The Farmers Market - the start of my commercial ventures for real!!

February has been a weird month! After deciding on a whim to return to my old job and getting a position which would mean being away from home for 3 months (I don’t think the veggie garden or me would last much longer than this) I had 10 days to prepare for the departure. I did delay the departure date to suit several events that I was very much looking forward to which both took place on the Saturday before I was due to depart.

But I do get ahead of myself a bit – late in January we learned that our neighbours had been working hard to relocate a swarm of bees from their newly built hanger (yes, we are not the only ones with flying machines in our back garden) to strategically placed bee hives. Unfortunately the bees decided that they quite liked building new homes in aviation facilities and took up in one of the wings hanging in our shed! It took Bosco and Bernard a few days to realise that this is where all the bees suddenly in the back garden where coming from and by this time it was a little beyond their capabilities even with the protection of the bees suit. So what do you do when you need to move bees? You call Sam the Bee Man! In preparation Jim had spent the weekend making a new hive and we set up a stand under the Kei apple tree. Sam came out the next afternoon and it was late and dark by the time he departed. The moving of the bees was done with out much injury to those involved but I did end up with a few refugees in the kitchen, who unfortunately did not make it through the night. Sam also checked out our hive down by the river and we were rewarded with a small harvest of very dry comb and some very mature honey which was delicious. Eating fruit or vegetables grown in your own garden is a wonderful feeling but eating honey that has been produced by bees in your own garden is even more so (even if we have less involvement in its actual production, somehow it is a real sense of achievement). It took a few days for the bees to settle into their new home (and they did return to the wing a few times). Hopefully by the time I return home in May they will be happily producing litres of delicious golden nectar.

I am very keen to add our own honey to the menu of my farmers market produce!

Which brings us to my newest venture. Our ‘local’ that hosted the very successful Christmas Market has decided to hold a farmers market once a month. It is the perfect outlet for my culinary urges and the overflow from the garden. Since being invited to be involved mid-January, I had been frantically chopping aubergines and mangoes to produce as much chutney as possible. I was under a lot of pressure since my friend Fiona has been singing the praises of my aubergine chutney on facebook! Despite the rainy threatening, Saturday morning dawned with me packing 60 jars of various preserves, tables, chairs, and all the paraphernalia needed for a market, into the pickup.

My experiment was the cheese I made out of 4 litres of my cousins beautiful, pure jersey milk. It is similar to the Lebanese cheese Labne (see the photos). Anyway, it is an experiment no longer, it completely sold out (selling at 300/= for 100 grams) and will be on the menu for the future. Actually the whole stall was a sell out and I am thinking that I am going to have to be spending much more time in the kitchen to keep up with the demand and also to expand the menu. However, it does of course depend what is available in the garden and in the organic market. Preserves and chutneys have traditionally been produced at the height of the season when there is a glut of produce in order to have summers wonderful produce available through out the year and I don’t see any point in using second rate, expensive, imported ingredients just to be able to have stock on the table, it sort of removes the sense of achievement and also the pride in being able to say to customers that I know the complete process of production is organic and home made every step of the way.

I am now in Turkey and of course having a wonderful time exploring markets and experimenting with local ingredients and my small (hopefully expanding) knowledge of Middle Eastern recipes, but that will have to wait for the next post (with photos of course)!    

your choice of mango, aubergine or green tomato chutney - it all depends on your level of heat tolerance! 

sundried tomatoes - and they really were dried in the sun on our front terrace

the limited cheese production - 

this, of course was not taken at the market but at the Australian Ball on the Saturday evening - my last night of wild Nairobi night life for 3 months with Jim, Will (who I will truely miss sharing an office with) and my dear friend Helen. And if you are wondering what Jim is up to whilst I am away, one word - planes - he is away from home for much of the same time, flying to his hearts content. 

Australian Cooks

Recently a South African friend asked me a question which really made me think. We were sitting on the front terrace enjoying the evening parade of animals on the ridge, my friend was flipping through my copy of Maggie Beer’s ‘Maggie’s Table’ when she looked up and asked ‘Why is it that all Australians can cook?’

Can we? Are we any better as a nation than any other who have an eclectic population contributing to their culinary experiences?

What made the question even more intriguing was that it came from someone who has a reputation as a cook and a son who is a professional chef.

 My initial answer was ‘because we have to be’. Not because we don’t have fantastic restaurants but simply because, from my experience Australians eat and entertain at home a lot more than I have found in other countries. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that unless you live in a city it is a long drive to the nearest restaurant (and there is so much of Australia that is not cities than I think most people realise). Maybe it has something to do with the social, caring, sharing aspect of eating together. I have several friends who would say they can’t cook, but put them in a kitchen and they may not be Michel Roux, but the results are better than average.    

