@Collywolly speaks to Yuppiechef
Posted on 31. Aug, 2010 by Marina in People & Places
Colleen Grove is the author of food blog Brownie Girl and organised the first SA Food Bloggers conference earlier this year. She is one of Mzanzi’s most dedicated food bloggers, a loyal fan of all things Yuppiechef and a regular particpant in our conversations on Twitter and Facebook. We caught up with her last week.
When did your love affair with cooking begin?
As far back as I can remember I always enjoyed being around my mom in the kitchen, and all my married life I have enjoyed preparing meals and baking for my family. My serious love affair with food only really began with the advent of BBC Food channel here in South Africa.
World, thank you for dstv. Why ‘Browniegirl’?
After discovering an amazing recipe for brownies, I made a batch and left a couple of the brownies out for our estate agent while she was doing a show house for us. She called that night and said whenever she watched the cooking channel she used to laugh at people who went gaga over food, tastes, textures etc until she tasted my brownies and experienced her first foodie light bulb moment (she was so emotional it almost brought tears to her eyes).
We’re glad there are people who are moved to tears by baked goods. Which 5 kitchen tools would you die without?
1. My Wusthof chef’s knife
2. My wooden spoon
3. My wire whisk
4. My Kenwood Chef
5. My Microplane
Those are all winners, although we’d back a KitchenAid above a Kenwood in a mixer duel. What fresh ingredients are you using at the moment, and where you source them?
I am loving the exotic fresh mushrooms that I buy from ‘All Manna of Mushrooms’ at the Tokai Earth Food Fair on a Wednesday evening or Saturday morning. Chillies and herbs – I grow these in my little garden. Edamame Beans – these I buy whenever I see them at Woolworths and freeze. Delicious healthy little devils!
Edamame - hard to say without a Southern accent and imagining oneself dishing up pumpkin pie in Missisippi. Do you agree that coriander smells like stinkbugs?
HAHA! No, not to me. Stinkbugs, well, they stink – beautiful, fresh, green coriander has a delightful earthy, citrusy smell that I cannot imagine dals, curries, wraps, salsa’s or guacamole without. I believe the association to the stinkbug comes from both of them having a similar chemical group in their make-up called aldehydes.
Interesting. Aldehydes hey? We’re going to find out more about those guys. Your favourite meal out in the past little while?
Brownieboy and I took a little trip up the West Coast recently and the night we arrived in Langebaan we popped into a seafood restaurant called ‘The Oyster Catcher’ and they had a special on of Tiger Prawns in red curry and coconut milk… A huge plate of about 12 prawns for R70 if I remember correctly, they were so good that we went back a second time. They also make excellent sushi.
That’s a pretty good deal you Browniefolk found. And lastly, where are you in relation to the Organic bus:
a) watching it and taking rides when it suits
b) one foot on the pavement, neither here nor there
c) very much on it
d) you are actually the driver and frown at people who are not on the bus.
Definitely c) whenever possible and if I can afford it. I would love to go totally organic but unfortunately it is still rather expensive in this country…in an ideal world I would be the bus driver!
We hear you, in an ideal world we would all be the bus driver. Thanks for taking time out for a bit of our silliness. Here’s Colleen’s cream cheese and chocolate brownie recipe if you are up for making some people cry from cake-joy.
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