Winter is showing itself! Sitting here with a cup of tea as I write, a bowl of salted caramel & ginger toffees, homemade of course! I thought I ought to write and update on what’s cooking over the last few weeks. Running a small business can often be a lonely space, especially after moving continents & changing direction. In my previous life, as a full time food stylist in London, one is thrown in the creative pot with other like-minded food loving folk to make beautiful foodie pages. Bouncing ideas and sharing foodie passions is easy.
Cape Town, I found is highly competitive, creating hard facades and it’s hard to peek over the high wall and smile. Having said that in my 7 years back in Cape Town, I have met some real gems through the cafe’, one in particular, Vanessa Marx.
Vanessa is based in Johannesburg, running her event business The Culture Kitchen, with her husband Mark and her fur babies. She had a busy few weeks jam packed with events for 400 and needed an extra hand. I jumped at the chance to work with her and headed up north.
Woolworths had asked Vanessa to conceptualise a menu for their new beauty launch with Sir John and she didn’t disappoint. Her menu had all the wow-factor laced with sparkle, UV & neon, all delectablibly edible of course. Head over to Vanessa’s insta to take a look at some of the pics.https://www.instagram.com/chefvanessaza/ We cooked our hearts out, we slept here and there, stood on high chairs late at night hanging cake pops for her dessert installation, conducted a brigade of students, did some knife skill training on the newbies and most importantly we giggled a plenty!
Working with other foodies ignite ideas, cooking dishes you ever intended, and if there is one thing I’ve learnt, one never stops learning!! It’s such fun! Thank you, Vanessa!
Vanessa collaborated with Joburg’s cake guru, Sumari from Sweetly Detailed to make popsicle cake pops. I’m not normally the one reaching for a macaroon or cake pop, I find them too sweet and to make they’re too much of a faff. Oh well, Sumari’s were too insane, especially the strawberries & cream flavour, I had to try to make some myself. So when a dear friend was getting married and asked me for a cake, I thought why not! Not nearly as perfect as Sumari’s but not bad for a first attempt!
BTW, my cup of tea is long gone, the bowl of toffees… empty. OMG! Don’t forget to check out Sir John new range of gorgeous fandangled beauty goodies! It will definitely reduce the Sephora cravings!! https://www.woolworths.co.za/recipe/_/A-cmp208764