SoWeTo

New Orleans right after Katrina

I remember when my Swiss friends Felix and Martin came to visit me and NYC during the gas shortages of the late 70's. All they wanted to see were the gas lines snaking for blocks and go to the rubble that was then the South Bronx. I showed them the lines. They were unavoidable, but I stopped the tour short of the South Bronx. I wasn't stupid. I had read Bonfire of the Vanities. 

Vilakazi Street

I do not get the attraction with ogling other people who are living in dire straights. I did not like to see it when we stumbled upon it by accident in Asia and Latin America so I certainly never joined a bus tour on purpose like the Favela Tour in Rio.

I did go on the so-called Tour of Destruction in the Ninth ward of New Orleans however when Waterkeeper Alliance had its annual conference there right after Katrina. But that was different. We weren't there to see people living in squalor. We were there to act as witnesses to the lack of progress by the government and insurance companies. I was a little concerned about what we would see on the Soweto tour we were taking our guests on, but I needn't have been.

The story of Soweto is a story of triumph over adversity. Originally forced to relocate there by the South African government, many of the wealthy and middle class blacks have now chosen to remain there. It is vibrant and colorful and the people are happy to tell you their story. Sure there are still places you wouldn't want to go and our taxi driver did not take us, but slowly but surely the tin roof shacks are being replaced by brick housing. There is electricity and running water, sewer services and security. And great medical facilities with the largest state-of-the-art trauma hospital in the world.

It is also the site of many of the pivotal political events in Johannesburg's recent history which are worth seeing. There is a memorial to Hector Pieterson and the schoolchildren who were gunned down by the police in 1976. And the square where the current constitution was drafted now houses a brick building. Inside you can read the 11 adopted constitutional laws fittingly etched in stone. Vilakazi Street in West Orlando, one of the south western townships, has the distinction of being the only street in the world with the homes of two Nobel Prize winners, former President Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

And the Orlando cooling towers which once electrified downtown Johannesburg while it mocked the surrounding Soweto townships who sat in darkness is now an art installation ... and used for bungee-jumping! I guess the new Soweto is just not dangerous enough anymore. They need to jump off a bridge!

Happy 4th of July America!

Cheers Cher!

It's not like I haven't been out of the country on the Fourth of July before. Quite the contrary. I've spent it in France and in the same country we are celebrating our independence from, jolly ol' England. Heck, just last year I was in Dublin toasting America with a pint of Guinness. But this year was different. This was our first year as expats. Vince even worked on the Fourth!

Happy 4th of July America!

So while we had none of the Independence Day traditions we had grown accustomed to in the last 20+ years, parades, patriotic music, games at the yacht club, competing in the Barton regatta and watching fireworks on the beach, we could at least celebrate with a barbeque or rather, a braai.

red white and blue Malva Pudding

On Friday the Fifth of July we got together with some American and British expat friends for a Fourth of July Braai. But since we are in South Africa, instead of hamburgers and hot dogs we had wildebeest pate, ostrich burgers, Windhoek beer and wine from the Western Cape. We did have corn on the cob which South Africans call mealies. And instead of our usual s'mores, strawberry shortcake and blueberry buckle for dessert, I made an expat-riotic Malva Pudding!

rock art firepit

Next year if we can't be somewhere stateside for the Fourth of July I am going to see where the American Ambassador to South Africa is celebrating in Pretoria. I bet he had sparklers at least!

enjoying a backyard braai

Happy Fourth of July, America!
Love, Darlene, Vince and Africa

Happy 4th of July from Valley Lodge!

Making Malva Pudding

Malva Pudding is awesomingly delicioso. Usually only found on the dessert menus in traditional South African restaurants, I had to resort to making it from scratch so we could eat it more often that we eat at Moyo.

Luckily a blog I follow gave me this easy to make recipe (courtesy of CocoCooking.com.) Thanks Coco!

Here are some of the ingredients. Nothing too weird except that bicarbonate of soda is the same thing as baking soda. I did not know that. And smooth apricot jam. I would have probably just bought a bottle of regular apricot jam - complete with seeds - if I didn't see the can of Koo brand smooth apricot jam on the supermarket shelf.

Let me just come clean at this point lest you get the wrong impression about my baking prowess. Baking scares the crap out of me. When I bake, I follow the letter of the law in the recipe. If the recipe says smooth apricot jam, I buy smooth apricot jam. I never confuse dry measure with wet measure. I measure like my life depends on it and I never ever improvise. Ever.

And it is the reason why, in spite of my severe bake-a-phobia, I hosted a Christmas Cookie Exchange for ten years at my home in NJ for 45 domestic goddesses. I wanted to conquer my fears by meeting them head on. Unfortunately I failed. To this day, baking still scares the crap out of me.

cookie exchange feeding frenzy

Vince on the other hand is a master chef and baker who honed his craft under the tutelage of the Food Network's Alton Brown and by watching America's Test Kitchen on PBS. He uses a recipe more as a guideline rather than a rule. He likes to know the physics behind yeast rising and why whipping batter too much or too little will change a recipe. I do not care. I like to believe it is magic. This way when it fails - which it sometimes does - I can blame the bad juju.

cookies!

