A couple of weeks ago, I get a phone call. I’d filled in a survey at a shopping mall which had entered me into a lucky draw to win a free photo shoot at a studio that specialises in portrait photography. These guys take spunky-looking family portraits – you can see something like it here and here. Initially, I was a bit reluctant. It all looked a bit like a Woolworths ad, and I wondered whether I wasn’t setting myself for feeling wildly inadequate in the face of all the beaming margarine-ad nuclear families the studio seemed to specialise in.

Anyway, I figured it was a gift, and we might as well go along and see whether they would take some nice pics. So we did. As instructed on the very organised email, we took a few changes of clothing and ventured out into the pouring rain on Sunday morning. We made it, despite a flat tyre and a garage door that almost didn’t want to let us out of the house.

The photographer was a young guy called Daniel. While Kolya explored the marvelously empty, white studio, and attempted to topple the massive lights, Daniel reassured me that he’d be mightily impressed if K could even budge them. Apparently the only time he’s managed to knock them over was when he was demonstrating his breakdancing moves to an enthusiastic 10-year-old.
Having photos taken was fun; we tried out a few different colours of T-shirts (for Kolya) and dresses (for me). And that was that.
Daniel explained that he’d need to work on the pics, discard the botched shots, do a bit of touching up, and then we’d have a viewing during the week, for which he set up a time. He sent us on our way with a brochure explaining the various types of prints and images the studio offers, and said we’d be able to decide at our viewing on Wednesday what we’d like to go for.

Downstairs from the studio, the wonderful French patisserie, Cassis, was open. I bought a box of pear and almond tarts to take home for tea. And, later, over tea (and the astonishingly marvelous tarts), I took a look at the brochure. I’m not quite sure what I expected, but I certainly did not expect to find that the most basic print – a square 25 cm x 25 cm print set in a frameless glass mount – would be listed at R599 (apparently a “discounted” price – it’s usually listed at R749). For a traditionally mounted print in a glass-fronted frame, the starting price is R1159 (again, a “discount” – apparently it’s usually R1149). And if you just want to walk away with a CD-ROM of 35 of the images, that’ll set you back a mere R3599.

I called a friend who confirmed a similar experience, except hers had taken her unprepared. She was offered the free studio time as a passed-on gift from a friend of hers. Like us, she got over initial reservations about the somewhat cheesy product, and went along for the shoot with her husband and lovely children, and had loads of fun doing it. She told me about the viewing though:
“It took ages for me to get round to the viewing, because I just had too much on. But when you get there, they put you in these very comfy couches in a dimmed viewing room with funky music, looking at pictures that show your family as pretty much the ultimate, gorgeous happy family. Which of course you can hardly resist buying.”
At the time, she said, she found herself feeling heavily pressured:
“They’ve spent an hour’s studio time, and they’ve spent all this time touching up your photographs, and then they’ve just spent an hour showing you the photographs. So you don’t really feel you can just walk away without buying anything. I got quite carried away, and said I’d go for about R5000 worth of photographs. But then – thank god – the credit card machine jammed. Three times – it just wouldn’t go through. I was sweating with relief… I told them I’d do an EFT, but when I got home I called and admitted, look, this just isn’t a priority for us right now. I think they were really irritated with me. Eventually I went through their winter specials, and I ordered one print, and then I asked if I could take the price of the one free print they’d offered, and use that to offset a bigger size print. Still, they really suck you in.”
I haven’t been for our viewing yet – it’s on Wednesday. And I have no doubt there will be some gorgeous photographs of Kolya that will be very, very hard to resist. At this stage, I’m curious to see what exactly they offer. I can’t help already feeling somewhat conned by the whole setup. I wonder, if they’d explained it upfront, whether I would’ve gone ahead and let them take the photographs. Anyway, I’ll let y’all know what happens. In the meantime, here are some gorgeous photographs of my child. Not professionally taken, but still cute, huh?

Just got this from the director and uber-boss of Theatresports, Megan, announcing a whole week of performances this month. And it looks like I’ll be joining the team and performing too (woo woo!!!) … so for those of you in Cape Town (or Knysna) please come check it out!