Even as students in the 1980’s, we probably entertained at home, cooking for friends, more often than we ate out, although, my house mates and I did go through a stage of choosing an up-market restaurant about once a month and really treating ourselves.

When visiting friends living on a cattle station we had guests driving over 100kms for a dinner party invitation – you can’t take the kids or stay the night at a restaurant in town! 

 With some time to think I would also answer ‘How can we not be’.

Not only do we have access to amazing produce, we also have had available for many years, a wide range of authentic international, especially SE Asian, ingredients which of course makes it so much easier and more exciting to reproduce your restaurant favourites at home.  

I also think this skill has crept up on Australia quietly. The farmers markets and such like are, relatively speaking, a new development. We have also had some wonderful teachers and guides. I think the foundation stone was laid back in the 60’s and 70’s – much the same time as culinary developments were happening in Britain. Of course Australia drew the trump card with the Australian Women’s Weekly and the cookbooks that followed. Is there a kitchen in the world without at least one volume? You may challenge this, however, they are on sale even here in Kenya.

The other secret, linked to AWW, is Margaret Fulton. MF was the cooking editor of AWW for many years. Again, I am sure there is not a kitchen in Australia without ‘The Margaret Fulton Cookbook’. I am waiting to inherit my mother’s copy, the newer editions are just not the same. I have many of the recipes written out on scraps of paper and when I am home I love looking through it, the photographs glowing with retro brown and orange kitchen wallpaper and Pyrex dishes. The ‘exotic’ foreign dishes in the Entertaining section which, today, we take so much for granted.  

The magazine industry also gave us a helping hand at becoming competent cooks. Since the age of 15 when I used to baby sit and spent the evenings reading through volumes of Australian Vogue Entertaining (there was no travel section in those days). The difference between this and other food magazines available at the time was that it featured housewives showing what they cooked for their family and friends every day. I remember being very disappointed in the magazines available when I moved to London. There were professional food magazines which were very high brow, but nothing like AVE. I went through my collection several years ago when space was becoming an issue and as a compensation for having to put the magazines in the recycling (after copying out essential recipes, of course) I kept all the covers and am waiting for my new kitchen where I will have a AVE frieze rather than wall paper. I guess the 21^st Century equivalent is the television cook and I love watching whatever BBC Living has to dish up most evenings, but it is not the same; you can’t scribble in the margins, read in the bath or bed or in an airplane, or just flip through a few pages when deciding what to cook for dinner. Unless you sit in front of the tele with a paper and pen at hand it is not so easy to reproduce the dishes.

Of course there have been wonderful cooks since Margaret Fulton such as Maggie Beer and Donna Hay. Maybe, that is the secret; the Australian food revolution has featured cooks rather than professional chefs. We don’t see them as threatening, they are just wives and mothers, feeding their families everyday like the rest of us. Oh, and the men of course -  who could forget Bernard King!! 

Although I must pay homage to one of the great Australian chefs, Stephanie Alexander, who, since closing her restaurant, has taken on the mission of teaching Australian children about growing food and cooking through her Kitchen Garden Foundation where school are supported to set up kitchen gardens and the kids get to do all the hard work and learn to cook what they grow. I have been to visit a couple of these projects and they are amazing. One of the schools in Darwin even had cows. The kids are so proud of what they are doing and, even if they don’t all take on careers as chefs at least we can be assured they won’t be taking their kids to McDonald’s too often!!

But you know, having said all that, I think the real answer might simply be ‘because we want to be’. Because we love really good food, and most of the time we have great weather which is more conducive to enjoying being in our own backyard or packing a picnic, with friends rather than sitting in traffic to get to a restaurant. There is also pride in cooking for friends and family, and from the receivers’ side, knowing that someone cares enough to spend time producing a wonderful meal with you in mind.

So, all you Kenyan friends, next time you are invited out to the house for lunch or dinner, the answer you should give is not ‘oh you don’t need to go to so much effort, let all go out’ rather ‘thank you, what a privilege to be invited’ and come knowing it is a labour of love just for you!!

Most importantly, in Australia (and Kenya is fast catching up), we have really strict drink driving laws and who ever heard of having a really good feed with great friends that does not involve a few beers or a couple of bottles of good wine J even getting a taxi is sometimes just too much effort. It is so much easier to find a space on the couch or crash in the spare room. Anyway, if you stay the night you get breakfast as well!  

 

2014 Year of the Cake! and visitors from Australia - hurrah

Happy New Year to everyone! After much deliberation and many invitations Jim and I ended up having a very restful 10 days at home over Christmas and New Year.

