The theme over in the Gallery this week is the Kitchen

It can be food, or your corner of the kitchen, or something you particularly love in there, your apron, your favourite recipe book. Or even something to show how little you know your kitchen (I have a friend who owns neither a fridge or a cooker. I mean come on! She cooks everything in a microwave).

My favourite thing is a recipe book my mum bought me many years ago. Probably to encourage me to stop eating out so much. The cover looks so dated and old and that’s because it really is.

It’s an Indian recipe book actually written and compiled in South Africa. It was compiled by “proper” housewives, not chefs, so the recipes are really authentic and have a very home made feel to them. Some of the language has to be translated a bit. Like, when i rung my mum up asking what the hell maize was and where i could find it. Oh, right, cornflour. Duh!!

The best thing about it is that it has an amazing dessert and biscuit section. Amazing! (I make a good Swiss roll pudding from here!).

The book was first published in the 60′s and it’s now out of print. It’s like gold dust to those in the know. Owners of this book are very protective about it and don’t lend it out. (No-one I know really expects me to own one so i don’t think anyone is planning on robbing me of mine. Yet.). So if you do happen to see it gathering dust in the murky corner of some old bookshop then you must dive for it and buy it immediately. Then you must run home and make the Swiss roll pudding!

So anyway, it looks like this!

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