Which is why I am so pleased with my first Malva Pudding which I made all by myself. It is a thing of beauty and tastes awesomingly delicioso or as my Pilates Instructor Tammy says, ripping lekker!
 





It is so good in fact that I am making another one which I will top with strawberries and blueberries to bring to a Fourth of July braai on Friday night.

Wish I had some sparklers.

Welcome to Valley Lodge

We are hosting our first visitors to Valley Lodge next week from the United States of America. I got an idea from an ex-pat blog to make a guest book to record our visitors (courtesy of Landofnams.com). Thank you Namrata!

So I found this nifty lined notebook at Herbert Evans, the local art store. It has a cover made of Shweshwe, a natural-dyed printed cloth which is considered the"Tartan of South Africa".

Introduced by the German settlers in the eastern Cape in the 19th century, the local Xhosa women took a liking to the stiff originally solely indigo-dyed fabric. They slowly replaced their animal skin clothes with the new material worn under their traditional orange blankets.

French missionaries presented King Moshoeshoe with the material which soon became a favorite with the locals. Hence the name Shoeshoe or Shweshwe.

Typical use for the fabric today is for traditional ceremonies, while special designs might be produced for royal birthdays or national festivities. All original Shweshwe material is now produced in South Africa, still using the traditional method from the early German invention, where the fabric is fed through copper rollers which have the pattern etched on the surface. Over time new colors were added to the original indigo.

The paper inside the book is also unique. It is 100% locally produced in South Africa and is 90% sugar cane waste and 100% recyclable.

And I bought some letter stamps to personalize it ...




... and this cute pen that looks like a Sotho woman ...

entry foyer

... and put it on the entry table in the foyer. Welcome to Valley Lodge!

Lauren making her entry!

It may be July but Santa came anyway!

Okay it wasn't really Santa. It was the Pickford moving company. And those are not Santa's elves. They are the Pickford movers. But it sure feels like Christmas!

Our international shipment arrived today with our, mostly my, winter clothes (way too many - what was I thinking?) and our kitchen cookware and flat screen televisions which we will use as computer monitors since they will not work as receivers here. I will let my electrical engineer husband figure that one out while I reunite with my shoes and purses and sweaters, oh my!

All the boxes are intact and there seems to be no damage or missing articles! Best of all our ski clothes arrived so we will not freeze when we ski in South Africa and Lesotho at the end of the month.

This of course also means the winter will be much milder from here on in, thereby not requiring the multiple changes of clothing represented in the boxes. You're welcome, South Africa.

Hooray! It is Christmas in July! I believe. I believe. It's silly but I believe!

Christmas in July

the Christmas baobab tree in Mandela Square

The real Christmas season in South Africa is typically pretty warm hot and there is little evidence of the traditional Christmas trappings we are familiar with in the United States and Europe. The climate and vegetation do not encourage pine and spruce Christmas trees, roasted meats and root vegetables, savory pies and stuffing. Nor do you need velvet and fur and warm woolen mittens. Most South Africans take off for the beach resorts I am told and will braai on Christmas Day. We have not made our Christmas plans yet but I am pretty sure there will be a beach involved as land-locked as we've been this summer winter!

Christmas at my sister's ski house in Breckenridge

When I was house-hunting last December after Vince moved here, I had a glimpse of what Christmas is like in South Africa. It was not "just like the ones I used to know" as Irving Berlin would say. I was even hard-pressed to find a Nativity crèche to bring back to NJ to add to my crèche collection for our last Christmas in the US. I did eventually find a beautiful ebony one at the African Craft Market hidden between the shields and masks but I was lucky to find the only one.

our big tree in NJ with wooden shoes from Holland

Besides celebrating Christmas in the United States in the cold and festive climates of NY and NJ where we lived, Colorado where my sister lives, Virginia and Washington, DC where my parents lived, Vermont where we still have a ski condo and Maine where Vince's sister lives, we also spent a few Christmases in Florida when my family lived there in the 70's. The experience left me wanting ... wanting snow, real pine and spruce trees that smell so good and hold their needles for more than a day, ice skating out of doors, hot chocolate and marshmallows in front of a roaring fire in the fireplace. I remember our first Christmas in Florida lying on the sand in my bikini in Palm Beach thinking "this is just not right!"

some smokers on the shelves and ...

Even when we traveled outside the country at Christmas, it was almost exclusively to the cold climates of Europe to sample the seasonal festivities in Italy and Greece, Scandinavia, Holland, Ireland and the United Kingdom, and especially the French and German traditions in France, Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

... a collection of nutcrackers from Germany

Our holidays at home in NJ became an amalgamation of all these cultures and traditions along with the familiar American ones we grew up with.

dining table set with Spode for an Advent Sunday dinner

We prepared an Italian Feast of Seven Fishes at our beach house on Christmas Eve, ate a German-inspired crown roast of pork dinner on Christmas Day at home and finished the season with a Russian Feast on the Epiphany. Our Christmas Day appetizers usually included delicacies brought back from our travels that year especially for the occasion. Irish smoked salmon or Danish herring or Russian caviar or French foie gras. And we served them all in the dining room on the Christmas tree Spode china we purchased in England and in our kitchen on the red and white alpine Christmas china we brought home from the French Alps. We drank our wine and egg nog from Bohemian crystal wine and punch glasses and our mulled wassail from the dozens of gluhwein mugs we collected as souvenirs from the European Advent markets.

St.Lucia wooden doll with her candle crown

We set out our Dutch wooden shoes under our main Christmas tree for Sinterklaas to fill on St. Nicholas Day on December 6. On December 13, we lit candles on the crown of the wooden St. Lucia doll we brought back as a souvenir from a St. Lucia celebration in Sweden. We put out Advent calendars, nutcrackers and smokers from the many German Advent Markets we visited and we went to see the snowflakes dance in a Russian classic, Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker.

We lined Mexican luminaries around our house and along our pathways on Christmas Eve like they do in Colorado and we put candles and wreathes in our windows as the English do. And we celebrated the Christmas season until the Twelfth Night on the Feast of the Epiphany as do the British, Russians, Greeks, Spanish and Italians.

dog sleds and voyageurs?

I of course had my international crèche collection on display throughout the Christmas season. Most of them were not purchased exclusively at Christmas time. But each crèche's unique construction materials, costumes on the Holy Family and even the animals represented in the background reminded me of Christmas in the country of its origin no matter what time of year we had visited. For instance I am pretty sure there were no sled dogs at the first Nativity as the Québécois voyageur crèche would lead you to believe!

Since South Africa is so diverse with a large number of its citizens of Dutch, English, German and French backgrounds, I am clearly not the only one who equates Christmas with these traditions. We are in the middle of "winter" and while it is not snowy and white, it is at least chilly and not sweltering. You even have to wear a coat sometimes.

caroling at the African Craft market

So I am seeing  a large number of advertisements on and receiving invitations to "Christmas in July" celebrations at country clubs, restaurants, spas, hotels, casinos and even Blaauwklippen Vineyards. From craft and farmers markets too.

Gluhwein and Hot Chocolate at the Neighbourgoods Market!

Fourways Market

The entire town of Parkhurst hosts a Christmas in July celebration downtown with holiday decorations, mulled wine, street food and entertainment. You can even "get your Christmas on" while on safari. The Karula Lodge near Kruger will provide traditional Christmas dinner in July and August for guests after a day viewing leopards and rhinos!



But still no Nutcracker. The St. Petersburg Ballet is performing in Joburg this month but they are dancing Swan Lake. The resident South African Mzansi Ballet will dance The Nutcracker. In December. For Christmas. Like God intended and baby Jesus would want.

Neighbourgoods and 44 Stanley

Still waiting for the Rosebank Rooftop Market to open. In the meantime we checked out two other shopping venues this weekend to help tide us over, the Neighbourgoods Market and 44 Stanley.

The Neighbourgoods Market runs on Saturdays from 9 until 3. Sister market to the Cape Town Old Biscuit Mill market, the Johannesburg edition was launched in 2011 in the vibrant neighborhood of Braamfontein, Johannesburg. 

In keeping with their commitment to urban regeneration, they chose a venue in the heart of the inner city. The market takes place over two floors of 73 Juta Street, a Johannesburg landmark building featuring a large scale concrete facade by Edoardo Villa. The second floor features an extensive rooftop dining area with views over the city.

paella!

Food courts include all manner of dining possibilities including some refugees from the Rosebank Rooftop like the Polish guys selling their housemade kielbase and pierogies. They told us the Rooftop market will be back "soon." But if that's anything like the South African "just now," it could be a while. A little vocab lesson here. When a South African tells you it will happen "just now," it means it will happen eventually but not now. If they say it will happen "now now," it means now. I think Polish for "soon" is "just now."

I did buy a cute oxidized silver necklace in one of the stalls with a cut out pendant of the continent of Africa with a heart where Joburg is located. It goes well with the raw diamond string I got from Harvard's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in Boston and the antique Ethiopian Coptic cross I bought from The Tail of the Yak in Berkeley, CA, heh.

The 44 Stanley complex is an urban mall open all the time not just on Saturdays or Sundays. 44 Stanley is Joburg’s best kept secret. The site was once a series of industrial 1930′s buildings, and has been developed into a collection of specialty boutiques, foodie stops and design studios. You can meander through the shady arcades and courtyards and savor the trees, architecture and gorgeous fare, from food, clothing and toys to antiques and interiors. The ambiance is a relaxed, friendly and refreshing mix of quintessential Johannesburg elements.

 

Got some freshly roasted coffee beans for Vince ....

 

... and bean sacks for me (2/$1). They make great tablecloths for the patio table. See?