I had a hot, humid and hectic dash to the north coast to deliver the wedding cake for a friend getting married in Watamu. I did all the baking ahead of time in the cool of Nairobi and packaged the tiers up in insulated cool boxes to transport them. Everything arrived in good order; cakes intact, equipment undamaged and fondant icing soft but solid! Now I have cooked in some pretty hot locations but putting together a wedding cake with butter cream and fondant in the December tropical heat nearly broke me! Everything was going well until I had to refrigerate layers in between putting them together – too hot outside the fridge and way too wet inside.  My wonderful friend Laurence and her son Simon, who were holidaying in Watamu drove up to Malindi to talk me through the final construction and decoration. They are still laughing at the fact that all I could utter was ‘it’s sweating, it wont stop sweating!’ But we got there in the end and the drive to Watamu was uneventful. It was a relief to had the sandcastle over to the responsibility of the lovely staff at Hemmingway’s who assured me they would look after it and I was finally able to relax with fish and chips and a G&T at Ocean Sports.





 

A couple of very exciting projects have resulted from this cake so it was worth all the worry.

Arriving home on the evening of 22^nd I still had to get dozens of mince pies delivered. I had several orders from the coast which I had intended to make down there but after trying to roll pastry 3 times I gave up! Anyway it was quite relaxing to do them with Christmas carols in the background and Air Kenya got them to their destination unharmed.

 

This is what 100 iced Christmas Tree biscuits looks like when laid out on your dining room table!

 Mince Pies waiting for their icing sugar 'snow'

Jim and I had all good intentions of going to midnight mass but in the end exhaustion prevailed but we did attend the carol singing at Talisman restaurant and had a lovely time with friends and mulled wine.

Christmas Day was actually relaxing. Lots of delicious food of course -  ham, duck, and pudding – but not too over indulgent and we both, surprisingly lost a few grams. I am not sure how but the scales don’t lie!

Our house all lit up for Christmas and Jim's present in its new home above the mantelshelf - a beautiful Kudu drawing by our good friend Beaver Shaw.

 

Car trouble saw us remaining at home for New Year. Our good friends Dave and Pam joined us for dinner on the terrace – mushroom tartlets, fillet mignon and my grandmother's ‘orange mist pudding’, a wonderful concoction of cream and orange juice. Maybe due to the champagne consumed (or just the fact that we are all getting older) after a very late breakfast I was straight back to sleep and found it quite difficult to do any sensible for the rest of the day.

 

So what does 2014 hold for the African Kitchen Table? Well, I have opened a new face book page – Akt baking – for those of you who are on facebook, please friend us. I will be putting up photos of all things cake and if you are in Kenya you can order directly through the page. As the experiment with sending the mince pies was a success I am happy to take orders from around the country. I will put up special events such as Valentines and Easter as well. I am already onto the next birthday cake and have several orders in the pipeline so hopefully the year will be a delicious and profitable one.

The garden is thriving after the late rains but the baboons are also enjoying the rewards of our labours bur that is a story for another day. In preparation for the arrival of friends and family later in the year I am having fun making new curtains and other interior decoration for our guest rooms. With the help of Bosco and Bernard we are revitalising the cactus rock garden area just outside the buffalo fence. This also includes clearing some of the undergrowth to make it safer for small people to play (Bosco and I found a lovely hidey hole where we could watch the birds go about their business, such a differenct view from feeding them on the terrace) and also make a definate path down to the lawn area by the river hopefully to encourage us and visitors to use this lovely space more frequently. I am also determined to get my goose /duck pond with occupants this year. 

 

 

  the planned pond site

 

I hope it is a great year for all of you, where ever you are and I hope you continue to enjoy reading  the Jottings.

 

 

 

November and then the Christmas buildup

I am so impressed that, with no post for over one month, there are still many new readers of the African Table.

The table and myself have been extremely busy over the past 6 weeks with beads, baking and lavender.

Mid November saw Jim as the only male present at a Sunday afternoon ladies champagne tea. the occassion was celebrating, very belatedly, our friend Laurence's 50th birthday (one week before her 51st). We had been planning a much grander affair, however, November is the start of the Christmas fair season here in Nairobi so we down sized slightly because of clashing dates. Not that it was subdued by any means as you can see from the photos. Despite being the only male, I think Jim had fun and he did run off to his shed several times during the afternoon!

meringues with lemon curd cream and lavender

the tea table with birthday cake centre piece

Champagne all round

Jim surveying the goings on!

