Add vooma to your festive season

Quote of the week

The world reveals itself to those who travel on foot: Werner Herzog

Stuff you need to know this week

1. Pantone's colour of the year for 2024 is Peach Fuzz 13-1023, a soothing, soft peach shade — a warm and subtle middle ground between orange and pink.

2. For all gourmets: don't miss Anneliese Burgess's food column this week. When it comes to cookbooks, she is the real thing — cooking with all the latest chefs, the best cookbooks (she orders a new one every week), recipes and ingredients. It's a game-changer.

3. Listen to a new playlist from Kerneels Breytenbach's bumper collection today in Free Speech — especially compiled for Vrye Weekblad readers. #thankuslater

4. Buy strings of solar-powered Christmas lights from Pick n Pay and keep them on day and night.

5. Your neck is part of your face — remember to apply sunscreen to your face, neck, arms (and chest). #decolletage

6. Three ideas for road snacks: We regard ginger cookies — from gingersnaps to German lebkuchen — as noble road-trip food. Upgrade boiled eggs with this FOMO version — soy-marinated eggs from Bon Appétit (don't leave them in the marinade for more than six hours. Beyond that, they get a bit too edgy for our taste). And dried olives are a delicious almost zero-calorie snack. We first tasted them at Het Vlock Casteel in Riebeek-Kasteel but there is a wide variety on the market. 

7. And finally: always remember to pack your dark blue sweater.

Gifts

1. Heritage blankets

The best gift to get or give has to be a Basotho blanket from Aranda. They're 50% wool and 50% dralon acrylic in different sizes with prices ranging from R600 to R1,598 and discounts of 21% and 54% on different products. Free delivery. Order on Takealot or directly from Aranda. There are several specials at the moment.

2. The Field Bottle — The Fieldbar Co

It has finally arrived, the most beautiful flask in the world in striped colours. Fully insulated with a double wall of stainless steel. It's not only beautiful but also functional. It seems to be sold out everywhere at the moment, so buy a gift card for R799.

3. Green bag

For the beach or the vegetable market, we love these fun crochet bags from Mr Price Home. Currently marked down to R139. Speaking of vegetable markets, we never use the thin plastic bags to weigh our vegetables any more. We prefer cloth bags that we can use over and over again (and if we forget them, we throw the vegetables loose in the basket and leave the label on one of the bananas/onions/tomatoes).

4. Stay cool

Our production editor, Pieter van der Merwe, reports from a bloody hot Pretoria: “I don't quite know what magic ‘cooling towels' possess but they work like a bomb. During the recent heatwave here it was my most valuable possession. Wet the cloth (with water of  any temperature), wring it out, yank and pluck a few times and you have a surprisingly cold wet cloth. Absolutely fantastic if you work at home like me and power and water outages fuck up your air conditioning, swimming pool, and even your cold shower." R40 from The Little Gift Boutique.

And then for the hikers. This K-Way Storm hat is not exactly going to end up on our lifestyle editor Laureen's style radar, but it is super-functional because it has a removable cooling-down patch in the band which is a godsend on a hot day and a long hike. The same principle and just as #magic. Currently marked down to R319.

A listicle

Another contribution from the senior editorial team. This time from our art director, Angela Tuck.

5 things to cancel with immediate effect

1. Family trip to any KwaZulu-Natal beach.
2. Instagram posts that glamorise your unglamorous existence.
3. Garments that trail at the back and rise at the front and vice versa.
4. Helen Zille notifications on X.
5. All references to the sitcom Friends as though it was To Kill a Mocking Bird.

Drink

Have you heard of Adventure Buddies yet? The Cape distilling company Pienaar & Son sells these mini mixed drinks — ideal travel companions with names such as Porn Star Martini, Espresso Martini and Ugly Negroni — at R699 for 12. We've already tried the negroni and martini. Delightful!

PS: The FOMO team's perfect summer twilight drink is a double bourbon on ice with a splash of apple juice.

Watch

1. Slow Horses on Apple TV+ is a  quick-witted spy drama and a thriller, but the series of three seasons is really a take on modern Britain, and it captures a nation beset by failure, corruption and hopelessness. The humour is pitch black and the overriding tone is cynicism. With Gary Oldman and Kristin Scott Thomas. The “slow horses" are the dysfunctional team of MI5 agents who screwed up: they either left a service file on a train, blew a surveillance or became drunkenly unreliable. The best way to kick off your holiday.

2. Eight Below (also on Apple TV+) is based on the suspenseful (real) story of sled dogs stranded in a harsh Antarctic winter due to a medical emergency involving one of a Japanese expedition's team members. The guide's (Paul Walker) beloved dogs must learn to survive together until he rescues them. The dogs' will to survive and their handler's determination to save them at all costs make this a must for all dog lovers. 

3. Hollywood director Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon, an epic Western crime saga starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro and Lily Gladstone, placed number one on the BFI international film magazine Sight and Sound's end of year poll — voted for by 100 of the world’s top film critics.

Tips:

For your wallet and the environment — how to keep these eight common foods fresh for as long as possible:

• Bread: in a brown paper bag in a cool, dry place.
• Asparagus: upright in a glass, one third full of water, in the fridge.
• Potatoes: in a cool, dark, well-ventilated place. Away from onions.
• Tomatoes: at room temperature with the stem down.
• Soft herbs: remove from packaging and store in the fridge in a tall glass with 3cm of water in the bottom.
• Woody herbs (such as rosemary): wrap in damp kitchen paper and store in a sealed sandwich bag.
• Cheese: wrap well in wax paper and keep in the fridge.
• Bananas, half-ripe: store in a brown bag with an apple or a tomato. Wrap ripe bananas in compostable plastic wrap.

Until next year!

For everyone with FOGO (fear of going out) and JOMO (the joy of missing out), we wish you a blissful and meaningful holiday and festive season surrounded by enough reading material, music and delicious food, family if you are lucky, and if you are even luckier, good friends. We're back in the first week of the new year with more goodies you won't want to miss.

♦ VWB ♦

BE PART OF THE CONVERSATION: Go to the bottom of this page to share your opinion. We look forward to hearing from you.