#1 The bookie braai
A foldable, portable and compact barbecue to store anywhere. Made of durable 430-grade stainless steel. From R1 550 to R2 800, depending on the accessories you order with it.
#2 Kaalfööt
At last, a pretty “barefoot" shoe that fits like a glove, but with soles for hot tar, sharp rocks or any other tough terrain. Proudly South African at the reasonable price of R340. We use ours to swim in rock pools. The Fomolistas go crazy for the red ones.
#3 Eucalyptus
If you have access to a eucalyptus tree, here is a cool thing to do for a lovely smell in your shower. Cut some twigs or branches and bruise the leaves with a wine bottle or rolling pin, then hang the bunch in your shower and let the steam do the rest. The bush's smell lasts for several weeks.
#4 Martini (without alcohol!)
Yes, please! From The New York Times Food's Rebekah Peppler, an alcohol-free dirty martini with lemon.
Ingredients:
- 2 teaspoons crushed preserved lemon, store-bought or homemade
- 5 very thinly sliced fresh lemon slices
- 1 teaspoon of white sugar
- ice
- 120 ml cold tonic
- a slice of preserved lemon zest, green olives (such as castelvetrano or manzanilla) and half a lemon slice, for garnishing
Put the preserved lemon, lemon slices and sugar in the bottom of a sturdy rock glass. Mix until the sugar is dissolved and the lemon slices release their juices. Add the ice to the glass and fill with tonic water.
Thread on a pin a slice of preserved lemon peel, a few olives and half a lemon slice and garnish your drink with it!
#5 Quotes
Last week we rewatched The Last Station, the film about Leo Tolstoy's last days made by Michael Hoffman in 2009 and it again brought us deeply under the impression of the Russian literary giant's brilliance.
A few quotes to chew on:
- Music is the shorthand of emotion.
- The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.
- Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
- Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.
- What counts in making a marriage happy is not seeing how compatible you are but how you deal with incompatibility.
#6 Arty cakes
The very Keith Lissner who impressed us so much last week with his AI interpretations of flower arrangements depicting the various brands of famous fashion designers does it again, this week with decorated cakes.
#7 Food doccie
National Geographic's new series on food and culinary roots, No Taste Like Home, looks fantastic. The presenter, Antoni Porowski, has a wonderful touch. It will be available on Disney+ by the end of February. Looking forward to it.
#8 Hallelujah and amen
The Competition Commission has found that supermarkets place far too high profit margins on specific fruit and vegetables and says stores such as Shoprite Checkers, Pick n Pay, Woolworths, the Spar Group, Food Lover's Market and Massmart must indicate their fresh produce prices per 100g, so that consumers can more easily do their calculations. Hallelujah! It has long annoyed us that comparing prices of different packaging sizes is so difficult z– such as tomatoes sold in 3 kg bags in one store and then in 3,5 kg bags in another. The commission says these differences lead to lack of transparency and hinder fair competition. Amen.
#9 Siesta in Sierra Leone
In the 1980s, before a terrifying civil war and an Ebola outbreak brought Sierra Leone to its knees, the country attracted many visitors to its multiple pristine beach destinations such as the Bureh, just an hour's drive south of the capital, Freetown. But this small country, as big as Scotland, also boasts an astonishing variety of landscapes. In the southeast are the Gola Rainforest and Tiwai Island Game Reserve, home to chimpanzees, rare Diana monkeys, Bongo goats and more than 320 bird species. In the north, the Outamba-Kilimi National Park is a forested savanna and refuge for hippos, elephants and colobus monkeys. And in the east, plateaus lead up to Mount Bintumani, one of West Africa's highest peaks.
Sierra Leone now wants to make tourism a focal point again. A World Bank development project is under way to train tourism staff, build infrastructure and develop ecotourism in areas such as southeastern Sierra Leone, where the endangered dwarf hippo species lives.
#10 All Black bash
The first openly gay All Black rugby player, Campbell Johnstone, got married. And rugby legend Richie McCaw brought him and his husband to the wedding by helicopter. We can't get enough of the beautiful wedding photos in The New Zealand Herald.
#11 Poem
This recital by the actor Caitlin O’Ryan hit us in the gut.
#12 Snow art
Breathtaking ... 63-year-old artist Simon Beck creates colossal, intricate designs on enormous snowy landscapes. Beck walks for hours carving patterns with his feet, creating snow sculptures that can be more than half a kilometre long. He has carved more than 370 such drawings across the world and sometimes also does it on sand.
♦ VWB ♦
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