 

One week later saw myself and my friends Mimi and Jane loading cars and heading off to the Shaggy Dog Show Fair in aid of KSPCA. The Shaggy Dog Show is always fun, a light hearted event for those of us who dont have pedigree pets! Mea entered the owner/pet fancy dress competition with Rocky dressed as a bumble bee. She borrowed Jim's bee keepers outfit and won 2nd prize for her efforts.

The sales were a bit slow but Jim and others kept a steady flow of  Pimms heading in our direction and a lovely day was had by all in support of a good cause.

 

23rd November saw us heading off again, watching the sky for rain! This time to Purdy Arms Christmas Fair. As well as my jewelery I emptied out the cupboard where I store all my home made chutneys and jams. I also decided to take on orders for Christmas baking (which I am now paying for, as it is D-week with Christmas looming). I had a very successful weekend, selling all the jars I had dragged alone (there was no way I was taking them home, they were too heavy), enough jewelery to make the trip worth while and also had a great response to the mince pies and shortbread.

 

So now I am up to my elbows in butter and flour, the house smells of fruit and spice - just as it should at Christmas - and I am only slightly panicing at finishing all the orders, getting to the coast with a three tier wedding cake that I am baking or a friend and getting home in time to collapse on the terrace with smoked salmon and champagne on Christmas Eve!

Yesterday I delivered 100 iced and decorated Christmas tree biscuits and the first batch of mince pies. I have a plan taped to the fridge door and 2 public holidays this week to help give me time to be organised. Thursday evening is Carols by Candlelight which we go to every year - a fun family event with a slightly dodgey projector and none of the glitz of big city events but hey, we live in Africa and are spared alot of the commercial polish. Friday evening we are off to Nadia and Phil next door for their Christmas sundowners which will be a late night with friends and neighbours. I had all intention of a Christmas party this year but it just does not seem to have happened, I will have to be more organised in 2014.

 

I have tried to upload more photos but they just dont seem to want to be put on display so I will have to try again later.

 

Oh and for those of you who are interested our baby lemon tree has graduated from a yoghurt pot to a very grown up terracotta one and is living outside full time!

 

So, from a slightly frazzled me and my floury Kitchen Table, a very Merry Christmas and Happy, Peaceful New Year to everyone, wherever you are.

 



Lavender and beads!!

My life this week seems to have been overtaken by lavender and beads!
We have put in the first 10 lavender bushes plus a few extra rosemary and lemon thyme just for good measure. They are all around the kitchen door area and the next lot are going to line the path to the laundry - I have visions of Rita drying the bed linen over the bushes so we have wonderful lavender infused sleep (it is very good for helping to sleep).

I have also been reading up on how to build a still at home and exactly how they work. I think I am going to have to enlist Jim's engineering skills with this little project mainly because I am going to have to invade his sacred space - the shed, in order to house the still and hang the harvest to dry! My friend Helen has comented that my photos are reminding her of Provence (she used to live in France) which I was pretty pleased about as my dream is to pretend I am hiding away in Provence when I don't want to face the reality of Africa on my door step.

tiny new plants

the original

a space just waiting to be filled with lavender!

 

As well as my usual pottering in the garden I have been busy in the kitchen and my work room. Last week SAw me trying to make and decorate a green and purple dragon with no electricity - fine during the day but not when you are trying to do it at night when you get home from work! he turned out beautifully and all the kids loved him.

 

 

 

The first Christmas fair of the season is on Sunday at KSPCA Shaggy Dog Show. I will be sharing a tent with a friend who does beautiful beaded embroidery on clothing. I have had beads all over the dining room table for the past 2 weeks - we have been eating off our knees in front of the telly but I have produced enough pieces to put a decent show together and have surprised myself with some of the bead combinations I have put together. I will put up more photos on the weekend when I have proper ones taken. for now the boxes are packed up and I will be labeling and parceling pieces up ready to go early on Sunday morning. The Dog show is always lots of fun and this year I have been helping Helen's daughter Mea put together a costume for her jack Russell who is going in the fancy dress competition as a bee! mea will be wearing Jim's bee keeper suit and carrying the smoke puffer just in case Rocky gets a bit excited :-)  She is bound to win!!

 

Have a wonderful weekend where ever you are and if you are in Nairobi come along and say hello at Ngong race course from 10 am on Sunday.

 





Lavender blue, lavender green....

