Anna-Karien's Books, Cooks and Curiosities
A collection of my writings
During this year’s Graduation weekend, the wider Rhodes University community are in for a rare treat ‒ a mixed-media, multicultural, and many-faceted response to the work of renowned playwright, Reza de Wet.
Drifting features an eclectic mix of senior postgraduate students and professional performers, with choreography by Juanita Finestone-Praeg and Athina Vahla, design by the new head of Design at the Drama Department, Illka Louw and performances by Andrew Buckland and Levern Botha.
As much I love a good salad, in winter it becomes a chore to eat. The quality of fresh ingredients declines, tomatoes don’t ripen and it feels like your hands may develop frostbite while you rinse lettuce in that icy water. I find I am inclined to turn my greens into a luscious dip which I slather over roasted vegetables hot out the oven.
As acerbic journalist Lin Sampson once wrote, snoek is the most underrated fish in South Africa. And it certainly is the king of fishes, if you take a little trouble to track it down. A long, thin species of snake mackerel, snoek can be purchased fresh from the docks along all along the coast of the Western Cape of South Africa, as coloured people have been fishing and eating snoek for generations.
Professor Andrew Buckland has often been described as a doyen of South African theatre. This may be a hackneyed phrase- but when you look back on his varied and rich career of over 30 years, the magnitude of his contribution to the performing arts is immutable.
Continue reading “‘Old but still kiff’ ‒Buckland lauded for lifetime contribution to theatre”
It has been raining solidly for days and after a difficult year of water restrictions here in the Western Cape of South Africa, we are reveling in an abundance of water.
The almost four year-long drought hasn’t broken yet, but as I write this our dams are just a hair’s breadth away from being filled to 50% capacity so we are whooping with joy and relief. This means that because we managed to adequately save water, and must keep doing so, the pall of Day Zero is no longer an impending reality.
Continue reading “Don’t be shellfish, this soup is for sharing”
According to ancient custom, poppy seeds have been used as a remedy to aid sleeping, promote fertility and increase wealth, and were even believed to impart magical powers of invisibility.
Poppy seeds are largely overlooked in South Africa (apart from the cloyingly commercial lemon and poppy seed muffins) but they have long been a favourite of mine.
When I was small
I drew a jug full of crystalline rainwater
and muttered a make-believe spell
an incantation:
an accidental blessing
Continue reading “A prayer and a spell (for leaving Grahamstown)”
For Eusebius McKaiser the personal is the political.
Family, race, sexuality, culture ‒ he doesn’t hesitate to highlight the connection between our lives and thorny issues that plague the public sphere. Considered as one of South Africa’s more progressive thinkers, he asked some tough questions of the audience that gathered to hear about his latest book, A Bantu in My Bathroom, on Friday afternoon.
Taking umbrage against the term ‘bantu’ had actually prompted some students to tear down a few of the posters advertising the event. Known as an iconoclast and a provocateur, McKaiser relished this reaction, promptly starting off his talk by questioning the assumption that Rhodes is perceived as being the most liberal campus in South Africa.
Anna-Karien's Books, Cooks and Curiosities 