For those of you who have miraculously remained uninitiated to TheatreSports, Cape Town’s longest running live theatre show, now’s your chance to check it out.
TheatreSports is improvised comedy. The show is a competition between two teams of professional actors who play out a series of games based on suggestions from the audience. You could see a Shakespeare set in a Laundromat or a Boyband song about tax evasion… the show is always unique, audience-friendly and hilarious. And no one from the audience is ever picked on nor forced to participate.
This year TheatreSports will be celebrating its sweet sixteenth birthday in two fantastic ways. There will be a week of TheatreSports shows starting on Monday 16 November (at The Intimate Theatre), followed by shows at The Kalk Bay Theatre from Tuesday 17 November to Saturday 21 November. It will be a great way of coming to celebrate 16 years of performance in Cape Town.
Then, without pause for breath, after the regular Monday Intimate Theatre show and Tuesday Kalk Bay Theatre show on the 23 and 24 November, TheatreSports hits Knysna for four performances that should not be missed by anyone on that part of the coast. Clear your calendar from 25 to 28 November and come and see TheatreSports back in Knysna after ten years.
Megan Furniss, TheatreSports veteran says, “I can’t believe we have been going for sixteen years. And we just get better and better. We have just finished with a new training course, our weekly performances are drawing great crowds and we even won a coveted Fleur du Cap award this year.”
Check out the TheatreSports website and join our mailing list (your address will not be sold or spammed) or join the Facebook group, TheatreSports Cape Town, to keep up to date with all our comings and goings, and a weekly, hilarious ‘review infographic’ of the shows that were.
For more info or to book any of the shows call Megan on 0834403961.

This month’s Daring Bakers challenge was so so so lovely. I was delighted. I had plans. To do several batches. Why? Because. They were French macarons. sighhhhhhhhhh.

Even if you’re not a foodie, a baking blogger or a follower of menu trends, you still probably haven’t missed the phenomenonal Rise of the Macaron. It’s like… Stieg Larson to the publishing industry; Brad and Angelina to the gossip mag trade; wide belts to fashion; Susan Boyle to TV. Such is the French macaron to baking in 2009. Little multi-coloured arrays of them adorn every patisserie from Paris to Cape Town. Lemon, chocolate, rose water … even green tea has become pretty standard as a flavour. There seems to be a worldwide trend to break into ever-unheard-of flavour combinations. I’ve seen recipes for purple ones crusted with sugared violets, for pumpkin and spice macarons, for blue cheese, pear and walnut macarons. It’s big, man. And a bit crazy.

But I was so up for it. And confident. ‘Cos I’ve made them before, and they were just gorgeous. It was around Christmas last year, and I packaged them up in gorgeous tins and purple tissue paper. They were lovely.

So this time, I couldn’t decide amongst all the adventurous flavour combinations that were making the rounds on the Daring Bakers forum. I figured I’d go relatively simple: one batch of lemon macarons, and one batch of chocolate. (In fact, I realised later that this was one of my mistakes: do plain macarons first. Master plain ones. Then try the flavours, which introduce a myriad of new problems. Ha.)

First problem: I didn’t trust all the seasoned macaron bakers that advised to age the egg whites for three days on a counter top. It just sounded… a bit gross. And more to the point, I live in a household where four other adults regularly poke around in the kitchen and throw away anything that looks difficult to identify (a reasonable strategy, but not one conducive to successful egg-white-ageing processes). Anyway, so I figured one-day-old eggs would be okay. No no no.

Then there was the glitch in egg white beating. For some reason, I lost faith in my egg whites. They were getting to a stiff-but-still-fluffy-looking stage. Not thick, glossy and meringue-like. Why I thought they looked done enough, I do not know, but when it came to piping out my little lovelies, they were less than lovely. They seemed to lack… something. Surface tension. Solidity. I don’t know.
Worst problem was the lemon batch. The addition of the lemon zest seemed to cause the mixture to … weep. Little droplets of water (or, to be precise, an unctuous watery liquid that resembled protoplasm) seemed to seep out of the piping bag, and all over each piped item.

I could go on. They didn’t rise so much as spread. They didn’t crisp up so much as turn into a sticky mess on the wax paper. I couldn’t bring myself to photograph them. My book club girls quite liked the sticky almondy cookies that emerged, but we agreed that they were about as epic a macaron failure as you can get, without burning down the kitchen. I couldn’t even bring myself to take out another 5 eggs and start over. Maybe this month.

So. That’s my Daring Bakers tragedy of the month. Perhaps of the year.

