I’m a chef, I love to cook. I love the feel
of a knife in my hands and a stack of perfectly diced potatoes next to me. I
love the thrill of finding the perfect blend and ratio of seasonings and
flavors to make a sauce, soup, or dish just right. I love feeding people. I
love watching people enjoy good food, good food that I made. I have only been
able to cook a handful of times over the past 8 months. It’s tough, I miss it.
But hey this year is about abandonment right? Well, during our time in South
Africa, I was given the opportunity to cook…a lot.
There were 4 teams in Coffee Bay in July, 37 mouths to feed. Trey (the other chef on U-squad) and I had a culinary
romance and feel in love somewhere between the onion brulee, the clarified
butter, the scorched rice (my bad), the cinnamon apples, the seemingly endless 1 pot concoctions (What’s for lunch guys? Food pot. Trey and Chelsea’s pot-o-food.) and the garlic cream sauce. This is still the world race and we are still
on a $3/day food budget, and there were days when we sat in the pantry and had
to figure out what we could possibly throw together in a pot and put over rice to fill 37 tummies. But due
to lots of stew and rice during the month, we were able to save enough money to
really bless the teams during the last week and have some fun in the
kitchen. Here’s a look at our attempts at fine dining on a budget in Africa:
