Kitchens

Taking a look back over the photos from my time at Oxford, I realise how much time has been spent in a kitchen- I even have entire albums dedicated to to my friend Esteban's kitchen (where we would gather every week or so, alternating cooking a meal for upwards of 30 people- whoever said large-scale catering was hard?). It was a culinary world tour- Colombian style tarragon chicken, to Yoko's amazingly fresh sushi and even I rolled out my mom's 'Biddy's chicken' recipe that is probably one of the easiest thing to prepare in bulk because all the work goes into the marinade the night before!



And this tradition continued even as friends came and went- living at the top of Headington Hill in St Hilda's JSL house, nobody would come to visit us so had to entice them up with tons of good food and of course, plenty of wine. We were so successful that all of our 'exchange dinners' tended to be one-way which suited us well enough...



Having moved into private accommodation with 3 good friends (all boys- though Robert actually cooks, and quite well), I have continued to use my attempts at cooking as an excuse to get good friends together- and it has continued to work remarkably well and new friends have been added into the mix. The trick is actually to keep it as simple as possible- which is not difficult given student budgets and the limits of our college/rental kitchens (in fact the only redeeming feature of The White House where I currently reside is its new kitchen which we insisted upon before moving in).

Food has become not only the means to and end- as a social gathering, but is itself a way of understanding each other, our diverse cultural backgrounds and upbringings. So whenever people used to ask me to cook something 'South African' I would be at a loss- waiting for the sun to come through and having a braai used to be my only response, but I have since learned that anything I feel like cooking, as a South African, can be considered a South African meal. I've done the traditional bobotie (after a trip to the South African shop to get the necessary indigenous ingredients like Mrs Balls hot chutney), but even steak on rolls dripping in hot chillies and olive oil is what I would call a Prego roll = typical Portuguese South African cuisine!



And so the tradition continues, food brings people together- we learn more about each other through cooking and being cooked for... bonding through the sharing of an honest meal.