At a playpark yesterday.
A little girl scramble to the top of the jungle gym. Yells: “Mummy, get me, get me, get me!”
Her mother looks up at her. “Sweetheart, if you want people to get you, you shouldn’t climb so high.”
And so it starts…

Another shallow post from me. Some months ago, I chanced upon an absolute gem of a blog. All I could remember about it is that the writer seemed to have an extraordinary ability to collect utterly beautiful, charming, delightful, soothing, calming and desirable images. Objects, clothes, places. She created a universe of … bliss. I wanted to go back. But I had absolutely no idea what it was called or where it was. And google searches for “prettiest blog in the world” don’t really lead anywhere. So it is with much delight that I can tell you I tripped over it again today. And I’m blogging it not just ‘cos I’m generous and like to share, but just so that if I forget again, I can come back here and click on the link. It’s called, appropriately Bliss. Swoon.

You know, I consider myself fairly clued up in the department of internet security. I mean, I know, recent relationship history might suggest that I’ve learned the hard way. (Some might call it a way paved with much naivete and gullibility.) But please, someone tell me I’m not downright stupid. Please tell me I have some awareness that there are liars and frauds and psycho’s and meanies out there, and you have to be careful who you trust. I know, I KNOW. So I’m doing livid little circles of outrage to have been the victim of an online scam. Or party to it. Bloody hell.

Here’s how it goes. Young Malawian domestic worker and his wife desperately need a place to stay. They’ve been turfed out of their shared room because too many people were staying there. At the beginning of the month.

Don’t get involved, says my father fiercely. This is not your problem. Do not get involved.
Surely we can do something? I say fiercely. What can we do?
This is not a situation anyone wants to see. I think, okay, I have access to resources they don’t. Telephone, internet. I’ll look on gumtree, find a room rental. How hard can it be?

I find a listing that sounds promising. The advertiser’s name is Kashief. He’s not racist or xenophobic, which is better than my non-starter conversation with the Chinese woman in Green Point who “would rather not take blacks”. No, he’s not the owner, but he has an agreement with the owner that he can sublet on short-term bases while the owner decides what he wants to do with the house. The Malawians like it. Bo-Kaap is a funny mix of gangster’s paradise and yuppie heaven, I can’t help thinking. Yes, they’ll take it. Sublease gets signed. The Malawians have half the money. We help them with the balance. Deposit and rental get handed over. They move in. Happy weekend. Malawians saved from sleeping on the street.

Monday comes with a problem around midday. The owner has arrived and kicked the Malawians out.
He can’t do that, says Kashief on the phone. I will come around and make arrangements for them to stay til the end of the month. After all, he says, this is between the owner and me, not between the tennants and the owner.
At this point, I still believe him.

I call domestic worker’s wife, who is busy packing her things. I speak to the owner. No, Kashief did not have permission to sublet, says the owner. He had nothing of the sort. He had the keys illegally. No, the Malawians cannot stay there. No, they cannot even leave their possessions there while they make alternative arrangements. But he’ll be nice. He’ll lock the luggage safely in an enclosed yard at a nearby hotel. Before locking them out.

I call Kashief again. Tell you what, why don’t you just refund the Malawians, and we’ll make alternative arrangements. Sure, he says. He’ll see us there at 7.30.

Unsurprisingly, he calls back. He’ll come later, but he’s realised that he doesn’t have the money available right now. Funny that. It’s all sounding suspiciously… suspicious. I realise at this point that no one is going to get any money back. I realise too that the owner’s suspiciously pretentious English accent is entirely incongruous with his generic Afrikaans name. Which is even more incongruous with the few bits of Islamic decor I’d seen pinned around his (allegedly his father’s) house.

I guess we can write off the money. It’s not anyone’s life savings; it’s not going to leave anyone impoverished forever. I feel utterly shit that it was me that found this fraudulent offer and took it at face value in the first place. The Malawians, of course, will feel it much harder than I will. They have the added stress of having to find a new place having lost the money they’d saved for their rental. And for them, it’s not a day’s salary, it’s two weeks salary or more. It’s tempting to get the guy arrested, but who wants the headache of making police statements? And who wants the potential drama of being targeted by angry criminals?

My Do-Not-Get-Involved voice has gotten a bit louder and stronger this week. My spiritual teachers would caution me against hardening my heart towards our universal invitation to be of service to others. But encountering duplicity – encountering moral corruption – is a disgusting and degrading experience. Brazen, callous lying, cheating, cynicism… it’s different to your common-or-garden white lie or everyday social dissembling. It leaves nauseating residues of disgust, outrage. It breeds mistrust, which an ugly unwanted gift. It was only when that grim sensation of violation rose in my throat this afternoon that I realised that I’d spent most of the last year making gradual progress on letting the very same thing go. I have no desire to invite it back, and I would not wish it on anyone. Please, even when your heart is pure, keep your eyes very very wide open.

