1. What inspired you to become food blogger?

When I moved to London in 2000, my mom was ill and I wanted to make sure that I kept in regular contact with her. Every night I would keep a diary of what I had done, where I had been and, of course, what I had eaten. Once a week I would collate all these diary entries into a weekly newsletter and fax or e-mail it home to my parents.  Eventually, this weekly letter became a 7-page monster and other friends and family were asking for it as well, so I started sending out my weekly newsletter to a larger group of friends and family. The most consistent feedback that I got was "your food descriptions make me SO hungry!" When I started my blog, I already knew that I wanted a themed blog rather than a journal, and the obvious choice seemed to be to write about food. I have always described myself as a writer who likes to cook, rather than a cook who likes to write. Blogging is a creative outlet that lets me combine three things I love:  cooking, writing and photography.

2. What type of impact or connection does food and family have on your life?

It is nearly impossible to separate food from its context, whether that is historical, social or personal. What I love most about writing about food is the fact that the subject you write about has connections with so many other areas of your life. Your family, past and present, shape the way that you cook and eat. The biggest influence on my cooking was definitely my mother who, sadly, passed away in 2003. I have so many memories of the two of us together in the kitchen, or shopping for food and always talking and laughing. Although I would sometimes just sit at the kitchen table while she cooked, I learned so much from her and my most treasured cookbook is definitely the big index book where she wrote out collected recipes by hand, or stuffed in scraps of paper from friends with recipes written on them. I have inherited not only her recipes, but also much of her attitude towards food (life is too short to stuff a mushroom was one of her favourites, and I find that I always tend to gravitate away from fussy recipes towards simple family food). She also believed that it was OK to use some pre-packaged ingredients, as long as you made some adjustments, like caramelizing onions and adding a splash of sherry, then thickening the mix with water and gravy granules - never just the granules mixed with boiling water!

3. Do you provide family cooking recipes on your blog? What makes them so special?

As I have said, my mom's philosophy was that life's too short to stuff a mushroom, and I have definitely inherited that. I visit other food blogs belonging to bloggers who bake the most fabulous sugary creations. Or I visit restaurants where the portions are small but packed with complex flavors and plated like a work of art - and I love both experiences.  But when I cook and blog about it, nine times out of ten it is a family meal, cooked after I get home from work using food in my store cupboard or freezer.  I simply do not gravitate towards fancy or fussy dishes.

Nearly every meal I cook has an emotional or family connection to me - often because it reminds me of the person who taught me the recipe, or a memorable occasion when I ate the food. I make a butternut soup that was on the table at a friend's house the night that his new dining table was unexpectedly delivered mid-meal by a hapless deliveryman who knocked over his brick gatepost in the process. I still make a beef in beer stew that I first made as a student for a house full of my brother's hungry friends more than 20 years ago. And when I make my mother's scones, it is as if she is still alive, moving within me, guiding my hands.

4. Do you post South African food recipes on your blog? Which ones are they?

I do try to post fairly regular South African recipes on my blog, partly because it is the food I cook when I am feeling homesick, and partly because I love to educate people about South Africa's rich culinary heritage. We have a real rainbow cuisine because of our eventful history! Obviously there is the indigenous African cuisine which tends to be rib-sticking wholesome food using local ingredients like wild spinach and maize meal. Then there is the influence of the Dutch settlers who brought their cuisine with them in the 1600s. The other thing that the Dutch brought were Indonesian slaves and they had a huge impact on the early cuisine at the Cape. Gently spiced Indonesian dishes can easily be seen as the roots of favorites such as bobotie and sosaties. There is definitely also a frontiersman food tradition created when Afrikaner settlers started traveling into the country's interior in ox wagons - this is where we get our love for cooking things over open fires like braaivleis and potjiekos, and preserving fruit and meat by drying. The English settlers also left their mark with traditional roasts and desserts like blancmange; the French Huguenots who settled outside Cape Town kept Gallic culinary traditions alive there; and the Indians who were brought by the English to work on the sugar cane fields in KwaZulu Natal have left an spicy mark with their fabulous curries. So we really are a foodie melting pot!

