Dullstroom Chef With A Passion For Clivias
The road follows the contours of strung-together hills and mountains. S-bends and straights link sweeping curves through hill-top plantations to the rise and fall of the slopes. Up, down, over and around through the crisp mountain air Each curve a new experience. The next, never like the last. Each a blur. Within the blur, trapped like snapshots, the minutiae of awareness: a pebble, a crack in the tar, a splinter of glass; each an isolated fragment of reality.
Overnight in White River, and then on through forest plantations to Graskop and on again until the plantations break into verdant grassland near Blyde River.
Towards evening, Dullstroom. The chilly air nips the peripheries of the day as the BMW flits through the rolling hills. Trout ponds, gullys and rivers criss-cross the landscape. Around the next curve, a ribbon of street lights: Dullstroom, shelter, food and rest.
The Plat Du Jour on the main road: hot porcini mushroom soup and mutton curry
Andy Falk (the owner/chef) cultivates two passions: food and clivias."You know them?" he asks pointing at a burnished red clivia blossom.
I shake my head.
"They're unique; they should be South Africa's national flower"
He sighs. "If the universe has sent me a lesson it is patience. You can't work with clivias if you haven't got patience. It takes four to five years for them to blossom."
Bliss? If it beckons, follow.
Country Life – July 2009
No comments:
Post a Comment