If I had R10 for every time a well-meaning friend has remarked, “I see Tony’s feeding the army again”, my bank manager wouldn’t be the dribbling wreck she has become. She might even be able to afford a lotion to salve her scalp in an effort to get the patches of hair to grow back that she has pulled out in nervous fits.

This is a Christmas dinner party menu for that’s quick and affordable. I made the starter, a paté, in 25 minutes. The main course is a simple roast that’s been tarted up a little with a shiny coat. And the dessert is a cheat, plain and simple: store-bought vanilla ice-cream that’s been given a cheeky Christmassy lift – and it really does taste like a traditional mince pie. That took five minutes, not including the shopping.

We often tend to take the basic ingredients of what we imagine to be an ethnic cuisine, give it a label and add it to our repertoire.Tomatoes, garlic, oregano? Italian. Same trio but add lemon? Greek. Take away the lemon and replace it with anchovy? Provencal.

Durban has an electric sense of something about to happen. It’s like that feeling in the air before a tropical storm breaks. You can sense it coming, Your forearms tingle. Your back tenses. Your senses sharpen. Come on, admit it: when last did you feel like that in Cape Town?

Was anything ever more condescending than the colonisers making a pretence at bartering with the newly oppressed who, of course, had no idea that they were being conquered with sales talk? “Here, have one of these lovely scarves, pretty lady. We’ll have that land over there. And don’t worry, you and your husband can come and work on the land for us. We’ll give you a nice little pondok with a view where you can bring up our future labourers.”

Woolies recently seemed to take a flyer and stock up on chunky tubs of duck fat, something that I have occasionally asked for over the past couple of years, always to be met with a puzzled frown, as if to say, “Why the hell would anybody want to buy that?”

A good formula should not be messed with. No one wants to hear you say, ‘Well, I made five spice but I changed it – I used goji berries instead of the star anise and pumpkin seeds instead of the fennel. Oh, and I left out the cinnamon. And the cloves.”

I recently rediscovered my flavour shaker. It had been given to me for Christmas several years ago, and then we moved house, and you know how it is – a box gets unpacked, you think ‘where shall I put this’, you shove it in a cupboard, and after three years of complaining that somebody stole the Jamie Oliver flavour shaker you lift up a forgotten implement and there it is.

IT WAS a potjie day in Arniston. A potjie day is one where the sun is a little slow to reveal itself, there’s just a tad too much windchill for a braai, but it’s too warm to hang around indoors. It’s a shoulder season thing. Half-warm, half-cool, the Weather Gods dithering about in fence-sitting mode. You put on a jacket, put your back to the breeze coming off the turquoise sea, and think, $#@% it, I’m gonna make me a potjie, crack a bottle of wine and enjoy the view.

Chicken pie is as Cape as bobotie, waterblommetjiebredie and the Cape Doctor. Made in the old Cape Dutch tradition, it contains sago, diced ham, hardboiled egg, mace, allspice and other flavourings typical of the cuisine. Altogether an odd recipe, if you think about it, but seriously good and a perfect hearty winter meal.