There is nothing like a chance encounter to remind you that some things in life cannot be controlled.

While camping away last weekend I was accosted by a very disorientated man in the ladies bathrooms very early on Sunday morning. He knocked on my door, and rambled on about why the door was locked. I pushed the door open to get out, encountering a cloud of fuzzy alcohol fumes and a glazed looking man. I sprinted out of the building, and ran the couple of meters back to my tent, which was in a community of tents, on a large strip of grassed land, lit by an orange globe light.

He must have followed me quite quickly afterwards as I recall seeing him a good few metres away when I turned to look. Unfortunately, he was now aware of which tent I was sleeping in.

I wasn’t scared when he “knocked” on my tent, saying hello, repeatedly, or even when he asked me, inanely, if I had drugs.

I would have stayed quiet, as my then slightly awake tent-mate had recommended, the only sounds coming from my praying lips, and from my rapidly beating heart.

I would have just sat there in silence and tried to will him away, if only he hadn’t have reached for the tent zipper.

I don’t think anyone at this point could argue that he wasn’t out of his mind perhaps on drugs or just incredibly drunk, but that still doesn’t give anyone any excuses to have acted in the way that he did.

I could have screamed, and stayed trembling in my tent, petrified at what could have happened next.

I could have let the men who slept in the tents beside us deal with him, while I stayed frozen in fear, a perfect picture of a woman who has no choice but to be vulnerable.

But I didn’t.

I didn’t have to jump out of my tent, and stare him full on in the face and start yelling for him to leave me alone.

But I wanted to.

I wanted him to know that there are some people out there who won’t be bullied into being feared.

There are woman out there with some sort of bravery, enough to make a stand for themselves, and act on a strength that is not their own.

I might be a weakened woman but I am not weak of mind, or will or Faith.

I hope one day that man realises the bad example he is setting.

A real man doesn’t harass a woman because he is “entitled to”, or because it seems like a bright idea at 2am in the morning.

A real man doesn’t rule by fear or intimidation.

A real man doesn’t disappear from his life into the bottom of a bottle or a crack pipe.

We have all encountered hell of some sorts.

Running away from that or blaming others for what has happened to you doesn’t make you a real man.

I hope you had a really bad hangover, you are very lucky that at that moment I didn’t have my cast iron frying pan in my hand…

Thank you to the real men who searched the area, and escorted some frightened ladies to the loos.

You are an example.

Chocolate fondant cakes with melting centres

(Delia Smith’s recipe – because no one knows chocolate like a woman)

Makes 4

100g dark chocolate

100g butter, cubed

1 Tbsp brandy

55g castor sugar

2 large eggs

2 yolks

7ml vanilla essence

30g cake flour

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Grease a tray of 4 large muffins.

In a medium sized bowl, slowly melt the butter and chocolate slowly together over a warm pot of water. In a separate bowl beat the eggs, the extra yolks and the sugar together until they have doubled in volume, this will take 5 to 10 minutes. They will become light and fluffy, and leave ribbons when you lift the beater.

Sift the flour into the egg mixture, and pour the warm chocolate mixture around the edges of the mixture. Using a large metal spoon, take your time to gently fold the mixtures together. Spoon into the muffin tin and cook for 10 to 11 minutes.

They cook quickly, and set on standing as well, so be careful not to overcook.

Very gently remove then from the muffin tin and serve with fresh cream, icecream or plain greek yoghurt.

This is the tastiest way to make nachos, ever. Its simple, and easy, and well, who doesn’t like nachos?

The secret ingredient is to use Doritos chips instead of traditional corn chip nachos, they are a heck of a lot cheaper and more readily available. They also pack a fantastic punch of flavour, making this a very quick and tasty meal.

1 onion, chopped

If anyone has seen the video by Vanessa Black called “Friday”,

Sticky Apple and Kumquat tart

“Look what I got!”

I enthused to my housemate Debbie on Tuesday evening.

I sliced one of the jewelled orange fruits and handed it to her.

“Ooh loquats?”

She said, gingerly taking the proferred slice of kumquat.

This was the start of the Loquat vs Kumquat conversation.

Loquats are tan to light orange fruits with a large brown pit, similar in shape to a litchi, but with a smooth and almost velvety skin.

Kumquats, however, are a different thing entirely.

These are fascinating little fruits, and are actually quite weird.

They resemble small oval oranges, with a thin skin. Yet the skin is sweet and tart, while its juicy centre is sour.

Almost like some conversations which I have had to endure. Normally they start like this,

“Lara, we need to talk…”

Sweet on the outside, but leaving you with a bit of a bitter taste in your mouth.

A relative of mine recently came back from overseas, gushing with new food ideas.

Unfortunately these food ideas involved me.

Since said relative is older than me, out of respect, I endured the half an hour monologue.

Since I am between jobs aka immediately employable as Cath puts it, out came the possible business ideas.