Been having a blast of a time the last couple of weekends. The brilliant, effusive, energetic and wildly talented Megan Choritz has been running a Theatresports training workshop. I was fortunate to meet Megan at an audition a few months back, then chanced onto her blog, where I noticed the scheduled workshop. A few false starts later, and here we are: a bunch of 20 or so people, varied in ages and backgrounds, learning the crazy, exhilarating art of improvisation.

It’s been a learning curve for all of us, I think, and a brilliant lesson in the art of working together, saying YES in an unfettered and utterly open, present and creative way. Not unlike meditation, in some ways. Just without sore sitting bones, because you’re constantly jumping up to save a scene. And making gorgeous, entertaining little gobbets of performance. And occasionally failing. But spectacularly. Loving it.

Oh – and if you find yourself seeking an entirely entertaining evening, the Theatresports people perform Monday nights at Hiddingh campus and Tuesday nights at Kalk Bay. Go check them out!

So we’ve just finished another round of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur festivities. Which has meant, amongst other things, excessive feasting and a little fasting. And the attendant reflection over the year that’s past.

The year has flown, as they seem to do every year. At last years Yom Tov gatherings, I was still the bruised new arrival, back from London in a daze, babe in arms, trying to sort out what exactly had just hit me. It only seems like a few months ago. Although my London ordeal feels – in some ways – like it happened both last week and aeons ago. I guess that’s the thing about trauma. It prints itself like a watermark onto the page of you, so that from some angles, you can always catch a glimpse of it if you’re not careful.

I couldn’t help notice that Time magazine’s front cover last week had the headline “A Year Later” – with an image of a hand held up, fingers crossed. It was all about the year that had passed since Lehman Bros came tumbling down in the height of the economic meltdown. It struck a personal note, though.

What I remember personally of the Lehman Bros thing is that I was visiting Cape Town from London. My partner at the time had asked if he could use my car to help a friend of a friend move house. But their mutual friend couldn’t make it. Her company was working into the night buying up Lehman Bros property while it was going cheap.

The hand with the fingers crossed is Time’s way of saying – so far, so good. Things are looking up. Globally. Have to say, I kinda feel the same way. The last year has had its skid marks, for sure, and there are still days I feel murderous, traumatised or just shaky. But those moments pass quickly. I’m one of the fortunate few who has retained a steady stream of work in these tough times. Kolya is happy and healthy and soaking up new skills by the day. As of this week, I’m officially a homeowner again, and I’ve gotten back into the swing of life in Cape Town, with all its fluctuating delights and frustrations. So yeah, one year on, and – fingers crossed – let’s hope the next one only gets better.

One of my friends in this publishing business reckons that when the going gets tough, the tough get shallow. I admit it. When the deadlines seem beyond unmanageable, I tend to book a haircut. Or a facial. Or go out for lunch. But lately, my escape of choice has been decor websites. I don’t care if they aren’t my style; I don’t care if I could never dream up, let alone live in, their chi-chi, overwrought fiascos of hand-stencilled walls and re-covered antique sofas. Sigh. A girl can dream.

Work has been going ballistic. Another two books have to go to print by the end of the weekend; this follows a hammering treadmill that hasn’t really let up since May. And meanwhile, all I really want to do is spend time doodling little sketches of the rooms in our pretty house-to-be.

There’s something simultaneously thrilling and terrifying about Starting From Scratch. Almost all the furniture I had in my last house was given away when I relocated to the UK. There’s a fridge in my parents’ garage (though I’m not sure they’ll want to part with it – it’s the one with the drinks and the ice-cream, so who knows what might happen if it went). And a couple of weeks ago I bought an oak table and an assortment of chairs. So. No beds or cupboards quite yet; no couches or desks or carpets or shelves. But we have a table and some chairs. It’s a convivial sort of start.

Some days I have fantasies of living a marvelously minimal life, with stretches of open floor space and the very barest array of carefully selected furnishings. But I know it’s unlikely – not with a toddler who’s capable of strewing the entire contents of a wardrobe onto the floor in less time than it takes to tie my shoelaces (and I’m quite snappy with shoelaces). So the rest of the time I fantasise about funky assortments of clever storage solutions amongst play areas and workbenches. And today I made the cardinal error of going and eyeing the Ikea website.

