But first, a brief explanation...

Yes, I’m back. Online, and in Cape Town.

Returning from overseas was in fact another leave-taking – of the friends I’d made in my five years abroad, and the life I had created there. But while the parting was bittersweet, my homecoming was happy – I have returned to a place I love and certainly appreciate more after my absence, to my family, childhood friends and of course, Big Spoon, long-suffering, long-distance boyfriend.

Which has all taken me approximately six months to process, to find a new routine, a new course of study, a new house, and of course, get used to my new (actually, old, decrepit, rented-house) oven.

But in the context of this blog, the most pressing reason for my silence has been my uncertainty – what relevance can or should this blog take, given that my main reasons for starting it (homesickness, nostalgia, culture shock) no longer exist?

Well, I still have friends too far away across the ocean (albeit it the other side, since my return), asking for details about my latest culinary exploits, and the occasional email from a blog visitor asking me about this-or-that Cape restaurant or recipe. The majority of websites available to would-be visitors feature the same restaurants in the same price range, giving advice to in-and-out tourists, rather than to visitors and residents who want to find the hundreds of hidden treasures this city has to offer.

So from now on, I will try to post information, opinions and observations about local restaurants, local ingredients (and where to find them) and local cooking.

So enough explaining - to the food!