Book Recommendations for the Holidays

• Brittle Books
• Kottke (also look out for the other in-text recommendations)
• Read it Forward
• NPR Book Concierge

TED’s winter reading list: 78 feel-good books — ideas.ted.com

Enthusiastic recommendations for reads that will provide you with abundant reasons to rejoice, reflect or recharge, as suggested by TED speakers and TED-Ed educators. If you’re searching for some calm The Peace of Wild Things: And Other Poems by Wendell Berry This little book of poetry is my current morning dose of calm, and I use…

via TED’s winter reading list: 78 feel-good books — ideas.ted.com

In case you are looking for some great reading recommendations and some great TED talks to listen to.

Podcast Recommendations

In the past couple of weeks I have listened to some really interesting podcast episodes that I thought I should share.

• Before The Next One – This American Life

• Is Ron Brown High School Working?  – Code Switch

• The Sports Trilogy (Episode 349 – 351)  – Freakonomics
• Catch a Kite 3 – Ear Hustle
• Be a Good Ancestor – Call your Girlfriend
• Blacklisted in China – Planet Money

Have you listened to something interesting recently?

Some Recipes to Try

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• Nine great lentil soups
• Garlic Rosemary Masala Fries
• Curried Red Lentil Hummus
• Delicious Vegan Pasta Recipes for Weeknights
• Cooking with butternut
• … and more butternut recipes here

Values I admire in my Partner

In this case, my partner. What do I love most about him? There are so many things, but I had to list the top three:

• His devotion to family. I don’t think we would work so well if we did not have this in common or if we were not assured of the others commitment to their family and therefore each other.
• His ambition and work ethic. Outside of myself and my female friends, he is easily the most driven and hard working person that I know. I suspect that he even works harder than me, always gives 150% of himself, always, every day.
• His ability to chill. He is the perfect epitome of work hard and play hard. And to be honest, I need that because even when we go on holiday, I usually have 10,000 things planned and he is OK to do only one thing a day.
• Lastly, I know said three, but this must be said, his relationship with money. His aversion for credit, his desire to save, his eye on the long-term. All of this and more.

What do you love most about your significant other?

 

… goodbye Cape Town

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Having said that, there were some nice parts to living in Cape Town and I am surprised to admit that I will miss the city, in particular:

1. I made some great, life long friends which I did not expect to, with the talk of Cape Town being so cliquey.
2. I much preferred the mountain to the ocean truth be told.
3. There was greater work-life balance.
4. PechaKucha was organised more often.
5. Not having to go into a mall for any small thing, you could get it at a local shopping centre.
6. Driving slowly and no one hooting at me.
7. Milder winters …

 

Hello Joburg …

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So I moved back to Joburg a couple of months back and I must say I am enjoying it and if I thought I loved the city before, I love it even more now. What do I love so much about the city?

1. I didn’t realise how much I had missed the greenery and the trees, particularly in the area I live.
2. The grime of the city and the fact that there is a beautiful imperfection.
3. The warmth of the people and their sheer diversity in terms of race, nationality, creed and all other ways.
4. My family and close friends live here.
5. Multi-lane highways that get you where you need to go faster 🙂
6. It was so much easier to join my local library.
7. Hot summers and thunder showers.

 

My current to-read list

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I have read a couple of great books but recently I just hit a brick wall and can’t seem to get into anything. So I have a couple of books that I am trying to get into:

• The Female Persuasion – Meg Woltzer
• A Little Life – Hanya Yanagihara
• The Blessed Girl – Angela Makholwa
• The Gold Diggers: A Novel –  Sue Nyathi
• What we Lose – Zinzi Clemmons
• Half a Lifelong Romance – Ellen Chang

Have you read any of these books and if so, in what order would you recommend them?

My tried and couldn’t finish book list

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You know those books that everyone raves about and then try as you might you just can’t get into them and then when you do it just feels like they will neither start nor end? Well, these are mine, now I just stop and move onto the next book

1. My Brilliant Friend – Elena Ferrante
2. How to Read the Air – Dinaw Mengistu
3. All the Light we cannot see – Anthony Doerr
4. Their Eyes were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston
5. Rachel’s Blue – Zakes Mda (South Africa)

And then there is Open City by Teju Cole that I hated but had to finish so I could hate on it 🙂

A Cooking Challenge for Self

I love to cook, however,I find that there are certain things that I just never cook or make from scratch. Or if I do, then I just never stray past the initial recipe.

So what are some things that I would love to cook that I don’t currently?

• Baking:
  • A tart/ pie (or these ones) from homemade pastry.
  • Bake and ice a cake beyond the typical pound loaf something like
  • Bread like this  or this or this.
• Roast a whole chicken.
• Make eggs Benedict including the sauce – I can poach an egg but a hollandaise and any other sauce? Nah. So this would be a cool start.
• Diversify the types of salad dressing I currently make for salads like this
• Oxtail stew.
• Make home made pasta and then cook it.

Are there things in the kitchen that you often shy away from attempting?

 

Travel Wanderlist

Before I die, I would love to visit the following places:

1. Lamu, Kenya.
2. Africa: Morocco, Namibia and Senegal.
3. Asia – India, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Singapore, Portugal, Thailand and Bangladesh.
4. The US: New York, Washington DC
5. Melbourne.
6. Europe: London, Paris, Czech Republic, Spain and Portugal.

Here’s to safe and happy travelling!

