I gotta tell you - I have the most amazing neighbours. Jenny, the gorgeous hot sexy Portuguese that popped out three children and still manages to look gorgeous hot and sexy. (WTF). Ati, or rather, Atilla, the ohmygod gorgeous hot sexy Turk that's a hardworking breadwinner, has three children and a fiery wife and still manages to be sweet and kind and gentle AND an awesome cook and did I mention gorgeous hot and sexy?
Then there are the kids - Dharma (10ish) - who seems to have a direct line to Buddha/God/Allah. She has her mother's looks, her father's kindness and the spirituality of an angel. And Khaya (8ish) - who's psycho and psychedelic and funny and freaky and makes purple velvet pants look awesome. And finally, recently, we got Tashi (2ish) - man, that boy is happy! I'm not sure if it's because he's been hanging off Jenny's boobs for the last 2 years, (which could make anyone happy, even their extremely straight neighbour), but I suspect it's because of this:
To me babies are souls, floating about, waiting waiting endlessly waiting for their destination. They have no idea what's coming, who's coming. They could get daddy that molested me. Or mummy that thought I was fat and didn't love me. Or a life in a cold cold shack. Or no life at all, to be born, but with our Proudly South African death sentence of Aids. For those baby souls floating about, waiting for a destination, life could suck horribly.
But not for Tashi. As far as souls go, he shouldn't be here. He was a surprise, an accident, and he almost wasn't. And then, when his soul woke up, it woke up looking into Jenny's gorgeous face (and boobs), and Ati's beautiful eyes, feeling Dharma's zen and Khaya's umph. Man, what a lucky, lucky little soul. It's no wonder he can't stop laughing...
But, I digress. Ati's sister came to visit from Turkey, her first time in South Africa. And I wanted to make her something truly South African to welcome her. Being Afrikaans to me that means Afrikaans food and I went through the list of traditional foods trying to find the right one. But at the end of the day, what better way to welcome a Sister, than with a Sister.
xx
J
KOEKSISTERS
Try to make the syrup the night before. It needs to be cold and it's a hell of a job to get it cold on the day.
Syrup
750g Sugar
1/2t Ginger
1/2t Cinnamon
1 Lemon
Dissolve the sugar in a cup of water, add spices and bring to the boil. Allow to simmer for 10 minutes or so to get syrupy. Once cool, keep in the fridge until ready. The syrup has to be VERY COLD when you dunk the koeksisters, this is ESSENTIAL so it can suck it up.
Koek
2c Flour
1/2t Salt
2t Baking powder
4T Butter
1 Egg
100ml Milk
Sift the flour, salt and baking powder twice. Rub in the butter then add the egg and milk. Mix to form a pliable dough. Knead 10 minutes. Leave to rest for 3 hours. Roll out to 1/2cm thick. Cut strips 10cm long and 4cm wide. Cut each strip into three but not right through to the top. Plait. Make sure to scrunch the bottom, I didn't so I ended up with three spread legs on most of my koeksisters. Fry in medium to hot oil for a couple of minutes, flip over and fry for a couple more minutes, drop onto kitchen towel for a second or so then straight into the ice cold syrup. For good measure when I took them out I poured some more syrup on top. And for the record, I think my koeksisters were better than those in the shop. They were koekie in the middle, not so crystalised and sugary as the shop, and spicy and sweet outside.
Welcome to South Africa Ati's Sister. Believe me, next door is a good place to be...
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