South African recipes I have posted on CookSister! include:

Bobotie (lightly spiced baked mince dish)
Lamb sosaties (skewers)
Peppermint Crisp fridge tart
Vegetable potjiekos (vegetables slow-cooked in a cast iron pot)
Souskluitjies (cinnamon dumplings)
Bunny chow (lamb curry in a hollowed out loaf)

5. What advice do you have for our readers who want to prepare a balanced meal for their family without going into too much detail?

There is an old Afrikaans saying which states that a proper meal contains rice, meat, potatoes, and pumpkin. That might be a little heavy-going for some of us, but the gist of it makes sense - eat a balanced meal with protein, vegetables and starch! I tend to start of thinking of my meals in terms of the protein (this approach might ne slightly different if you are a vegetarian or vegan), then the starch, then the vegetables. For example, I will decide that we are having fish on a given night, with potatoes in some form, and broccoli in some form. So you are already halfway to a balanced meal as you have some protein, some starch and some vegetables. If you have time and energy, having a salad too would be a great way to make sure you are getting more vegetables that either protein or starch.  

I also thing about how I am going to prepare the protein - if the fish is going to have a creamy sauce, I try to ensure that the vegetables are not creamy (so no fish AND broccoli in cheese sauce!) - and vice versa.  And the starch depends on how much time I feel like spending - if I feel lazy, it's whole-wheat couscous. If I feel energetic, it might be mashed potatoes! There are always little ways to make sure that your family enjoy a healthier option - like mashing your potatoes with chicken stock instead of butter and milk; or using only whole-wheat pasta and couscous.  Another trick with kids who don't like to eat vegetables is to hide them - I often put grated carrot and courgette in my bolognaise sauce but by the time the sauce is served they are totally disguised. Grated sweet potato, carrots or courgettes can also be baked in low-fat muffins for healthy lunchbox treats.

6. How important do you think it is for moms to keep their family's daily meals different and varied? How do you do it?

My mom used to say that the biggest challenge in feeding a family is to make sure you don't kill them with boredom - and the older I get, the more her statement makes perfect sense to me! I think there is a fine line between having certain dishes that always get served on the same night and create a nice sense of family tradition, and trotting out the same seven dishes every week until your family are in despair. In our house, Sunday night is soup night - but it is a different soup almost every week. So it is possible to have a family tradition without being monotonous.  

Despite having certain recipes I return to over and over, I try quite hard to make sure that we have a varied meal plan each week - not only to prevent boredom but also to make the most of seasonal ingredients as they come up and to make sure we get a variety of foods into our diet. I try to make sure that we have red meat and pasta for dinner no more than once a week; that we have fish at least twice; and that we try to fit in a vegetarian dinner at least once. That already ensures quite a bit of variety!  Seasonal cooking is another great way to keep things new and fresh - e.g. when butternut squash is in season, I make sure I work it into the menu, and in summer I do the same with broad beans. The seasons are a constant source of inspiration for keeping things varied.    

7. What do you look for in food served at restaurants before deeming it as a good place?

I must confess that I am not a person who eats out for their health - looking at the nutritional value and healthiness of a restaurant's food is seldom going to convince me to go there - I can cook healthy low-fat meals at home! When I am choosing a restaurant, the first thing that grabs my attention is the menu: is it full of boring things that I've seen a thousand times over, or are there innovative dishes that leave me wondering "wow, I wonder how that would taste?" Restaurants that can tell me about the provenance of their products also score high marks. If the waiter can't tell me if the steak is British, Argentine or American beef, that's not a great sign. I think the recent trend of naming on the menu the breed of pig you are eating and the farm that raised it is a very positive development and one that I fully support. Sustainable fish has also become quite an issue for me, and I am unlikely to support a restaurant that persists in serving vulnerable breeds of fish. And last but by no means least, it does not matter if the meal cost £10 or £100, but at the end of it I do not want to feel ripped off. If I have enjoyed outstanding ingredients lovingly prepared and packed with flavor, I will pay £100 with a smile. At the same time, if for my £10 I got badly cooked, tasteless food, I will feel cheated. Value for money is a big issue for me, and if I felt ripped off you can bet that the restaurant will never see me back again!