So far the list reads:

• Making and painting cushions of indigenous plants.

• Keeping a herd of goats in the back yard, and making cheese from my Wendy house
  (Did I hear a CCP in the making?)

• Making bread. From my Wendy house.

• Growing and selling vegetables (with a grand profit of R6?)

• Using goat hair to knit together twine so I can bungee jump off the top of my house.

(Last one was mine).

If you think these ideas are grand. Then fantastic! By all means! Go ahead. I might even throw in my Wendy house for you, and hire out said relative for more inspirational ideas on how to run your life.

Kumquats are at their best with lots of sugar, like some conversations…

I shall be making some fantastic jars of preserved kumquats next, but first they will be used in this super easy tart.

This tart came about because my friends were begging me to do simple, cheap and easy. Well, this is really easy, and looks kinda impressive if you lay the fruit neatly.

It is also versatile, I have made it with plums, or peaches and apricots, cherries and apple would be good too. The possibilities are endless…

Sticky Apple a

nd Kumquat tart

 Feeds 8 – 10

For the sauce:

30ml water

30g butter

60g sugar

½ teaspoon cinnamon.

For the tart:

2 apples, peeled, and thinly sliced.

5 kumquats, thinly sliced

1 x 400g pack of puff pastry, defrosted

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Melt the sugar, butter and water together.

Mix well, and when it starts to thicken, after 2 minutes, add the apples and cook for 5 minutes. Remove the apples, and add the kumquats to the pan. Cook until the sauce becomes syrupy, about another 5 minutes and leave to cool.

Place the puff pastry onto a greased tray, fold the sides up, and cross the area in which you will be putting the fruit.

Place the apples and kumquats onto the criss crossed part of the pastry.

Pour any remaining syrup over the fruit.

Sprinkle with sugar. Brush milk along the sides for a brown finish.

Bake in the oven until the puff pastry is crisp, about 20 – 25 minutes.

You can make up another batch of the sauce to serve, as this is not a very sweet tart. Serve with plain vanilla icecream.

Traditional italian ragú with home made spaghetti

Long gone are the days where you could create dishes which take 3 hours to prepare. Today’s cooks are always keen on how fast they can cook and eat their meals, and be done with it all. Which does give them time to play around with other things, however, the joy of cooking is long gone and lost.

The Italians, however, seem to still hold on to old traditions yet while embracing the future. In one town you can walk down a cobbled street licking a homemade traditional icecream from an ancient recipe, while a fiery red ferrari speeds past you.

For lunch, they think nothing of a having a 1 to 2 hour lunch break, drinking wine with their families and chatting happily about things that happened that day.

I can’t but wonder how they managed to get it right?

Having left my slow cooker in London (I already had 4 boxes of excess baggage shipped to Cape Town, and smuggled a very heavy clay Tagine pot in my luggage). I had almost but given up on slow cooking entirely, when a recipe caught my eye.

Most everyone has a really good bolognaise recipe up their sleeve, whether it contains red wine, or stock or whole tomatoes , tomato puree or even that special packet of bolognaise spice mix hidden in the back of the cupboard, I can assuredly say that most people are happy to sit down to this meal any day of the week.

Roasted chicken stuffed with apple and cumin

and all the trimmings

I think that cumin must be my all time favourite spice. I don’t know why, but it smells mystical to me, and when you bite into the oval seeds, the flavour is almost unexpected.

My default spice at the moment is smoked paprika, and when I couldn’t find it while preparing this chicken, I found myself wondering why I hadn’t tried cumin before.

You can use the same stuffing with the apricot stuffed chicken, and just replace the apricot with cooked apple and the thyme with crushed roasted cumin.

Roasted chicken stuffed with apple and cumin and all the trimmings.

serves 4

For the chicken:

1 2kg whole freerange chicken

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons whole raw cumin seeds

1 Tablespoon of butter

If making stuffing:

prepare first

1 onion

1 small apple, peeled

If making trimmings:

For the roast potatoes and the veg

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

If making stuffing, make this first.

Remove any giblets that are in the chicken.

Mix the salt and the butter together and rub all over the chicken.

Using a pestle and mortar, or a grinder, grind the raw cumin seeds and sprinkle this all over the chicken. If you have made stuffing, spoon it into the chicken. Otherwise chop the onion and apple, and place it in the chicken cavity.

If making roast veg, add them to the roasting tin. I like to place them under the chicken, so the bottom of the chicken doesn’t burn, and the vegetables can soak up some of the juices.

You can also peel and chop up some extra apples and place them under the chicken too. These will be all golden and caramelly from the long roasting – gorgeous.

Place in the middle rack in the oven and cook for 1 hour and 20 minutes.

When the time is up, remove the chicken from the roasting tin and place breast side down to rest for 10 minutes before carving.

For the gravy:

Brown 2T of flour in a pan and add the juices from the roasting tin. Add boiling water to attain the desired thickness, and bring to the boil.