Page 25 - Naked Foodies - July 2021

explore the jungles surrounding my kitchen when everyone was taking their post feed siesta. I visited suppliers on Cuba, Jamaica and places where the most colourful and juicy fruits were grown. There was a stint on a Croatian island working with seafood that smacked of the ocean. Just meters away from where I grilled the calamari, I could hear the waves crash just below me as I drenched the grilled squid with its own nero di seppia, black ink. A light seasoning and garnish with sprigs of bright green seaweed finished the dish off perfectly before serving. At the height of my culinary career, I owned a couple of top rated restaurants on South Africa’s West Coast and guest lectured at Africa’s most prestigious culinary school. My career was interesting and exciting. Vivid and sometimes explosive. Never dull, never dark and never normal. But then, I went blind and that spelt the end of my time cooking, or so I thought.
In 2013, I decided to hang up my apron and pursue something of a job change. I wanted to write and to write, you need an epic story. Unable to just thumb suck one, I decided to live it first. Thus, my massive plan was born. This project would be an expedition through Africa on a tiny little Vespa scooter. A real adventure and the making of a grand story for my first book. I put the plan into action, sold my eateries and got all smug. My chef work was not buried totally, but rather, in a form of hibernation. I had no idea what lay in store. All I had was a dream and something of a plan. My plan was simple: ride my little lawnmower, aka Vespa scooter, for 8 months; while covering a distance of around 30,000 kilometres; touch twenty countries and get all the way from Cape Town, South Africa, to Dublin, Ireland. While there, I would taste my first ever Guinness. To make sure that the trip was also used for some good, I chose to make the journey a publicity stunt for the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s hospital. I would visit children’s hospitals and all sorts of paediatric service providers while crossing Africa and Europe to raise
awareness and hopefully some funds for these phenomenal organisations and the work they do. They would surely get some media out of being visited by a crazy fat chef on a scooter? After months of planning, I headed off with the smell of adventure in the air, a wanderlust spirit guiding me and a quenching for a yet untasted Guinness. Little did I know then, but my world was about to be turned inside out, upside down and the way I see the world, would be changed forever.
It was somewhere midway through crossing Africa that I first became ill. It got worse very quickly and help was nowhere to be found. Medical assistance in the middle of the African continent is a little questionable at the best of times, but when you have a rare virus attacking you, it’s easily misdiagnosed. I fell apart. Unable to get the medical attention I needed, I capitulated and flew home to Cape Town.
Back in the Mother City, a local doctor diagnosed a case of bilharzia, some severe dehydration, excessive stress and a touch of the ever fun food poisoning. He pumped me full of vitamins and after a couple of back-to-back courses of antibiotics, I felt like a teenager again. Young, dumb and full of come-on.
".no-emoc fo lluf dna bmud ,gnuoY"