 

Sunday Reads

1. Quick lunch/snack recipe: Chickpea “tuna” salad 
2. Cooking with lentils & beans
3. Don’t really like vegetarian burgers but these lentil meatballs sure look yum!
4. This article made me realise why people do not share the names of their babys before birth, but clearly once they are born, the name is not safe either!!
5. Pics of the beautiful Cape Town.
6. Beautiful pics of the Festima Festival in Burkina Faso.
7. Some non-traditional baby gift ideas.
8. Breaking up is hard. Breaking up in the day of Facebook, is something else altogether.(NY Times Article)
9. A better way to think of your to-do list.
10. Get Tested. Be Faithful. Remain Faithful. Otherwise, always use protection.
11. On buying friendship in Japan. Read this and thanked God for my genuine (free) friendships.
12. This lady did what I always say to my single pals about putting themselves out there in order to meet a guy!
13. Sad that the recently legalised Marijuana business in the states has a colour preference.
14. How do you feel about motherhood?

Before making it a home …

…. this is a list of things I have to do!

Fun times ahead …. xoxo

My Crazy Happy List

I was challenged to do this post by a friend (snarky things these private blogs) so I will cite the initial source Karen.

“Grab a pen and paper, and list everything you love to do that fills you with joy and/or grace.  It can be shooting photographs, or cooking, or taking a shower, or running a mile, or singing or whatever.  Write deeply profound things, or silly little things, like organizing the junk drawer in your kitchen.  Write until it exhausts you.  Just write whatever fills you with joy or grace.”

In no particular order here are my favourites:

1. Listening to Talk Radio and Podcasts.
2. Reading. A good book, a great article, a lovely post. Even bad stuff, I will read as long as people write. I like the fact that reading allows a third dimension to come in and you can start to hear, smell or imagine stuff beyond what’s actually on the paper.
3. Sitting with family to have easily six conversations running concurrently and speaking a mish-mash of all the different languages we speak or appropriating words to mean something new altogether.
4. Chatting – whether on Gmail or on Whatsapp. I love the connection it gives me and the fact that it helps pass time.
5. Getting a good work out and pushing my body really hard.
6. Road trips with my Mr – gives us a chance to really talk and connect as well as listen to each others Music (his mainly).
7. Cooking for family and seeing their appreciation S/O to my nephew who is so complimentary when you hit the happy spot. Also, getting a new cookbook and trying a new recipe and having it come out tasty and adding it to my repertoire of meals.
8. Browsing in a bookstore or being in a Library. BOOKS, YUM!!!
9. Journaling and my journals. I have journaled more on than off since I was 11 years old and have kept each of them.
10. Writing lists. Anyone that knows me knows that I list everything for private and professional stuff. To-do lists, shopping lists, meeting notes, books to read, places to go, stuff I like – LISTS are my thang’
11. Reading an applied Economics paper that answers a really practical and useful question and actually getting it.
12. I make a mean cup of tea.
13. Friendship – catching up with a pal and connecting whether on silly or deep things. Just connecting.
14. Getting my hair done. Ok, I will say that again, getting my hair done.
15. Going to Church and being in a room with other believers.

What about you, what’s on your crazy happy list?

18: Since I love to plan and write lists

So the holidays are coming up and I thought I might share my really two tips for packing and getting through that part of things.

First, I always begin to pack a few days before so I don’t miss out on anything that might spoil my holiday.

Two, I always use a packing list. Always. (Available here)

How do you make packing easier?

How to: Pre-plan meals

In this day and age of rising food prices, its important to try and save a quick buck on meals without compromising on the nutritive value. Below, this is how I go about thinking of cooking meals, both at the shopping level, actual cooking and there in between.

1. Have a list of quick and favourite meals that can be made quickly and that are a firm favourite with the family.
2. Stock your pantry with certain standard/”go-to” ingredients. These will vary from household to household, mine include: baked beans, pasta, rice, nuggets, cereal, cheese and cream.
3. Use a “master” shopping list to quickly determine what’s missing and what you need to include in your shopping list. This way you can shop in one go and not miss out on key things. This minimises time spent shopping later in the month. However, for items such as milk, bread and certain fruits, it would be necessary to purchase those on a weekly basis.
4. Think through the up-coming meals for the month. There is many ways to do this: (a)  cook for the week, freeze extra portions in case you are tired and can’t cook that week; (b)  alternatively, cook the more difficult meals in advance and do the lighter bits – vegetables and salads – on the main day.
5. Re-use left over meals and adapt them into new meals, for instance, remaking  chicken into a salad. Finish all cooked meals, making nothing new until all the food is complete.
6. Regularly sweep through the pantry and come up with innovative meals using some of those ingredients.
7. Eat out often, try new meals at home in a bid to obtain greater variety and flexibility.
8. Freeze vegetables and herbs as they will still be as good as new whenever you need to use them. Do this for: tomatoes, peas, peppers and other herbs. Prepare ingredients such as ginger and garlic in advance to save on time.
9. Invest in sufficient containers to store food.
10. Share the cooking responsibility to make it fun and less of a drudge.

How do you go around saving time and money in the kitchen?

me

1. I’m obsessed with reading this sign on the steps to class everyday as I go up the stairs to second floor. Each time I walk past it.
2. I don’t like these birds that come to the tables at lunch, they smell and I’m obsessed that their feathers have diseases of sort.
3. When cooking and following a recipe, I like to lay out all the ingredients on the table BEFORE I cook…it makes me feel like I’m on telly.
4. I can’t shop without a shopping list, but then again I like to list many things down, I feel really free that way.
5. I like to iron my towel on a cool iron, it feels so nice against my skin when I use it.