recommended to a somewhat unenthusiastic school going public. Granted there were some people that entered the profession that actually wanted to become a Chef, however the majority were given the option of finishing school and going onto a career in the trades as they weren't deemed 'bright enough' to go to university.

This came as a complete shock to me as living in South Africa; one expected the locals here to regard their world-renowned culinary neighbours as something to be admired and somewhat inspirational. Quite the opposite in fact.
They despised their neighbours across the puddle and doomed future generations to be subject to a somewhat culinary catastrophe.

The celebrity Chefs have done some measure to improve the standing of being a profession that is worthy of joining, yet at the same time it has a somewhat negative effect on the expectations on generations of 'wannabe Chefs' who have no real concept of what its like working in a professional kitchen.
With most things, experience counts. This is achieved through hard work, dedication, perseverance, stamina and loads of passion. In time, as the techniques become perfected, the hours become 'normal' and he way of life embraced, the life of the Chef evolves from being a sponge on the generation of Masters to becoming disseminators of the Masters teachings.
A full circle.

Though the period this takes to accomplish can range from 10 years to a career lasting forty. Everyday spent in the company of these Chefs reinforces the belief that there is a whole host of people who have yet to discover what it truly means to 'live to eat'. Yes, it's a dying profession, but with more people becoming inspired to take up the tongs, pick up the knives and get into the kitchen to master the heat, the final call is still a very long way off.

I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Master Pastry Chef Claire Clark for allowing me a glimpse of what its like working with the best and how to consistently achieve the results without too much effort. Not only have I garnered a huge amount of professional respect for her department and what she manages to achieve on a daily basis but as a friend I know that I am welcome to join her at any time in the future for a refresher course.

I've touched briefly on the lifestyle of the pastry Chef yet cannot emphasise the important, somewhat thankless and downright unsocial life of becoming one.

Yes, I do prefer the humdrum and bustle of the hot kitchen - the sheer madness, apparent chaos and general noise associated with it. To give you a great example, my first service with Claire was spent in relative calm, yet out in the main kitchen it sounded like something from Master and Commander.

The orders were piling in, the general noise was subdued and then the bellowing timbre of the Chef could be heard:

' Right guys - this is it! Pressure is on and lets get those stations ROCKING! I need the food for the tables - lets GO!
C'MON lets get those stations COOKING!'

Listening to the marshalling of the troops by the supreme commander, followed by an audible increase in the tempo of the Chefs was exhilarating - just as the commander of the ship 'asked' his charges to increase the speed and so increase the work rate.
Remarkable!

All this time the cool heads in the pastry kitchen went about their business with a quiet enthusiasm, apparent disregard for 'colourful language' and made sure that every plate that went out was perfect.

What synergy! What complete and utter different methods of achieving the result of a perfect meal. After all it is the lasting impression that one leaves a restaurant with - the quality of the desserts!

Heroes for sure - they have a life that I do not envy, yet I know if pushed I could jump right in and join them on their silent cruise. Not only have they taken the time to get to know me as a person, but also seen the benefits of having a pair of 'cost free hands' to assist them with their daily tasks - quite unlike my initial few weeks in another highly regarded kitchen, though in their defence it was mainly in the hot kitchen that I spent my time.

I think women and the feminine self have got it right - they appreciate the efforts in making pastry and are only too happy to support the predominantly female masters of this art when dining out.

By ordering second helpings!

:chef:

Copyright and all rights reserved
Grant Hawthorne
May 2004
AKA Cheffie

Another week gone by and weekend is almost upon us

Have a great day! :thumbs:

Here's wishing you an extra special birthday and a wonderful year ahead :bday:

:bday3: