I'm not a nature girl. It's a little too ... what's the word ... outside ... for me. It's just so ... you know ... fresh. But I wasn't always nature averse. In fact, thinking back, a great many of my fantasy lives took place in the wild.
As a child I plotted running away from home and going to live on the beach. It required plotting because the beach was all the way across the road from our house, almost 10 metres, so I couldn't just, you know, GO. And so at night I lay in bed, picturing myself living like a little blonde sand crab, sleeping in the crook of a rock, covered by fluffy seaweed, building sandcastles and making dresses out of shells. (Suck that Lady Gaga.) Above all I pictured my parents' tears and sorrow, swiftly followed by the forceful eviction of my brother from the house forever and ever, before they came to get me, cradling me in their arms as they carried me the 10 metres back home.
As an adult nature also beckoned me. I wanted me and my then boyfriend to move to the depths of the wild of the ass end of Alaska. With breathless excitement I explained to him how he would chop down trees with which to build our picturesque cabin by the lake. While he was so occupied I would cook the rabbits (which I found in the woods after they died from natural causes) over a fire with the root vegetables I dug from the earth and the leaves I picked from the, uh, spinach trees. For dessert I would pick wild berries and mix it with snow to make him ice cream. We would make love under the bear skin rug that we found after the grizzly bear had shed its coat in summer. It was beautiful! It was glorious! He said no.
And so, over time, I gave up on my life in nature. Until I ran into waterblommetjies on the weekend. Due to their rarity they've always felt pretty exotic and wild to me. And then one of the recipes I researched for my bredie called for wild sorrel, which almost certainly would require a trek into nature. I suddenly saw myself collecting waterblommetjies off a river, picking sorrel in the field, finding a lamb that had died of natural causes nearby, cooking a bredie over a fire in the woods...
So I revved up my fantasy. Cabin? Check. Lake? Check. Ex-boyfriend covered in bees, lathered in honey and tied to a tree as a snack for a pissed off grizzly looking for his skin? Check.
There was only one problem - pretty much every damn thing growing out there can kill you. (Seriously, I gotta ask - why can't God label his food? I'm just saying, a small little skull and crossbones at the base of the plant would be so helpful...) Living in nature is all good and well but if you don't know your good blommetjie from your bad blommetjie you're screwed. You gotta be able to call a friend.
Bottomline? Gimme nature, but gimme my nokia.
xx
J
WATERBLOMMETJIE BREDIE
As a child I plotted running away from home and going to live on the beach. It required plotting because the beach was all the way across the road from our house, almost 10 metres, so I couldn't just, you know, GO. And so at night I lay in bed, picturing myself living like a little blonde sand crab, sleeping in the crook of a rock, covered by fluffy seaweed, building sandcastles and making dresses out of shells. (Suck that Lady Gaga.) Above all I pictured my parents' tears and sorrow, swiftly followed by the forceful eviction of my brother from the house forever and ever, before they came to get me, cradling me in their arms as they carried me the 10 metres back home.
As an adult nature also beckoned me. I wanted me and my then boyfriend to move to the depths of the wild of the ass end of Alaska. With breathless excitement I explained to him how he would chop down trees with which to build our picturesque cabin by the lake. While he was so occupied I would cook the rabbits (which I found in the woods after they died from natural causes) over a fire with the root vegetables I dug from the earth and the leaves I picked from the, uh, spinach trees. For dessert I would pick wild berries and mix it with snow to make him ice cream. We would make love under the bear skin rug that we found after the grizzly bear had shed its coat in summer. It was beautiful! It was glorious! He said no.
And so, over time, I gave up on my life in nature. Until I ran into waterblommetjies on the weekend. Due to their rarity they've always felt pretty exotic and wild to me. And then one of the recipes I researched for my bredie called for wild sorrel, which almost certainly would require a trek into nature. I suddenly saw myself collecting waterblommetjies off a river, picking sorrel in the field, finding a lamb that had died of natural causes nearby, cooking a bredie over a fire in the woods...
So I revved up my fantasy. Cabin? Check. Lake? Check. Ex-boyfriend covered in bees, lathered in honey and tied to a tree as a snack for a pissed off grizzly looking for his skin? Check.
There was only one problem - pretty much every damn thing growing out there can kill you. (Seriously, I gotta ask - why can't God label his food? I'm just saying, a small little skull and crossbones at the base of the plant would be so helpful...) Living in nature is all good and well but if you don't know your good blommetjie from your bad blommetjie you're screwed. You gotta be able to call a friend.
Bottomline? Gimme nature, but gimme my nokia.
xx
J
WATERBLOMMETJIE BREDIE
NB - Eating sand is only cool in kindergarden. It's essential that waterblommetjies get cleaned well. I let mine lie in a bucket of water with salt for about half an hour, giving it a stir and a shake every now and again. I repeated this 4 times. And then I took batches and gave them a vigorous rub and shake in a final batch of water. It's a pain, but so is a broken tooth.
PS - Kudos to my dad for recommending green apple to take the place of the sorrel, as well as white wine instead of red. For a man who's had his taste buds destroyed by my mom's cabbage bredie, he sure knows his food!
1kg Waterblommetjies
PS - Kudos to my dad for recommending green apple to take the place of the sorrel, as well as white wine instead of red. For a man who's had his taste buds destroyed by my mom's cabbage bredie, he sure knows his food!
1kg Waterblommetjies
3 Onions sliced
2 Small green chillis seeded & chopped
3 Cloves garlic crushed
1/2T Ginger
500g Lamb rib
1kg Lamb shoulder
3 Allspice berries
2 Cloves
1/2t Nutmeg
250ml White wine
1.5l Beef stock
1 Green apple grated
500g Potatoes peeled & cut up
1T brown sugar
Fry the onions with the garlic, chillis and ginger until golden. Remove. Fry the lamb until brown. Remove and pour out all the fat. Put the onions and lamb back and season well. Add the allspice, cloves, nutmeg, wine and stock. Simmer for 1.5 hours. Add the apple, waterblommetjies and potatoes and simmer for another 1.5 hours. Serve with rice.
0 comments:
Post a Comment