Sometimes nothing except a greasy burger will satisfy you. I felt like that last Sunday. To take the place of normal fries I made chips from sweet potatoes, cooking them in the oven in coconut oil. Sweet potato are on the orange list but a small serving is fine.

To make the burgers we puréed a raw yellow pepper and half an onion and added this mixture and an egg to the minced beef. Caitlin made it into a ball and inserted a thick block of cheddar into the centre of each ball, I grilled bacon and zucchini and cheese fritters. We made a guacamole and fromage frais sauce. I fried sliced mushrooms in butter then added a container of double cream and a big spoon of Dijon mustard. 

To serve I used the fritter as the base of the burger, and then layered a spoon of guacamole onto the fritter, the cheese stuffed burger, bacon and the creamy mushroom sauce. On top we popped the giant mushroom.  

I over cooked the sweet potato fries but the burgers were so moist and divine. This was about the only night this week when I cooked anything new.

On Monday there was an attack on a young girl which eventually resulted in her death and a charge of murder. She was running with her Mom and decided to run ahead.

A split second decision that ended her life. A single choice can make a world of difference. Is it destiny that determines the direction our lives go, or choice? Are we pre-programmed to make the choices which result in the interactions with our soul contracts?

She was in an area where she felt safe, with her running partners nearby. The horror this girl went through has highlighted our feelings of fear and the issues women in particular have to contend with.

With the typical ironic timing of the Universe, Tuesday was International Woman’s Day. 

  
 It should be about celebrating the fabulousness of being a woman, yet I am horrified at what life brings to some women.

For Franziska, the recently murdered young girl from the forest. For 19-year-old Sinoxolo Mafevuka whose half-naked body was discovered by a resident of Khayelitsha who found the young girl in a toilet.

Social media blew up over the former murder and barely made a peep in the latter.

The inequality and injustice based on happenstance of birth. 

The deaths in the township vs the rarity of a death in the middle class area of Tokai. 

According to the One Project, in 2016 half a billion women still cannot read, 62 million girls are denied the right to education and 155 countries still have laws that differentiate between men and women. It is an outrage that girls account for 74% of all new HIV infections among adolescents in Africa, and 40% of women on the continent suffer from anaemia, which results in 20% of maternal deaths.

Marital rape is still legal in 38 countries.

  

We have a long way to go to reach even a semblance of equality universally. I’m lucky to have a man who is very evolved regarding gender roles and human rights.

I’m leaving by 7 most mornings but I’m still only getting home at 7 some evenings. It’s tiring. 

Bloody traffic. I just sit staring out to sea.

  

Monday was one of those nights. We just got a takeaway of Banting friendly food from Spiro’s. Tuesday was another late night so I popped into Woolies on my way home and got a few roasted chickens, a bag of precut pumpkin, and a bag of baby spinach. I had a few mushroom caps and I threw them in the oven with the pumpkin and wilted the spinach while Norm carved the chickens. We have a few ripe creamy avos so I served those too.

  
Simple, colorful and healthy Banting food.

I also arrived home to find my order from my fave site Yuppiechef had been delivered. I love their packaging. You open the box to find it gently wrapped in tissue paper, a button  fridge magnet and a handwritten thank you card contained.

  

Then inside that wrapping was a well cushioned sleek black box holding my sexy steel knife set.

   
 
I love them! And now that I am cooking I need them desperately.

One night this week I made the prawn and chorizo dish I previously described in an older blog.
  
Other than that we had a Banting pizza one evening, grilled chicken kebabs and halloumi from Spiro’s another night and on Friday I had a wee Banting cheat as I had crispy squid, and to accompany I had grilled zucchini, grilled halloumi and salad so it was still low carb.

When Norm was collecting our pizzas from Casareccio a security guard came up to him and said a woman had been mugged over by Princess Beach. The woman was on holiday and didn’t want to press charges, which is why we don’t have enough police! If every crime was reported the stats might result in additional police assigned to our village!

Also on Thursday night, a car went off the road and through the barrier and the driver was lucky to escape.  His vehicle went off a cliff, sliding down a slope for 50m and stopped just short of the sea. 

  
Credit: INDEPENDENT MEDIA Picture: Leon Knipe

That’s one of my recurring nightmares, of my car hurtling off a cliff, Thelma and Louise style.

  
Luckily he appears to have survived.

Friday the girls went away for a girls weekend. They all rented a beach house for a couple of nights as one of their gang is off on her travels for a few months. Norm and I just had ourselves to look after. And the 5 animals of course.

Norm and I just chilled at home. He is working so many hours it’s crazy. So in effect I chilled, facebooked and watched telly while he worked on the other sofa.

The dogs played.
Norm was up early and off to the airport. When he got back I made us a late brekkie.

  
I love those multicolored tomatoes on the vine from Woolies.

On Saturday Mzudomo was here and he told us his friend had been murdered. The murder rate in the townships is shocking. We in the suburbs complain but we only get a portion of the crime that people who live in the townships endure.

After we dropped Mzudomo home he was heading off to Khayelitsha and we headed to Constantia Village to do a big shop. I only bought a few days meat and no cleaning products and spent over R4000. That’s about $270 USD. But that’s due to our economic crash following Zuma and his nonsense. When I moved here in 2007 a monthly shop was about R2000. The SA inflation is out of control. 

Saturday evening Norm and I went out for dinner to Pescarne in Hout Bay. 

  
We had our fave Professor Black Sauvignon Blanc wine from Warwick Estates.

  
Norm had the Prawn and Avocado Cocktail for R65.

  
It was beautifully presented and had big pieces of prawn.

I tried the jalapeño poppers at R55 but could only manage 1 as they were huge.

  
I had the 8 king prawns with veggies for R199.

  
I asked for melted butter and received a frothy, creamy divine tangy lemony butter. It was so nice, and looked so tasty that a woman from the table next to me came up to enquire what I had ordered and then chased down her waitress to change her order! 

Norm had the Hollandse Biefstek a 250g beef fillet with a mushroom, garlic and peppery sauce at R169.

  
I had a wee taste and it was delicious, the sauce rich and the fillet steak tender and juicy. We had a lovely evening and headed home.

The dogs just mooched about. Bored.

  
And hopeful.  
Next week we have book club on the same evening as a walk which has been organized in the forest where Franziska was murdered.

  

To any local Cape Town readers this is the info about the walk:
I hope the killers of these young girls get what they deserve. Hold your loved ones close and say a little prayer for the families these girls leave behind.