I’ve always been a little leery of Ikea. So much bland, for so much money. But, god, it’s easy. I’m kind of glad it’s not available in South Africa, because it would be oh-so-tempting to throw money at the problem and make it go away in a puff of generic Swedish shelving. Fortunately for us, we don’t live in Ikea land. We live in a country where people still design and build things, thank goodness. Where I met these guys the other day, and had to marvel at their clever stuff. Where one of the girls in my book club makes this incredible stuff. (Yeah, Ev, you’re famous. I just wish there were more pics on your website…) Where the last word in design creativity is not ikeahacker. Even if I can spend hours online at Design Sponge and Decorology, going kind of gooey over pretty things from the international metropolis of decor bloggers.

OK, so it’s not going to be a one-click ordering business, I guess. There will be actual people involved, who will sketch stuff and measure stuff and get actual wood and stick it together to make real things. It’s so exciting. Work will have to carry on going ballistic for many months if I’m going to stick to my guns and avoid the generic prefab stuff. I’m only a little bit scared.

(A photo of Charly’s Bakery, as found on the Cape Town daily photo blog)

“I’m expecting gifts and cake,” she demands jokingly. We’re on a three day puppetry training workshop, and it’s her birthday the next day. We’ve been thrown together under typical workshop conditions: mixed up with a bunch of people of different ages and backgrounds. I’ve never met them before, but we’re working pretty intensively together, so there’s a lot invested in getting along, with much mutual encouragement and enthusiasm.

We quiz her on what kind of cake she likes. I’ve noticed that she’s away from home – her family is in Natal, and it sounds like she’s crashing on a friend’s couch for a few days for the duration of the workshop. I make a mental note: if there’s time before the next day’s session, I might pick up some cupcakes or something.

The next day, as it turns out, I do have some time. Not enough time to make cupakes, which would’ve been my favourite option, but enough time to go and buy some. Where to go? If I were still at home, first stop would be Denise’s Delights, a little home industry on Sea Point main road, where you can get a killer chocolate cake like your granny might’ve made. Or carrot cake or whatever. But I was already in the city bowl.

There are the supermarkets, but I don’t want supermarket cake. I want something pretty and surprising. Could head across town to Melissa’s for one of their overpriced but gorgeous polka-dot cakes. It seems a bit extravagant. And I need lunch before the workshop, and don’t feel like one of Melissa’s crazily extortionate plates of food. There’s Lazari down the road, which would be great for lunch, but not for buying a whole cake. Hmm. There’s the French patisserie, Cassis Paris, in the Gardens Centre, but they’re better for decadent individual pieces of confectionery heaven – a gorgeous cube of Opera gateau, or a one-serving Sacher Torte.

I’m about to capitulate and head to Woolworths (that’s our loca version of M&S to readers in the UK) when I remember: Charly’s Bakery! Charly’s Bakery has been an institution at the bottom of Roeland Street for years, and recently moved round the corner to Canterbury Street. I’d been waiting for an excuse (or an opportunity) to head in there for a slice of one of their legendary savoury tarts (I swear these were high on the list of things I sorely missed during my year away from SA!!)

The new premises are in a very UN-savoury little bit of Cape Town, as the heavy grille-work over the windows is there to remind you. The bakery juts up alongside a homeless shelter, and a budget veggie cash-and-carry, and a very dilapidated looking hotel. But inside, it’s like hitting the magical fantasy universe of koekbakkery (that’s cake-making to you buitelanders).
Cupcakes in half a dozen shades of neon; psychedelic cookies in hearts and stars and butterflies; petit fours that look like works of playful surreal art. I immediately abandoned notions of traditional cakes and cupcakes, and asked one of the gorgeous mamas behind the counter to fill up a cake box with a wondrous assortment of the glittered and jewelled works of art. There were six in our group, plus the guy running the training, plus the director and few other assistants. A box of assorted goodies would be plenty. It was probably five times as expensive as a carrot cake from Woollies; these goodies would be much more fun to pass round a group of rowdy puppeteers.

So when everyone arrived, I excitedly pointed the Birthday Girl at her party pack, a pink box perched invitingly on one of the couches in the studio. She opened it, peered inside. “Oh my god,” she said. “That is so gorgeous! And so thoughtful. It’s so… pretty.” She looked around. “It’s much too pretty to share.” And she promptly closed the box, which she later took home, without sharing.

My surprise from that moment has still not worn off. It’s not that I particularly wanted or needed to taste anything from the box. But I was really looking forward to sharing the pretty things with the whole group. It wasn’t really her birthday present. It was everyone’s. But I gave it to her, and I guess she really wanted it for herself, so she said thank you and took it home. Pretty amazing, really.