We are going to become lavender farmers! A bold statement (to join many others, I make everyday) I realise but this one may just come to fruition.
Jim spent most of the week end shoveling cow poo onto grass, fruit trees and anything else that did not run in fear from the smell. We have been talking about manuring and composting the whole garden for some time but it took a long weekend with 2 free days to get it happening.
Early on Sunday morning Jim took the pick up down to a Maasai boma near our friend Dave's plot and filled it - about 1 tonne of cow poo for 2,000/= (about $25). The compost bins were finally lifted and the lovely mush mixed with manure.
It was on Monday evening when I was out surveying the results especially the hole being prepared for the transplanting of a citrus tree, I commented that the rosemary bush probably should be moved as well as it never flowers being under a very large grevillia tree. Well as the conversation rolled on from too many trees to the condition (or not) of our soil, I made a random statement about how lavender loves harsh conditions - rocky soil, dry heat - and we had the perfect conditions right here on our plot. So of course, Jim's comeback was something like 'well why don't we grow more and can we make money out of it?' Well I just happen to know the answer to the second part of the question having just read my latest edition of Country Living magazine which features a woman growing lavender commercially on the hillsides of Wales. '2-3 acres and we need a stil to get the oil, sell it for a fortune or make our own soap' I come back with!
Surprisingly, unlike many of my suggestions, this one seems to have sparked an interest - as have the cows, geese and chickens being kept in the top shed - in Jim's brain. All we have to do is have enough land - we have 2.5 acres now, and find the right variety to give the oil. Other things we can learn whilst the lavender grows. I can imagine nothing more amazing than waking up to acres of mauve and the scent of lavender on the air. I am not sure what the buffalo or the baboons will make of it but I know the bees will be in heaven. We can put the hives amongst the bushes and have litres of lavender honey, lavender ice cream, make our own soap and other toiletries, and maybe even serve teas to people coming to buy......
not just a dream, I am going out next weekend to buy several more bushes at my favourite road side nursery and I am going to start now. Even if we never reach commercial production, I will have my own little corner of Provence here in Nairobi.

The world of luxury private jet travel or how to stress yourself to the max whilst appearing calm and organised!

I am sitting at our kitchen table making a list for the next few days

 Thurs

2 crew b’fast
2 crew lunch

Sat

3 crew b’fast
3 crew lunch
Client champagne, juice, wine, water, coffee and petit fours etc

 You may well ask ‘why is a Medical Coordinator of an Air Ambulance outfit making such a list –

 A couple of months ago we did a flight on our executive jet that required fine dining catering (Michel Roux Junior style) – so of course I put my hand up and, it was quite a success, if I do say so myself (smoked salmon, pate, chocolate strawberries). The next day our accounts manager asked me if I would like to put in a quote for doing the crew breakfasts and lunches and other catering for the flights going out of Nairobi.

So here I am with 2 flights in 3 days. You may not think that is not so bad but I usually don’t get home until after 6pm, after having been shopping for the ingredients and then spend the evening boiling eggs, making sandwiches and some sort of loaf cake whilst still cooking dinner; up at 0500 to make the fresh coffee and hot milk, throw everything into the car and whiz down to the airport for a 0700 departure!  

 Thursday is going to be a bit of a challenge. Pilots to be fed with a 0500 departure from the international airport – a logistics nightmare! I am certainly not going to be delivering picnic bags at 0400 in the morning. Luckily one of the pilots lives not too far from us so I will deliver late on Wednesday night.

 The list is growing. Only am I slightly panicking about getting food done and ordering the drinks in, I am also putting the progress of the flight on paper to make sure nothing is forgotten…..

Nairobi to Malindi – 3 crew breakfasts is the easy part.

I then have to organise for the coffee and tea to be restocked in Malindi; hot towels, table linen, cutlery, china, on and on and on. Even when everything looks perfect Irene has to be able to prepare and serve without fault within full view of the clients. The cabin is not large by anyone’s estimation. There is no way of reheating, so everything has to be packed to stay hot or cold and never the twain shall meet until they are on the plate.

I remember watching my friend Lissy in the 1^st Class galley of a Qantas plane years ago when I was flying from London to Australia. It was a tiny space and she had to get freshly cooked dishes out but at least she was out of sight of the passengers and had space to stand up and turn around.  

Tomorrow will be a frantic run around town to pick up all the last minute bits and then back to the hangar to go through a test run in the plane with Irene.

 For now, Jim has just arrived home, dinner is in the oven and my dried fruit is soaking in hot tea for my Bara Bryth for the pilots’ morning tea on Thursday. A few minutes sit down and then I have to get the flight bags out to go through and make sure all the extra bits such as sugar boxes, cups and juice bottles have all made it home from their last outing.

I know I will not sleep on Friday night for fear of not hearing the alarm in the morning and the whole thing being a disaster, but for some reason I do love this part of the job – variety and a bit of stress to keep me on my toes!  

 

Oh gosh - must remember fresh flowers for the bud vases.....